Before we talk about how to “what is God’s will for my life

Giving

When we talk about worship, we cannot avoid talking about giving, because giving is form of worship.

Giving or offering for that matter, however, is a sensitive subject among Christians. Many Christians are turned off by pastors’ urging to the members about giving.

What does the Bible have to say about giving?

The motives of giving

The concept of tithe is not new to Christians. Someone once asked me if he should give 10% of his gross income or of his net take home pay. One pastor friend of mine once said that I should respond to questions such as this one with “If you want gross blessings from God, give from the gross, but if you want net blessing, then give from the net.”

My response, however, would be “Do not give 10% of your income, but give all of your income.” WHAT? How can we give all? Let us be realistic. We still need a roof over our head and clothes on our back. How can we afford to give it all? Certainly, we do need money to live. As Zig Ziglar[1] once said, money is not everything, but it is only as important as oxygen.

First of all, it is not how much to give, but how you should give.

The motive of giving is a response to God's grace.

Two kinds of giving are talked about throughout the Bible: giving to the government which is obligatory as we know it, and giving to God, which is always voluntary. Today, we know what the consequences are if you do not pay the tax that you are supposed to pay to the government. IRS will be knocking on your door, and may even garnish your wages for back taxes plus fines.

Giving to God, however, is different. As I said, it is voluntary. Exodus 25: 2 says, “Tell the sons of Israel to raise a contribution for Me; from every man whose heart moves him you shall raise My contribution.” God did not command to give nor He required to give. But we are to give gladly and out of willing heart. “Then the people rejoiced because they had offered so willingly, for they made their offering to the LORD with a whole heart, and King David also rejoiced greatly” (1 Chronicles 29:9). We are to give whatever is in our heart to give gladly.

The offering, which is acceptable to God stems from a willing heart.

I may note here that even though it is voluntary, it is only voluntary in a sense that one is to give willingly. We as Christians are obligated to give. Worship, as we discussed, is an expression of awe, devotion, and love from His creature to the Creator. One aspect of this reverential disposition is to give.

At the same time, practically speaking, I am sure no one likes to sit in a church building that is leaking when it rains and hot during summer or cold during winter. Somebody has to pay for the utilities and repair the roof. Nothing comes for free.

Once there was important work to be done. Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

We all need to do our part in giving. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 16:2, “On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come.” This passage teaches us four principles in giving; we should give individually, regularly, methodically, and proportionately.

The measure of giving

OK, we understand that I as an individual must give, even though my mom or dad, or husband or wife gives, I still need to give. At the same time, I need to give on a regular basis, but still, how much should I give? What does the Bible say about how much to give?

The measure is according to one's ability.

I have a friend who gives exactly 10% of his income. I mean, he calculates right down to the penny and writes a check as soon as he gets paid. It is commendable that he gives to God before anyone else, but the way he does is quite peculiar. He gives exactly 10% of his net take home pay. Then once a year, when he does his income tax report, he figures out how much federal tax was withheld, how much state tax, Medicare tax and Social Security tax, plus any pre-tax 401K he contributed. He adds them all up and then multiplies it by 0.1. The product of that calculation is his 10% that he did not give out of his gross. He writes a check for that amount and gives to his church. And when gets any income tax refund, he keeps it all, because he gave 10% of his gross income. I asked him why he did not give 10% of his gross to begin with. His response was that it was more manageable financially for him this way. There is no doubt that he gives his 10%. But is that what God wants? His conscience may be clear, but I am not sure where his heart is on giving. It is not how much, but how willing you are to give back to God what is already God’s.

Give sacrificially

We have seen already that the motive of giving is a response to God’s grace and the measure of giving is according to one’s ability. Still it seems that it is not clear enough to leave the giving to the individuals to decide how much to give. Because if it were left to the individuals, the natural tendency is to give after all of the “needs” are taken care of, in which case, most people probably have not much, if none at all, left to give no matter how willingly they want to give. In Luke 21:2 and 3, Jesus tells us a model for giving. Jesus “saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, ‘Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on’” (Luke 21:2-4). Jesus points out two aspects of giving here. One is to give whole-heartedly. The other is to give sacrificially. The Bible admonishes us to “not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased” (Hebrews 13:16). Sacrificial giving pleases God.

I have a pastor friend who used to be a missionary in the Philippines. He used to be involved in campus ministry working with college students on one of the big universities in the Philippines. He knew quite a few students from overseas who came to the Philippines to study. Some of the students had to work to pay for their room and board. One day, one of the students and he were talking about Bible subjects and it was led to a discussion about giving. The student told the missionary that he sometimes has to skip a meal to give his tithe. My missionary friend told the student that if it meant for him to skip a meal to give his tithe, then he did not have to give exactly 10%. The student’s response was something like this: God gave His Son and His Son gave His life for us; skipping one or two meals a week is nothing; I need to what I need to do and that is to give what God gave me. Most of us who read this book probably do not know what it means to sacrifice. This student knew what it meant to give sacrificially.

Practical example

Many will say, “How can I willingly give when I don’t even have enough to pay for all my needs?” Let me illustrate how it is not so. I had a colleague who had a car payment. It was not a small amount. In fact, it was over $300 a month, he told me. The reason he told me was he was about to pay off his car. He was excited. He told me that this month’s payment and one more, he will have paid off his car. He also told me that he was going to save that amount every month and use it for next year’s vacation or something worthwhile. Several months later, I remembered about the conversation I had with him. So I inquired him about the car payment. He was glad that he owned the car outright, but told me that he had not been able to save the money, because he had other needs that arose causing him to spend that car payment amount. I asked him if there were some unexpected large expenses that had occurred. Realizing my concern for him thinking that there might be some financial problems, he assured me that it was nothing like it at all, but just miscellaneous expenses and eating out, etc. What is strange was that he had had “needs” arise all the time. Yet he managed somehow without being delinquent on any of his monthly car payments, but all of a sudden, he had to tap into what would have been his car payment for his miscellaneous needs. I personally know of people who pay $700 to $900 a month on two car payments and some pay that much for just one car. If you can be disciplined enough to do it for car payments, you can do it also.

It is all matter of what you want. Owning a car in most parts of America is not a luxury, but a need, but there are many kinds of cars. Would a Toyota ECHO, for example, meet your need for transportation? It certainly would, unless you have five children. Then why does not every one drive a Toyota ECHO? It is because of your wants and what you can afford. Do you want to give to God as you would to pay for a Lexus or a Toyota ECHO? It depends on your desire. You may not have the desire at this moment to give more than 10% of your income; let your desire grow. Most of the time, we rationalize by saying we really cannot afford to give more than 10% let alone even give 10%. Average Christian gives less than 5% of their income. I have a CPA friend who used to do personal income tax work. He shared with me how amazing it was to do personal income tax work for people who were involved in the cults. As far as charity giving was concerned, some of his clients who were involved in the cults gave on the average 20 to 25% of their income. Their giving was not spread across many different charity organizations, but always to their cultic organization. He would look at his clients’ giving statements and they were always from one organization. People who are involved in cults are usually deceived by the cults’ empty promises or their brain washing tactics; nevertheless, it is very peculiar how these people do not seem to have the same financial needs as the rest of us do. My point is here is not to praise the people who are deceived and involved in the cults, but to point out the priorities of our life. I know of a person who replaces his cars about every 18 months. Cars, it seems, is his passion. He has a fleet of four to five cars all the time in his possession. He washes all of his cars every Saturday morning and vacuums inside as well. It seems to me that his cars are his passion and priority of his life. Obviously, he spends quite a sum of money on his cars, especially replacing them every 18 months, losing a handsome sum of money on the depreciation of the cars, which is the greatest in the first three years. However, to him, it is probably not a matter of concern how he is paying the top dollar for his new cars and trading in his 18 months old car at a depreciated value because the satisfaction of owning new cars far exceeds the loss of the money he feels.

It is all about what you want. If your desire is not there in giving to God, pray about it and let your desire grow, and give sacrificially.

Disciplined giving

Giving is just like that. If you decided to give a certain amount as if you were paying a car payment, you will manage with the rest somehow. Set aside a certain amount that represents a sacrifice. Many people make sacrifices to make a car payment, because car is needed to provide transportation to work. It is deemed worth the sacrifice, because it is essential for job and food-shopping, etc.

At the same time, being able to set aside certain amount for car payment means that you are disciplined in that area. Giving to God is even more essential and must be done in a disciplined manner. Just as Jesus said, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's” (Matthew 22:21b). We need to give back God what belongs to God.

The practice of giving is to be done in a systematic manner with discipline.

Let’s say that you own several companies or several stores. For each store, you have a manger. For each manager, you do not have a salary that you have decided to pay. The term of the contract is that each manager can decide on their own pay. One manager may go out and find out what other store managers are paid and takes about the same amount for himself. Another one might pay himself quite a bit more than the average pay for his type of job. Then there might be other ones who may pay themselves almost all of the profit saying after all I worked hard and I made the money, so I deserve almost all of it, but will give some to the owner, after all he provided all the resources. Bible tells us that all we have is from God (Psalm 24:1), and we are entrusted managers of His money, His resources (Matthew 25:13-30). We decide what we need for ourselves and what we need to return to God. When you return God what is His, return a sacrificial portion back to him.

Second Corinthians 9, verses 6 through 7 give us a good guideline for our giving. “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Giving as an expression of devotion

The worship of giving is the concrete expression of devotion to God. When the wise men from the east worshipped the baby Jesus, their devotion was manifested in the form of gifts (Matthew 2:11).

God is not “served by human hands, as though He needed anything” (Acts 17:25a). God is, however, pleased, when we exhibit the spirit of generosity (Hebrews 13:16). As an act of adoration and devotion, motivated by the love of Jesus, we as Christians must give our gifts to God as an expression of devotion.

Parents must teach their children the principles of giving from their earliest years. Young people ought to be instructed as to how to budget their allowance or income. Every Christian with an income must express his devotion to God in the grace of giving (2 Corinthians 8:1-8).

Give and experience the joy of giving.

[1] Zig Ziglar, Christian author and motivational speaker