Exodus 35

21 and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved him came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the Tent of Meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments.

22 All who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought gold jewellery of all kinds: brooches, ear-rings, rings and ornaments. They all presented their gold as a wave offering to the Lord.

26 And all the women who were willing and had the skill spun the goat hair.

29 All the Israelite men and women who were willing brought to the Lord freewill offerings for all the work the Lord through Moses had commanded them to do.

The phrase "God loves a cheerful giver" springs to mind here. God does not want begrudging offerings, where we count out every penny that we give and hoard the rest. He wants us to give freely, with thankful and generous hearts and these verses just emphasise this for me as only gifts from those "who were willing" are required.

But the thing is, everything we have comes from God, so shouldn't we be giving it all to God anyway? After all, there is no point in storing up treasures on this earth, as we most certainly can't take them with us when we die. Yet how many of us do this? Keep a little back in our purse, in the bank account "just in case" or don't give anything because "we need it"?

It wasn't just a case here of one or two giving, the people here gave enough gold, silver, jewellery, and so on to enable the Tabernacle to be made along with all the sacred tools. They gave willingly because they knew their gifts were needed to build the Tabernacle, to equip it. They also gave of their time and their talents. Sometimes we are not asked to give financially, but to give of our time and skills, to use the gifts we have been given by God in His service, and this is such a privilege and joy. I think this kind of giving is no less important than financial gifts. After all, the church needs money to pay for things, but where would the church be without all the volunteers, the ones who clean the churches, make the tea and coffee, organise the worship, help out with the youth and the children, visit the sick and the elderly and so on?

So we need to give from a willing heart, whether it be money, time, or our skills, not because we feel obliged to, because everyone else is and we don't want to look mean, or because no one else is and we want to look good. God sees right through to our hearts, and knows why each of us is giving (or not).