Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:11-13
“A faith promise is when you sit down and work out by faith just what you will give to God in the next year or six months. Once you have committed yourself carefully and prayerfully then you set in motion the law of faith. Every month you have to trust God to help you meet the challenge of your own faith and as you pursue this there comes a widening of vision, an enlargement of faith, a capacity to believe beyond human understanding and an awareness of God in personal dealings that has to be experienced before it can be believed. People who give this way claim that this exercise flexes the muscles of faith so much that they can believe not only for the fulfillment of their faith promise but for many other things in other areas of their lives.”
Selwyn Hughes in Divine Mathematics: A Biblical Perspective on Investing in God’s Kingdom (Surrey, UK: CWR, 2004) 47-48.
Scott Bailey, a faithful friend, pastor, and reader of Daily Meditations, told me he’s preaching on this text this weekend so I was studying it. Our largehearted Father gives good gifts to those who ask Him.
That’s what faith promise is all about. It’s making a decision as you look at your budget that says, “I am going to live simply and give sacrificially and help my church or missionaries know they can count on my giving.”
On what can we base such a faith promise? We have a good Father in heaven who wants to give us good gifts. Are we asking Him? Does our giving depend on earthly math, or as Selwyn Hughes puts it, divine mathematics.
This was my favorite line from today. When we give this way it creates “a capacity to believe beyond human understanding and an awareness of God in personal dealings that has to be experienced before it can be believed.”
Or as I like to say, “You don’t figure it out until you live it out.” So what will you do? You have an unimaginably good Father in heaven. He wants to give you good gifts to enjoy and share. Will you ask Him?