November 25th

Fitly Living, Clearly Seeing

Whoever falsely boasts of giving is like clouds and wind without rain. Proverbs 25:14

We're going to spend a little time in someone else's shoes today, though they might feel very familiar depending on your circumstances.

I want you to imagine that you're in need, and I mean really in need. I don't mean that there are things you want that you can't afford right now, or that you need to budget for them so you can buy them in the future, or that they're luxury items that would be nice and beautiful to have but you don't need.

I mean, imagine that if you don't have some sort of financial miracle, you won't be able to buy food this week. Your house is getting foreclosed on. Your kids don't have clothes that fit them and you can't buy them new ones. You are in need.

Now imagine that someone promises to help you. They boast that they are going to wipe out your credit card debt, make your house payments current, or give you a job that will more than cover your bills. But after all their promises, nothing happens. They never deliver. They disappear.

Obviously, this isn't good. In fact, our verse today compares this kind of person to clouds that promise to drop needed rain on the ground-rain that's needed for crops that feed animals and families and provide a living to an agricultural society-but blow away without giving anything.

This horrible, destructive deception is so important to the Lord that He gives us a New Testament illustration of it in the lives of Ananias and Sapphira. This husband and wife pair conspired together to deceive by boasting of a gift they didn't really give.

They sold some land (no one made them), and they promised to give the Church everything they made from the sale (though no one told them they had to give it all). The problem was that they only gave part of what they earned from the sale. Of course, this wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't promised to give everything. They could have said they were only giving part, and then giving part would have been fine. But when they gave less than they promised, lying about their gift, they both fell down dead.

Listen, the problem isn't in not giving, though giving is good. The bigger problem is in being deceitful. Examine yourself today to make sure that there is honesty and integrity before the Lord, that you have character that is the same on the outside as it is on the inside.

Prayer Father God,

Thank You that You made good on Your promise to send us a Savior! Help me to guard my words so that I only promise things that I will actually deliver; then please help me to be generous in what I give.

Amen