Let God Tell You What to Give

When you become a person of faith, you learn to give according to what God tells you to give. You don’t limit what you give by deciding, “This is what I think I can reasonably give.” That kind of giving doesn’t require any faith.

Instead, ask God, “What do you want to give through me?” There’s a difference between giving by sight and giving by faith.

My wife, Kay, and I have been tested several times in this way on giving. One of the most dramatic examples was when we raised money to build Saddleback Church’s first worship center in 1993. We asked people to make a commitment to give over a three-year period. So Kay and I prayed about what we would give, and we came up with an amount that didn’t seem reasonable, based on our income. From our perspective, it was more than we could afford. But we trusted God for that amount.

A few days later I was reading in 1 Chronicles 29 about how God told King David to announce his gift to build the temple so everybody knew that he was sacrificing as much as everyone else.

I sensed God was telling me to announce our gift so it would be a challenge to others. I was worried people would misunderstand my motive. But I did it anyway, and I asked our church to pray for us.

A month later, we were going into the weekend where we would take up the special offering, and we were still wondering how this would all work out. Then, the Friday before that weekend, I got a call from Zondervan Publishing Company saying they wanted me to write a book and call it The Purpose Driven Church, and they would give me an advance that was more money than Kay and I had committed to giving.

You cannot out-give God!

Telling our church this news was one of the greatest experiences of my life. And I nearly missed it because of my own stubbornness. We would have missed seeing how God is dependable if we hadn’t done what God told us to do. It was a lesson I will never forget.

“Honor the Lord by giving him the first part of all your income, and he will fill your barns with wheat and barley and overflow your wine vats with the finest wines” (Proverbs 3:9 TLB).