People seem to want meaning. Meaning in their lives, meaning in their work. Kingdom Disciples seem to be no exception. Ultimately, life, and meaning only comes from Christ. Another word for meaning might be, fulfillment. To feel like you're achieving what you're supposed to, what you were created for. However, we should remember we are nothing, and can do nothing without Christ. That said, if there is a struggle in meaning, it usually has to do with work. I.E. people think, "If I could only do (insert dream job) I would be fulfilled." Yet, that really is not the answer now is it? The answer is Christ. Christ who saved us and makes all things possible must also be our ultimate source of fulfillment. To live in ultimate surrender to Christ is the best way to live, and such a person is never lacking in fulfillment. For a sweeping overview of how that surrender looks somewhat practically in various forms of life, please see Surrender!? To Who?
For now though, we want to focus on money, so, this part is about the most obvious ministry portion of it. That is giving. Consider these words by Jesus in Matthew 25: “Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’
Now, let's unpack this whole notion of giving. It looks to me like, practically speaking, giving can be summed up into 3 categories:
1. Tithing, (a 10% "sort of tax" for the church.) this is the thing that your churches want you to do. They want you to give them 10% of all the money God blessed you with through the money maker He has given you.
2. Charitable Giving, (Voluntarily giving help to those in need.) This is when you see a noble cause, and decide to give to it. Perhaps your reasons for giving are very good, ie, genuine convictions or perhaps they are less than good, ie, to be seen by others as a generous person. Charitable causes could be things like, supporting missionaries, giving to non-profit aid ministries that help people made homeless in natural disaster situations, helping a poor family with groceries, and many more.
3. Casual Giving, (Giving gifts, being generous with friends, etc.) This would be the category that Christmas and Birthday gifts fall under. If you take someone out to eat, and agree to pay for it, that would come under this category as well.
So, let's discuss tithing a little bit. Tithing is a concept that we first see in Genesis 14, with Abraham and Melchizedek, so, in that sense, it is pre-law. In Leviticus 27, you can see the notion of a tenth, or, tithe, being incorporated into the Mosaic law, as God ordered Moses. Then, in Mark 12, at the end, Jesus commented on the widow and her 2 mites; He said she gave more than the rich who had put in a lot more money. This spoke to a shift in paradigm, instead of just looking at a 10% God tax, it is time to look at living a generous life. So, I would submit to you that 10% could be a good baseline for your charitable giving, but it would be wonderful if you can find it within yourself to give even more. Consult the Lord on this matter. So far as Money and the Kingdom is concerned, we want to only concern ourselves with 2 categories for giving: Charitable and Casual. I believe you will find that the tithe gets taken care of automatically as part of the whole picture in the Kingdom's generous way of life.
Now it's time to get practical; we need to allocate funds for this giving category. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you a percentage for giving. Then go with that number until God reveals a different one. For the sake of the article and the illustration though, let's use 20% So, every $100 gets $20 given away. Over the course of 5 years, you would give away an entire year's provision away with this simple commitment! Can you imagine the impact this would have in the world, if all the 150 million adults in the United States who called themselves "Christian" were able to pull this off? Well, we are going to be very intentional about this.
So, let's take that 20% and start shopping for charities that are worth supporting. Perhaps this is controversial, but let's not blindly assume that the church we attend is worth supporting financially. Let's study it. How is the specific church group we meet with using it's funds? Is it furthering the Kingdom? Does God agree? Use this approach for all charities, consider it a combination of thoughtful wisdom and Spirit led impulse, a careful balanced approach to determine what we support and why. Once we find a charity, and have an amount that should be given, we should determine, is it a one time or a monthly? If it is monthly, let's try to set up autopay, that way it gets done every single month and not forgotten. Ideally, we would find "homes" for at least half of the "giving fund dollars" via autopay to serious Kingdom focused ministry work.
Now, what about the other half? Establish a separate savings account, and every month, have this remainder moved over to the savings account. As you live your life and come across needs or gift opportunities that God shows you, meet those needs, and keep track of how much you spent on them with your credit card, checkbook, etc. Then, at the end of the month, use this separate savings account to reimburse yourself for whatever you spent. Ideally, all the casual giving would come out of this as well, birthdays, Christmas, dining costs when you buy for friends etc. In fact, it is very important that all the giving costs are covered by that 20% we committed to at the outset, because we have 2 very important works for the remaining 80% coming later.
In conclusion, I hope you read all those hard numbers and things done as illustrative and as suggestions? It was intended that way. It is between you and God so far as how you approach making a ministry out of the money maker God gave you. If nothing else is learned from this piece, I hope we at least catch a glimpse of the opportunity there is to organize dollars into an army of resources for Kingdom work. Let's play with the statistics a little bit shall we? Around 150 million American adults call themselves Christian. Perhaps there are only 75 million Christian households. Perhaps their average annual income was $50'000. (Lower than the American average.) If all 75 million were willing to give away 20% of their income the number of American dollars given away would be: 750 billion dollars! What if half of that was spent in casual spontaneous giving and only half of that truly got put to work in the Kingdom, meeting the most dire genuine needs like, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, distributing Bibles, placing missionaries in front of the lost and so on? We would STILL have 375 billion dollars doing all that. Those are huge numbers. Yet, it would be entirely possible if 75 million households with a 50k salary actually did it...
This has been part 2 of Money and the Kingdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment