February 23, 2009 Giving

Have you ever heard the expression “too heavenly minded to be any earthly good”? I’ve used it myself—not about myself, however. Strangely, I’m not aware of anyone thinking that I was so focused on spiritual matters, so wrapped up in worship, that I was losing my effectiveness in the here and now, getting-down-to-nuts-and-bolts, nitty gritty level of existence. I need to work on that!

Of course with God, there is always a balance. Proverbs tells us that the weights and measures are His (Proverbs 16:11)…in other words, sometimes His balance looks, to the natural eye, out of balance, but that’s okay. We should not judge others, or even ourselves, when God is at work. He may indeed want an emphasis on one particular aspect of our life with Him that seems, to those observing, overdone, out of balance, “no earthly good”.

My husband David, for example, became a Christian about three years before we met. He’d been raised in the church, had “gone forward,” even been baptized, but there had never been a heart commitment or life change. When he experienced this in his twenties, there was such a thirst for God that he took a year off from work, immersing himself in Bible study and prayer. Family and friends may have been tempted to shake their heads at a young man in his most productive years, “losing” so much income, but that year provided an unshakeable foundation on which the Lord could build a dwelling place for His Spirit.

Currently, our church is involved in a teaching series on giving, stewardship, and the reality of our spiritual and (in comparison to the rest of the world) material riches. To someone just popping in for a random Sunday, there may be the temptation to say, “Oh, this is just the same-old same-old cry for money that all churches seem to have. Forget it!”

The reality is, our basic attitude toward money—is it ours to do with as we please or are we stewards, blessed by God and expected to behave responsibly with His riches?—is fundamental to our relationship with God. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). God wants our hearts to be right with Him—such an enormous price was paid for them—and it is apparently impossible for that to happen without a biblical view of money management.

In our formative years as Christians, we were privileged to be part of a church that emphasized generosity and giving. “You can’t out-give God” was heard frequently, lived out around us, proved time and time again in our own lives. The amount of money we were able to put into Kingdom service while raising four children on one income—the feast-or-famine income from construction in south Florida—without health insurance, even, was not possible when you wrote it out on paper, but with God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).

It takes a step of faith, especially if the concept of giving sacrificially is new, to trust God with “our” finances, but life with Him is simply one step of faith after another, isn’t it? Based on personal experience and more importantly, the word of God, I guarantee that you can life a better life on 90% of your income than on 100%. And by the way, that standard 10% tithe will only be the beginning. If you commit yourself to giving as God leads you to give, you will be blown away by what He does in you and through you.

Someone may even accuse you of being “too heavenly minded,” but they will be wrong. When we are obedient to God, our effectiveness on earth always increases too.