John Avanzini - Keys to Proper Giving

Keys to Proper Giving

Giving Brings a Harvest

Most Christians do not have an agricultural mentality. They read a book like this, get all excited, go to church on Sunday and give an offering to God, then wake up Monday morning complaining: "Hey, Brother John, I gave, but it didn't work."

The Bible says whatever you have planted will come up. You see, giving to God is like a farmer planting seed. The day after he plants, the farmer does not run out to his field and say, "It didn't work! It didn't work! My wheat seed didn't come up."

Today, many people function in an industrial mentality. Everything is instant. We have instant printing, instant mashed potatoes, and instant banking. But, the principles of biblical economics are based on farming, not industrial principles. God is not the great spiritual slot machine in the sky. You do not put in a hundred dollars and instantly get back a thousand. No, you plant a hundred dollars into God's work. You let that seed grow, mature, and develop so that "in due season" God will return to you many times what you have planted.

It takes faith and patience to bring these God-given principles to their fullest potential. You must regularly plant your seed. At first your sowing may look futile. However, there will come a day when the harvest will begin to come up in such abundance that you will have more than enough!

... in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Galatians 6:9

When you begin to receive the harvest, go ahead and eat some of the seed. Go ahead and buy a nice car or a new suit, or whatever you desire. Just be sure you save enough seed to plant again. Keep putting more money seeds into the gospel. Then God will return to you even more of His abundance in constantly increasing harvests so that you can finance His end-time work.

Giving Always Prospers the Giver

By the world's principles of economics, when you give something away, you then have less. If you give away money or land or food, that leaves you with less of the thing you havegiven away.

But such is not the case according to God's principles of increase. He teaches that when you give something away it always ends up returning to you, multiplied. You cannot lose ground by giving to God.

According to God's principles of increase, when you give a gift, you release His energy into your own life to duplicate the gift in multiplied quantity. Gifts become very powerful forces that reach beyond the natural realm into the spirit realm. They increase, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some a hundredfold.

The world says that giving a gift depletes wealth. Logic says that when a person gives something away, he no longer has it. But, God's Word says that a gift does not deplete a person's assets, it increases them!

The principles in God's Word teach that every gift you give becomes an invisible miracle force that draws right back to you more of whatever you have given away. That is a powerful concept.

Look at this marvelous promise God makes to the giver.

Many will entreat the favor of the prince: and every man is a friend to him that giveth gifts.

Proverbs 19:6

When you give gifts, it shows that you are willing to meet the needs of others. The Bible teaches that because of your generous nature, you will have friends. Your gift will not "buy" their friendship, but your generous nature will supernaturally attract people who will have your well-being at heart. The dimension of this supernatural power will even reach into the camp of your enemies. When you obey God in every aspect of your life, which includes giving as He directs you, even your enemies will be caught up in a new attitude toward you.

When a mans ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Proverbs 16:7

Your gift is a natural key that unleashes a supernatural miracle-working force in your life. Giving always prospers you.

Giving Brings Forth Abundance

You believed God for your salvationand got it.

You believed God for your healingand got it.

You believed God when you asked for the Holy Spiritand got Him.

Now, surely, you can believe God in gift-giving. When you do, I believe you will see something similar to the time of Moses when the giving was so generous that Moses actually commanded:

... Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing.

For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much.

Exodus 36:6 ,7

Every mission outreach could have more than enough. Every Christian television program could have more than enough. Every church expansion program, every Sunday school auditorium, every Christian camp, could have more than enough. Every home in the world could have a Christian worker knocking at the door, inviting the family members to become children of God, and offering to meet their needs, no matter what they are.

What a miracle day that would be! But for it to happen, we who are being enlightened to the principles of increase must press into dimensions of giving and receiving that will release such a floodtide of abundance into the gospel ministry that Satan's lie of insufficiency will be rendered powerless. As our brethren lay hold upon this truth in mass numbers, they can eliminate hunger, want, and insufficiency from our planet.

Our giving can usher in a new day of plenty in a new Kingdom of God here on earth.

All of Israel was involved in giving. That's why Moses had to command the people to stop. There simply was too much. Call us dreamers, if you must, but the truth of God in regard to abundance will come to pass. The reapers will overtake the sowers.

The TitheIs It Still Necessary?

There is probably more confusion in the Body of Christ about tithing than any other type of giving. However, God is not the author of confusion, and His Word on the tithe is clear.

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat [food] in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open [for] you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Malachi 3:8-10

If you are going to receive the optimum in your life, you must not overlook the basic building blocks of biblical prosperity. It is absolutely necessary for you to follow the biblical plan of tithing. To get the windows of heaven open, you must tithe. Tithing is not an option. The tithe is something you literally owe to God.

Please remember that these are not my thoughts. God says if we do not tithe, we are committing robbery. He says we owe Him the tithe. We pay the tithe because God commands it. By faithfully bringing the tithe to Him, we establish our basic honesty and obedience. (Leviticus 27:30-33 clearly says the tithe belongs to the Lord.)

If you don't tithe, God says you are a robber. So think about this. If you knew your next-door neighbor was a robber, you wouldn't leave your windows open. Instead, you would close and lock them to keep out the thief. The same is true of God. When we fail to tithe, we are stealing from Him, so He closes the windows of financial blessing.

In Hebrews 7:1-10, we see that Abraham paid tithes for himself before the dispensation of the law. He also paid them for Levi, who lived under the dispensation of the law. In fact, Abraham tithed for all posterityfor his natural children (seed), and for his spiritual children (seed) who now live in the dispensation of grace.

And if ye be Christs, then are ye Abrahams seed, and heirs according to the promise.