{"id":4330,"date":"2011-01-06T12:41:57","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T19:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2011-09-30T14:25:20","modified_gmt":"2011-09-30T19:25:20","slug":"the-giving-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/the-giving-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"The Giving Rules (plus Jesus with a dinosaur)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
This is really beautiful because you can tell the dino feels God's love.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
CAUTION: Dinosaur related humor in this post is to be read as comedy.<\/span><\/strong>
\n(The Jesus picture isn’t perfectly related to this post. But sharing it seemed like the right thing to do\u2013especially within the scope of the topic today. You see, if God gave me a baby T-Rex, I’d give him back; both out of fear, but as a offering of first fruits too. Mostly because Jesus would probably tame him into a “little lamb”. Sort of like he when he changed things up as he called out to Mary in the garden: “Mary”. He would say, “baby dino,” and that would be it. I guess that’s just the power of God.)<\/span>Instead of the word “Rules” in the title, I was going to use the word “Laws”. But, I soon realized <\/span>Laws<\/span><\/em> aren’t what the used to be. Even what we’ve thought of as “<\/span>Laws<\/span><\/span> of Physics” have been bent or misshapen somehow, in recents times.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/address>\n

Here, I use the word “rule” to highlight what seems to be invariably consequential. Or , “It seems thus.” \u00a0If you’d like to debate it, I welcome that.<\/span><\/p>\n

The #1 Giving Rule:
\n<\/span><\/strong>Hoarding causes spoilage.
\n<\/span><\/strong> Not just the material variety of hoarding, but also as a spiritual reality. An inner decay.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong>It seems that all gifts and blessing that are not shared with others <\/span>and<\/span><\/strong> given back to God as a love offering, ferment and grow <\/span>toxic<\/span><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

This includes spiritual blessings, talents, and material blessings.<\/span><\/strong> There seems to be scads on this principle demonstrated in the Bible.<\/span><\/p>\n

I came up with an equation a few years back, and I feel a burst mathematical jubilation to use it here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Think about the equation below for about <\/span>15 full seconds<\/span><\/strong>, and please tell me what you think.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gifts<\/strong> (from God)
\n– Fruit<\/span><\/strong> (<\/span>of the Spirit<\/a>) <\/span>
\n= Corruption<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Do you agree? How does this play out?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And-Please Help me with the reverse equation. (What formula does not<\/span> cause corruption?)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So-What is the best “giving back” to God?
\n Worship in Spirit and Truth.<\/strong>
\nJohn 4: 22-23<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Worship is giving: A gift of one’s first affections.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This has a board range starting with core loyalty<\/span><\/strong>, and moving into every other area or currency that involves us. (Yes. Including your time, talents, thoughts, technology, and legal tender. It’s all-encompassing.) And it is all thoroughly swaddled in gratitude.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I thank you to participate in thought and word today. \u00a0:)<\/span><\/p>\n

(odd ball photo found\u00a0here<\/a>.)<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Worship is giving: A gift of one’s first affections…and everything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6534,3993,428,4005,14,15,3994,3996,3992,1393,3999,3995,1462,4002,33,4004,6538,40,41,3997,3038,74,3998,85,4003,4000,4001,91],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-art","tag-art-for-god","tag-blessing","tag-cheerful-giver","tag-christians","tag-church","tag-dinosaur","tag-fruits-of-the-spirit","tag-funny-jesus-art","tag-funny-photo","tag-galatians-522-23","tag-gifts-from-god","tag-giving","tag-gods-math","tag-gratitude","tag-how-to-give","tag-humor","tag-irony","tag-jesus","tag-mana","tag-service","tag-spiritual-growth","tag-talents","tag-theology","tag-tithing","tag-what-is-giving","tag-what-is-worship","tag-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4330"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4343,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions\/4343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisadelay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

A helpful (Biblical) case in point is the spiritual lesson gathered (ahem) from a physical instance with an ancient wandering people group. Here we see what happens with a “hoarding of mana” (or sustenance): <\/span>Exodus 16:20<\/span><\/a>. In a word: Maggots.
\nYet, the story begs the question for us all: <\/span>Do we think our daily provision (in every way) is <\/span>really<\/span><\/em> up to <\/span>us<\/span><\/span>?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n