KINGDOM GIVING

By Elwin Roach

Simon Peter...lovest thou Me more than these? Yea, Lord. Simon...lovest thou Me? Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee. Simon, lovest thou Me? Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. I will lay down my life for Thee." (Jn. 21:15-17, 13:37).

LOVE is no doubt the word most commonly used in all languages, yet it seems to be the least understood.

Love is -- a bringing forth from the depths, from the very root and foundation of life, and pouring its substance out upon the one who is loved. It is the loss of one's identity and the total abandonment of self for the sake of another. Where there is genuine love, there will always be seen genuine fruit of that love.

Try as we may, however, there can be no fruit of love, unless there is a root from which it may come. Jesus spoke of this principle when he said, "If you love Me, you will keep my commandments" (Jn. 14:15). In other words, If you have the root of Love for Me, you will bring forth the good fruit of love in your life with actions. Many words of love may proceed from our well-meaning lips, but it is not what we say that proves our love, or how sincere we might be -- it is the action of our daily walk. In other words, it is the walk of our talk.

There is a common denominator to any type of love; namely, the desire to love. Before one can love, he must first desire to love. Those who truly have a love for the King of kings had to first have a desire to love Him, and before their love could develop and be put into effect, they had to actually know Him. This is the only way to love anyone. The one loved has to be known; otherwise, the individual is only infatuated with an idea in his mind about the person. Having a desire to love opens one's heart to receive the seed. From there it grows and develops into the fruit of giving itself to the one which is loved.

There are numerous ways that love constrains us to give when we possess it: we can give our time, our thoughts, our money, our attention, material gifts; or simply put, we give ourselves -- period. This type of giving is not the product of a sense of duty, but is generated from a genuine desire to bless others. There is more joy in seeing others blessed than there is in possessing what we have. Giving out of duty is of the law -- which is better than being lawless -- while giving out of love is fulfilling the law.

There are at least seven things that motivate the average person to give of themselves: 1) Their CONSCIENCE (good or evil) compels them to give by making them pity those less fortunate. 2) Giving in order to IMPRESS and win favor of others. 3) They see it as a DUTY to a law. 4) They give as a result of CRAFTY MEASURES being used to manipulate the unsuspecting. 5) COERCIVE PRESSURES being applied by aggressive leaders. 6) FEAR of reprisal -- they fear what people might say or do if they don't give; or worse yet, they fear that God's unmerciful wrath might befall them. And 7) LOVE! And it is this one -- the greatest of all which constrains those who have a love for the King and His Kingdom to be cheerful givers.

In all the giving of time, money and efforts, few people lay it to thought that it is not vague things that they are giving to -- but tangible kingdoms -- but some do realize it, and they are becoming cautious of their giving. They are like David's men, now that they have signed allegiance to him, they have stopped supporting Saul in any fashion.

The casual observer generally sees kingdoms as being the nations of the world, and this is correct, but the ones whose eyes have been opened to spiritual perception know there is a much wider range than this alone. Briefly, a KING-DOM is any realm where there is a ruler with subjects to rule over. When the word is broken down we have KING (RULER) and DOM (DOMINION), i.e. KING'S DOMINION or RULER OF A DOMAIN. The Hebrew and Greek words are basically the same. (Malkuw: dominion, rule; and Basque: royalty, rule, a realm. [Strong's]). In the simplest terms, wherever there is a ruling factor of any kind there is a kingdom.

With this we can see that our giving is almost always to a kingdom of some sort, and as already mentioned, the greatest motive for giving is that of love. We should not be deceived into thinking, however, that just because we are giving out of love that it is necessarily a good thing -- for our love may be grossly misguided.

It matters not what we love, if we love it, right or wrong, we will give ourselves to the spirit, to the ruling factor, to the king, which rules over that kingdom. If it is good things we love, then to good kingdoms we will be giving; and if it is the bad things we love, it will be to lesser kingdoms that our lives will be given. If we have a burning love for sensual pleasure, then it is the sensual kingdoms which will get our attention. If it happens to be sports, we will find ourselves giving every spare minute to that kingdom. When one is consumed by such a kingdom it is nothing for them to travel seven or eight hundred miles to see twenty-two grown men butting heads in the middle of a cow pasture for a couple of hours; and all this while sitting in a sub-freezing snow storm. Or they will do the same in sweltering heat to see which team of nine men can hit a little round ball the farthest. What people won't do for the love of kingdoms! It is really amazing, isn't it?

Excerpts from FOR THE LOVE OF KINGDOMS