Did you know that Christians gave a larger percentage of their income to their churches during the Great Depression than they do now? There’s no question that church giving isn’t where it should be. We’ll discuss what’s stopping us from giving more today on MoneyWise.
There’s no question that church giving suffered during the pandemic. While some churches actually experienced an increase in giving more than a third saw their weekly giving drop.
On average, Christians today are giving only about 2.5% of their income to the church, while during the darkest days of the Great Depression they gave 3.3%.
Most every Christian you ask will tell you they’d like to give more but something prevents them from doing it. The reason people cite most often is financial bondage.
FINANCIAL BONDAGE
Some say they’d like to even give sacrificially above the tithe, but they can’t. They have too much debt. Or they have some other financial limitation or obligation.
Financial bondage can show itself in many ways. Debt is the most obvious, but there’s also hoarding and just spending foolishly. The more debt you have, the more you hoard, and the more you spend, the less you’re able to give to God’s Kingdom.
Spiritual bondage is next. Our desires, our will, is not in tune with God’s will. As a result, we make life decisions that prevent us from giving more. In spiritual bondage, we simply want other things more than we want to give.
1 Timothy 6:10 warns us about spiritual bondage. It reads, For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
THE SOLUTION
The solution is to pray that the Holy Spirit helps align your will with God’s will. We should do this all the time, but especially when we feel convicted about giving.
The last obstacle is emotional bondage, or we might call it a lack of emotion. You just don’t feel passionate about giving. Our natural state is to not give. if you’re in emotional bondage, you might shy away from learning about giving opportunities because they make you uncomfortable. Instead, we should feel excited or emotional about giving. It’s a very tangible form of worship which we were designed to do.
Any or all of these obstacles, can limit how much you give. But you don’t have to allow it. You can get on your knees and ask God to make your will conform to His, to give you clear direction on how much you should give and where.
LISTENER QUESTIONS On today’s program, Rob also answers listener questions: ●What is the best way to invest for a relative who is turning 18? ●What does it mean to move to a more conservative investment strategy and how do you do that? ●Does it make sense to refinance one VA loan into another VA loan? ●How can you ensure that a prenuptial agreement and a will don’t contain any conflicting information? ●How do you recover and move forward after many financial mistakes in a broken marriage? RESOURCES MENTIONED ●Betterment ●Wealthfront ●NerdWallet Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000 or email them toQuestions@MoneyWise.org. Also, visit our website atMoneyWise.orgwhere you can connect with a MoneyWise Coach, join the MoneyWise Community, and even download the free MoneyWise app. Like and Follow us on Facebook atMoneyWise Mediafor videos and the very latest discussion!Remember that it’s your prayerful and financial support that keeps MoneyWise on the air. Help us continue this outreach by clicking theDonate tab on our websiteor in our app.
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