Offering from the heart

During the Sunday service of 22 march 2015, our mother Prophetess Tebogo Sehlwane taught us to put our treasures in Heaven where no thief can steal. She took her scripture reading from Matthew 26: 19 to 24. In this scripture we are warned not to store up treasures on earth where moth and roth can come and destroy, we are also warned that we cannot serve two masters, being money and God.

These are the prophetess’s words:

Whenever you receive money or any of God’s blessings and you start by 1st attending to your personal needs rather than paying your tithe and offering towards the work of God, it means you are selfish. The Bible says “where your treasure is, there your heart will also be” so if your treasure or your money is spent only on yourself, it means you have a selfish heart and your heart considers only yourself.

This also applies to your spare time, if you use your spare time only for yourself rather than meditating and reading the Word of God or helping in the house of God, you are selfish. You need to put God first in everything, for He says in His Word, “test me and see if I will not open the floodgates of Heaven and pour out so much blessings that you will not have room to store”(Malachi 3:10).

If you make God’s business your business, He will make your business His business. Some of us pray and ask God to give us businesses, and when He gives us those businesses we also want to trade on Sundays, but God has given you 6 days to do whatever work you want to do but the 7th day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God(Exodus 20: 9 to 11). When you pay tithes and offer to God, this becomes an insurance for your wealth. Your wealth will never be attacked.

We need to make God our first priority even in our giving, if we want him to make us His 1st priority. You need to give to a point where you even feel pain, not a pain of complaining or grudge, but a pain of a sacrificial gift, a pain of joy. This is the kind of pain that Abraham felt when he offered Isaac to God, When God saw that Abraham was ready to give Isaac, He provided a sacrificial lamb.

Today you need to offer your Isaac so that God can give you a sacrificial lamb. Look into your heart as you are about to give, what dominates your heart? That which dominates your heart is what you worship. If your heart is full of complaining and worry, then you cannot say that you worship God. You are one of those people that give their problems to God and then later when they go to sleep they start complaining again, then you haven’t given your problems to God, even if you did, the moment you start complaining and worrying, then you take your problems back.

As you give, examine your heart, look deep into your heart, and if God does not dominate your heart, give in such a way that He will dominate your heart. When God dominates your heart and your thoughts then you worship Him in truth and in spirit.