Christian Giving

*CHRISTIAN GIVING

How are Christians supposed to give today? Should we be aiming for a 10%

tithe? Or more? Or less? This article will attempt to answer this question

using scripture as far as the New Covenant is concerned. In writing this

article, there are two very important assumptions I am making about anyone

who wants give the New Covenant way:

1. You are a slave of Jesus Christ (aka Jesus is your Lord)

2. You are part of the bride of Christ (aka Jesus is your husband)

If either of the above is not true for you then the steps below won’t work

for you. I will go into detail as to what 1 and 2 mean. Before that, I

would like us to establish the foundation for all New Testament giving. We

find this in

2 Corinthians 8:9

9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich,

yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become

rich.

This verse is talking about hard cash, money, sika, luchi. If you read the

surrounding context, Paul through the Holy Spirit is speaking to the

Corinthians about giving real money to the Christians in Judea. The

foundation for their giving is the money they have to give, where does this

money come from? As the verse says, it is from the grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ. Jesus Christ became poor so that we would become rich. Since we are

rich, we can give. It is very important to understand this foundation since

it forms the basis of all giving in Christianity. As a child of God, you

don’t give to get but rather, you give because you have. The foundation is

grace and always grace. When God first created the world, he put Adam in

charge of everything in it … all the world. In other words, all the money

you see now was once available to man for free from God. After Adam sinned,

he put satan in charge of the earth and the money in it. This is why Jesus

referred to satan as the ‘prince of this world’. After Jesus died on the

cross to redeem us, He made it possible for us to get back to Adam’s state

and more. This means that by His grace, you have access to all the wealth

you will ever need. With this first foundation laid, let us move on to what

it means to have Jesus as your Lord and Husband.

Jesus is your Lord aka You are his slave

This means a lot of things but the aspect of being a slave that is most

relevant to Christian giving is hearing and obeying. Jesus said ‘Why do you

call me Lord, Lord, when you don’t do what I say?’. This means He expects

anyone who calls Him Lord to do what He says. The early apostles referred

to themselves as slaves of Christ. Let us explore some more what this means

when it comes to hearing. Peter calls himself a slave at the beginning of 2

Peter. Now we should remember that Peter had walked with Jesus physically

for years. He woke up every day and said ‘Jesus what do you want us to do

today?’. Jesus would then answer with specific instructions and Peter along

with the other disciples would go out and do them. If Peter was confused,

he just had to ask Jesus ‘Did you mean A or B’? and Jesus would clarify.

Now in John chapters 14 - 17, Jesus told his disciples that he was leaving

soon and they got worried. One of the reasons was that they wouldn’t be

able to speak to and receive instructions from Jesus the way they had been

doing so far. It disturbed them and understandably so since they wanted to

remain disciples of Christ. Jesus then told them that it was *better* that

he left. Better means that whatever was going to replace walking with

Christ physically each day had to at least include the ability to hear

specifically from Jesus at any point in time. We know that Jesus was

referring to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. To put it bluntly, Jesus

expects us to be able to communicate with and hear the Holy Spirit better

than we would be able to communicate with and hear from him if he was

physically present in his post-resurrection body. Another key thing Jesus

said was that the Holy Spirit would only speak what Jesus said. So when

Peter says he is a slave of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit dispensation,

what he actually means is that he is someone who communicates with Christ

through the Holy Spirit better than if Jesus was physically present with

him and obeys what he hears Christ saying through the Spirit.

One thing worth nothing here is that Jesus also said He would manifest

himself to us and so there is a place for visions, dreams, the presence of

and other encounters with Jesus whilst on earth. The Holy Spirit however is

the one who is in charge of leading us unto all truth and reminding us of

all the things Jesus said. He is also with us forever wherever we go and in

us. The Holy Spirit is with every Christian, literally in your GPS location

as we speak right now. If we could see into the Spirit realm, we would see

Him with every single believer wherever they went.

The key takeaway from all this is that having Jesus as your Lord means that

you can communicate with and receive instructions from Him just as if he

was standing right next to you. You should know that God has a plan for

your life, a very specific one. He cares about every detail including which

school you go to, where you shop, when you sleep etc. Being a slave means

you don’t do anything on your own but that your whole life is spent doing

what Jesus asks you to do. When it comes to giving, this eliminates all

formulas. You don’t give a percentage but rather you give what Christ asks

you to give. You don’t just give to your local church, the homeless or

charities but rather you give where Christ asks you to give to.

Jesus is your husband aka you are his bride

The important takeaway from this aspect is similar to the one described

above. A husband has things he likes and things he doesn’t like. On certain

days he wants his wife to wear red, on other days white. On some days he

wants to eat rice and on other days he might want pizza. Having Jesus as

your husband means that at any given moment, you know what your husband

wants. It is also important to realize that you have to be in constant

communication because he might want you to give $10 one day and the next

day he might ask you to give $1000 or not at all. It might mean that he

might ask you to give to a prophet who you haven’t heard anything about or

to give to a really popular ministry or to give your offering to the person

sitting next to you in church! This is what Paul means when he says ‘we

have the mind of Christ’. It means that at any given moment, through the

agency of the Holy Spirit, we know exactly how much our husband wants us to

give, where he wants us to give to, when he wants us to give and how he

wants us to give.

So to quickly recap, when it comes to giving, born again Christians are

supposed to give exactly as Christ wants them to. They can know this

because Christ expects us to be able to freely communicate with Him at any

point in time, regarding any question through the agency of the Holy

Spirit. I’ll illustrate this some more to make it more practical:

It means that on Sundays before going to church, you wake up and ask Jesus

‘Jesus how much do you want me to give today?’. Here are some examples of

how he might respond:

- Don’t give anything to the church, I want you to give $400 to Auntie

Maggie down the street.

- Don’t give anything, you are already in mountains of debt, I want you

to focus on getting out of debt first before giving anything to your church.

- Put a check of $50 in the offertory bin.

- There will be a woman with 2 kids sitting next to you in the church.

Split your collection of $200 into two and give her half of it in an

envelope, tell her I asked you to do it.

- You have $1000 in your bank account, empty it and give it all to the

church.

- You know what, you decide how much you want to give today. I’m ok with

whatever you decide for today.

I think you get the picture. The emphasis here is on the foundation of

grace which gives you the ability to give and then a relationship with

Christ which gives you the ability to know exactly how He wants you to

give. I can’t overemphasize how incredibly important this is. It would to

be better to give only one church offering under direct instruction from

Christ than for you to give all of your money using your own judgement. The

reason for this is the in the former, you will be doing God’s perfect will.

God always does things with eternity in mind. He might ask you to give $1

to a prophet that will yield a harvest of 1 million souls for the Kingdom

whereas your own donation of $1 million to some preacher will get

completely wasted on the world all because you didn’t seek the mind of

Christ before doing it. The $1 from Christ will result in an unimaginable

reward for you in heaven and the $1 million … well who knows?

Because most Christians don’t know how to hear from Christ through the Holy

Spirit, doing the above might be the most difficult thing for them to do.

This happens because they haven’t really developed a relationship with

Christ to where they know His voice. Below are some things you can do to

build that relationship. Remember that it is a gradual process and there

might be some missteps along the way but if you persevere in it it is

inevitable that you will mature to a place where the Father, the Son and

the Spirit will be more real to you than the physical people you see every

day. The steps below will be very practical things you can do.

THE HOLY SPIRIT SPEAKS TO US IN DIVERSE WAYS

Remember that the Holy Spirit is a spirit and he communicates with your

perfect, new, born again spirit. The communication can manifest itself in

various ways but it happens Spirit to spirit. Here is a non-exhaustive list

of how you can hear from Christ via the Holy Spirit. As I already

mentioned, it takes some time to learn where these come from. For almost

all of these, the devil has a counterfeit. In addition, your own fleshly

mind might come up with its own version of what it thinks Christ is saying.

Don’t be discouraged if you make some mistakes, just keep persevering and

the relationship will mature to where you are always sure:

- Thoughts

- A still small voice

- An audible voice

- Dreams

- Visions (there are various types described in the Bible)

- Through other people

- Through the Scriptures

- Your inner witness (this is where your new born again heart which God

placed in you acts as a compass to direct you)

Personally, in my walk right now, thoughts and the still small voice are

the most common way He communicates with me. He does speak to me through

all of the above.

REMEMBER THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS ALWAYS PRESENT WITH YOU

Be always aware that the Holy Spirit is present with you. I do this by

having a reminder app on my phone that sends me a notification every 30

mins telling me that ‘The Holy Spirit’ is present with you. You can use

whatever means works best for you. I talk with Him like I would talk to a

real person, sharing thoughts, jokes, asking questions etc. I speak to Him

when I wake up, before going to bed, before starting work, before going to

meetings, when driving etc. This might seem like a game of having an

imaginary friend but it is extremely important. You will find that without

constantly being aware of his presence, there will be times in your day

where you are so busy with other things that you forget He exists. How can

you hear from someone who you don’t even think exists?

SPEND TIME WITH GOD (FATHER, SON & SPIRIT)

Spend lots of time with God (Father, Son and Spirit). You can’t get to know

someone without spending time with them. It is best to set aside some time

each morning (no matter how small) to do this. I personally try to commit

to 3 am - 6 am every morning to do this. Remember again that there is no

formula here. I rely on Jesus or the Spirit to wake me up based on our

commitment, once I wake up I ask Him what He wants us to do for the

morning. The answer is almost always different. Here are just a few of the

responses I have received so far (I’m paraphrasing most of this)

- Go back to bed (He usually speaks to me through a dream when this

happens)

- Pray

- Pray in tongues

- Read the Bible

- Worship and enter into my presence

- Listen for a prophetic word I am sending you

- Pray in tongues whilst listening to an audio Bible

- Meditate on the things I have taught you

- Send an email to so and so person

- etc.

You get the picture. It is a relationship so it makes sense that He will

have something on His mind for you to do each day. One other benefit of

spending time with God is that He sharpens you like iron sharpens iron so

that you become more like Him. Fears and sins you have struggled with for

decades will suddenly disappear without your doing anything about them. We

see an example of this in the Bible when Jesus went into the temple and

drove the money changers, sellers and thieves out. After that, he taught

and then people came to the temple for healing and blessings (Matt 21: 12 -

14). He said “It is written ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,

but you make it a den of robbers.” Under the New Covenant, your body is the

temple of God. When you spend time with Him in fellowship and prayer, you

allow Him to drive out all the selfish, greedy roots in you. Once He does

that, the blind and the lame can come to you and Jesus will heal them

through you.

PRAY WITHOUT CEASING (IN TONGUES AND ENGLISH)

Pray in tongues … a lot … without ceasing. When the Bible says that we

should pray without ceasing and be in prayer at all times, it means it.

There are two main benefits for this. When you pray in tongues, your spirit

is speaking mysteries with God. These are obviously not mysteries to God,

but rather, God is revealing those mysteries to you. At some point once

your spirit understands those mysteries, it communicates them to your

physical man. I have experienced this multiple times where some revelation

knowledge exploded in me after a season of speaking in tongues. The second

benefit is that when you pray in tongues, it is the Holy Spirit that gives

you those tongues. It is that same tongues voice that speaks to you on

behalf of Christ in another language like English so you are actually

developing your spiritual hearing by long hours of praying in tongues. I

personally pray in tongues every chance I get, under my breath, all day

whenever the time, place and people allow. This is interspersed with

speaking in English to God.

SPEND TIME IN THE WORD

Spend time reading, hearing and meditating the Bible. This is also very

important because it reveals more about God to you. It is also the milk and

meat that the Holy Spirit digests in you to produce your spiritual food

which will help you grow. Your spiritual food as a Christian is ‘rhema’ aka

a word from God (Matt 4:4) and doing the will of your Father(John 4:34).

There are various ways to do this that we all know of:

- Read scripture

- Memorize scripture

- Listen to an audio Bible (I like to do this when going to bed so that

throughout my sleeping the Word of God is playing)

- Reading certain sections of scripture over and over again 50 - 100

times till they become a part of you

- Be sure to never take verses out of context. If you are not sure of

what a verse means, read the surrounding context and ask the Holy Spirit to

reveal the meaning to you.

- etc.

Again, there should be no formula here. Personally, there have been times

when God has asked me to stay in the Gospels, at other times He has me

reading the whole Bible or just a single chapter. This should be as the

Lord leads. One other major benefit of reading and knowing the word is that

it protects you from false doctrine and counterfeit ‘words from God’ that

satan will try to trick you with. If you hear anything from the Holy Spirit

that is not in line with the Word of God then you know that it is not from

God.

SPEAK WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS IS TRUE ABOUT YOURSELF

Spend time speaking what the Bible says to be true about yourself. This

sounds like a game but it is also extremely important. If the Bible says

that ’No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in

him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God’ (1 John 3:9) then you

should say of yourself ‘I am born of God and I don’t practise sin because

God’s seed abides in me; and I cannot sin because I am born of God’. By

‘say of yourself’ I mean literally spend time saying that aloud. It doesn’t

matter if you steal every day, you still speak those true words about

yourself if you have been born again. An example of this from the Bible is

Abraham. While still without a child from Sarah, God asked Abram to call

himself ‘Father of many nations’. You see in today’s world, it would be

like a poor person changing their legal name to ‘Rich’. Every single day

Abraham, his family and other people called him ‘Father of many nations’

they were lying in the physical but they were speaking the truth because

they were speaking words from God and God cannot lie. These words you speak

are what the Holy Spirit will use to bring transformation into your life.

The Holy Spirit needed God’s words before starting to create anything,

before God spoke, He was just hovering. Much in the same way, He is

hovering over you know waiting for you to speak about yourself what God

says is true about you. The Lord currently has me speaking 1 John about

myself. He might have a different scripture for you. From time to time,

when the Spirit reminds me I pull out my paraphrased version and begin

speaking it.

IMAGINE, PICTURE AND DAYDREAM WHAT YOU SPEAK (above point)

Spend time day-dreaming, picturing, imagining, doodling, drawing, writing

what the Bible says is true about yourself. In addition to speaking, it is

important to focus your thoughts and imaginations on the truths you speak.

Again with Abraham, God first gave him the stars to count and the land to

see in addition to changing his name. Both of these were equally important

else God wouldn’t have done it. If the Bible says you are healed, picture

yourself healed and say it aloud. By doing that you are walking together

with God by agreeing with Him (Amos 3:3). As the Lord leads, I personally

spend some mornings and nights just daydreaming myself doing and living

some things God has personally promised me. I picture my reactions, how

they will happen in minute detail, how they will affect others around me,

the tears of joy that will result etc.

FAST

Fast. Again do this as the Lord leads. Fasting helps you to make your body

subject to your spirit and also builds your faith. When you fast, you have

to subject the physical reality of the hunger pangs to the superseding

spiritual reality of getting more sensitive to God. Once you are used to

that, the next time God asks you to pray for someone with a really severe

condition, you won’t be moved by the sight of that condition because your

body and senses are used to having spiritual reality supersede physical

reality. This is what Jesus meant when he said ‘This kind can come out only

by prayer and fasting.” (Mark 9:29).

WORSHIP, PRAISE AND ADORE YOUR GOD

Spend time in worship, praise and adoration of the Father, Son and Spirit.

You do this on church every Sunday. Worship is one of the most effective

way of entering into the palpable presence of God. You can sing, listen to

worship music, play it in your head etc. I personally do this as the Lord

leads. I have literally felt the Lord’s presence (a perceptible warm glow

in my chest, or a calm wind washing over my body) when I was completely

consumed in worship and adoration of the Lord. After you do this for some

time, you will start perceiving in the Spirit realm when you worship. The

Bible refers to this as worshiping ‘in the Spirit’. (Revelation 1:10).

Being ‘in the Spirit’ means exactly what it says. It means that you are in

a state where the Holy Spirit allows you to perceive with your spiritual

senses (see, hear, touch, taste, smell etc.) This is something every

Christian can experience on a regular basis if we spend time worshiping

God. It is also what Jesus meant when He said that ‘God is Spirit and those

who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24).

Personally, I have seen and felt my spiritual hands being lifted in praise

to the Lord. There have been times where the Holy Spirit opened my

spiritual ears so that I could hear praise music in the Spirit and worship

along to it without needing an mp3 player or anything of that sort.

OBEY WHATEVER HE ASKS YOU TO DO, NO MATTER HOW CRAZY IT SEEMS

Finally, and this is the most important thing … obey whatever the Lord asks

you to do. The things listed above are not difficult, they mostly boil down

to spending a lot of time with God. As you do start doing them you will

definitely hear from Him on how, where, when, who and what to give. If you

are not sure, seek and wait upon Him till you are. When you finally hear,

obey. If you don’t obey you would have been better off not hearing at all

because you will be in rebellion against the Lord which He considers the

equivalent of witchcraft (1 Samuel 15:23). The list above is also not

exhaustive. I am fairly certain that there are other things to do to build

this relationship so that we can hear directly from Christ through the Holy

Spirit just as if He was physically present but what I have listed is what

I know of so far.

In conclusion the question we set out to answer was, how should Christians

give today under the new covenant? The answer we came up with based on

scripture was that they should give exactly how, where, when, to whom and

the amount Christ wants them to at any given moment. The follow up question

was, how do Christians get to know this information? They get to know this

by hearing it directly from Christ through the Holy Spirit. This requires

having a relationship with the Father, the Son and the Spirit and we

outlined some practical things to do to build this relationship.

Notice that I didn’t mention anything about tithing, or ‘give and it will

come back to you’ etc. The reason is that all of those things become moot

points when you are giving exactly as Christ wants you to give based on

direct instructions from Him. My prayer is that this message blesses you

and leads you into a deeper walk with our infinite Father who has chosen to

reveal Himself to us through His son Jesus Christ.

Blessings and Regards,

George Anothen Armah.

Sources:

The Holy Spirit

The Bible

http://www.garycarpenter.org/media.html

http://daveroberson.org/series.aspx

Numerous other sources through whom the Lord has taught me

*

Blessings and Regards,

--

George Anothen Armah