Faith Promise Giving
By Pastor Al Baker
Imagine that I am the Apostle Paul and you are Titus, a fellow worker in the gospel, and I have asked you to go back to the believers in Corinth to ask them to come through with their previously promised gift of charity to the saints in Jerusalem who are suffering from famine.
You come to one home where the man is a shepherd and ask him to give to this special need. He says, "I already tithe, I have made a pledge to our building fund, and I have two children in college up in Athens. I am tapped out. I can give no more. Sorry." And you say, "Okay, let me ask you this. How many lambs are you expecting to be born to your flock next year?" And he says, "Five." And you say, "All right, if God prospers you with seven lambs, would you give one of this unexpected increase to this special need?"
You go to the next church member, a small business owner, and ask him to give and he gives a similar response. You ask, "How much profit do you project for the next year and he says, "10,000" shekels." And you ask, "If God prospers you with 12,000 shekels would you give 1000 of the unexpected increase to this need?" This is faith promise giving. You can read more about the concept by studying II Corinthians 8 and 9.
One of the more exciting and faith building experiences for believers is to participate in faith promise giving. We all need money to live and how God works through our finances is a first hand exercise in building our faith. If your church does not presently encourage faith promise giving, then I suggest you ask your pastor about implementing it. Even if your church does not offer it, you can still participate personally.
Remember faith promise giving is not a tithe. You already ought to be doing that. It is not a pledge, for a pledge is an obligation to which you have committed a certain amount of money for a particular time frame, like to a missionary or your church building fund. Nor is it an offering. At times churches ask for special offerings, like at Christmas or Thanksgiving. There is nothing wrong with any of these, but faith promise giving means you promise to give a specific amount of money to a specific project (in Corinth it was for the suffering saints in Jerusalem, for our church it is to fund world missions) if God provides it.
How do you arrive at a figure? You should pray, asking the Lord to give you a specific amount which you promise to give to Him, above your tithe and other offerings, if He provides it. If He does not provide it, then you are not obligated to give it. Then look for it, expect God to provide it, and when He does be quick to funnel it to the specific need.
My wife and I have been making faith promises for many years and we give more each year to it. Recently we were praying and thinking about what our faith offering should be for the next year and I had a figure in mind, but as I thought about it I realized that it was something I could easily plan to do by forgoing certain purchases, cutting back a few days on a vacation, etc. I was planning to give according to my ability. I thought we needed to increase our faith promise so that we could give beyond our ability. I mentioned this to my wife and she readily agreed. We came both to the same financial figure and it is significantly beyond our ability to give, but we fully expect God to bring in that amount. He always does.
And what are the benefits of faith promise giving? You will see God at work in tangible ways because He will provide the money. How can I be so sure? He gets great glory for the salvation of sinners and world missions is the way His glory is made known in the world. He will provide for the funding of His missionaries because He wants glory in the salvation of all nations. You will see your faith increase. I encourage children to make faith promises too. Everyone ought to do it. When God provides the ten or one hundred dollars for your child to give to faith promise this will wonderfully increase his faith.
Some people make faith promise based on cutting back on their expenses in some way. Others by having garage sales (or as we call them in the northeast tag sales) give the proceeds to their faith promise. Some promise part of a year-end bonus. However you give it, look to God to provide it, expect Him to do so, and when He does then give it joyfully to that specific work.
Our little church began Faith Promise giving at our first world missions conference in November 2004 and we promised to give $32,000. The number increased to $58,000 at our 2005 conference and at our recent world missions conference our Faith Promise has risen to over $168,000.
Elisha in II Kings 4 told the Shunammite woman who was deparately poor to gather as many vessels as she could. She did and God worked a miracle, filling each vessel with oil which she sold to pay her debt and to live on the rest. It is a great story, but the remarkable thing is that the oil would have kept flowing if she only had more vessels. You cannot out give God. Some of you know this personally. We have all heard it and it sometimes can seem like a spiritual cliche. But it is wonderfully and gloriously true. Will you not test God and see if He will not pour out blessings from heaven?
The above article was written by Pastor Al Baker who is the Senior Pastor at Christ Community Presbyterian Church. Article used with permission. |