Yesterday we received a news post from Kathy Van Driel reminding us of the year-end timeline for financial contributions to Southridge. It reminded me of a biblical "financial review" of sorts that I personally reflect on every December. In this season of giving, I want to make sure I'm giving in ways that honour God the most and are most consistent with His teachings on stewarding finances. So I remind myself of 4 things:
- The first kind of giving God desires is a tithe to your local church. The process of tithing - giving the 'firstfruits' of the income God has entrusted to you (where the word "tithe" means "tenth") is not only commanded in the Old Testament (Leviticus 27:30-32) but also commended by Jesus in the New Testament (Luke 11:42). Tithing to our local church family is the baseline from which all other generosity flows - to the poor, to missionaries, to other ministries, etc.
- Giving our tithes is critical to the health and future of our church family. God's heart for the church is that Together Everyone Accomplishes More, which we see in the New Testament as the church pooled its finances together (Acts 4:34-35). And in the case of Southridge, we don't rely on Christmas season media attention to tap into people's generosity; we depend exclusively on the provision of God through the consistent faithfulness of tithing believers. Tithes matter at Southridge.
- Giving our tithes makes a difference in others. Through God's provision via our tithes, we're able to build the Bible into kids, encourage life-trajectory-altering decisions in teenagers and serve and support struggling marriages and families in crisis. Beyond that though, we've been able to reach outside of our own church family and serve hundreds of seniors and single parent families, not to mention becoming the largest homeless shelter in all of Niagara. Like Jesus teaches in Luke 19, faithfulness in small things like tithing places our community in a position of significant social responsibility across our Region.
- Giving our tithes blesses us. As God promised in Malachi 3:10, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse... Test me in this, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it." God almost dares us to take Him up on this challenge to experience incredible blessing through our financial faithfulness.
So in this season of giving, take some time to reflect on your Southridge giving. And make sure, as the year-end deadline that Kathy mentioned approaches, that 2011 is a year of giving that puts a smile on God's face!
