Giving, Part 2
God has set eternity in our hearts. The notion that we could relate to Him with ten percent from all that He has blessed us with misses the eternal message God desires for us to grasp. Perpetuating the Old Testament concept of giving ten percent in these New Testament times places us in the arrogant position of believing we fund God rather than vice versa. To communicate to Believers that we owe a percentage of our holdings to God is a misguided teaching.
God asked little of Old Testament saints because they possessed little of Him. However, New Testament Believers possess all of God indwelling them in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19).
The great dangers for those blessed with abundance—and that is all of us compared to the rest of the world—is that we will mistake our abundance as God's means of security rather than looking to Him as the One who promised to meet all of our needs; that we will become intoxicated by our possessions and fail to drink deeply from Him, the fountain of living water; that we will live shallow existences rather than thrive through profound connection with Him; that our hearts will resonate to the iron string of self-sufficiency rather than dance to the music of eternity’s passion; that we will settle for giving 10%—or 2%—instead of giving from our heart.
If we are not careful, we who are blessed will fall into the trap of attempting to meet not only our needs but also our greeds by building unnecessary surpluses in hope of finding security. Security cannot be found in surplus! This undermines our ability to look to Him as the supply of everything we need both externally and internally. Our security can only be found in Him. To seek security from holdings that do not belong to us in the first place creates soul-level frustration, drowns passion, and wounds our spiritual being.
Let me step aside for a moment with this disclaimer: Part of stewardship is planning for the future, counting the costs, and investing. Look at your accounts. Measure them. Plan them strategically. Then, look again and inquire of your soul, Do these represent a plan or a statement of my security?
A plan is devised in consultation with everyone concerned, including your Heavenly Father, the giver of all that is good. A plan is shrewdly conceived and executed by people who charged with the management of practicality.
A security statement based upon material holdings is fundamentally selfish and is self-contained. Security is far too important to be measured by dollars and much too profound to be left to mankind. Our security is in Christ—it must be in Christ to be secure.