Articles > Biblical Giving
How to evaluate whether your biblical
giving is proportionate to your income and what the
Bible says about God’s money
Is My Biblical Giving Proportionate
to My Income?
by Kristi LaMontagne
When we stop and think about it, God owns everything
in the natural world and we are merely stewards or managers
of what He has entrusted us to take care of. (Ps.24:1,
Deut. 8:18). God makes it clear that everything we manage
for Him comes from Him. As good stewards, God expects
us to wisely manage the three sources that He gives
all of us: our Time, Talent, and Treasure.
In Mal.3: 8-12, God instructs us to give back to Him
a tenth of what he has given to us. This is the basic
amount He asks of us. The Lord also wants us to give
freewill offerings to advance His Kingdom and alms (charity)
to the poor.
Our tithe is not derived from our net income, after
taxes, but from our gross income before taxes! Many
people are unaware of this biblical truth. For example,
before my husband and I learned this principle, the
enemy was vexing us in the area of our finances. By
failing to give God the entire tithe, we put ourselves
under a curse. (Mal.3: 8-9). After learning this principle,
we corrected this misconception and our finances began
to get into line with God’s Word so that we were
then able to hear how God wanted us to allocate His
money. Within one short year, we were on our way to
becoming completely debt free, except for our home mortgage…and
we hope that soon follows.
Once we understand that the true tithe is what the
Bible calls a first fruits obligation, and that it is
10% of our gross income, we see that as God increases
our income we should be cheerful about paying a larger
tithe in proportion to our income. Offerings and alms
are the second and third components of a three part
biblical giving plan. These are based on freewill decisions
that should be prayerfully made. We certainly encourage
you to increase freewill giving as God blesses you with
more income.
Is the concept of giving on your “gross income”
new to you? Is your response “I can’t afford
to give that much”? As things appear right now,
this may appear to be true, however according to Mal.
3:10-12, you will find that this is the only place in
the bible that the Lord gives us the challenge to test
Him. By being obedient and putting God in the middle
of your finances, you give Him your permission to break
the power of the enemy over your finances and that positions
you to enter into the abundance of His blessings! (Jer.29:11)
I’m sure glad that we did!
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