I know it doesn’t take much creativity on the part of the giver, but I don’t mind getting money for my birthday. I love money. That can be a problem since Paul told his young protégé that money is the root of all evil. That’s not right, is it? The love of money is the root of all evil. I love to spend money on myself. I do enjoy spending on myself, but that joy is short lived. When I expend my life on others and spend my resources (time, talents, treasure) on others, I find that life is much more enjoyable.
What are the objects of your affection? What do you treasure? Any chance you would give it up because you have set your sites on something else? You can tell what a person’s priorities are by looking in their checkbook. You can also tell by looking in their calendar.
Time and money are extremely valuable assets. Don’t you find it interesting that with all this technology, we don’t have enough time with the ones we need to make time for? All of what we have is supposed to help us save time and money, but it doesn’t. We start to realize that there may be better ways to spend our lives than on ourselves.
A friend of mine went to help pack and hand out turkey dinners this past weekend. Another friend takes his Saturdays to reach out to Arab Americans in east Dearborn. Another friend calls women to find out how she can pray for them. Some kids in our church save a portion of their allowance to give to God. Some guys I know spent many of their evenings making sure a young family had a working bathroom.
All of these examples are what Paul would call a living sacrifice. He wrote, “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1-2)
Wait a minute, I thought worship was gathering together on Sundays, singing praises and listening to the Word of God. It is. But worship is much more. It’s how you live your life and what you live your life for.
What do you have your sites set on? What are you looking at? What are you spending your life doing? Whenever you give whatever you give, keep in view what He gave up for you.
johnny aho 
Jesus quoted Hosea 6:6 twice (Mt. 9:13 & 12:7), “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice”. The examples cited demonstrate “mercy” of Jesus as well as a “living sacrifice” of Paul.