Here's a great illustration:
Some years ago, there was a British farmer who raised livestock, and he had a cow who was pregnant. He was very happy about that, because he actually had enough livestock on the farm to produce the things he needed, and therefore, he was going to be able to sell that calf once the calf was born and grew up. He was going to sell the calf and make a tidy profit. To his joy, the cow had two calves … twins … which meant he was going to get twice as much money from the sale when he sold them.
He was very excited. He came in to his wife, and he had a sort of magnanimous moment. He says, “Honey, we are Christians, and we go to church, and you know what? When these two calves grow up and I sell them, I’m going to give half the proceeds to the Lord. Half the proceeds are going to go to the church. I’m going to sell the two calves, I’m going to get X amount of money, and the amount of money I get from one will go to the Lord, and the rest we’ll keep ourselves.” She says, “That’s wonderful. How spiritual.”
Several weeks later, he walks into the house very, very sad in his face. She says, “What’s wrong?” He says, “Oh, the Lord’s calf died. They got sick. The one got better, but the other one didn’t get better, and it died.” She says, “That’s interesting. I didn’t remember that we designated one of those calves to be the Lord’s.” He says, “Oh no. Almost from the beginning I said, ‘That’s the Lord’s calf right there,’ and that’s the one that died. What a shame.”
The point of the story is it’s always the Lord’s calf that dies. In other words, there are certain clothes we want to buy, there are certain vacations we want to have, there are certain trips we want to take, there are certain places we want to live, and that’s the priority. If we have enough money to give for charity and ministry, we will. If there’s a problem and we’re pinched, that’s where we take it out of. We take it out of the charity and ministry. Jesus says, “I want you to switch those. I want you to take it out of your own hide.”
