I realize that I really don't even need to mention this to you, about helping God's people. For I know how eager you are to do it, and I have boasted to the friends in Macedonia that you were ready to send an offering a year ago.  In fact, it was this enthusiasm of yours that stirred up many of them to begin helping.

But I am sending these men just to be sure that you really are ready, as I told them you would be, with your money all collected; I don't want it to turn out that this time I was wrong in my boasting about you. I would be very much ashamed - and so would you - if some of these Macedonian people come with me, only to find that you still aren't ready after all I have told them!
(2 Cor. 9:1-4 TLB)

Here Paul is saying to the believers in Corinth that he has boasted of them to the Macedonians, emphasizing how eager they were to give to help God's people. He even says that it was their enthusiasm that had motivated the Macedonians to make their generous freewill gift.

Now Paul wants to make sure that when he comes to collect the Corinthinans' offering, it will be there because they have followed through on their good intentions and fulfilled their promise. He wants to make sure that they have finished what they started.

I Can Just Hear Paul Saying…
So in the past, I have asked other brothers to arrive ahead of me to see that the gift you promised is on hand and waiting. I want it to be a real gift and not look as if it were being given under pressure.

But remember this - if you give little, you will get little. A farmer who plants just a few seeds will get only a small crop, but if he plants much, he will reap much.

Every one must make up his own mind as to how much he should give. Don't force anyone to give more than he really wants to, for cheerful givers are the ones God prizes.

God is able to make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more, so that there will not only be enough for your own needs, but plenty left over to give joyfully to others.

Notice: Paul says that if we give, God will give us everything we need, and more, so we will have enough for our own needs and plenty left over to give joyfully to meet the needs of others.

That's the way God always operates. That is what He told Abraham in the first place: "Serve and obey Me, and you will be blessed, and will be a blessing to everyone else."

You see, God's Covenant with us is twofold. If we are willing and obedient to Him, He has promised: first, to bless us personally, and, second, to make us to be a blessing to many, many others.

This means that as God's blessings come upon us and overtake us, then we are able to pass those blessings on to meet the needs around us. We are not to be selfish with God' blessings. They are given to us so we can be a blessing to others in need.

An Instument of God's Divine Favor
So then, the expression "to be a blessing" actually means to be an instrument of God's divine favor. As I illustrated, it is such a blessing to be chosen to administer God's divine favor in the life of another person, preventing misfortune or catastrophe. There is no greater joy known man.

How wonderfully God has already blessed us, simply by choosing and anointing us to serve as His instruments of blessing to the world.

The problem is that so many people do not understand this principle. They think they should be blessed of God for their own sake alone, just to get their own needs met. They are only too happy to hear that they will have plenty left over - but for the wrong reason; they think it is to be used to satisfy their own selfish desires.

As we have seen, that is not God's plan and purpose in blessing us.

It is selfish and unscriptural to pray and expect God to provide just enough to meet our own personal needs. It is even more selfish and unscriptural to pray and expect God to provide us wealth and riches to consume upon our own lusts.

If you and I are going to be totally unselfish and truly scriptural, we must desire, pray and expect to receive from God not only enough to meet our own needs, but plenty left over so that we can give joyfully to help somebody else.

That is God's plan. That is the Covenant.

Source: How God Supplies Your Every Need by Jerry Savelle
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers