Category: Devotion of the Day

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.”

Prayer Is Not Enough

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
II Chronicles 7:14

It will readily be seen here that God requires four things, not just one. And He will not settle for a fourth of what He requires. If we are going to use this verse let us use all of it. Sometimes we make it sound as though a prayer meeting alone were sufficient to produce a revival. God has said more here than “pray.”

We are to humble ourselves – not pray for humility, but humble ourselves, “as a little child” (Mt. 18:4), “in the sight of the Lord” (Jas. 4:10), “under the mighty hand of God” (I Pt. 5:6). We are to seek God’s face, His favor, the smile of His approval. “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek” (Ps. 27:8). Is that what your heart says?

And we are to turn from our wicked ways. That fourth note is rather subdued these days. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Prov. 28:13).

Praying is not enough if God requires more. And in this sadly misused text He certainly does!