Don't Get Immunized ... Spiritually

Immunizations are suddenly newsworthy again. Should we immunize our kids or not? Regardless of your answer, immunizations have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Here's how it works. You inject a physically healthy person with a weakened or dead virus. The person's body "thinks" it's a carrier of the real infection and produces antibodies. The antibodies then multiply and usually stick around long enough to fight the real virus, if it ever shows up. Instead of being a carrier, the person has become inoculated from the actual virus.

Spiritually, it usually works backward; We become inoculated from the real life God wants us to live. One common spiritual immunization is called "Giving Back".

Giving back sounds like a wonderfully biblical idea. But it's not. It inoculates us from Godly giving.

The phrase, "giving back", is fairly new and reveals a foreign idea that has invaded our thinking. Giving back almost always means giving to our community, because "the community has provided so much." Some even suggest that the community made us who we are. They think that everything we have, every opportunity we have been given, is because someone in the community gave it to us.

In a subtle way, we're worshiping our community by giving an offering to the source of our blessings. But what does scripture say?

James writes, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." Every gift!

Every good and perfect gift that we receive has its origin in God. It is God that has provided the ability to generate wealth, and it's God who has provided finances through our employer. Our children are gifts from God. Your spouse is a gift from God. Every good and perfect gift.

That also means that every good and perfect gift that we give someone else, doesn't come from us…it comes from God and flows through us. We are not the source of the gift. We might have given the gift, but God is the original source.

"Giving back" assumes that someone or something other than God is the source of all of the good things in our life. And it also assumes that there is a limit on the amount of "good stuff." There's only so much "good stuff"; someone gave some to us and we are obligated to give it back, spread it around.

Giving back is also bad theology because we start thinking that giving back is enough. But even giving to God, as a way to pay Him back, is off target.

Giving is an essential element of God's character. The Bible has over a thousand references to giving or tithing. It's such a central theme that many believe the church is only concerned about money. But here's the truth: God doesn't need our money.

Paul told the church in Colossae that, through Christ "all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

God doesn't need our money, but He desperately wants us to be people who give generously, extravagantly! When we truly understand that there is so much more than a fixed amount of "good stuff", that there is no limit, when we understand that "in him we live and move and have our being," then giving will come naturally.

Jesus said, "Whoever believes in me…streams of living water will flow from within him." One of the passages in Ezekiel He was quoting from reads, "…so where the river flows everything will live … Fruit trees of all kinds will grow…Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."

Instead of simply giving back, God wants us to be "streams of living water" that transport all of the blessings to our neighbors; blessings that constantly flow from Him. They're new every morning!

Don't just "give back"; be a carrier of unlimited blessings from the source of every good and perfect gift! Maybe it will start an epidemic!

Questions or comments? CurtisFerrell1962@gmail.com


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