Faith Is Giving

Faith is not stagnant. Faith is moving, faith is action. James says, “Show me your faith by your works (James 2:18).” In other words, one demonstrates his faith by his actions, what he does. What he does proves that he has faith.

One of the biggest ways one can show his faith in the Christian life is by his giving. The more difficult it is for him to give, the more he shows that he trusts God.

Many Christians shut you off when you start talking about giving money. “Oh, here we go again,” they say. “He just wants our money.”

Well, in many cases that reaction seems justified. We have all seen televangelists on the tube begging for money. Some slick evangelist gets on the television and something doesn’t feel right. “I’ll bet he’s going to ask me to send him a thousand dollars,” I say to myself, and sure enough. You can see the presentation getting more and more compelling until, at last, he starts sweating and gets quite animated, waving his arms around. Pretty soon, he points his finger right at you and says something like, “If you’ll send a thousand dollars, God will bless you.”

My response is, “God may want me to sow a thousand dollars, but I don’t have to give it to you!” Honestly, this kind of appeal really makes me mad.

A woman I had ministered to from Indiana was once watching one of these guys and she became convinced she was supposed to send him $800. About that time, the Lord spoke to her and said, “Send it to George.”

Well, I really like that. For once, one of those slick guys did something for me. I was really glad the woman was spiritual enough to hear God speaking to her.

The conclusion is, this is one of the reasons why so many Christians immediately turn you off when you start talking about money. We make every effort in our newsletters, not to ask for money. We trust God to speak to people about that. Once a year in December, Lorraine makes a “soft” appeal for financial support, explaining what God has called us to do, and asking the people to pray about supporting us.

It’s a shame that money has become such a touchy subject in American Christianity because ministries need finances to do what God has asked them to do.

The sober fact is that only six percent of American Christians tithe. That’s pretty pathetic, really. The fact of the matter is that, generally speaking, Americans are selfish, self-centered and materialistic.

So that condition can make it very hard for honest, obedient ministries to do what God has asked them to do. It’s really quite sad.

Having said all of that, I’m going to talk about the amazing things God has done for us, because we sacrificially gave our money to Him. It’s an amazing adventure that so many miss out on because they are not willing to give their money to the Lord.

A few months ago, Lorraine and I ran into a problem. We were printing the monthly newsletter and our printer ran out of yellow ink. We were not yet halfway through the print run. There was not enough money in the ministry account to buy a new cartridge.

“What do we do now?” Lorraine asked.

“We’ll just have to send out the letters we have and wait and see what happens.” I said. We had tithed faithfully, both from the ministry account and from our personal finances.

A few days later I was at the coffee shop working when my phone rang. It was Lorraine. “I went back to the office to pray and think, she said. “Then, I noticed an ink cartridge sticking out from the compartment where we keep the paper. It is a brand new cartridge, in yellow, the color we need.”

Well of course I wondered if we had bought it and simple misplaced it but I knew we hadn’t. Lorraine went to check the receipts from the cartridges we had bought (she keeps all of the receipts) and none of the numbers on the receipts matched the number on the cartridge.

God had supernaturally brought a new ink cartridge to our office!

There are so many stories I could tell you about sacrificially giving to God, and then receiving a chunk of money as a result.

One time, several years ago, when I was living in Minneapolis, I mentally calculated what I should give the Lord as I was headed for Church Sunday morning. I determined I should give $250, which was my tithe and some over. I always try to give more than my tithe. The Bible says we will reap in proportion to what we sow (Galatians 6:7). Besides that, I really like to be generous.

It was a sacrifice to give $250. It left my account nearly empty, which is so often the case when you are being challenged to give.

I sat in the front during the service and put my money in the offering. When the service was done, I walked into the commons area of the large church, which was full of people elbow to elbow. All of a sudden, a woman was standing in front of me and she handed me an envelope. “I have been meaning to give you this for some time,” she said.

Then she turned and walked away. I peeked inside the envelope and there was a check for $600. It didn’t take the Lord long to produce a return on my seed.

On another occasion, I was sitting in the coffee shop thinking about getting the newsletter out. There was $30 in the ministry account and I decided I would go to the bank and draw it out to buy stamps for the newsletter mailing.

The Lord interrupted me, “Send the $30 to Cathy,” He said. Cathy was a faithful intercessor who prayed for us a lot. She lives by faith, just like we do.

I walked over to the bank and withdrew the money. Then, I went back to the coffee shop, addressed an envelope to Cathy and placed the money inside. It took considerable faith to complete this act, because how were we going to get stamps to send the newsletter? It is even more of a test because if the newsletter doesn’t go out, money doesn’t come in.

Just then, the phone rang. It was Lorraine and she was obviously excited. She explained that she was out running errands. She ran into a woman she knew who reached into her pocket and pulled out several crumpled bills. These she handed to Lorraine. The bills totaled $250! God multiplied the seed I sowed . . . in less than an hour!

I you are going to walk in faith, genuinely living and practicing it, then you had better be ready to be obedient when God asks you to give. It is a living, breathing, vital part of Using Your Faith.

Photo taken and designed by Lorraine