Tiping or Tithing?

In His book, "The Hole in our Gospel" Richard Stearns President of World Vision states that the average American Church goer gives about 2.58% of his/her income. Of that small amount only 2% goes to missions. Tithing was part of the O.T. practice intended to 1. Provide for the service of God's House and take care of the needs of those who served there (Levites and Priests) and 2. To foster dependence upon God by making people realize that everything is the Lord's anyway but by giving it back to Him they were putting their faith into practice. Tithing is not mentioned in the New Testament as the overriding principle is to "give according to what a man has, not according to what he does not have" (2Cor.8:12). I was really surprised to learn that while incomes have generally risen since 1935 in America ( We have more)giving as a percentage of income has declined steadily (We give less). We seem to be oblivious to the reality that all we have is from the Lord. No wonder Jesus spoke more on money than any other topic. He knew our temptation in the face of financial prosperity is to abandon our dependence upon Him and to trust in money. Jesus warned us that we cannot serve God and money (Mt. 6). Paul also said that the Love of money is the root of all evil (1Tim.6:6-10) and even cautioned the rich not to trust in money (1Tim.6:17-19).

All of this is to say that God has richly blessed us and we should begin to ask ourselves "why?" Is it merely for our own indulgence, significance, convenience, and pleasure? Not hardly. God entrusts us with resources to use for advancing His Purposes. I think it's time for us to start asking what we should be doing with the resources God has given us so that we can further the spread of the Gospel.

I'm thinking through our own giving and the amount our church is giving to missions. I'm guessing that there needs to be some re-alignment in my house and in the church. Why? For the glory of God through the spread of the Gospel.

Lord, help us catch a vision for what we can do to impact the world with the Gospel. Forgive us for treating your blessings flippantly and selfishly.

Think about the fact that more is spent on bottled water in America than on missions. And we have the cleanest water in the world. Thousands of children die each day from the effects of poor water and we spend more on the luxury of bottled water than on alleviating the needs of those who truly need clean water...who truly need the "Living Water".