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| Source: christianpf.com |
My husband and I look back on 2009 as a watershed year for us, financially speaking. We had been tithing our net income for five years (a practice for which I have my husband to thank, as this was a completely foreign concept to me when we married!). But this particular year, we wrestled with a whole host of new questions for us.
Suddenly, we began asking God what He would have us to do with our money: What did He think of our finances? What was He calling us to do?
We learned a lot about God's view of our money that year--my husband, through a men's small group, and I, through reading books like David Platt's Radical and Randy Alcorn's The Treasure Principle.
We came to the conclusion that we ought to be tithing off our gross income, instead of net (after all, Uncle Sam looks at the whole amount, why shouldn't God?), and we also switched from giving "God" our tithe (which included church, but also missionaries, Christian non-profits, etc.) to giving the FULL tithe to church, then giving to all the other Christian organizations and missionaries over and above that.
But these were easy steps of obedience, looking back on things.
Easy that is, after we understood one very important biblical truth: Our money is not truly our own.
The Bible speaks to this all throughout its pages:
- "For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine." (Psalm 50:10-11)
- "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it." (Psalm 24:1)
- "'The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the Lord Almighty." (Haggai 2:8)
The Scriptures also speak to the fact that our ability to make money is a gift to us from God:
- "Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth." (Deuteronomy 8:18)
- "Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all." (1 Chronicles 29:12)
Basically, we own nothing, not even ourselves! "You are not your own; you were bought at a price." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
This was a huge paradigm shift for us! Suddenly, my husband and I came to understand that instead of owning anything, we had instead been entrusted with everything that we have from God, the true owner.
For the first time, we realized that we no longer owned our cars. We no longer owned our clothes, our furniture, and our craft supplies (okay, that one was more my realization than his!).
Instead, God had entrusted us with His cars, clothes, furniture, and craft supplies to go and do and serve Him as He saw fit, as His managers.
In the book, The Treasure Principle, Randy Alcorn offers this truth in a concise statement he calls the Treasure Principle Key #1:
God owns everything. I'm His money manager.
And like with any manager, my job is to do what the OWNER wants to do with HIS resources. I have no entitlement to it. Instead, I serve to manage His belongings and work for His benefit, not mine.
Have you learned this truth, too, my friend? Do you understand the fact that everything is God's and we are merely His managers, and does this truth impact the way you view and spend "your" money? Or do you think of your money--your income, house, car, and all your possessions--as yours, to do with what you please? Will you take some time to pray about this biblical perspective? I know for us, it was much easier to give in faith when we realized that it was not even our money in the first place!
We will talk more about tithing and giving in the next blog post. For now, may the Lord infuse our spirits with this truth as we seek His will for our lives, as we seek to obediently manage His resources well!
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