Word of the Week: Repetition
Some things only get easier with a lot of time and a lot of repetition.
A few weeks ago, I learned this really cool move in jiu-jitsu and I couldn’t wait to start using it. But whenever I tried it with other students, it just wasn’t coming together. So, my friend and I started staying after class and practicing this one technique over and over and over again. With each repetition, we’ve gotten better at it than we were before. And you know what happened last week? It finally worked! It didn’t work every time. It didn’t even work most of the time. But it worked more than it had ever worked before – and that’s progress.
We finished up our summer series on the Ten Commandments last Sunday with the commandment against coveting. Coveting is a desire for something that belongs to someone else and it’s not a sin we’ll kill easily. If we drive it out of the door, it has a way of creeping back in through an open window. But we aren’t defenseless. God has given us practices that help us grow in faithfulness and one that’s relevant here is giving. Giving is a powerful tool as we grow in faithfulness. As we make a practice of regularly giving our time, talent, and treasure, we get better at putting Jesus before them all.
When we usually discuss giving, we talk about what the church needs or what a missionary needs. Rarely do we talk about giving in terms of what you need. As Christians, you and I regularly need opportunities to put our covetousness to death. Like mastering a technique in any field, it doesn’t happen all at once. It takes repetition.
That’s one reason why we take up an offering during the worship service. The offering time isn’t just about funding the ministry of the church. We could think up other ways to do that which didn’t take time during the worship service. But we want to take time in the worship service, because giving is an act of worship. When we give, we come together and work at putting our covetousness to death. And with each repetition we say, “I want Jesus more.” Or, at the very least, we say, “I want to want Jesus more.” When we give things away, instead of feeding our fantasies of gathering more, we get better and better at being content. Brothers and sisters, that’s progress!