CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Churches within the sound of my voice are putting together next year’s budgets now. Which means if you are a church-goer, you will likely hear a sermon soon about giving.
How much are we to give?
The Bible commands Christians to tithe. Leviticus instructs us, “one-tenth of what you produce is the Lord’s. It is holy.”
In modern times, there’s a church research group that does a survey each year about Christian giving. They release a report each year called the state-of-the-plate. Their findings are depressing. On average, only 5 out of every 100 churchgoers make a tithe, or give the full 10-percent. The average Christian gives just 2.5-percent of their income to their house of worship.
I’ll tell you this about my personal experience about giving. I’ve changed churches in the past few months… and I feel great about my house of worship. What goes along with that is when you feel good about your personal faith, you feel good about your giving. I truly believe that when I make my offering I’m contributing to making God’s will come about on this earth. And, not once, has my giving affected my lifestyle. Not once have I ever thought, ‘you know, I can’t afford to go out to dinner tonight because I gave too much to God this week.’ In fact, I’ve often thought that the tax refund I get on my charitable giving should be set aside and re-gifted to the church.
Giving has never hurt me. I hope, someday soon, that I will give until it hurts.
Chris Conley
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