You Can't Outgive God!

Tonight we talked about giving....or tithing, and what that means.  

First, we had the kids watch the French Fry Tax...a cute video explaining what tithes are and why it is important to give them.

Next, we discussed what things could be tithed or given back to serving God and for His glory.

• Our Time (missions trip, outreach events, helping someone in need with cleaning, driving someone to the store, visiting an elderly person, etc...)
• Our Talents (organizing or cleaning for someone, cooking someone a meal, babysitting, singing at a nursing home, etc...)
• Our Possessions (lending someone our car, giving some groceries to someone who needs them, passing along our gently used clothes to people who need them, donating our old eyeglasses to people who need them, etc...)
• Our Money (tithing, helping support a missionary, sponsoring a child, etc...)

Then we re-enacted the widow's offering from Mark 12:41-44, using a small tin pail and some change.  The noise that was made by dropping in a handful of coins was impressive compared to the noise made by dropping in two pennies, but God was more impressed with the widow's measly offering because she gave all that she had out of her poverty, whereas the others were giving some of what they had out of their wealth.

Using the same tin pail, we then demonstrated the truths found in this YouTube that teaches Proverbs 11:24 with a very powerful video object lesson.

To further drive home the point that you can't outgive God...but instead, when you are faithful to give back to Him what He already deserves of yours, He will bless you abundantly beyond what you could have ever imagined...I turned a $1 bill into a $20 bill.  Yep, I attempted magic, something I have long wanted to learn and incorporate into my science experiments and object lessons.  Let's just say I spent a long time at my computer watching, pausing, rewinding, and re-watching YouTubes on magic!  And then I practiced...a lot!  And while I am no Penn r Teller, I think the kids were quite impressed with my ability to pull the trick off.  I left more than a few of them scratching their heads wondering how I did it.  I'll never tell!  ;)

We gave the kids one more example of how, when we give to God, He will always bless us more than what our tithes, be they of our time, talents, possessions, or money could ever bless Him or others.  Sometimes we worry that, if we give what we have, we won't have enough for our needs, our necessities.  But God promises that, if we are faithful in this area of our Christian walk, He will provide for us all of our needs, even the ones we didn't know we had!  Here is the link to the way we demonstrated this for the kids.

Lastly, we asked the kids to put their money where their mouth is.  To challenge the kids to give sacrificially of themselves and in a very practical way, we introduced them to the eBay Offering Challenge. We asked each of the kids to bring in something of value (monetarily and of value to themselves personally) that they would consider a sacrifice to part with. It could be an electronic device, a collection, a doll, a video game, a collectible, ...whatever. We are then going to eBay each of these items and give the money as our gift to the TPCC food pantry.

It'll be interesting to see what the kids bring in for this challenge! We challenged them to try and outgive each other, but reminded them that they can NEVER outgive God!