Giving

13
Mar
2023

Practices for Handling Money

Before I talk about Biblical practices for handling money, read the previous blog “Principles for Handling Money” here.  That blog describes heart attitudes toward money, and a right heart is the foundation for right practices.  Everything I say here presupposes what I said there.  If you understand what a right heart looks like, what does that heart do with money?  I will cover financial practices in multiple blogs, but for now, here are three.

Give Sacrificially:  Giving may be the single most important thing you do with your money.  Whatever your income, you can give something.  And you need to give something, not just for financial reasons but because giving is healthy for your soul.  Giving is how your soul lets go of money.  Giving is the best way to combat greed. 

A heart that wants to follow Jesus sees the goodness, the necessity, and the benefits of giving and embraces it.  A heart that cares little for Jesus will hold onto what is mine, mine, mine. 

God will not require everyone to give the same amount or even the same percentage, but He will require everyone to give. 

Giving needs to be a sacrifice.  The billionaire who gives millions hasn’t made a sacrifice.  Your giving should cause you to go without something you would otherwise have if you did not give. 

For more on giving go here and here.

Live Within Your Means:  This practice deals with spending, and because it deals with spending, it deals with your lifestyle.  Don’t try to live a lifestyle you can’t afford.  If you can afford only a one-bedroom house, don’t buy a three-bedroom house.  If you can afford only a 600 square foot apartment, don’t rent a 1200 square foot one.  Don’t go on a vacation you can’t pay for or buy a new car when you can afford only a used one.  All these choices are lifestyle choices, and all these choices deal with spending. 

How you handle money impacts your lifestyle.  You may not be able to live like everyone around you or like the happy people in the commercials. 

Instead you must live within your means.  This practice is a contentment issue.  People who are content with what they have live with what they have.  If you think you should have more, you will face pressure to spend more, whether you can afford it or not.  If you believe you need what you do not need – a bigger pickup, a cabin at the lake, more entertainment, whatever – then you will spend what you can’t afford.  Such spending is fundamentally a spiritual problem that has caused a financial problem. 

You must live within your means for multiple reasons.

First, doing so prevents financial disaster and debt. 

Second, doing so frees money for God’s kingdom.  Most people who do not live within their means do not give.  They don’t think they can give because they think they need more money just to meet their “needs.”

Third, doing so removes the stress from wanting more money.  When you desire more money, you are never content or grateful.  You are stressed. 

Fourth, doing so removes the stress from being unable to pay your bills.  People who do not live within their means can postpone the day of financial reckoning by taking on debt or finagling money from family or friends, but sooner or later they will meet this wall. 

Fifth, doing so helps your soul because it causes you to let go of earth and to say no to pleasures you might want.  Jesus said you must deny self and take up your Cross and follow Him.  God never intends dying to self to be merely an interesting philosophy.  He intends you to practice it, and sometimes He gives you less money than you would like so you can practice it. 

Sixth, doing so helps grow you in self-control and discipline.  The woman who buys the new clothes she can’t afford lacks self-control and discipline.  The woman, however, who wants to eat out every day but who packs a lunch and eats at home builds her self-control and discipline.  Living within your means helps you control money instead of letting money control you.

Seventh, doing so is more honest.  When you live a lifestyle you can’t afford, you pretend to be someone you are not.  You are living a lie.  Your life is just a show. 

If you are content in Christ, you will live within your means.  Pursue Christ.  Love Christ.  Enjoy Christ.  Your spending will then follow your heart. 

Avoid Get-Rich-Quick Schemes:  Earn $10,000 a month working from home . . . Double your income with a phone call . . . How I became a multimillionaire in one year! 

Ads like these are everywhere, and they appeal to the person who wants to get rich.  Ignore them.  These schemes are problematic on multiple levels.  They promote greed, sow discontentment, and focus on self.  They highlight money, increase your anxiety, and push you to trust the wrong source for your provision.  From this perspective alone, get-rich-quick schemes are toxic for your soul.  Avoid them.

But these schemes are also problematic from the perspective of dollars and cents.  Most of these schemes are scams.  They promise a downpour but deliver a desert.  More often they take more than they give.  Thus, in most instances, they will make you poorer as you pursue a dream that makes you more miserable. 

Get-rich-quick schemes are, thus, foolish because they rob your heart and your pocketbook.

Instead of looking to get rich quick, try looking for some good work.  Be faithful, responsible, and full of integrity in your work, and live within your means.  This mentality will be healthier for your soul and better able to provide the needs for you and your family. 

People who have the peace of Christ have no desire to get rich quick.  Those, however, who desire to be rich fall into all sorts of problems (I Tim 6:9). 

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments
17
Aug
2021

Practical Issues of Giving

The previous blog on giving laid a foundation, and that foundation involves a right heart.  Now let’s build on the foundation.  Some principles for practical giving.

Give Everything

Sometimes when we talk about giving, people think only about money.  This is a mistake.  Some people are merely one-dimensional givers.  They will write a check or tithe online, then wipe their hands and live the rest of their lives for themselves.  They may consider themselves givers because they gave some money, but Biblical giving involves much more. 

When your heart belongs to God, you give Him everything.  Don’t give just money.  Give your time to God’s kingdom.  Give of your home, your car, and your skills to help the needy, to build the church, and to advance the gospel.  Everything you have should be in God’s hands to use as He pleases. 

Give Sacrificially

When Jesus was at the temple watching everyone put their gifts into the collection box. He claimed that the poor widow’s two coins were a greater gift than the gifts of all the others, “for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” 

God does not measure giving in dollars and cents.  He measures giving by sacrifice.  The greatest givers are not necessarily those who give the most money but those who give up the most in order to give.  The charitable foundations of the rich make the headlines, and people applaud the millions of dollars they give, but the givers behind those foundations still live their plush lifestyles.  In the end, they have given little. 

Your giving should impact your lifestyle.  I’m not saying that we must live in poverty in order to give properly, but I am saying that sacrificial giving is a sacrifice, and when you sacrifice, you go without things you would otherwise have.

The story of the poor widow addresses specifically the giving of money, but the principle Jesus mentions applies to other types of giving as well.  Give sacrificially of your time and skills and resources.  If you do, you will have to sacrifice not just material comforts but activities you might otherwise want to do or personal desires you might otherwise have.  Maybe you cannot attend a concert you would like to attend because you are busy teaching some women the gospel.  Maybe you have to sacrifice your desire to sleep in order to pray or you have to miss a meal in order to help someone.  Giving sacrificially can involve all of these examples.  But whatever it involves, it will change how you live. 

Give Now

I have had many people tell me that they want to give to God’s work but can’t because they are not financially able.  But one day when they have money – then they will give.  They misunderstand giving.  They think the main part of giving is the money. 

People who put off giving until a time when they have enough money rarely give, for when they get more money, they still don’t have enough.  I think again of the poor widow at the temple.  If she had put off giving until a future time, she never would have given at all. 

Giving is not for the future.  It is for now.  People who talk about how much they would give if they had the money are not typically givers.  Givers are people who give regardless of what they have.  And they rarely talk about it.  They just do it.  And they do it now. 

Giving is Good for You

Giving is medicine for the heart.  Jesus talked a lot about money and possessions because they are powerful forces.  They will steal your heart if you are not careful.  The most potent antidote to the love of money is to give it away.  When we give, we let go.  God wants us to hold on tightly to Jesus, not to our stuff.  Giving is, thus, one of the most freeing disciplines a person can practice.  It frees your heart from slavery to this world.  

I remember talking to the dad of a person in our church.  This dad was not a Christian and was angry that his son tithed to the church, and the dad challenged me about it.  He said, “Why do you have to give to God?  God doesn’t need your money.”

I replied, “You’re right.  He doesn’t need my money, but I need to give for the sake of my soul.  I give partly because it is good for me, not because I think God somehow needs my money.”

Posted by mdemchsak, 0 comments
28
Jul
2021

Giving

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.  (II Cor 9:15)

Father, you have given me all I have.  Make me a man who gives to you all I have. 

God gives.  He so loved the world that He gave.  He saves by grace, and grace is a gift.  Eternal life is a gift.  Your own breath is a gift.  Food and home and friends are all gifts.  Forgiveness is a gift.  A new nature is a gift.  The Holy Spirit, peace and joy are gifts.  Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights.  God is not merely a giver but a lavish giver.  He gives exceedingly and abundantly above all that we could ask or think. 

God is a lavish giver because He is a lavish lover.  God gives because He loves, and He gives lavishly because He loves lavishly.  Love gives.  The more you love, the more you give.  When a man and woman love each other, they give themselves to each other in marriage for life.  No greater love is there than to give your life for your friend.  God loves us so deeply that He has given His life for us.  He now asks us to give our lives for Him. 

If we do not love God, we will not give our lives for Him, but when we love Him, we give everything for Him.

The Christian life is a life of giving.  Christ calls people to lay down their lives and follow Him.  It’s expensive.  You have to give Him everything.  If you don’t want to give Him everything, don’t follow Him.  If you want to give Him everything but find it hard . . . well . . . me too.  Come join me and let’s walk this path together.  It may be hard, but it’s full of joy and freedom.

Typically when we think of giving, we think of money and possessions, and, of course, giving certainly involves money and possessions, but Biblical giving is so much more.  Biblical giving begins with the heart.  To God writing a check without your heart in it, is a bit shallow.  The heart is the foundation to giving, so let’s lay that foundation.

Here are some principles that are part of the foundation for the type of giving that God wants from us.  No particular order.

Understand where everything comes from.  Do you have a family?  God gave it to you.  Do you have a job?  God gave it to you.  Your bank account, your home, your education, your time, your ability to play the piano, your skill with numbers or words, your compassion?  God gave them all to you.  Is there any good thing you have that God did not give you? 

The Christian must understand deep in the heart that everything he has came from God.  We cannot give what we do not have, and we have because God first gave.  We love because He first loved us, and we give because He first gave to us.  Everything we give originated with God.  A father gives his child spending money.  The child takes some of that money and buys a gift for his father.  The child thus gives to his father what his father had first given to him.  Christian giving is like this. 

The person who best gives sees that everything he has came from God.

Understand that everything we have is by grace.  This principle relates to the one above but focuses on something different.  The first principle states simply that God is the source of every good thing in our lives.  This second principle focuses on merit.  It’s not just that God is the source; it’s that we do not deserve any of the good things He has given.  You have air to breathe and water to drink, but you did nothing to deserve such.  In Christ, you have forgiveness and peace, but you did not deserve them.  You have a thousand blessings at your right hand, and you have done nothing to earn them. 

The Christian who sees his heart knows that he deserves nothing.  And yet God has given us everything.  This is grace.  You have work by God’s grace.  You have a family by God’s grace.  You have a home by God’s grace.  You have a clean heart, a renewed mind and a new nature by God’s grace. 

Sometimes the rich and powerful receive gifts because they are rich and powerful, and people court their favor.  But God does not need your favor.  He gave to you when you were lowly and poor.  You were nothing but He gave you life.  You were naked but He clothed you.  You were hopeless but He gave you hope. 

Christians sometimes think that salvation is the only thing they have received by grace.  This could not be further from the truth.  Everything we have has come by grace.  This fact should affect our giving because it should touch our heart.  We should be grateful for what we have and not demanding that we receive more. 

The Christian who best gives is the Christian who sees that he deserves none of God’s good gifts. 

We need new hearts in order to give.  I suppose you do not technically need a new heart to write a check or to volunteer to lead worship.  Many who write checks have old hearts, and many who lead worship are merely performers.  But Biblical giving goes beyond externals.  If we are to give as God desires, we need new hearts, and these new hearts require God to make them new. 

Ask God to give you His heart.  The heart of Christ wants to give, and the heart of Christ comes only from Christ.  You cannot make yourself give.  You cannot clench your fists and will God’s heart.  You cannot change yourself.  Only God can do this.  So go to Him.  This is where giving is interconnected with everything else we have been discussing about walking with God.  Get your heart into the Scriptures, into prayer, into a Christ-honoring church.  Trust in the Cross and Resurrection, and lean on His Spirit.  Look to Christ for your new life.  When you do, and when He gives you a new heart, you’ll give – from the heart. 

Giving is grace.  This principle is different from the principle about grace above.  That principle says that what you have received is grace.  This one focuses on what you give. 

When Paul encourages the Corinthians to give, he uses as an example the churches in Macedonia.  He says, “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.”  Paul then describes the giving of those churches and  concludes with “ . . . see that you excel in this act of grace also”  (II Cor 8:1-7). To Paul, the giving that the Macedonian churches practiced was by the grace of God, and the giving that he encouraged the Corinthian churches to practice was also by the grace of God. 

When we give, we give out of the grace of God.  This principle flows naturally out of all the principles above.  The money, time, talents, and resources we have are by grace.  God gave them to us.  The very heart to give is also grace.  God gave it to us. 

All aspects of Biblical giving are grace.  God graciously gives us the resources, the ability, the heart, and the privilege to give.  Thus, when we give, we should be grateful. 

We must give ourselves before we give our things.  Paul says of the Macedonian churches, “they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us” (II Cor 8:5).  One of the biggest mistakes people make when they give is that they give only their things.  This sort of giving usually arises out of either legalistic motives – “I did my duty” – or a desire to feel good about ourselves – “see what a kind person I am!” 

In this type of giving, the self is still at the center.  We may let go of some money, but we haven’t let go of ourselves.  God wants so much more than your stuff.  He wants you.  He wants you to give Him yourself and not just some material goods.  Of course, when you give God yourself, He gets your stuff as well.  Giving God yourself is not a substitute for giving Him your resources.  It is the motivation and power for doing it. 

When it comes to giving, keep first things first.  Giving your resources is not first.  It flows out of a life given to God. 

Healthy giving requires contentment.  Godliness with contentment is great gain.  When we give ourselves to Christ, we have Christ, and if we have Christ, we have all we need.  We are rich.  In fact, we are richer than if we had merely a trillion dollars.  The Christian who sees this is content with what he has.  When we are content with what we have, we are freer to give.

If we are not content in Christ, we are not truly content.  We will always want something more, and when we want more, we tend to hold on to what we have or we give grudgingly.  Scripture says God loves a cheerful giver, and a cheerful giver is content.  Contentment is essential to Biblical giving.

The principles above focus on our hearts.  This is where giving begins. 

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