Giving Back to God
Faith and money challenge our lives every day. It is such an emotional issue because so many of us face personal debt, school loans, and the rising cost of raising our families. How do we make room for Christ?
The realty is that we have more resources today than ever before, but we share fewer of them. In an age of increased prosperity, it is easy to express faith in material gain and accumulation, rather than following Christ.
You have all heard the fact that the Bible has more verses about a person’s relationship to possessions and giving than about prayer, believing and love combined!
The theology of stewardship is based on the following principles:
• God is the source and giving is rooted in God.
• The Bible offers one standard of measurement – the tithe.
• God is indispensable to Christian discipleship.
• We express our love of Christ by our giving.
• Giving increases maturity and fulfills our need to give as a part of spiritual growth and discipleship.
We as a church and as individual families should set worthy goals for giving with two essential ingredients or expectations to please God:
First – In order to be truly worthy, our goals should reflect the best we can offer. To offer less than our best is to displease God.
Second – Honor the Lord with your gifts from first fruits. God measures our gifts not in relation to what others give, but by what we have left over!
Please be in prayer in the coming weeks about your giving back to God. We will ask each family to complete an investment card and return it in the offering basket this Sunday, September 11, at our anniversary church gathering. Thank you for your participation in making Hope Arise a thriving, reaching, growing ministry of God.