Sacrificial Living.

This is not something you hear about often. I probably would not have come upon it, but it was one of the many dreams God gave me this morning.

I dreamed I was in a large church (see Lee, you were dreaming!) and the pastor called me up to preach. The problem was that I had just overheard the youth pastor explain that they did not have the money to carry out a project. I looked around at the wealth of this church. The best of everything. They had it. Wonderful carpeting, beautiful seating, cavernous sanctuary-beautiful! And then the pastor called me out of the audience to preach.

I had a "prepared" message(perhaps another tipoff to the dream status!) But as I approached the altar the message I was going with became "altared"! The power of God fell upon me and I turned around and saw "rich" with no substance. I saw all the trappings and no "love".

I saw something else. These people for the most part were good, God fearing people. These weren't the pharisees of the age. But I knew that I was going to have a problem here.

I can tell you I started with a full sanctuary and had only a few when I was done. The change happened when I brought up the youth (could be any outreach that isn't "showy", I am sure.) and said I was sure it must cost a lot to run this out reach. I mentioned a figure of 50 kids times $4 and people began to leave. Just began to move out of their seats.

Brothers and sisters. Sacrificial living.

Luke 21: 1 And he looked up and saw the rich casting their gifts into the treasury;

2 but he saw also a certain poor widow casting therein two mites.

3 And he said, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow has cast in more than all;

4 for all these out of their abundance have cast into the gifts of God; but she out of her need has cast in all the living which she had.

There is an abundance that needs to be released into the church. Yes. The riches of the wicked are stored up for the just...but what if its our "wickedness" keeping a missionary from going, or a young person from Bible camp.

We don't like to talk about sacrifice in church. We like to talk about prosperity versus povert. Both have nothing to do with sacrifice. The scriptures talk about sacrifice hundreds of times.

I am all for prosperity-my Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills. But please let us seek the Lord as to what He would have us to give. What He would have us to do. God fills needs through people...you and I.