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BIBLE-BASED FINANCIAL GUIDANCE

Radical Giving Produces an Over-abundant Harvest

Part One

by Jerry Dewey

 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15b

           Surveys indicate that nearly 90 percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and they do not have any savings or investments to fall back on.  Thirty percent of those surveyed said they make $100,000 or more per year.  Fifty percent of those surveyed said, if they lost their job, they had enough money in their checking account to pay one month’s living expenses.  How can this be, considering America is the wealthiest country in the world, where a worker, whose annual salary is at the poverty level, is considered to be in the top 10 percent of wage earners in the world?  Americans, for the most part, live a high consumption lifestyle and are highly dependent on credit.   George Soros recently made the following statement, “Americans were ‘living in a fool's paradise’ based on the ‘false promise’…[that] debt-fueled consumption was…sustainable.”   Many church members are full-fledged participants in this high consumption lifestyle financed by credit.  Based on tithing and giving statistics, one could easily deduce that the percentage of church members living paycheck-to-paycheck is the same as the percentage for America as a whole; last year, over 245 churches filed for bankruptcy and many well-known ministries had to scale down the size and scope of their ministry.  Folks, there is hope!  All you have to do is stop living the way the world does and start living the way God says we’re supposed to live.

To those church members who have been actively and faithfully practicing ALL of God’s financial principles but are not seeing the great outpouring of blessings spoken of in Malachi 3:10: please read the following paragraphs.  If you wisely adopt the principles that are explained and combine them with ALL of the biblical financial principles you are already practicing, you will eventually reach the point where your harvests will come faster and faster and in larger quantities than ever before (this is biblical; Amos 9:13 (NLT), “The time will come,” says the Lord, “when the grain and grapes will grow faster than they can be harvested…”).  When that day arrives, don’t be surprised when you have to stop and think about what you are going to do with all your extra financial resources.  Just so there isn’t any misunderstanding, I am NOT saying you are going to become filthy, stinking rich but it will seem like you have way more left over than you ever thought possible.

The principles I will explain in the following paragraphs are an expansion of the principle of giving (see Part 6).  Let me be perfectly clear, practicing these principles by themselves will not result in an outpouring of blessings; they will produce this result only when practiced in addition to all the other principles explained in the earlier articles (Articles 1-13).  I would not recommend your implementation of these principles until after you have gotten your financial situation fully stabilized.  Once you have reached this situation, I would recommend that you take small steps towards full implementation rather than a full-blown implementation from the get-go that could cause you to destabilize your financial situation.  This could make you think that they don’t work and that the extra effort is not worth the turmoil it caused, so you may quit these additional principles before the results have time to go into effect.  Remember, there is always a space of time between your sowing and the reaping of the harvest associated with that sowing; therefore, when you stop the flow of the sowing, you stop the flow of the reaping.

I got the concept for these principles from a financial teaching series I listened to about five years ago, called Wisdom and Money by Brian Bohrer.  One of the last topics he covered in this series was developing budgets.  He talked about a “20-20-60” budget and he challenged every church member to make it their goal.  He explained it this way: you set aside 20 percent of your income for God, you save or invest 20 percent of your income, and you pay all your bills and live off the remaining 60 percent.  The 20 percent you set aside for God includes your tithe, which is the first 10 percent, and your offerings, which is also 10 percent.  In Part 5, I provided numerous scripture references that clearly indicate that your tithe is the first 10 percent of all new financial resources that come into your hand.  In his series, Brian did not provide any scriptural references to validate his contention that your offerings should also be 10 percent, so I began a search (Matthew 7:7-8 says, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”).  As radical as this may sound, it’s biblical; here’s what I found:

                    Genesis 41:25, 29-36 “And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh is one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do.”  Verse 29: “Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; And the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it shall be very grievous.  And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.  Now therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt.  Let Pharaoh do this, and let him appoint officers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years.  And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities.  And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.”

                             After Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s two dreams, he told Pharaoh he needed to select someone to collect one-fifth (which is 20 percent) of the crops during the seven good years and store them up for the seven bad years that were coming.  Have you ever wondered why Joseph said they needed to gather 20 percent of the grain harvested in each of the good years?  I did.

I started looking in the chapters and verses in front of and behind this account to see if I could find an explanation for why he picked this percentage, but I didn’t find anything.  I asked other people; they did not know why.  So, one day while I was picking blackberries, I asked God why Joseph told Pharaoh he needed to collected 20 percent; immediately, this answer popped into my head: my work requires twenty percent.  What were the seven years of plenteous and seven years of famine?  It was a work of God (see verse 32)!  It was a way to save the land of Egypt during the famine and ultimately, it was a way for God to re-unite Joseph with his family and save them and the whole nation of Israel from the famine.  Joseph even stated so in Genesis 45:4-8, “And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.  And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God:” and later in chapter 50, verses 19-20, “And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”

                             I know, I know, you’re saying to yourself, “wait a minute, WAIT just a minute here.  I don’t know who this person is and he is telling me God told him the reason Joseph picked 20 percent is because His work requires 20 percent and from that, he gets that our offerings should also be 10 percent.  How do I know the answer he got came from God?”  A very legitimate thought and I don’t blame you for being somewhat skeptical.  Don’t stop reading now; you might as well read the rest of this article because you will find additional facts and evidence that will eliminate your skepticism.

                                       I found some additional information that indicates that your offerings should be 10 percent when I was reading about Jacob; before Jacob saw Rachel and started working for Laban, he made this vow to God: Genesis 28:20-22 “And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.”  Notice, Jacob promised to give God 10 percent of all he received from Him.  This was not a promise to start tithing.  Remember, you cannot give somebody something that is not yours to give and since your tithe already belongs to God, you cannot give them to God – all you can do is pay or return your tithes to Him.  Jacob promised to give God 10 percent over and above his tithe; this was an offering.  With this vow, Jacob established a generous measure of return from God by the generous measure of the offering he gave to God in appreciation for the blessings that came from God.

                                                This is what we are told in Luke 6:38 “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom.  For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”  Therefore, Jacob’s giving would exact a like measure from God.

When Jacob started working for Laban, he had very little; during the 20 years that he worked for Laban, he worked for basically nothing, therefore, he accumulated nothing.  It wasn’t until God told Jacob it was time to leave that things turned around.  By the time Jacob finally left Laban, he was a very wealthy man; Genesis 30:43 “And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.”  Was this a mere coincidence?  No, it was a direct result of his giving!

                                       Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”  Remember, God opens the windows of heaven when you pay your tithe; once the windows are open, the size of your offering determines the amount returned by God.  The greater the percentage, meaning the greater the sacrifice on your part, shows God you are somebody He can trust with more and more financial resources, so He sends more your way because He knows you’re going to do the “RIGHT” thing with it.  That is, you will continue to faithfully practice all of God’s financial principles; you will not become greedy and hoard all the increase for your personal consumption.

          This is only half of the total concept, but for now, it’s probably enough for most of you to take in.  Take some time to think about what you have just read, maybe read it again a time or two.  In a week or so, I’ll post the second half of this concept.  After you have put the total concept into practice, you should see dramatic and positive changes in your financial situation, specifically in the size and frequency of your harvests; however, there's no guarantee how soon that will be.  Just a word of caution: do not lose sight of the responsibilities that come with the outpouring of blessings; God does not take too kindly to individuals who totally abandoned His financial principles or to those that deviate to the left or the right of them.

            If you would like more information, click on the Contact link and send us an email; someone will contact you shortly thereafter.

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