Jesus said a great deal about spiritual maturity as it relates to money.
- "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."
(Luke 16:10-15, NIV)
I'll never forget the time I heard a friend keenly remark that financial giving is not God's way of raising money—it's His way of raising children! How true that is. God wants His children to be free from the love of money, which the Bible says in 1 Timothy 6:10 is "a root of all kinds of evil." As God's children, He also wants us to invest in "kingdom work" through the regular giving of our wealth. Giving to honor the Lord will also build our faith. There are times when other needs may demand financial attention, yet the Lord wants us to honor Him first, and trust Him for our daily needs.
I personally believe the tithe (one-tenth of our income) is the basic standard in giving. It should not be the limit to our giving, and it's certainly not law. We see in Genesis 14:18-20 that even before the law was given to Moses, Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a type of Christ. The tenth represented the whole. In giving the tithe, Abraham simply acknowledged that everything he had was God's.
After God appeared to Jacob in a dream at Bethel, beginning in Genesis 28:20, Jacob made a vow: If God would be with him, keep him safe, give him food and clothes to wear, and become his God, then of all that God gave him, Jacob would give back a tenth. It is clear throughout the Scriptures that growing spiritually involves giving monetarily.
Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V or Part VII.
