Tithing,
offering and giving part 2
Last week we learned the
difference between tithing,
offering and giving. Tithing
is the giving of 10% of your income to your local church that you are a member
of. Offering was that which is presented in divine service; an
animal or a portion of bread or corn, or of gold and silver, or other valuable
articles, presented to God as an atonement for sin, or as a return of thanks
for his favors, or for other religious purpose; a sacrifice. Giving is the bestowing of money, time or
something of value to you to someone else in need. I will try to answer, in this blog, how much we
should give to God. As Christians we
want to be obedient to God and honor Him.
We humans love to have rules, because we feel like we are doing what is
good and acceptable to God when we follow them. We also set up an unwritten
rule that God likes you more when you follow all of the rules. This is our default mode, to follow the rules
better than others and make God smile at me more than you. There is probably not an area in our lives
that we do not do this, but I will talk about the money part. First the idea that we give God money is
insane. It’s His money, which he gave us the intelligence, ability and
resources to acquire and manage it for Him.
God needs nothing, He is self-sustaining. God needs nothing from us, but
He lets us give, because He is a giver and made us in His image. When we are
giving it gives us a break from thinking about ourselves. Also
as far as the rules are concerned Jesus fixed that issue for us, He followed
all of them, perfectly, and we got the credit as if we done it ourselves and He
got the punishment that we should have.
When it comes to managing Gods money for Him,
it starts with the tithe. Our tithe
should be giving 10% of our income to our local church where you are a member. Yes I heard the next question, on the gross
or on the net. I would ask you the
question, what’s in your heart to give? Tim Keller states in his book Counterfeit Gods- ‘I’ll tell you why you don’t
see the tithing requirement laid out clearly in the New Testament. Think. Have
we received more of God’s revelation, truth, and grace than the Old Testament
believers, or less?’ Usually there is uncomfortable silence. ‘Are we more
‘debtors to grace’ than they were, or less? Did Jesus ‘tithe’ his life and
blood to save us or did he give it all?’ Tithing is a minimum standard for
Christian believers. We certainly wouldn’t want to be in a position of giving
away less of our income than those who had so much less of an understanding of
what God did to save them.
So where do we go from there? The tithe should be a starting point or the
minimum standard as Tim Keller states. He gave it to you to manage and gives
you a clue of what to do with the first 10 percent. If a Christian is sold out for the purpose of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, they will give up every endeavor and pour all of their
effort into it, worshiping Him. They would also manage their resources that He
gives us to manage into where He directs us.
Don’t get to upset none of us starts totally sold out for Jesus. Heck
Peter, the rock which the church was built upon denied Him three times. When
we are afraid of giving because we might need the money, we obey what our bank
account says. When we make money an idol we make it an ultimate thing. When we
put money in this position it becomes everything to us such as security, joy,
peace and comfort. We can fear because
we base our security on what we see in our bank account (idol.) As Dudley
Hall
stated, the best way to fight poverty is with generosity. Once you give a lot and see your security,
well-being, joy peace and comfort is not in your money you can give and not
worry. If you have a clinched fist with
your money, none can get out, but none can get in either. Remember, if you have not met the mark in
your giving, Jesus met it and you get the credit for it. This doesn’t mean that we do what we want
with His money and resources. If God has done a work of grace in your life and
your relationship is growing with Him you will want to give not because you
have to because you get to give. We get to give something acceptable to God
because Christ death burial and resurrection made it acceptable to the Father. So
never let your lack of giving make you think God is not going to bless you
because you are not following the rules.
I don’t care how much money you get none of us will ever receive
anything close to what Jesus gave us. With that said I think God has fulfilled
Malachi 3:10. As far as the most famous question in tithing, do you give off of
the gross or the net, the answer is give it all for the gospel! Although this
takes time for us to let loose and live our lives this way, we are always a
work in progress. The deeper our
relationship with Christ the more he opens our eyes to see more of what He has
for us. My eyes need opening more, and
He loves us too much to let us stay the same.
So start where you are, give and
enjoy your life because all of your debt to God is paid in full. He saved us from Him to Him. We can now live without fear and enjoy
participating in subduing the earth. Let’s
give all we can and keep seeking Him and learn to enjoy what He has done, and
what He is going to do.
Tim West
