I have had a wake up call in the last few weeks on my relationship to money. This has been a hot topic for me for decades.

I was in the prosperity gospel for more than seven years. It infected me a bit with this false idea that owning stuff would qualify God’s system of giving.

The danger is that I came out of the prosperity gospel with a need to achieve and a belief that the more I gave, the more I would get. God became transactional. The analogy of a glass and pitcher of water was my belief system. The more I gave, the more I would overflow with blessing. If nothing was spilling over, then I didn’t give enough. It was so legalistic and eventually distanced me from Jesus.

I stopped giving for years because I was so confused. I couldn’t give without thinking God owed me something. My heart had been defiled.

Then I found the grace gospel. I didn’t have to give. It felt so liberating. It was a relief to know that I had no demand on me to give.

But then I spent years not participating in the beauty of giving. I had been missing out on the expression of Christ (generosity) because I assumed that because there was no judgment in me not giving that I was exempt.

This excluded me from experiencing the power of giving.

I have swung both ways one can go in Christianity in my relationship to money. I went from “give to get” to “quit to give”. Neither are “heaven as it is on earth”.

What I now realize is that giving is the easiest thing in the world when your faith is made complete. It’s a joy to give because completed faith is confirmed by fullness of joy.

¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:10-11 NIV)

John 15:16 says that “whatever I ask in His name, the Father will give you.”

This is one of the greatest promises in all of scripture. This command to love others is produced in us as fruit that will become love to others. This love is fulfilled through abiding. Abiding in Him produces this magnificent fruit of loving others. Often, loving others comes in sacrificial love, a love that lays down our lives for our brother. Christ emulated this sacrificial love in the greatest act of generosity ever known.

This is where my misunderstanding of the prosperity and grace gospel became THE gospel…

³² He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32 KJV)

He withheld nothing. I was withholding my heart to give freely because I didn’t have to. Jesus didn’t have to give but he chose to forgive. Whether it is time, talent or treasure, it is not mine to withhold because I only breathe and exist because of His sacrifice.

Here was the other realization that I could not escape: If I truly had completed faith then my actions would follow what I believed. If I believed God will abundantly bless me and meet all my needs, then when He asks me to give I won’t hesitate because it is all His anyway. If I am reluctant to give, then my reluctance is telling me where my faith is.

The latest revelation came yesterday morning…

I am going to share what I learned about abundance from the first person view from different Biblical perspectives.

Joseph, Second in Command to Pharaoh:

“I learned that every time I gave away there was more. The storage wasn’t the supply. It was the giving that supplied. We would have never had enough in the seven years of plenty for the seven years of famine if our original intent wasn’t to give it all away. It was wisdom to save because the wisdom was produced by intent to bless. The only issue was that I started a nation in dependence to Pharaoh, not a nation dependent on YHWH. This same YHWH delivered them later and proved they could depend on his food from heaven and water from a rock. The facts of how food was supplied was in wisdom to store, but that Truth came from the Supplier. Survival was not in the supply we stored, or even in our obedience to store. Our survival was because the Supplier was YHWH and He told us to store so we could give. Trusting in the supply made Israel subservient to the seen supply of Egypt, not the unseen Supplier.”

David, King of Israel:

“Wealth to me was a product of conquered territory. I was finishing the job of conquering land that Joshua started. The land can produce and claim. The bounty of this conquered land went to the temple dream. The plans, materials, and labor was all funded by YHWH conquering. I paved the way for conquest, but the intent was always for YHWH to have a home to dwell. He was the One, strong and mighty in battle. The battle was His and the spoils were for His glory. There was nothing to withhold because nothing was mine to keep. Everything Israel had was because God gave it to us and we returned it as thanks for the battle He won.”

Solomon, King David’s Successor:

“All the wealth YHWH gave my father was given to me to steward for the building of the temple. I loved building what Dad designed with the plans and materials he gave us. It was easy to see where it all came from and where it should go. I had all wealth imaginable at that time and am still considered to be the richest that ever lived. This says nothing of me but everything about wisdom. Wisdom, the Spirit-breathed reality of Earth’s creating power. I could get anything I wanted with any resource available at that time and NOTHING satisfied. The wisdom to get wealth is not the pursuit. It is the intimate connection to the One who gives wisdom that makes life meaningful. My life speaks to the incredible bounty of wisdom that produces physical wealth, but real wealth, meaning, purpose and fulfillment comes from intimacy with the giver of wisdom. Each time I was enslaved to my desire and lust for women, the poorer I became in true wealth.”

Jesus, King of Kings:

“I had nowhere to lay my head but I could get a priceless pearl from a fishes mouth or have fish multiply for an entire community for months. Lavish abundance was a word away in my ministry on Earth. I cursed what didn’t produce and evicted sickness from those meant to be whole. I am the Creator, the Supplier, the Commander. All I create is meant to flourish and multiply.”

Paul, Apostle & Missionary:

“Lack worships the created over the Creator.”

“I am interpreted as poor, but my wealth was in other people. I did not keep money because the money I had moved me and the gospel forward. I did not store it because I used it to move the kingdom forward. Money was a facilitator. For the persecuted church, it was divine provision that moved and multiplied. I enjoyed making and moving funds. As a tent maker, I made money. As a missionary, I moved money. Money didn’t move me, it moved the movement. It spread the good news. I was able to write what you read today. My true wealth was the Spirit supplying and recording the revelation that has withstood the passing of time. The intimacy of knowing God, recording and ruminating on it, was the best wealth I could ever receive. It far exceeded monetary supply because the Word is continuing to supply you and the Church today. Knowing Him, Knowing Christ, is all the wealth I needed.”

“Works of giving prove faith. You will give because faith made it easy. A work doesn’t store treasure in heaven-faith does. Faith in the Creator not the creation. Faith in the Supplier not the supply.”

Reflection: Money isn’t what matters to heaven. Faith is what matters to the Father. Empires being built with physical wealth is not the aim. Kingdoms being built on completed faith that obeys out of ease and joyful anticipation is what empowers the gospel to “go and make”. We make disciples, not more money. Money fuels the movement of the gospel and the making of more disciples. When givers give, the gospel goes and earth becomes heaven. Those living in abundance understand that God trusts us with heaven’s wealth and they freely give what was freely given to them. This is not transactional but transformative. Grace is sufficient to provide abundance and overflow with complete joy that there is more in store when we share what God has supplied. Our hope is not in what we own but in what He has done.