Financial giving principle #3

3.  How you manage your money is a lens into the condition of your heart.

Matthew 6:21 (ESV)

²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

It makes sense right?  Where a person invests himself shows what he loves most.  Time is one way we invest in something.  Take sports for example, we invest time in watching, playing, reading and talking about the sports we love.  But if you think about it, it's very difficult to invest time into something for very long without eventually investing money into it as well.  Before too long we are buying tickets to games, getting the sports cable package, paying to get in a league, buying new equipment, etc.  Or take for example dating.  You find someone you are interested in and you begin to spend time with that person.  The more time you spend with them the more you being to invest financially into that relationship.  Why? Because simply going to the park and hanging out talking isn't enough.  You want to go on a date, get dinner, go to the movies, get them a gift, etc.  Before you know it, you are buying them a ring and a house.  It's a natural progression that Jesus is saying shows your passions.  Neither a love for sports or relationships are wrong by any means.  They are just simply to be very secondary to our pursuit and love for Jesus.   He isn't our hobby - "I'm a musician, love art, fix cars, follow Jesus, etc.”  Rather, your identity as a follower of Jesus encompasses everything you do as a musician, artist and mechanic.  This mission of God defines those hobbies where you live and act within them as a child of the King seeking to bring redemption to those spheres of life.  Let’s be honest, simply going to church is a pretty lame hobby…and Jesus teaches us that our money reveals much about our motives and passions.

Financial giving principle #2

2. God wants your heart before he wants your money.

2 Corinthians 8:5 (ESV)

⁵ They gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.

Most Christians have a bent toward religion (God accepts me because I obey him).  There is a great danger here especially when it come to giving financially to the local church.  If we are not careful, we'll view it as buying God's favor (literally), which will breed begrudging submission, rather than joyful obedience.  Joyful obedience always flows out of unearned favor wrought through the finished work of the Son of God in his righteous life, perfect death and fulfilling resurrection.  Naturally we just want to give God some of our money so he'll "get off our back" and then we can do whatever we want.  That natural tendency says, "God be my savior, but I'll be my own lord."  But God's got something so much bigger and better for us.  He says, "I want to be your savior AND Lord" and how you handle your money, specifically in your giving to the local church, indicates whether he is your God or you are your own god.

 

To the Praise of His Glorious Grace

Ephesian 2:5-8 is the motivation behind our series, Stories:The Grace of God on Display. I wanted to spend a bit of time laying out the thought that these verses give us.

First, your adoption is born in the grace of God. There is forgiveness and redemption that is a major part of everyone's story. That forgiveness and redemption is there because of the grace of God. Because gravity exists, you and I do not float away. Because gravity exists to extent that it does we do not ever so slightly float away. Because grace is exists, redemption and forgiveness are ours. We do nothing to earn gravity, we do nothing to earn grace. But our lives are a testimony to its existence.

Your adoption is to praise of his glorious grace. In other words, you are really jacked up and God still brings good out of you (REDEMPTION) and you are really sinful and God still loves you (FORGIVENESS). When this is put on display attention is brought to God who is the giver of this grace.

Our series seeks to bring attention to redemption and forgiveness that the grace of God has brought into the lives of people. Think about how this is true in your own life and tell someone about it.

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