Retain, save, budget are not synonyms for a secure future. To have a guaranteed future is precisely the opposite, which is give, spend, render, submit.
Didn’t Abraham have to give up his family and the safety of his land in order to be transformed into the generator of a nation, ensuring his future?
The law of surrender travels in the opposite direction to the thoughts and ideals of man. Mankind is programmed to store, hold on to, keep and save to guarantee their future. For any natural person, saving is a synonym of old age, but in the Law of God, saving is synonym of loss, and loss is a synonym of win.
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16.25
The quality of the offering (surrender) guarantees the future of the offering giver; depositing it on the Altar is a secure and prosperous investment in the short, medium and long term, today, tomorrow and the day after that.
Bishop Macedo and Mrs. Ester are the latest examples we have, because one day they both decided to surrender, pour the little they had in an invisible Altar, because there wasn’t even an actual physical Altar, like we have today as a reference. Like Abraham, who walked into an invisible place, where he began his surrender.
Bishop Macedo and Mrs. Ester’s surrender guarantees that they will grow old together, surrounded by love, affection, attention and care. Many wish to give them a glass of water, others dream of presenting them with something that will bring them joy, others pray for them and all of their family…
The bishop’s three children cannot guarantee he will have everything when he is old, they cannot guarantee he will receive the care and attention he needs in the future, but his surrender guarantees all this and more. How many people invest their entire life into their children, but now find themselves alone? Nursing homes are full of elderly people that have children.
If Bishop Macedo kept his old job, he and Mrs. Ester would now be living an apparently stable life, but they would be alone because their children would be caring for them from afar. But, due to his surrender, the Universal nation was born and, with it, millions of children that will always support them.
And this is not because of the weight of his name or because he is the physical owner of an enormous institution! The world is full of lonely mega billionaires that not even their children can put up with them, and others will only do something for them if they’re paid. If they ever lose their fortune, they will also lose these friends. When you surrender your life, you receive everything you need. The offering does not allow the offering giver to experience loneliness.
The offering multiplies us!
Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. John 12.24
Regarding the act of surrender, God does not know any number other than 100. Giving 99% is equal to zero for Him; 10%, 20%, 50% do not exist when it comes to giving. It’s all or nothing. God does not understand the language of 99%. Either it’s 100% or nothing.