You Can’t Out-Give God

Now Samuel was ministering before the LORD, as a boy wearing a linen ephod. And is mother would make him a little robe and bring it to him from year to year when he would come up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife and say, “May the LORD give you children from this woman in place of the one she dedicated to the LORD.” And they went to their own home. The LORD visited Hannah; and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew before the LORD.

I Samuel 2.18-21

A simple reminder that the Lord will be a debtor to no man. You simply can not out give God.

Could we dare to follow Hannah's example. To give God the firstfruits, her first son; without guarantee of ever having another. There is a depth of faith being demonstrated here most of us know little about personally.

Bob Swan told me a story recently about a young native boy who had just heard a lesson on giving to God from a missionary that had visited his village. A short time later the boy ran up to the missionary with a large fish in his hands that he had obviously just caught. The boy said, "here is my offering, my firstfruits... just like you told us". "But where are the rest of your fish?" the missionary asked. "Oh, I haven't caught them yet...but I will" said the little boy as he ran off back to the fishing hole.

What a heart of faith that is. I will make my offering to God in absolute confidence that he will take care of what comes next according to His promises.

And what promise did He make relative to Hannah's story (or relative to relatives).

How about this one:

“Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. “But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

Mark 10.29-31

Now, you may have some relative you would like to give away... I don't really think that is the idea here :). But we absolutely can trust Him to do far more for us than we can imagine.

How do I know? Because He already has. You see it is not only that God will give back many times over to us for our faithful gifts to him, but he has already given us his very best when He sent His Son Jesus... the greatest Gift, that we might be saved by Him. OUR giving then, becomes a response to what he has already given and He gave it all!

Hannah was given five more children in place of the one she had given to God. Five is the number of grace and grace is what God's gifts are always about.