On Nov 2, 2008, the message was from Luke 16.

Jesus’ story of the “Shrewd Manager” taught us:

1. Take purposeful savvy action in your financial life (Jesus praised the manager who had gotten fired for “acting shrewdly” (not for being dishonest…that part just made sure you were listening).  In other words, don’t just let life happen to you, you happen to it!

2. Then Jesus gives us the form that the action He wants from us to take in verse 9-13:  Be faithful by serving God rather than our wealth! (v. 13).

On Sunday, I just challenged to consider what we were putting our trust in (mammon – what I trust/worship), but now that we’re a couple of weeks in, I’d like to challenge you to consider HOW to serve God and break the grip of money as an idol we serve.

God is interested in 100% of our money, not just 10%.  But throughout biblical and church history, the tithe (the first 10% of one’s gross income given to God) has been a minimum testimony to the Lord of His ownership of everything in our lives.

With all my heart, I believe God uses tithing to break the power of money in our lives and to teach us to trust Him.  I’ve believed it for 20 years of my Christian life before I was a pastor. 

I believe that done with the right motive, God uses it to makes us more disciplined, more generous, more dependent on Him (than on “our” money), and quite honestly, I believe he uses it to bless us financially in this life (I have biblical (New Testament) authority for this assertion), and I can’t even imagine what He has planned for us in the next life as a reward for being faithful with money in this life, but I’m really curious to find out. ;>)

I’m rambling now, but let me give you my quick “How to Tithe” thoughts:

1. I tend to think most people should commit cold-turkey.  Ramping into it sounds like a good idea, but I think it misses the point of trust.  If the point were only to discipline yourself into a leaner lifestyle, that would be right, but Old and New Testament indicate a “see what I (God) will do when you trust Me” aspect to it (see Luke 6:38 and 2 Cor 8-9 for New Testament treatments of this).

HOWEVER,

2. I do think it means sacrificing your wants and desires to be able to honor God…if you just write a check and don’t make room for it in your lifestyle, then you are really are not giving to God first.  You are trying to give God’s portion to Him and to the other things you have overcommitted to.

When Katie and I went to seminary (halved our income and doubled our school expenses), we started from the ground up with a budget that honored God with a tithe first.  Then, we rented a tiny apartment (ask Katie about when she’d already found an apartment she liked, and I made us take one that was $50 a month cheaper…felt like a bad husband at the moment, but we ended up living next to what became some of our best friends in the world.  We know now that was God’s plan.)

As we built that budget, there was only room for one car and no room for cell phones or cable TV.  But I believe God blessed those “sacrifices” and we certainly grew in our trust in Him in those four years. 

Peachtree, I want you to trust Him! 

Comment below and let me know your thoughts.  Are you tithing and seeing God work in you though it? 

Do you have struggles with it and want to ask questions here. 

Comment below!

Thanks so much for all the posts you guys have made!  They’re awesome!  I’ve mainly posted up to now about nuts-and-bolts “how to” stuff, but now I want to reiterate what God put on my heart for our current message series.

When I first conceived this series a few months ago, I was thinking of practical messages showing us how to “batten down the hatches” of our own financial lives in light of the Perfect Economic storm going on in the world.  You know, the kind of stuff I’ve been posting here.  (BTW, you can purchase last year’s series “Money for Dummies” at Guest Services…it was a practical series like that (or you can come to our house tonight (Fri, Nov 21) at 7pm for practical strategy, and you can read this blog).

But God had other plans.  Through our Creative Team meetings (thanks, Sheila!) and His leading in the study, He said to me, “Yes, there’s a storm out there, but David, there’s an internal storm in the hearts of the flock of the sheep as well:  fear, lack of trust in Me, discontentment, greed, and idolatry.  Just telling them how to squeeze their budget down will have no lasting effect if they don’t look to Me to quieten the storm inside.”

I’ve tried to listen to the Lord and make this series about surviving the storm in our hearts regarding money.  I’ll start another post to recap our first message in the series.

On a side note, I’ve gotten lots of positive response to the messages so far; but my prayer for all of us is that we will heed James 1:22-25:

22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror;
24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.
25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.