How Tithing Helped Me

It’s not an understatement to say that the Gospel saved my soul and—in many ways—tithing changed my life.

One of the darkest sins that I struggled with before Christ was greed. Greed is always wanting more. The danger of greed is that no matter how much you get, it’s never enough. You work hard and obtain only to desire more. It’s an empty cycle that pulls you farther and farther away from God.

I found that the antidote was tithing— which is giving 10% of your gross income to your local church. How can tithing help you?

1. Reduces Anxiety

It’s been my professional and personal observation that our worry about money consumes a lot of our daily focus.

You might not realize how much it’s on your mind because it’s woven into other anxieties about your job, family, and even health. These worries commonly revolve around our need for provision.

Yet when I read Job 36:11, I find hope: “If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.”

What is this hope? That if I first obey, serve, and follow him, and if I surrender my finances to him, he will take care of me. One way to do this is by tithing. The opposite of worry is trust. Tithing is an act of trusting God that he will provide.

Since I started obeying God in this area and trusting him with my anxieties, I have so many testimonies about how he has never failed me. He has never forgotten me. He has never heard my request for bread and given me a stone (Matt. 7:9-11). How easily we forget that the God who dropped daily manna for his people in the desert still provides for our needs today!

2. Calibrates Your Priorities

Whoever controls your wallet, controls your life.

We’re often willing to let Christ into every room of our house—except our finances. The last stronghold we keep under lock and key is our bank account. Yet to follow Christ is to live with abandon and repent of anything that gets in the way of loving and serving him. This means dying to self in our finances. All of self.

One reason we hold our money close to the chest is lack of gratitude. All we can see is what we lack or what we wish we had, which leads to discontentment, over-spending, and debt. Yet what we fail to realize is that we give to God because he first gave to us. He gave us salvation in Christ and pours out gifts of common grace we enjoy every day. 1 Timothy 6.17 says, “God … richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”

The only way you can be overwhelmingly generous is by first recognizing how generous God has been with you. Tithing is an overflow of gratitude to God, giving to him out of love and worship. It calibrates your priorities and puts him in his rightful place of first—not self.

3. Financial Clarity

Tithing isn’t just about giving 10% of your income, but it’s about giving your best to the Lord. The Bible calls that your “firstfruits.” What tithing does is focus your finances and center them in concentric circles.

The financial formula I preach all the time is this:

• Give 10%—Give to something that will outlive your life: the Gospel. Tithing is always first.
• Save 20%—Save so someday so you won’t outlive your money.
• Spend 70%—Spend on you and your family. Provide for your needs. Do with it whatever you like! Just avoid debt.

This formula is no guarantee of prosperity, but it is a promise of financial clarity. Following this formula is one way to bring equilibrium to your finances by putting Christ at the center.

Summary

Tithing can change your life because it changed mine: Greed was out to destroy me, until I found that the cure for greed is giving. But this is a generosity that can only be understood after you accept generosity of Christ—the gift of salvation.

After being forgiven, when you begin to give generously, radically, and sacrificially, the greedy scales fall from your eyes. The trance and allure of more fades away, and you’re left with a deep feeling of contentment. Trust me—it’s possible.