We Are Blessed to Give

I recently upped my tithing percentage and during the course of making that decision, I thought a lot about giving: why I give, what it means to me, what it means to God, and whether or not any of it makes any difference. I began to think of giving as one more method or opportunity to practice unselfishly the very act of giving itself. There is great value in the giving. For it doesn't matter so much how much we give of ourselves as it does the mere fact that we make a regular attempt to please God in the area of giving back to him and giving to others. As with any developing skill, the better we are at a particular talent, the more we'll enjoy doing it. The more we give the more we'll find we want to give. It's much like when an orchestra skillfully plays a beautiful masterpiece, and an accomplished musician, one who practices the art of music in some way, will gain greater pleasure from listening to the music than will a person with an untrained ear. You might be surprised to find that the same holds true for giving. A skill, learned and practiced, becomes more abundant and is more easily accomplished. It's intrinsic value increases.

In the Old Testament 10% of everything owned or conquered belonged to God. In the New Testament we come to understand that 100% of everything we own or have belongs to God. And God requires us to give and to give back to Him for a multitude of reasons. When you and I sacrificially give back money to the Lord, we are acknowledging that in reality everything we have, all our holdings and possessions and talents, actually belong to Him in the first place! We are merely returning what is not, and never has been, ours to keep (Ps 50:10). Giving is another opportunity to practice the skills and talents necessary to learn to give out of obedience (Ex 25:2). When we obediently contribute money to a ministry or reach out to help the needy, we are taking part in the work of God's kingdom and this gives us great joy. And our offerings are an opportunity for God to reveal His character in and through us. As we demonstrate generosity, He will faithfully provide for our needs and bless us in abundance (2Cor 9:8). The saying "You can't outgive God" proves to be true over and over again. Our sacrifices always bring blessings.

But giving involves much more that just money. God has blessed each one of us with time, talents, and resources ... along with plenty of opportunities to share them with others and we need to avail ourselves to each opportunity. It is important to obediently hold onto the Holy Spirit's guidance so we will know what, to whom, and how much we should give. Do we have a particular talent that God could use in His church? Music? Leadership? Missions? If we but stop and take the time, we will find that we have many areas in which we can practice giving sacrificially. Something as simple and unassuming as hanging around the doors at church and greeting people when they walk in or making it a point to introduce ourselves to someone we don't know is a talent given back to the Lord (Matt 25:44-45).

It is important for us to recognize that the Lord is continuously giving to us: comfort, salvation, breath of life, encouragement, and countless other blessings. Every moment of our lives is one blessing after another. We are indebted to Him and should give back, and not just out of a sense of obligation, the feeling that we are required to do so, but with true gratitude and joy. We give out of the abundance of our hearts that long to give even more. One real test of giving is whether we're giving out of our excess or whether we're giving out of our struggles. I've heard it said that if it doesn't hurt, we aren't giving enough. God will bless any gift in any amount but we periodically need to ask the Lord to reveal to us any areas of selfishness or other hindrances to sharing on our part. When we give graciously out of our struggles, we'll find that the more we give the more we'll want to give. Giving is not so much an obligation as it is an opportunity to grow more Christlike and to express our love and joy and appreciation for all that God does for us or all he does in our name. We accept an abundance of gifts and joys from the Lord on a continuous basis, the least we can do is pay our tithes. And if 10% comes out of our abundance, we need to up the percentage until we feel it coming out of our struggles. And in all of this, we need to remember that the Lord loves a cheerful giver (2Cor 9:7).