Gratitude, Offerings, and Need

He is worthy.  He is powerful enough to provide.  He has provided.  Give from the firstfruits.  So now I've arrived at a theological puzzle.  What was the point of giving of the firstfruits?  So I don't really have enough money to pay the bills, but I've just received a large amount of money from selling my motorcycle.  I don't feel particularly grateful to God for providing for me, but I do feel grateful.  He has shown that he is powerful enough to provide, and I want to give God back a portion of what I have received.  So now I have these two conflicting urges:

One, I feel like it would be irresponsible to give back to God since I haven't even made enough from it to cover the monthly expenses (let alone have enough left over to eat).  Secondly, I know that God will provide the rest because he says that he will provide for all of my needs.  So there's no real danger in giving it.  But then, easy for me to say, what if I had a wife and kids that were depending on that income to be able to eat.  The man who doesn't provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever, right? So do I give despite my need out of my half-hearted feeling of gratitude?

Well, one, I pray that God would provide for me what is lacking in my gratitude.  It's not right for me to be ungrateful, and so take part in humanities greatest and original offense toward God (Romans 1:18-21).  My ingratitude is a stain unworthy of the God who has done so much to preserve me.  Secondly, I pray that God would provide what's left of my bills so that I won't be unashamed of my belief in a God who claims to provide for his children like the birds and lilies.  And third, I pray that God would give me a true and balanced view of how to manage money, burning away my propensity to waste, and play, and play, and play.  I don't want to be someone who gives out of compulsion, but I do want to be someone who trusts God and radically obeys.  Even in a perfect world where sin does not exist, sacrifices of thanksgiving are a right thing.  How much more in a world where God has poured out his love for a wretch like me.  :-)

Knowledge without Repentance

Knowledge without REPENTANCE will be but a torch to light men to hell.  -Thomas Watson.

I get a lot of compliments for my ability to absorb and analyze information, and with a good enough catalyst I often become a teacher in the middle of a study session on a topic I just learned.  This is why I like books like Colossians which emphasize so much on the knowledge of God being so much a part of our salvation.  But today I received two lessons, one is the quote by Thomas Watson at the top of this post, and the second is by Paul Tripp.

"My celebration is theological in a way that's not theology driving me to the foot of this glorious God, it's theology that's driving me to theology that's driving me to theology that's driving me to theology.  Theology is never an end of itself, it's a means to an end, and the end is to take human beings that worship themselves and other things, and to make them true worshipers of God."

 I have always thought that I'm just missing something, some thing, some mental connection that is keeping me from truly experiencing the victorious Christian life.  Some little ingredient in the fertilizer is lacking so my growth is stunted.  Yet my life has never been one of repentance in light of what I already know and am learning.  If I know about God, and yet it doesn't drive me to turn from my wickedness, then my knowledge is only making me a smarter devil, on a higher echelon of sophistication among the damned.  But even knowing this does not save me.  Christ will pray to the Father and send his Spirit to grow fruit in me, and the Spirit will succeed in his work.  I have been faithless, so I must repent of this faithlessness.  I have been impatient, without hope, and without joy.  Just because I know this, does not mean I repent of it.  But now I do.  And he will forgive me and restore me to himself for the sake of his Son, who loved me first and gave himself for me.

Hope-filled despair pong

I don't really know what it is that I want.  I have no job anymore, and I owe more money this month than I actually have.  All I want to do really is sit here and play video games and watch TV shows.  Yet right now, I sit here bored with all of them, and I'm left with... want.  I want something, but I can't have whatever it is.

Maybe in a future post I'll have to explain what has happened in the last several weeks.  Suffice it to say, I am racked back and forth like a ping pong ball between hope and despair.  I've never felt so much of both, yet never at the same time.  Both physically and spiritually, I experience hope-filled despair. I know that what I truly want at the bottom of my idolatry is God himself.  No matter the depths I fall, as I begin to lose everything, I know that his love is ever on me.  Perhaps this is the fire which causes the dross to rise.  What will I be in the end?

The Spirit has preserved me with and through the love and ministry of my church.  They will continue to encourage me to depend on the Spirit.  But... why is everything that I must do so impossible?  Why must prayer be so quick to quicken my body in rebellion against it?  I can't pray for more than a few seconds before I feel hopelessly outmatched by the will of my mind to push prayer from my head.  How can I hope to actually develop any kind of discipline in anything?

God help me.  I wouldn't be alive now without you.  Now I know that tomorrow, my hope is quite literally only in you.  Rouse yourself and come quickly to my aid.  God help me.