Financial giving principle #1

This month is budget projection month and I want to put some more practical things in your hands about giving and what the Bible teaches about it. So throughout this week I will post several biblical principles about giving in the local church. Here's #1...

1. Everything belongs to the Lord in the first place.

1 Chronicles 29:14–16 (ESV)
14 “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. 15 For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. 16 O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.


Let's be honest, we know this but we just don't want to fully accept it and operate within it. Why? Because if God owns it, then he determines how it's managed, but if we own it we can determine how it's managed, right? On a fundamental level, we have a real problem with authority and fully submitting to Jesus. We must, by his grace, come to grips with the reality that He created everything, include us, and he has absolute authority and ownership over everything, even the money we worked hard to "earn."

Learning to trust Him with you,
Dave