Monday, May 11, 2009
Tithing with Anticipation and Joy
About a week ago after one of the cg meetings, Pastor came to meet a few of us in Alvin's cg to fellowship. He was sharing with us about his Housing Agent's unwavering faith on the power of tithing and walking under open heaven, that no matter how busy he is and may not have the time to attend services due to house viewing, he will doubtlessly drop his tithe personally every week at his church office, and always with great anticipation that good things are going to happen to him soon. And many times God will just bring a lot of financial blessing into his life. So after hearing this, I can't help but to agree with Pastor that sometimes
tithing can become so routine for us that over time we can
lose that "joy" in being a cheerful giver; that
"anticipation" that after tithing we will continue to live under open heavens and experience many blessings. And I believe this is not how God wants us to tithe even though tithing is obedience to God's commandment.
Hence quickly last weekend after the sharing by Pastor, I told myself to fulfill my Building Fund Pledge with joy and gladness and today as I tithed, I told God in my heart what I'm anticipating in this phase of my life by writing them on my tithing envelope - of cos "Abundance, No lack, financial blessings" are part of the list that I've written down.
And guess what???
BOTH my parents won 2nd prize in their 4D lottery this evening with my ROM Certificate number!!! Ok.. I know this doesn't sound very spiritual but I'm still glad that my parents got a good amount of $$$ from the prize money which will help them quite a bit with many big expenses coming up.
Not only that, tonight my parents gave me a hongbao for my wedding! Super advance I know.. and I was very surprised too. Maybe you are thinking what came to my mind then. I was thinking "
Maybe becos they strike 4D using my number, so they wanna bless me"... but when they told me how much was in the red packet, I knew it wasn't so cos they are not the type who would keep too much cash in the house. So there and then I knew that the 4D winning and the red packet blessing are two separate issues and God have brought about 2 blessings into my life in one night after I tithed with anticipation this afternoon! Thank you Jesus!
They say that this red packet is for me to prepare for the wedding and even if I don't have need of it now, this is their gift for me in my marriage. I was truly very touched in my heart....
Nope Ruxin, I didn't cry. Just touched. Becos I had this thought in my heart sometime ago and I shared with Daniel too.
"Dear... there are so many expenses.. and our parents have been asking for this and that.. but how come they have never ask us about how we are coping with the preparations and the expenses etc? Whether we have enough or not? How come they never discuss with us about the pin jin (Bride's Prize for the Guo Da Li)? How ah? Are we supposed to come out with our own pin jin during the Guo Da Li?" As much as we want to be independent from our parents, I sometimes felt we were on our own in this area.
But after sometime we come to a point believing that our parents just didn't want to meddle too much with our wedding and that they knew when to give us a helping hand.
Thank you Father and Mother for the big hongbao!
I'm so excited about renewing my attitude in bringing my tithe to the House of God! Thank you Pastor for sharing this with us that night.
With Great Anticipation and Joy I will Bring! Amen!
Karen Yeo Smiles at |3:09 AM|
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