Money. What comes to mind immediately as that word was read? Most likely, an association can be made to buying things or savings in the bank for use in future years or even retirement. The perception of money, however, changes as a person ages. For instance, a child is more naturally inclined to think of money as something that is plentiful, as he does not earn that money himself but rather depends on his parents for it. But as the child becomes a teenager of working age, he is often pressed by his parents to begin working an entry level or minimum wage job. When he receives his paycheck from that job, he realizes that he is earning just thirty to fifty dollars for every shift he works. It is then that he reaches a fuller understanding that money is limited and can only be truly earned through hard work!
But while we as young people and young adults understand that money is a limited resource, an important question for us to consider is this: how do we use the hard-earned money that God has graciously given to us? In other words, what do we prioritize spending our money on? This is an important question to ponder because there are so many ways and things in which we can spend our money! There is our car which cost us thousands of dollars to buy initially. On top of that, there are payments for gas, repairs, and insurance. There is our college tuition for those of us who chose to go to college. On top of that, there are payments for parking, food, and yes, those awful college textbooks! Then there are pleasures ranging from food to clothes to shoes to sports tickets, among many other things. Certainly, it is not sinful in and of itself to be spending our money on any one of these things. However, two questions of personal concern should arise in our minds.
First, is it wise of us to be spending our money on this certain thing? In other words, are we spending our money on certain things because we simply can’t live without having those things constantly by our side? Matthew 6:24 warns us, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” We ought to be discerning that the things we spend our money on do not become a god to us.
Second, how often do we think of financially helping others with the hard-earned money that God has given us? Each Sunday, the offering plate is distributed twice in one service, or four times total each Lord’s day as we are in attendance for both services. Do we find ourselves giving money when the offering plate is passed to us? Or do we simply pass it on to the next person with an assumption in our minds that someone else will provide a larger sum for the church? Because God gives more money to some than others, the amount that we “tithe” for the church is up to our personal discretion. However, if we find ourselves rarely or not even giving any money at all to the church, God warns us in Malachi 3:8-9, “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.” In other words, God considers it robbery when we fail to dedicate a portion of our money to give back to His church! However, when we consider this subject in a positive manner, there is ultimately no better way to give thanks to God for the money that He provides to us than to dedicate a portion of that money to give back to Him!
Money is a limited resource that God is pleased to provide to us through the means of hard work. Therefore, we are to spend our money wisely and dedicate a portion of it to give back to the church. When we do these things, we have the promise that one day our Lord will say to us in heaven, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matthew 25:21).
Jonathan Lee
Young Calvinists 