by David Falk | Download PDF | Purchase Hardcopy

How do the Father, Son and Holy Spirit work and live? It is an interesting question to reflect on. The apostle Paul’s statement to the Philippian church, concerning their participation in the fellowship of giving and receiving, gives us a clue. ‘You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone.’ Phil 4:15. Paul was saying to the Philippians that they had caught his ethos of giving and receiving. They recognized the motivation of a true Christian community is to live as God Himself lives.

I believe the most fundamental statement about the way the Father, Son and Holy Spirit live together is embodied in the Scripture, ‘Freely you received, freely give’. Matt 10:8. God Himself gave freely, that which cost Him everything. A genuine fellowship of giving and receiving, or a participation in how He is or lives, is firstly to receive freely. The Scripture is quite clear that the free gift of God is eternal life. However, the irony is that it is free only because it is given freely. It's not free because it costs you nothing. In fact, to commit to Christ will cost us everything. It is not free at all. It is given freely, so therefore it is a free gift. But it will cost you everything to receive that free gift. In between the receiving freely and giving freely, resides the cost to God and to us.

How is it that David, the psalmist, was called a man after God’s own heart? How could the Lord say, ‘I know Abraham; he will teach his children after him’. How did Abel know to kill and sacrifice a lamb when they were vegetarians? How did he know that the firstborn needed to be redeemed with blood? Why did Cain not offer a lamb but the fruit of his produce? How was it that Noah knew to present a burnt offering of every clean animal when he came off the boat? The aroma of the offering ascended, and the Scripture says that the Lord smelt the aroma and said, ‘I will never destroy the earth again by flood’. The Lord engaged in Noah’s offering.

Every man of note in the Scripture responded to God by giving when they failed or succeeded, or simply when the Lord spoke a word of direction to them. They built altars as the evidence of their response. There is no description or explanation as to why they did this. They just knew. Their response to God was always to offer. They innately understood the nature of God, and showed themselves to be of Him and after His own heart.

Today, we don't build material altars, and we don't offer blood sacrifices. Nevertheless, Paul encouraged the Philippians to participate in offering through giving and receiving. By that time, the people in the early church were not offering animals in the traditional way. Nor were they building altars, even though many would have been Jews by heritage. Nevertheless, there was a fellowship, a community and ethos that Paul was establishing in each place, so that the life of God could be effective. Everyone who responded to the Lord through the Scriptures built an altar and made an offering. ‘Your people shall be willing in the day of Your power.’ Psalm 110:3.  It could be better translated, ‘Your people will give free will offerings in the day of your power’. It was the power of God that raised Christ from the dead. It was the power of God that caused Jesus Christ to be born from the womb of a virgin, sustained Him through His life and took Him up to Calvary. The power of God raised Him up from the dead, and caused Him to ascend to the glory He had before. We can actively engage with God when His power is demonstrated in our lives, by responding with offering. As we seek His powerful intervention in our time of need, we must freely offer. If we are controlled by anxiety, we will hold back in offering. To withdraw our offering is effectively saying, ‘There is no God’. We are not demonstrating that we believe He will continue to provide for us. If we don’t offer, we don’t fundamentally believe in God’s goodness to us.

The Israelites brought an offering of all kinds of materials to build the temple. At the Lord’s command through Moses, men and women whose heart moved them ‘brought a freewill offering’. Ex 35:29. The Israelites had seen the power of God demonstrated and their hearts were stirred to build a house for Him. They offered willingly as a whole hearted response to God. In the same way, King David’s heart was stirred to build the Lord’s house. It was said of David, ‘The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart’. 1 Sam 13:14. Through all the ups and downs of his life, David was a man of offering. In the fellowship of giving and receiving, David was able to respond to God at each critical point. He gave in abundance from his own personal wealth and from the king’s treasury. David was the catalyst in the building of the temple. He was the initiator of this whole process of giving. It says in the first book of Chronicles, ‘And then the captains of the thousands and then the people followed willingly’. In the book of Acts, we see the same willing heart response of the people to give. ‘Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.’ Acts 2:44-45.

If God is not active among us, what are we here for? Why go to church? If there is no resurrection of the dead, it means that God is not active. The resurrection is the evidence that God continues to give. He continues to give something that He has and we don't have. He continues to give it to us. What is He looking for? The Scripture is quite clear. ‘For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.’ 2 Chron 16:9. The key statement is, ‘Whose heart is completely His’. And this is demonstrated by a willingness to offer ourselves.

It is interesting to note in Scripture, that the free-will offering could be offered with leaven in it. Leaven is the yeast or the contaminant that causes bread to rise. Leaven in the Scripture, in all accounts bar one, is always a negative thing. Leaven describes the contaminant within me, the leaven of malice and wickedness. ‘Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’ 1Cor 5:8. Esau was leavened with bitterness. His bitterness contaminated everything around him. It’s like a cross-mutating virus. It keeps infecting everything. Why is it then that the freewill offering can be offered with leaven? To me it is simple. If it can't, we can't break into God. Your leaven isn't dealt with until the Lord gets His hands on you, and begins to convict you about something.

‘So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.’ Psa 63:4. How can I bless Him? He's got everything! But if I bless Him, then I attribute back to Him the substance of everything He has given to me. King David said, ‘I will not give to the Lord in sacrifices and offerings that which cost me nothing.’ 1 Chron 21:24. David knew that there was no point in giving what cost him nothing, because it was not truly his. If our salvation doesn't cost us anything, it's not ours. It remains just a free gift coming to us. We have not yet bought it and made it our own. ‘Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps have gone out”. But the wise answered, saying, “No, lest there be not enough for us and you. But rather go to those who sell, and buy for yourselves”.’ Matt 25:7-9. The instant it is being sold, it’s not free! The amazing irony of the Scripture is that salvation is given freely, but it's going to cost you everything to receive it. Likewise, when we give to someone else, it will cost them everything to receive it before God. Although we give it freely, it will cost us everything to give because it's ours.

This is what Paul calls the fellowship of giving and receiving. This is the man after God's own heart, who understands that God is giving and never taking it back. He's giving, and if you can't receive it, He takes from you and gives it to someone else. What a tragedy! This is the lesson of the parable of the talents. Even what you don't have, He takes from you and gives it to the one who already has. The rich do get richer, and the poor get poorer. It's true after all, as much as the social workers hate it. The wise man writes of the inequity and injustice of it. But God doesn't run against the tide. He wants to give to you in abundance. He wants to increase you for only one reason. He wants you to continue in the chain of giving, so that it is like a perpetuating dynamic. It’s like a machine that just keeps on moving. This is how the kingdom works.

You can kill the martyr; you can kill the Christian, but you can't take their life from them! You can take from me, but you can take nothing of substance from me. You can't take it, but I can lose it. However, I only lose it, if I don't attribute worth to it. Even when David lost his son, his house and all of the things that went with that over the course of the years, he understood his error. I think he knew how God is, and he constantly kept responding.

What does a freewill offering do? Firstly in the negative, to not give demonstrates some kind of desire for control, or simply an anxiety mechanism in life. If you need to control your life, you are evidently making the statement, ‘There is no God’.  In that case, there is no God to you.  If God is not giving to you, you are not receiving. If God is not giving to you and you are not receiving, then there is no God to you. He's just God to someone else. Here is a marvellous statement from the book of Proverbs. ‘He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord.’ Prov 19:17. In other words, when you keep giving, the recipients of your giving are the beneficiaries of the gift, but the real giving has gone to God. However, He has only received it as a loan.

When David bought the field of Ornan, recorded in the book of Chronicles, Ornan said to David, ‘You can have it’. That tells us something about Ornan. How did this man know that the site where David was standing was the very same place where Abraham offered Isaac? How did David, when he took the census, know to go up to that very field and face the Lord there? Scripture doesn't tell us. They just knew these things. Like these great men of faith, you and I just have to know as well. When the conviction of sin falls upon you, you just have to know that you must humble yourself. You are being helped, because the conviction of the Holy Spirit will fall upon you and will tell you what to do. But you still have to know what to do. If you don't listen to the voice of the Spirit at that point, you'll do something different. You may rationalize, get angry, morose or depressed or you may compensate in some way. But, in the end, you won't do what the Lord asked. Finally, the Lord measures our hearts not by what we say, but by what we do.

Are you a person of freewill offering? Do you give willingly and freely in the day of His power? Whatever you give, make sure it has cost you everything. When the Lord does give to you, attribute genuine value and worth to what you have received. Take it seriously. Receive it as a blessing and not as a benefit. Whatever He gives to you, let it process your life. When it is time to give it on, you are not giving something that didn't cost you anything. Understand the ‘hurt’ of giving. Make sure that you're actually giving your whole life.

‘Freely you received, freely give.’

Author: David Falk | Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
Published by Vision One at Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
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