Are you primarily rich, poor, or blessed?
Some years ago, when the economy was depressed, in a very small church in a poor section of town, a boy and his two sisters felt challenged when it was announced that a special offering was going to be taken on a particular date to help a poor family. They earned money by baby-sitting, housecleaning, and doing yard jobs. They also made pot holders to sell. By the announced date they had seventy dollars, which they converted to three twenty-dollar bills and a ten dollar bill. They could hardly wait to get to church.
That afternoon, the preacher showed up at their house with the envelope! After he left, they found eighty-seven dollars in it: three twenty-dollar bills, a ten-dollar bill, and seventeen one-dollar bills. The children had never felt so poor in all their lives.
The next Sunday, the children were silent as they went to church. The speaker was a missionary who told how one-hundred dollars could put a roof on a church in Africa. And the children decided to put that eighty-seven dollars they had been given back into the offering. The missionary exclaimed, when he heard that just over one-hundred dollars was donated, “This church must have a rich family!”
During this Christmas season Christians around the world are focused on God giving His Son. As we talk with others, especially children, before and after Christmas, instead of “What do you want for Christmas?” and “What did you get for Christmas?” being the focal points of our conversations, make the focus, “What did you give for Christmas?”
As Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And whether we are rich or
poor, we are blessed.
Some years ago, when the economy was depressed, in a very small church in a poor section of town, a boy and his two sisters felt challenged when it was announced that a special offering was going to be taken on a particular date to help a poor family. They earned money by baby-sitting, housecleaning, and doing yard jobs. They also made pot holders to sell. By the announced date they had seventy dollars, which they converted to three twenty-dollar bills and a ten dollar bill. They could hardly wait to get to church.
That afternoon, the preacher showed up at their house with the envelope! After he left, they found eighty-seven dollars in it: three twenty-dollar bills, a ten-dollar bill, and seventeen one-dollar bills. The children had never felt so poor in all their lives.
The next Sunday, the children were silent as they went to church. The speaker was a missionary who told how one-hundred dollars could put a roof on a church in Africa. And the children decided to put that eighty-seven dollars they had been given back into the offering. The missionary exclaimed, when he heard that just over one-hundred dollars was donated, “This church must have a rich family!”
During this Christmas season Christians around the world are focused on God giving His Son. As we talk with others, especially children, before and after Christmas, instead of “What do you want for Christmas?” and “What did you get for Christmas?” being the focal points of our conversations, make the focus, “What did you give for Christmas?”
As Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And whether we are rich or
poor, we are blessed.
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