DON'T FORGET THE AND

When I started school I was a good little boy.   I was far from perfect but I never retaliated when I was punched and laughed at by other boys.  History confirms that the more someone is fairly innocent the more they are persecuted.  This was absolutely true of the Lord Jesus because He was the only human being who never did anything wrong.

As Jesus grew older, His persecution increased from verbal to vicious.  One day they sent spies who pretended to be righteous.  They flattered Him and said how they knew he had no personal favourites but showed people the way of God in truth.  Then they fired at Him their trick question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  Immediately Jesus saw through their craftiness and said, “Show me a penny, whose image and inscription does it have?”  They replied, “Caesar’s.”  Then He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s!”  Immediately they knew they could not catch Him out and so they fell silent.  They realised they had sinned by forgetting the word and, therefore they had left God out of the picture. [ Matthew 22:15-22 ]

Caesar still represents taxes which we must pay, but today they remind us of car tax, council tax, water tax and many others.  To forget one tax can be serious but to forget to say, “And to God” and remember what we owe to Him can have infinitely serious consequences and keep us off the road to Heaven.

Finally the Bible teaches us that we actually do owe God a tenth of our financial income.  Today millions around the world still pay this tax which fuels the work of God and adds blessing to the givers! [See Malachi ch 3 v 8-10 ]