THE LOVE OF GOD IS NOT RESIDING IN STINGY HEARTS:-- "But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" (1 John 3:17). One of the indictments against the Laodicean Church is its proud boast: "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing..." (Revelation 3:17). The reason why many professed Christians in the Laodicean Church today HAVE SO MUCH IS BECAUSE THEY GIVE SO LITTLE! -- and by this I mean they give so little in proportion to what they have. Jesus taught that the widows mite, being a tiny fraction of the gifts of others, was actually greater -- in proportion -- than all other gifts -- because she "cast in all that she had, even all her living" (Matt. 12:44). When one gives to God and to the needy, remember: God measures the size of the gift, not by how much you gave, but by how much you had left retained for yourself after you gave your gift.
In effect, St. John proclaimed that stingy souls have not the love of God dwelling in them, and St. James declared that such have a dead faith: "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; Notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone" (James 2:15-17). Thus we see that stingy souls are at once void of both the love of God and the life of God within them.
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