Leaving it up to, giving it up!

The Bible talks about hell being under our feet. In the Old Testament, the earth tore open and swallowed a whole family, tent and all! Good thing we have Jesus as our Atonement, and we don’t have to fear being swallowed into hell for misbehaving anymore.

The Bible also speaks of heaven being “above us”. God’s voice came from the clouds, and Jesus ascended into the clouds to join His Father.

I have been fascinated by the idea of sacrificing or “giving up” things for quite a while now.

What are the things we “give up”?

Good things or Bad things: We generally give up bad things like cigarettes, swearing, and un-forgiveness.

My thought was, “why don’t we rather give it down?” I think the devil deserves to get all our bad habits!

This was my conclusion: We can try to give our bad habits to the devil, but he just wouldn’t take it… It is one of the few things that he would rather give to us.

“Giving up” and “sacrificing” is the same thing. We sacrifice our offering of money, to God, because if we don’t, the Bible warns us that “the love of money” can become “idol worshipping”, just as drinking wine out of control can become alcoholism. We know that we do not have to necessarily own a lot of alcohol to be an alcoholic. Just the same, you don’t have to have a lot of money, to be a lover of money.

Giving up our offering of money, (besides sowing seed), is our insurance policy and heart inspection, to keep our addiction or idol worship of mammon in check.

How do you know you are in check? Ask yourself this: “am I a cheerful giver?”

2 Corinthians 9:7 AMP

Let each one give as he has made up his own mind and purposed in his heart, not reluctantly or sorrowfully or under compulsion, for God loves (He takes pleasure in, prizes above other things, and is unwilling to abandon or to do without) a cheerful (joyous, "prompt to do it") giver whose heart is in his giving.