Am I Able to Give?

"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you; leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
(Matthew 5:23-24)


You can’t give God anything if you harbor bitterness, envy, and ill-will in your heart. You cannot offer any service to the Lord, if you are holding onto a grudge. This does not mean that God cannot ever use you. He has given us the opportunity to go back and make amends with that person that wronged us or used us and then we are able to bless God. God doesn’t bless mess and he cannot be blessed by mess. As children of God, we naturally want to please our father. Although, it pleases the Lord for us to be of service to him and those that he has placed over us, he is more concerned with our inner-self. God is more concerned with our hearts than He is with how we may look to others or how happy our gifts make others feel. We must always give with a clear conscience.



What does this mean to us? That means that if we really want to bless God and be of service to the body of Christ, we need to make peace with our sisters and brothers. How can we love God whom we have never seen yet walk past our brother and sister everyday whom we do see and never speak to them? Does that make sense? No, it doesn’t. What does make sense is that the alter is a place of sacrifice. We are instructed to leave our gift in front of the alter because we need to sacrifice our will and our attitudes and forgive those who we have issues with so that we are able to go back and get our gift and give it to God. So before we offer up any gift to God, we must ask ourselves. Am I truly able to give?


Shanita Waters
Author of By His Stripes We Are Healed
www.waterplantgrowth.com