Wednesday, July 18, 2018

What He Said to Me During the Offering - Part 2

Wednesday, July 18, 2018
After breakfast Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”  “Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”  “Then feed my lambs,” Jesus told him.  Jesus repeated the question:  “Simon son of John, do you love me?”  “Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”  “Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said.  A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time.  He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.”  Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.
John 21:15-17(NLT)
Yesterday we looked at how I, as young boy, was introduced to the meaning of God’s offering plate in worship services, and how God spoke both peace and faith into my life while the ushers collected the people’s love gifts.  Today I want to share just a bit of what I learned about those quiet moments, and what God intends for our hearts when we will be quiet enough to listen. 
In short, I learned that the offering time can be one of the most intense moments of worship.  From what I know about church musicians (you can learn a lot living with one for more than a half-century), it isn’t just mailed-in on Sunday.  A pianist or organist will spend considerable time selecting an inspiring, relevant piece of music to play while the plate is being passed.  It is akin to the pastor considering the nourishment that congregation needs from a sermon.  It is the liturgist’s pulling-together just the right worship components to lead us to the throne.  It is the care the church custodian takes in vacuuming the carpets and pews to create a suitable, uncluttered space to worship. 
For me, all of that often comes together at the offering plate.  I imagine that is so, because often in worship that is one of the few times I get to be silent and still.  Most often I am moving around in worship or talking.  But when the offering plates are being passed, I listen.  The music might be familiar or new to my ear, but I get to put together how God is speaking faith into my heart again, because I’ve dropped my check into the plate, and that is the exact moment I have second thoughts about the candy bars down at the Rexall Drug store.  In my youth it was candy bars; now it’s the mortgage, and new tires my car needs.  In short, it is temptation to not give, or at least not give so much. 
And in the stillness of familiar refrains of Near to the Heart of God, or My Faith Has Found a Resting Place, or something by Bach or Beethoven, unknown to me, that I couldn’t name if my life depended upon it…it is in those times I realize being faithful to give money isn’t at all about giving money; it’s really all about putting Russell in that gold-plated plate.  It’s about remembering the times when it was a choice between being faithful with the little stuff (money), so that I will be able to understand a little more of how God was taking care of the big stuff; things that really mattered.
There are too many times of that to share even a sample of the depths, height, and breadth of God’s love showered on my family.  We aren’t rich by most people’s standards, but we have lived in God’s blessing.  And in that blessing we have hardly missed a meal, or ever gone wanting for the assurance that the eye which is on the sparrow, also keeps watch over us.
And it’s even more than looking back over a lifetime of blessing – it’s the expectancy of where my new quarters, dropped in the offering plate, are going to land; it’s what God’s hand will do to strengthen His kingdom with those quarters, and those quarters others have dropped in the plate, as God expands and multiplies those gifts to meet the needs of people I never met, and will probably never know this side of glory.
I love the offering plate; in those times I meet my loving Father as we work together in His world.
For You Today
When next you put your offering in the plate, kiss it, bless it, and pray over the good things God will do with it when it leaves your hand.  And then be very still; hear what He speaks to your soul.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Public Domain

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