Making is Greater Than Blessing
An Exhortation on Biblical Giving
"God wants to make you into the person that you're supposed to be more than He wants to bless you."
1 Timothy 6:3-5, 2 Corinthians 8-9
Special Exhortation
October 20, 2025
God's Primary Purpose
Making is Greater Than Blessing
God wants to make you into the image of His Son more than He wants to bless you.
He wants to make you in character, in action, in attitude, just like His Son.
"If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of truth who suppose that
godliness is a means of gain - from such withdraw yourself."
1 Timothy 6:3-5 NKJV
Two Wrong Approaches to Giving
- Those who give to get blessed
- Those who don't give because they're already blessed
Both miss God's true purpose in giving
Extreme #1: Giving to Get Blessed
- Giving out of need or desperation
- Treating giving as a transaction
- Expecting automatic financial returns
- Missing God's transformative purpose
"According to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, it's true - if you give, you will be blessed. But we don't give in order to be blessed."
God's aim is to make us more than it is to bless us, because there are blessed men today
who haven't been made by God and they're causing terror all over the earth.
We're already blessed. So adding blessings to you is not going to help you because
you've been blessed already. His goal again is to make you.
Extreme #2: The Laodicean Attitude
"You've said to yourself that you're rich and you need nothing. And yet because you've said to yourself that you're rich and you need nothing, you don't even realize that you're naked. There are things from Me that you need to buy that you haven't bought."
Revelation 2 (to the Laodiceans)
- Convinced yourself you have all you need
- Physical comfort leads to spiritual complacency
- Western church: richest but potentially poorest
- Freedom and resources can become spiritual blindness
The Trap of Self-Sufficiency
If giving is about blessing, and you're already blessed - why give?
If giving is about blessing and you're already blessed, then there's no reason to give.
The True Purpose of Giving
"God never asks you to do something just for you. God never asks you to give something just for the sake of telling you to do it. He's trying to make you just like Him."
- Look just like Him
- Walk just like Him
- Talk just like Him
Giving is a tool for spiritual transformation
Following Christ's Example
"Our motive for giving - not just of our time, but also of our treasure - is because Jesus first gave."
2 Corinthians 8
Jesus' Sacrificial Love
He gave knowing that there are people who won't give back.
He gave knowing that there are people who won't respond to the gift that He gave.
Who You Become By Giving
"As believers, our aim is Christ. And so even though sometimes giving makes no sense,
the point is not necessarily the giving as much as it is who you are becoming by giving."
- Your heart detaches from physical things
- You start to look at the Lord differently
- You offer what supposedly gives you life
- You become the person God is making you to be
Beyond Natural Generosity
"If we have peace that surpasses all understanding, if we have joy that is unspeakable,
and we have hope that is unlike this world, it only follows that our generosity
will be beyond anything that normally makes sense."
There's a way that people give sometimes as we see in Scripture - even when they don't have,
they still give. And in that generosity, they find themselves looking just like Jesus.
Our Goal
To Look Like Jesus
- Look like Him
- Walk like Him
- Talk like Him
"If there's anything in your life that will keep you from looking like Him,
it's those things that we won't allow to be modeled after Him."
What God Really Wants
He wants us to give our lives. He wants us to give our substance, not because
He's money hungry, but because He's hungry for you.
He's hungry for your life. He lives inside of you and He wants to have so much control
that when people see you, they say:
"That person looks just like Jesus."
"That person walks just like Jesus."
"That person talks just like Jesus."
A Living Example
Reverend David Kawala: He went from a small meeting to 14 congregations, that's 14 churches.
Why? Because he has an attitude of giving.
People who give - people who know how to give of themselves - the Lord looks for them.
He looks for them to use them, to place His hand on them.
The Call
Give Like Christ
Please, I want us to give. I want us to give - not out of coercion, not because
we're twisting your arm, but because God is on a mission
to make people look like Him.
- From giving our money...
- We'll give our time...
- We'll give our lives...
- And people will be blessed
Making is Greater Than Blessing
Our aim is not to be blessed, but to look like Christ
"God's primary purpose in calling us to give is not to bless us but to transform us into the image of Christ."
Harvest Intercontinental Church - Olney