{"id":2565,"date":"2014-10-09T20:38:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T20:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?p=2565"},"modified":"2017-01-05T16:42:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T16:42:24","slug":"fish-symbols-and-generosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/fish-symbols-and-generosity.html","title":{"rendered":"Fish symbols and generosity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"6a00d83524c19a69e2011279660c7428a4-320wi\"<\/a>\u201cYou will be glorifying God through your generous gifts. For your generosity to them will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(2 Cor. 9:13 NLT).<\/p>\n

Some years ago I had a conversation with my son about his job at the car wash…<\/p>\n

“How did work go today?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cFine.\u201d He replied with his usual non-specificity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny tips?\u201d I asked (He made\u00a0most of his money on tips at the car wash).<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, some.\u201d He said. \u201cIt was a decent day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho gives the best tips?\u201d I questioned, hoping for a more inspiring dialogue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019ll tell you who doesn\u2019t tip.\u201d He answered. \u201cPeople with fish symbols on their car. They rarely, if ever tip!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re kidding.\u201d I said, hoping he was.<\/p>\n

\u201cNope. If you see a car roll in with a fish symbol, you can be sure they will be the most likely to complain about a spot we missed and also the most likely to stiff you on the tip.\u201d He stated in scientific fashion, like a researcher who had obtained disappointing results.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really irritates me!\u201d I exclaimed. \u201cPeople should either pull those fish off of their bumpers or start giving generously like the Lord they say they follow!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYep.\u201d My son replied, not seeing the need to add to my outburst.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0preparing for this week’s sermon, I remembered this “fish symbol” conversation.\u00a0As we continue our sermon series on The Seven Habits of Growing Christians, I think it’s important to know that one of the important habits for those who would grow to maturity in Christ, is the habit of graceful giving. Generosity is a mark of a mature Christian.<\/p>\n

Don’t you think it\u2019s time that Christians started being known more for their giving than their grumbling?\u00a0We should be the most generous \u201ctippers\u201d and gracious givers in the world!<\/p>\n

So,\u00a0let’s\u00a0either start giving generously like Jesus or let’s “reel” those fish in from our bumpers!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article is an edited version of a similar article I wrote in March 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou will be glorifying God through your generous gifts. For your generosity to them will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ\u201d\u00a0(2 Cor. 9:13 NLT). Some years ago I had a conversation with my son about his job at the car wash… “How did work go today?\u201d I asked. \u201cFine.\u201d He<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061,1,2062],"tags":[2069,2095,2035,2182,2070,2106,2052],"location":[],"class_list":["post-2565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs","tag-christ","tag-gary-combs","tag-generosity","tag-giving","tag-god","tag-grace","tag-jesus"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5031,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions\/5031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}