Faith Builders – You can’t out-give God

How do we build our faith?

The answer is simple. We just have to begin exercising it. Over the next few weeks, I want to share some incredible miracles God has done in my life and my family’s life by simply exercising faith.

James 2:22 (NIV) says; You see that His faith and His actions were working together, and His faith was made complete by what He did. To build our faith and see it working, it must start with us making a move. Faith and actions work together. One without the other is dead. We don’t wait for God to move first, it is us that must move first and then God will come along side us and do what we cannot.

One of the very first things I love to do when returning to Australia is visit the local supermarket. Compared to Asia, Australian supermarkets have everything you could possibly want in abundance. A few years ago on one of our visits back to Australia, and while visiting a local supermarket with my husband, I noticed a family at the next check out, who, as they were leaving, had dropped a twenty dollar note. I quickly walked over to the money and picked it up, but before I had a chance to give it back to the family, they had already headed out the door and I had no idea where they had gone.

It would have been easy to just keep the money, but of course I didn’t. I took it straight to the information counter and explained what had happened. The lady behind the counter proceeded to tell me that if the family didn’t come back for the money, then it was mine. My husband and I left the shop, but not too long after leaving, I felt to go back and say to the staff member behind the counter that if the family didn’t return to claim the money, I wanted her to have it. This staff member promptly replied that it was company policy for staff not to accept lost money and since the family had not returned, the money was now mine. What a blessing.

Well that was on a Friday, and when Sunday came around we visited a friend’s church since we didn’t have a speaking engagement that weekend. When it came to offering time my first thought was to put the twenty dollars in that I was blessed with. As I was pulling it out of my wallet God spoke to me. He said; ‘Deb, what are you doing?‘ I replied; ‘Lord I am giving that money I found.’ He said; ‘That is not giving to me, that is money that was lost and you found it. Now I want you to empty your wallet and give Me everything you have.’ I leaned over to Paul, my husband, and told him the conversation I was having with the Lord and of course he told me to do what God was asking me to do. Even though what was in my wallet was all we had to last us for quite some time, I obediently took out every dollar and coin that I had and put it in the offering, trusting that God had our daily needs covered.

At the end of the service just before we left, a lady came running up to me, grabbed my hand and thrust what I thought was a piece of paper into it, and then as quickly as she came, she left. I had no idea who she was. As I opened my hand I saw that it was not a piece of paper at all, but a cheque for one thousand dollars.

You can never out give God. If He asks you to give, give without expectation, but at the same time know that He will take care of your needs above and beyond what is possible. What I had in my wallet that day was fifty dollars. Fifty dollars was a lot to us at that time. You can imagine what that one thousand dollars did for our faith that day.

Obey the voice of God and see what He will do for you. It will build your faith.

Deb