Giving (from Money for women only)

We started off Thursday morning's session with an object lesson. I'll have to describe it here, but know it was way better in person. :)

Each person had a card (or two or three) with a budget item written on it and a corresponding dollar amount. Two women (who claimed to be pretty good at math) volunteered to act as the married couple who would be making the budget decisions. I acted on the behalf of God, and another woman (who had the taxes card) acted as the employer.

So, pretending that I was God, I handed over $1,000 cash (real money) to the employer to give to the couple. She did this and in turn, the couple was forced to pay their taxes of $100. (We may never actually have that money in our hand because it is taken out before the check is deposited into our accounts; however, we DO receive the gross amount but immediately pay our taxes and insurance and our 401K contributions, etc. and it is ALL considered our income.)

Next, some of the women held up their cards for the couple to decide which bills to pay--like cell phone, eating out, entertainment, home decor, etc. Not all of the women were paid, so we went to the next set of women who held up their cards. These were items like debt, insurance, maintenance, etc. Again, not all of the bills were paid--the couple was wisely waiting to see what else they would be required to pay. So the third group of women raised their cards to request payment. These included mortgage, food, electricity, clothing--the necessities, and once several of those were paid, I raised my card--the tithe of $100.

At this point, the couple had about $170 left in their hands and had several other bills that had not been paid. It was a struggle to decide what to do, and our couple eventually came to the decision that they would give the whole amount, $100, to God, even though very little money was left to pay for debt and some of the other bills.

The question then came, "How difficult would it have been to pay the tithe if I had raised my card first instead of at the end?" Waiting until the end of the month to see if there would be money left to give to God is actually CAUSING us to not give. If we give the first 10% to Him right off the bat, we are able to make decisions to pay the bills with the 90% that's left according to the priorities of necessities first, wants and luxuries after that--and sometimes the bills don't ALL get paid, but as time goes on and we are obedient in giving and spending and saving wisely we are able to have money at the end of the month and then some.

(Using cash in hand actually makes a big difference when you're making spending decisions.)

To the rest of the lesson:

Last week I shared with you the principle that God has a job with respect to our finances and you have a job as well. God is 1) the Owner of everything, 2) He is the Provider of everything and 3) He is the Ruler of everything--our job is to be faithful managers of everything he puts in our possession. When we stick to our job and don't try to take on God's responsibilities, we experience a great deal of peace and freedom!

Now we understand that everything belongs to God--in 1 Chronicles 29:11-12 we studied what David had to say as He praised God for the provision to build the Temple and the role God plays as the owner, provider and ruler. Okay, so what do YOU have that belongs to God? What about your checkbook? Savings account? IRA or 401K that may be in the dumps right now? What about birthday money?

How different is a paycheck in your bank account? Does God not own that too? Does He not give instruction on that? Yes, He does, and we have to seek His word to find it because we have not been thoroughly taught.

Now I'm not here to crack down on you if you're not giving 10%. However, the "tithe" means 10%. If you're giving less than 10%, it's not a "tithe," it's an offering. If you're giving more than the "tithe," you're giving the tithe plus an offering on top of that and that is your choice. We START at the tithe as the baby step and then increase our giving as God leads us to do so. Pastor Keith has taught much on giving the tithe at the end of 2008, so I won't go into too much of this aspect of giving. I do want to bring to your attention a few things, though:

In Genesis 14 Abraham is the first person noted to give to a priest of God Most High. He gave a tenth of all the goods he recovered from his victory over the King of Elam. Not until much later, when Moses was give the Law after being freed from slavery in Egypt, were the tithe and freewill offerings required of the Israelites.

We do need to be careful not to become legalistic like the Pharisees in this--like the Pharisee in Luke 18 that when looking at the tax collector in the Temple said:

• "I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don't sin, I don't commit adultery. I fast twice a week and give you a tenth of my income." Luke 18:11-12

Jesus said, too, that "...you should tithe, yes, but you should not leave undone the more important things" like justice and mercy. (Matthew 23:23) He does not relieve us from our spiritual need to give to God the tithe merely because we are no longer under the Law. The tithe came about WAY before the Law, but we need to maintain a balance with giving and not forget to be merciful and kind, revealing the fruit of the Spirit in its many aspects: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Other kinds of giving:

Giving to the poor and the needy, the widows and the orphans is high on God's priority list. He is passionate about this subject and wants to use us to help fulfill their needs. We're just going to scratch the surface with this--with a couple of examples that we also touched on last week.

• Matthew 19:21 Jesus said to the rich young man who wants to know how to have eternal life, "...sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Jesus knew this man's heart. He knew that money was going to be the hard thing for him to give up to follow Christ. What does Jesus say to do with it? Give it to the poor--those in need.

• Matthew 25:31-46 talks about when you give food to someone who is hungry or give water to a person who is thirsty, or care for them when they're sick or visit them in prison--when you give to someone who is in need, you're really giving to Christ himself.

Now, let's turn to Acts 2:42-47. We see the early church right after Pentecost:

• "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Again, we see in Acts 4:32-35 more outpouring of this understanding that we own nothing and give to those who are in need:

• "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and mush grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."

Thus follows an example in verses 36 and 37:

• Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet."
  

This was not a command that all believers must do as the early Christians did. I don't believe they were giving up their own basic necessities so someone else could have them, but they were sacrificing maybe larger homes and downsizing, selling off land they did not need in order to bring in an income, possessions that had value that they truly didn't need. They took the money they received for the sale of these possessions, knowing that "what they owned was not their own," to make sure that no one was lacking any necessity (food, shelter, clothing).

This was not a command--they were not required to do this. They chose to do so.

Seems pretty radical, doesn't it? Now we're not called to live completely without, and we're not called to be materialistic either -- there is a balance that the Holy Spirit brings when we seek God out for our daily decisions regarding spending, saving AND giving. We have to start letting go of what keeps us from having that "eternal life" that the rich young man desperately wanted--that we truly want!

At this point, I asked Amie Johnson to share her testimony regarding giving and also on her experience after understanding the difference between God's job and her job as a steward or manager of God's money and possessions. Amie is one of our small group leaders and has led a study using the book Money, Possessions and Eternity and has a passion to see others set free in this area of their lives. (She did a wonderful job at sharing, but I will not include that here--you'll have to ask her sometime!)


**Our homework for the week was to begin recording expenses on our 30-Day Diary--to the last penny. I have included a link in the previous blog post you can click on to print off a copy of your own if you like. We also received the Financial Statement form or Net Worth Evaluation to be used with the information taken from the Inventory we filled out last week. There is also a take-home Bible study sheet for this week that I can e-mail to anyone who would like to request it. (I'm still trying to figure out a good way to post it here to make it that much easier for you to access.)