giving

7 Each person should do as he has decided in his heart — not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7 HCSB

https://bible.com/bible/72/2co.9.7.HCSB

Many years ago my then husband Tony and I were in a new church who had a building fund appeal.  In those days we had just two connect groups, or bible study groups as they were called then. We ran one and the pastor ran the other. Ours was very successful and the pastor became worried that we were attempting to split the church, which we were not. We had pledged to give $2,000 to the building fund, which was a lot back in the early 80s. Even though we ended up leaving the church because the pastor made a public accusation against us, we left the money with the church. We went to another church which was a long distance from home for a time, until we found another closer.

What is the purpose of this tale? Integrity in giving is important. If God leads us to give a gift,  we should give it. Allow Him to sort out the lie. In our case God did. That particular church was taken over by another pastor some time later and we ended up back there.

Giving what we said we would give is important,  unless what we said we would give was unrealistic and we need to go and talk to the pastor about our mistake. Scripture gives protection for women in such cases( Numbers 30). If she commits to give and her husband finds out and knows it is unrealistic, he can veto her pledge.

Much is written about the blessings associated with giving.  Jesus Himself had an opinion. In Luke 6:38 Jesus says: give, and it will be given to you; a good measure-pressed down, shaken together, and running over- will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

Again I had two dreams last night. Both had to do with integrity. The first was deception in Zoom, the second was corporate deception. It is interesting that today's scripture also deals with integrity, in the area of giving.