Financial Friday 11/22/19

Hi Everyone, welcome to another Financial Friday. I’m so glad that so many more of you signed up to get emails when I post new stuff. It’s good to know that someone other than my parents want to get reminders! Before I forget, I will not be posting anything next Friday as we’ll be out of town for Thansgiving.

So last week I preached a message on tithing at our church. And in it I went through a typical progression that most people go through in their journey of giving back to God sacrificially in their offerings. Since so many have asked me more about that (okay, so maybe just 3 people) I wanted to get it down in writing. There are some folks who jump right in with a biblical tithe (10%) of their income as soon as they become followers of Jesus. And that’s great and how it should be. A tithe is biblical and should be the standard for Christians. BTW I have written up a little booklet that goes into great detail about the place of tithing in the life of a Christian. It answers nearly all questions and can be picked up at church. But tithing is usually a process and there are 5 distinct stages which I have found in 25 years of ministry that most folks go through in becoming mature disciples of Jesus and generous kingdom givers. If you set out to experience the joy and blessing of significant giving, you’ll likely experience these 5 stages. And as you progress through these stages your motivation will progressively shift from self motivation to kingdom motivation.

1. TIP GIVING-In this stage you become convicted that as a Christian that you need to give. Maybe you hear a sermon or read something but you begin giving something. Now, anything we give to God and His church is a good thing. In this stage, you have taken the second most important step–you are giving something. So I don’t want to minimize anything a person gives. But I call it tip giving because it’s largely transactional. It’s giving something because you get something. And it’s usually an amount that doesn’t really stretch your faith–you really don’t notice it. Your motivation at this level is usually focused on the self. Giving at this level is not real consistent. It’s sporadic based on how you’re feeling or what’s happening in your financial life.

2. TRUST GIVING-In this second stage you are becoming more and more convicted that your giving should be consistent and not so much tied to how you feel or what else is happening in your financial world. And if you are experiencing financial struggles you’re intrigued by the concept of putting God in charge of your money. And you are becoming to become more and more interested in kingdom purposes, though you’re still mostly motivated by self. This level is more consistent and really does force you to step out on faith and trust in God to provide as you seek to put Him first. And you will likely begin to see God provide in many different ways and in many different forms. You will feel confirmation that you’re on the right track. And God gives you signs as your trust in Him grows. This is often an exciting time in the journey and, hopefully, leads you to the next stage.

3. TITHE GIVING-I called the first stage (“tip giving”) the second most important step in your journey because you just begin. The first step is often the hardest. But in this level of Tithe Giving, you will take the most significant step to move to a biblical tithe–10% of your income. This is regular and consistent giving. But it’s hard to take this step as it represents a huge step of faith. You feel the impact of this as you rearrange your budget and life to give a tithe. Likely, you will feel that you can’t afford it. And you’ll think “We can’t do that right now, but as soon as (fill in the blank) we’ll be able to tithe.” But you want to see the church grow and you’re moving from self motivation to kingdom motivation and so you just do it. You decide to take up God on his offer to test Him in this matter of tithing. And you continue to see God do amazing things in your life as you put Him first in your finances. And this will be motivation to make other changes in your finances. You also, likely, will begin to feel that you want to give more and more.

4. TESTED GIVING-Of these five stages, this one is the most difficult and many people don’t pass the test. But as you have “tested” God in His promises to provide and bless you, now God wants you to mature and grow deeper in faith. He wants your motivation to be totally off of self and what you might get from tithing and onto building His kingdom. He wants to forge you into a fully committed disciple. And so there will likely be some tests. You may have some hardships. You may not continue to see the obvious ways that God has provided and blessed you as He did in the first 3 stages. What will you do when, as Job stated, “the Lord has given, and now the Lord has taken away.” Will you still say as did Job “Blessed be the name of the Lord”? This season may last a while and can be difficult. God will still provide all your needs. But there will be times you will not be so sure about that. Yet, if you persist out sheer desire to be faithful you’ll get to the last stage to which we should all aspire.

5. TOTAL HEART GIVING-Jesus said “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” An old Nigerian proverb says “It’s the heart that gives, the fingers just let go.” At this stage your heart is 100% with Jesus. He is your treasure and your chief desire is to be faithful and give as much as possible. You’re not in the least motivated in your giving by what God will do for you or promise you or bless you with. Most people in this category (to which I only aspire right now-we’re not there yet) are blessed as they seek to simply be a trusted conduit through which God builds His kingdom through the church. And as they look back over their life as a believer they are just amazed at what God has done in them and through them. And even though they have long since ceased to be motivated by it, they are just grateful and awestruck by what God has done for them as well. The person who has reached this stage will readily attest to the fact that we truly cannot outgive God.

There is so much more to be said about the concept of tithing. That’s why I wrote that little booklet. And, as I said, jumping right in with a tithe should be what we all do. I have known many who have told me they did just that and they would not change a thing. Yet, these are the stages that most of us go through. We are works in progress. But I would challenge you, wherever you are in this progression, to take the next step. You absolutely will not regret it.

Financial Friday 11/15/19

Welcome to Financial Friday! At First Church of Christ where I am the pastor we are in the middle of sermon series on biblical money management. You can check it out here. But there is so much more that needs to be said than I can fit into three sermons. So every Friday (or nearly every Friday:) I’m going to be posting thoughts, resources, and biblical instruction on how to deal with the elephant in the room of our finances. I encourage you to add your email to the list so you’ll be alerted when I have posted something new. This is my personal blog, so I also like to write about other stuff pertaining to faith and trying to live as faithful disciples of Jesus.

But let me just get this straight from the start: I am in no way, shape, or manner any kind of expert or guru on this subject. That thought is laughable. In fact, I’m just going to be straight with you that much of what I know about this subject has come from my mistakes. I have, however, made much progress by God’s grace and patience over the years. Most of us have a lot of room to grow and mature in this area. But it’s so important that we do. So I don’t write this to imply I have “arrived” in this matter of financial management. I have, however, learned a lot over the years as Lori and I have struggled to overcome several years of making bad money decisions. The effects of mistakes in the area of money management are not usually quickly or easily overcome. So, I do have a lot to say in this area based on some things we have done right as well as a lot of things we have done wrong. Okay? Am I clear. We’re all learners here. There are many, many resources by folks you can access as well. I’ll be sharing some of these with you. But the first one I would point to is Dave Ramsey. He has daily emails you can sign up for as well as whole lot of free resources and wisdom. But sometimes listening to him makes me feel like there is no hope for me! Have you ever felt like that? So that’s why I invite you to join me in the journey to blessing, peace, confidence, preparedness, godliness, and kingdom building. We’re fellow travellers!

So with all that understood I want to share with you in this first Financial Friday post what I think is the most important thing you need to know–Satan is real and he does not want you to read these posts. And here are five reasons for that as well as five reasons you absolutely must read them.

1. Satan hates your guts and wants more than anything to keep you from pleasing God and experiencing freedom from bondage. The apostle Peter reminds us that Satan is a lion just prowling around seeking to devour those who love God. He wants nothing for you other than your total defeat and destruction. This is why it’s so hard to make any positive change, especially with our finances.

2. Satan wants to destroy your marriage. If you are married that is the enemy’s goal. Nearly every conflict and argument leading to marital strife can be traced back ultimately to two things: money and sex. When I do premarital counseling for couples getting married I talk about this a lot. Unfortunately I get the sense that they don’t really listen because of course they will be different….than nearly every other married couple. Not. The reason Satan wants to destroy your marriage is because marriage according to Paul in Ephesians is meant to be a living, breathing symbol of the relationship between Christ and the church. There’s only One person Satan hates more than you and that’s Jesus.

3. Satan will do anything to hinder, halter, and interfere with the growth of the church, the Kingdom of God. And so he wants you to be always mired in debt with no savings for emergencies, no plan for retirement, and no idea what the Bible really teaches about giving. And this is quite simply so that we will not give to the church making it stronger, more effective, more life changing, and more glorifying to God. But, of course, Jesus wants the church be built and He is building it through us! And to do that resources are needed. That’s why Jesus talked a lot about our attitude and our handling of material resources! He wants His church to grow and He wants you to experience the joy of being an integral part of that!

4. Satan does not want us to grow in our faith and become more mature, faithful, and devoted followers of Jesus. According to Jesus “where our treasure is, there will be our hearts also.” Jesus wants our hearts. He wants all of us. He wants to be Lord over every part of our lives. So giving and being faithful with our finances is a matter of discipleship. Jesus tells us in Matthew 28 that our mission is to “go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing and teaching them to obey” all that He taught. And, again, Jesus taught a whole lot about money. Satan does not want us to be obedient in this because he hates Jesus and he hates your guts (see #1).

5. A fifth reason Satan does not want you to read these posts or do anything which will bring peace, stability, and faithfulness to your finances is because he loves chaos. Like the Joker in the Batman movies he loves chaos, disorder, and strife. This is the word that describes the financial lives of many of us at one time or another–chaos. And, yet, Jesus wants peace for us. And there is nothing like getting on a path and a plan which will lead us away from chaos and toward toward financial peace.

So these are just 5 (there are many more) reasons that Satan does not want you to read these posts. For the 5 reasons that you should make sure to read these posts please refer to the 5 reasons that Satan does not want you to read them.