When you go to a doctor for your annual check-up, he or she will often begin to poke, prod, and press various places, all the while asking, “Does this hurt? How about this?”

If you cry out in pain, one of two things has happened. Either the doctor has pushed too hard, without the right sensitivity. Or, more likely, there’s something wrong, and the doctor will say, “We’d better do some more tests. It’s not supposed to hurt there!”

So it is when preachers speak on financial responsibility, and certain members cry out in discomfort, criticizing the message and the messenger. Either the preacher has pushed too hard, or perhaps there’s something wrong. In that case, the one who is in pain is in need of the Great Physician because it’s not supposed to hurt there.

“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”–2 Corinthians 9:7.