Picture this scenario; suppose you are a parent and have a teen daughter. She approaches you one day, telling you how great of a parent you are and how much she appreciates you. She tells you how good you look and how you look like you’ve lost weight. She gives you a hug and tells you how much she loves you. 

What would most likely be going through your mind? Most parents would appreciate the gesture but also quickly realize they are being buttered up. The daughter is laying on the compliments pretty thick because they are about to ask you something; maybe it’s money, or permission to go somewhere or use the car, or perhaps they are about to hand you their report card. 

As adults, we have a tendency to do something similar with God in the area of finance. We can incorrectly see God as the giant piggy-bank in the sky. We think that if we approach God just right and do or say just the right things, then God will give us whatever we want. He will give us the hopes, dreams, and desires of our hearts, whatever those may be. This is not only an incorrect way to approach God, but it can be dangerous to how we live out our God-given purpose. 

Here is a heart check question for you to ask yourself: Are you giving to get or do you get to give? 

This may seem at first glance like semantics, but it’s a complete 180-degree change in thinking. One puts us first and is ultimately based on selfishness. By giving to God simply as a means to get more for yourself, you are putting yourself and your own desires first, not God’s. You’re once again putting yourself on the throne, not God. You may not realize you are doing this, but it’s still happening. The very act of giving simply as a way to get more is an act of self-worship and a form of idolatry. As we know from scripture, this type of behavior is not looked upon with favor, and God will not let it stand. 

By comparison, receiving financial blessings with the intent to honor God and bless others around you flows out of a selfless heart, a heart that is aligned to God’s own. This heart puts God in his right place on the throne. These two examples, like Cain and Abel's offerings, may look similar on the surface, but in the spiritual sense are complete opposites to each other and could not be more different. This is what makes biblical generosity, tithing and offerings completely different from the prosperity gospel.

A major difference between these two sides of the question is where the blessing ultimately ends up. Does the blessing end with you? Or, do you always work to move the blessing of God to others in your world. When the blessing ends with you, when you are the end result of a blessing from God, this creates a clog in the supernatural pipes, and the blessing will soon dwindle to a trickle, then stop. But when the blessings of God flow through us, not to us, then the blessings of God will continue to flow through your life because you are directing that resource to where God wants it to go. 

The most blessed life we could live is not one where we hoard the blessings of God. But it’s a life in which we are faithful with what God has given to us, and we direct those blessings to where they can be most utilized. This is what it means to live a blessed life and leave a Godly legacy. Not that we collect and hoard all we can while we’re alive, but that we live life and are used as a conduit for the supernatural favor of God. 

Let’s be people who leave a legacy of not allowing the blessings of God to end with us!