We'll read verses 1 through 8 of 2 Corinthians and then maybe you'll want to stick your

finger in there because when the message begins I'll be referring to these verses in some detail.

We want you to know, brethren, about the grace of God which has been shown in the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction

their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of liberality on their part.

For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor

of taking part in the relief of the Saints. And this not as we expected, but first they gave themselves

to the Lord and to us by the will of God. Accordingly, we have urged Titus, that as he had already made a beginning, he should also

complete among you this gracious work. Now, as you excel in everything, in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all earnestness,

and in your love for us, see that you excel in this gracious work also. I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness

of others that your love also is genuine.

Disinterested benevolence directed toward God is blasphemy.

If you come to God dutifully offering him the reward of your fellowship. Instead of thirsting after him for the

reward of his fellowship, then you exalt yourself above God as his

benefactor and belittle him as the needy beneficiary and that is blasphemy.

The only way to honor and glorify the all sufficiency of God is to come to him for the pleasure of knowing

and being loved by God. That was last week's servant, and we might have called it vertical Christian

Edenism. Between man and God on these and

between man and God on the vertical axis, the pursuit of pleasure is not simply tolerable,

it is mandatory.

Delight yourself in the Lord.

Man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.

But what about horizontal Christian

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