Lesson on Offerings

The Lord has been blessing me with His rich supply through different means and channels. No matter the channels and means, the Lord is the source of them all. He supplies according to His riches to meet all my genuine needs. And He has been faithfully doing so. What a blessed life to be supplied by the Lord!

Since I got saved and especially since I came to serve the Lord full-time, I have been experiencing the Lord's timely supply to meet all my needs and also the needs of others, including my family sometimes. For years altogether, I have been receiving the Lord's supply and also have been distributing His supply to the needy saints, as He leads and reveals to me. This month, the offering came only during half the month. I have been considering some portions of the offering and how to distribute them. Even for the previous month, I withheld some as I was not clear to whom to offer. 

Then, a sister, a distinct relative contacted me for the first time from nowhere and mentioned her dire situation and desperate need for immediate medical attention. Initially, I wanted to ignore her as I generally do not entertain people who directly ask for monetary help. But later, as I considered before the Lord over and over again, the Lord impressed me deep within that, she was the one I needed to help. Therefore, after being clearly led by the Lord, I requested her bank account number and transferred offerings twice. This thereby met her immediate need. Besides, I also took the opportunity to lead her to read the Bible and spend time with the Lord in prayer and also sent a link for her to read shepherding material online.  May the Lord bless her physically and spiritually too.

This month too, as I was considering how to dispense the offering to the needy saints the Lord dawned on me the needs of a brother whose parents have been devasted due to the recent riots in Manipur. Now, he is here in Gurugram studying in a college and not being able to pay even his college fees. In fellowship, I enquired all the practical details of his college fees, his education, and family matters. Then I realized that he was the right person to receive the offering. Therefore, last Lord's Day, a considerable amount of offerings was offered to him through the church offering box. This is also to shepherd him and his family who are in desperate need. Besides this, another student-brother was also offered to meet some of his needs. In this way, the Lord led me to discern to whom to offer the offering channel through me. The source is the Lord, and I must exercise to be one spirit with the Lord to discern the recipients of the offerings.

It is one thing to exercise faith to depend on the Lord and the Lord supplies all my needs through offering. Yet it is altogether another thing to discern in one spirit with the Lord to whom to offer.  Not just for my own needs, but also to learn to discern the needs of others and channel the Lord's supply to them, even as He pleases to do it through me. This is an important lesson on offerings.