Giving: The Three Questions
Bruce Miller, author
The Engage God Daily for this series is a reprint of Senior Pastor, Bruce Miller’s book, Giving: The Three Questions. https://www.amazon.com/Giving-Three-Questions-give-whom-ebook/dp/B08TCJMV13
After raising five kids, I’m proud of my wife for going back to college later in life to earn a master’s degree in Speech Language Pathology at Texas Women’s University (TWU). In God’s grace, Tamara secured a job even before she graduated. What this meant financially is that we were no longer paying for school, and we had a new income stream.
After hearing an inspiring message on God’s generosity to us, Tamara and I were motivated to prayerfully reconsider our giving. It was such a blast to see how much more money we could give. We took the money we were paying for her tuition and re-directed it to our church’s capital campaign. Then, from her new income, we increased our regular giving to our church’s general ministries. And we set aside more money to give to others’ needs that might come up the next year.
At the end of that year, we took some time to get away, just the two of us. We reserved a primitive cabin in an Oklahoma state park with a fireplace, and no Wi-Fi, which was a great place for us to unplug and reconnect with God and each other. During that time, we looked over our giving for the year and prayerfully decided to give extra gifts to the church, but it was December 30th—how would we do it?
We left the cabin and found a McDonald’s in order to use their Wi-Fi so we could log on to the church’s website and to our bank, so that we could give our extra gifts to the church. It was fun for us. It made us smile so big. We ended that year full of joy.
You may think we’re nuts. For lots of people, giving is counter intuitive. Humanly, we reason, if I give $1,000 to the church, I will have $1,000 less. That makes logical sense. But it’s not the way God does math. We actually have more when we give money away. Jesus’ teachings flip plenty of the world’s “common sense” upside down.
The last is first (Matthew 19:30; Mark 10:31).
The servant is the greatest (Matthew 23:11).
When you lose your life, you save it (Matthew 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33).
Giving money away makes you richer (2 Corinthians 8:1-3).
What it means to be richer ends up being much more than merely financial and the full blessings are only realized on a much longer timeline.
Many pastors avoid the topic of money because they are scared of your reaction. Among my pastor friends, we all know that the moment we broach money, we’ll hear this well-worn complaint: “All this church cares about is money.” Or its companion: “All this church talks about is money.” Often these complaints come from people who don’t faithfully give to the church. Rarely does a church only care about money, or talk about it more than the Bible does. And if that is happening, it’s unhealthy.
The other reason pastors avoid this topic is because we don’t want to be associated with the gross abuses out there. You’ve seen the stories about some pastor abusing their influence to buy an airplane or build a mansion. That kind of greedy, manipulative behavior drives me crazy and it makes God angry. No godly pastor wants anything to do with it. We did not enter the ministry to get rich.
My heart is to illumine biblical wisdom on generous giving so you can see what God wants you to do in this important arena of your life. I pray that you will be on fire for Jesus and this fire will be expressed in your giving.
Of course, generosity is broader than money, but most people’s sincere questions relate to money. If you’re already feeling tense, ask yourself why. Seriously. Giving is a spiritual issue that relates directly to following Christ, to growing in maturity. Jesus has a lot to say about money and material possessions. Check out the four gospels.
Let’s knock out a few objections that might hinder you from hearing what God has for you.
Is Bruce writing this book to get more money for churches? My heart is not to get something from you, but rather to provide something for you. My desire is primarily for your spiritual growth, and for Christ’s mission, not to get more money for a church budget or project.
Secondly, does Bruce benefit financially from this book? Sure, I could. And I have committed to give away at least 60 percent of any net profits.
Thirdly, couldn’t you just donate your time instead of your money? It’s good to volunteer and God wants you to do that but giving your time does not count for giving your money. Our money represents our very lives. It’s a way God asks us to worship him.
In this arena of giving, people ask three common questions that I hope to answer. Rather than trying to get cute, I’m just putting them straight out:
- Why should we give money?
- To whom should we give?
- And how much should we give?
These are honest, practical, important questions, for you, and for God.
Week 1 | Why Give?
This week, we are reprinting Chapter 1 of Giving: Three Questions.
Day 1
It’s a fair and obvious question. Why in the world should you give away your money?
- It’s a limited resource.
- If you give it away, you have less.
- You never know what tomorrow holds. Who knows if you might lose your job or have an expensive medical issue or some other catastrophe?
- Longer-term, you need to worry about retirement.
- Whatever money you are not using today, you need to store away for your later years.
- So it would be best to keep all the money you can.
Frankly, you need your money. And does the church really need it more than you do? You may wonder if your church is using the money responsibly. And if we get a bit more honest with ourselves, there’s stuff we want to buy—a house, car, boat, motorcycle, phone, TV, dress or whatever.
Obviously, you can anticipate that I am going to say we should give generously, but why? There are wrong reasons to give:
- We should not give out of fear that God will punish us.
- We should not give to impress other people.
- We should not give to get.
Among all the people reading this book, imagine the wide spread of where people are on this topic. You may have never given to a church. You may have given not more than a few dollars or only sporadically. You may give with incredible generosity. Let’s broaden the scope to your generosity in everyday life. Think about your giving to your family, to people in need, to global missions, to people in crisis, all the way to how much you tip people who serve you.
Our children are all generous. One of my sons is among the most generous people I know. He loves to give a tip so big it shocks the server. When we took Tamara out to dinner after her graduation from Texas Women’s University, he bought appetizers for the whole table, four of them. After the main course, he bought four orders of sopapillas. Then he insisted on paying for the whole meal for everyone and added a big tip. That’s lavish generosity. He loves giving. It brings him so much joy. His joy at Christmas comes from watching family members open the gifts he bought them.
Imagine if you were thrilled to give. Imagine if you were trying to figure out how to give as much as you could. And picture how you would feel if you gave like that. What could drive you to live that way?
Over our morning coffee on a Monday, I asked Tamara, “Why do you give?” By the way, Tamara is really good at giving. She said, “It’s just fun. It brings me so much joy.” She caught herself and said, “I wish my answer was deeper than that. It would sound more spiritual to say to please God or for eternal rewards or something like that,” but she said, “Honestly, I just love to give.” It brings her joy.
And it hit me, that’s it. Giving creates joy. We should give because generosity creates joy. After talking to Tamara, I dove into the Bible to study how God’s Word answers our question, Why give? My study verified Tamara’s simple answer. We give because it creates joy.
Think back to your last Christmas presents. Can you remember the gifts you received? Now ask yourself if you can remember the gifts you gave. For many people it is much easier to remember the gifts you gave because you spent time deciding what to buy, then you went shopping, made the purchase and wrapped the gift and watched the joy on the face of the one you love unwrapping it. Contrast your feelings as you opened your own gifts with your feelings as you watched ones you love opening the gifts you gave them.
While I had fun opening my gifts at Christmas, my greater joy was watching Tamara and my kids and grandkids open their gifts. What a blast to see little 10-month-old Amelia open her Daniel Tiger. And to see two-year-old Arabella thrilled with her multi-colored markers. It was my joy to give Tamara the weekender bag she wanted.
Giving makes us smile. Famous wealthy businessman Andrew Carnegie said, “Millionaires seldom smile.”[i] Hoarding piles of money brings more trouble than it brings joy. It creates more frowns than smiles. Classic Christmas movies make this point—think of Scrooge or The Grinch.
Giving is contagious. It creates chain reactions of joy. Have you ever been with friends and seen what happens when one person starts laughing really hard, and then another person starts laughing and before you know it, everyone is laughing? It happens with yawns too. More fun is how smiles are contagious. You smile big and the person across from you can hardly stop from smiling. Giving creates smiles. My hope is that your God-inspired generosity creates a wave of smiles, a chain reaction of joy.
Reflect
None of us knows our hearts. Motivations are mysterious and always mixed, never fully pure this side of heaven. Why do we fail to be more generous? What holds us back from giving? One way to gain insight into our question, “Why should we give?” can come from flipping the question into, “Why don’t we give?”
Allow yourself to think deeply about your views on money and material possessions. How are our finances connected to our hearts? Ask God to help you see how our money relates to our relationship with him.
Giving ties to faith, to worship, to love, and contentment, as well as to idolatry, to fear and consuming.
- What is your reaction when someone raises the issue of giving?