Day 24 (March 30): Let the Bible be Your Guide!

I enjoy hearing and reading about your personal experiences. It encourages me that the ministry of Christ Church is positively influencing and impacting your life.

The Apostle Paul was eager to guide believers in how to live a godly and harmonious life. When he wrote to the folks in Corinth, he taught them how to be disciplined in the area of giving. He said: “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made” (1 Cor. 16:2). His goal was to teach them how to benefit from an ongoing financial partnership with God. Living based on God’s word keeps you in partnership with God. You then have the confidence to pray for His provision to come into your life because you are honoring His words and financial guidelines.

Generosity is a learned behavior that becomes habitual when we maintain the discipline Paul exhorted us to adopt. Last Wednesday night and the previous week, a number of people raised the question: Where does it teach tithing in the Bible. There are numerous places (Matt. 23:23-24; Mal. 3:6-12; Lev. 27:30; Neh. 10:37) including the passage I just cited. Although the 1 Cor. 16 passage does not use the word tithe (which means giving one-tenth of your income to God), the principle of “proportional giving” is shown. Proportional giving is when we give money to God’s work, which reflects a specific proportion (or percentage) of our income. The giving is to be regular since Paul used the term “the first day of every week”.

The idea of financial freedom is demonstrated in that we are allowing the Bible to be our guide in all matters of life, even the financial areas. Through budgeting, we are able to dictate where our monies go. Avoiding “budget busters” such as excessive dining out will help us maintain discipline in tithing. Here’s a great form that helps you monitor and destroy the common budget busters you may come up against www.christchurchusa.org/doc/Budget_Busters_Form.pdf.

What budget buster(s) do you have to constantly monitor? Why is it so hard to avoid it?

Tonight @ 7:00 p.m. at Midweek at the East Campus is when we worship and then fellowship with one another. We call it “Among Friends”. The goal is to establish healthy friendships through meaningful conversation.