This weekend I was driving home from my 25 year college reunion, still smiling from an amazing day rekindling friendships with people I love deeply, reflecting on how dramatically different my life has become since those years at Randolph-Macon. I think the best way to describe the impetus behind my journey of change is that making a vow of devotion to Jesus means giving up a life lived based on self-generated values.
Following Jesus is surrender. Following Jesus is abandonment. Following Jesus is a complete and total transplant. Following Jesus is fully embracing Kingdom generated values. Where mine conflict, His reign supreme because everything about Jesus is transcendent, superior, matchless...perfect. I am flawed. I am desperately hopeless in my spiritual ineptitude. There is such freedom in accepting my depravity and living a life of total dependance on Jesus' ways...His ways are my ways this day and every day.
Part of that way requires a Kingdom approach to the stewardship of my material resources. And what I find in Scripture, our guide to Jesus' values, is that there is a tithe. This blog series has covered already two of eight principles that direct my family's conviction to tithe. Today is number three and can be heard in a recent sermon I shared at City Life.
The priority. Matthew 6:33 speaks volumes about how central the theme of priority is to a relationship with Jesus. He is first. This theme of priority is something we easily embrace when considering our affections. When we hear Jesus' great proclamation of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength we say, "Of course we should!" When we hear the Apostle Paul in his epistles talking about thinking of others as more highly than ourselves, putting others first, being forgiving we say, "Of course we should!" When we hear John in Revelation talking about how even now just the vision of God's glory should draw from us a song of praise that rises above all else we say, "Of course...!" But when this same sacred Book challenges us to have a tithe as the central part of our personal finances, the priority of our monthly budget we say, "Hey, that's a little extreme."
We cannot read texts like Proverbs 3:9-10 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 and deny that God expects our giving to Him to be our most important financial priority. I like these texts because they remind us that our giving is supposed to be much broader than just a tithe. Remember, there are eight principles I am sharing...these principles build on one another. Tithing is certainly just a part of any Kingdom based stewardship plan but the tithe is the cornerstone.
Our family has had its share of financial crisis. I still remember that fateful night in September of 2009 when we realized that the town home we purchased using as a down payment our life's savings was constructed with toxic Chinese drywall. We lived the next 5 years on the precipice of bankruptcy. We exhausted cash reserves we have finally replenished, accumulated debt we have finally paid, lost equity that has yet to be restored, tapped retirement monies that are still waiting to be replaced...our tithe was never negotiable, is yours?
I cannot expect to walk in the blessing of the tithe if I do not give in the spirit of the tithe. Tithe demands a priority. Otherwise, that monetary gift is just a donation. Every act of material generosity that is given with the right heart and for the right reasons is a candidate for reciprocity. That is for a another blog at another time but I assume most of you are familiar with the Christian concept of reaping what we sow. But a tithe goes further. A tithe is redemptive. If I give out of what is left over, there is still the hope of reciprocity. If I give my tithe as a priority and then build my monthly budget based on what remains, that tithe is not only a candidate for reciprocity, that tithe redeems the 90 percent that remains. This is part of the supernatural side of life with Jesus. There are times when God asks us to stand in a place of having less because He is trying to position us into a place of receiving more. Receiving more is about reciprocity but also about redemption. God's promise as related to a tithe is that reciprocity brings blessing to us because of what is given AND that redemption brings blessing onto what remains because of how I gave...a priority gift.
See you next week!
Pastor Fred
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