The Gift and the Giver
Bring no more vain oblations.
Isaiah 1:13
The churches of Macedonia…first gave their own selves to the Lord.
II Corinthians 8:1,5
What God wants is not yours but you. Self, service, substance – that is the Divine order. Ananias and Sapphira not only did not give all they had, they never gave themselves.
Prebendary Webb-Peploe used to say, “Sometimes I buy gifts for my wife. I fear that my choices are often very poor but she accepts them with good grace because she knows that before I ever gave her gifts I gave her my heart.”
Alas, there are heartbroken wives whose husbands bring flowers and finery but who have never really given their hearts’ love. And how God is grieved when we bring Him vain oblations! A check on the collection plate means nothing to Him if we withhold ourselves. The little boy who dropped into the offering basket a slip of paper bearing the words, “I give myself,” had the right idea.
The Macedonians started right. They gave themselves. When God gets you He will get yours.
You have to be more than a “check-book Christian.” For “the gift without the giver is bare.”