12. Giving is a grace and not an obligation

God’s grace is not just his unmerited favour, His saving grace which qualified us at salvation to freely receive all His blessings through faith alone. It is far more than that! His grace also manifests itself to us on an ongoing basis in empowerings that equip and enable us to walk in His truth and His ways. God has not just saved us and left us as we are, but has grace available for every aspect of our life and ministry. In other words, He doesn’t just want us to enter this walk by grace, but to live it continually by grace.

His grace is equated with his power in 2 Corinthians 12:9, and it’s the power of His grace that equips and enables us in all things (2 Cor 9:7-8) and through which we can reign in this life (Rom 5:17). It gives us victory over sin (Rom 6:14), helping us to live righteously (Tit 2:11-12). It was His grace that both gave the early apostles their callings and empowered them to fulfil them (Rom 1:5, 15:15-16, Gal 1:15-16, 2:9, Eph 3:7-8, Eph 4:7-11). They were careful to do all their ministering in the power of His grace (Acts 14:26, 15:40, 1 Cor 3:10, 15:10). Not just five-fold ministers, but believers also should serve one another through impartations of the grace of God (1 Pet 4:10).

As with every other ‘good work’ our faith produces, New Covenant giving is a grace that enables us in fruitful giving (2 Cor 8:1-8, 9:14).

For instance, the grace of God bestowed on the Macedonians allowed them to give far beyond what they were able (2 Cor 8:1-5). They so wanted to give out of devotion to God from their hearts, that they begged Paul to let them contribute to this offering. The early church is another example – there was such grace on them all that it enabled them to share literally everything they had, completely eliminating poverty and lack from among them (Acts 4:32-35).

Unlike tithing, giving is not an obligation to fulfil in order to please God and access his blessings. Rather it is a grace that flows out of his blessings freely bestowed on us. ‘For it is God who works in us to will and to act according to his good purpose’ (Phil 2:12-13).

Ephesians 2:8-10 puts this in the right perspective – we are saved by grace through faith alone, and verse 10 argues that it’s because of God’s grace manifested to us that we are enabled to flow in the good works that he has already prepared for us (including giving); i.e. not the other way round. This is the same grace that took the Philippians from their ‘extreme poverty’ to ‘rich generosity’ (2 Cor 8:2). Through giving themselves to the Lord first (2 Cor 8:5), they were able to plug into that grace that met all their needs according to Christ’s abundant, unlimited riches in glory (Phil 4:19), not according to their own limited resources.

This illustrates that when the Grace of God is properly understood and apprehended, it will automatically lead people to respond to that in faith, and become active and fruitful in the Kingdom (Col 1:6).

On the other hand, as long as we, like the Galatians, are ‘bewitched’ (Gal 3:1), practicing part-law, part-grace, we are not going to flow in the power of God’s enabling grace as we should. As Matthew Narramore (p 102) says, “The Holy Spirit can’t do a work of grace in the hearts of people to obey a teaching that isn’t grace or truth.”

Giving with a wrong motivation produces dead works - and ironically this is what the result will be in at least some believers’ lives when tithing is taught to them. And as ministers, as we seek to grow God's Church, the only works for which we’ll be rewarded are those built on the solid foundation that’s already been laid for us, Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:9-15). Any other works built on a faulty foundation will ultimately be burned up, counted as worthless.

Thus to get into the flow of God’s enabling grace for our lives, our first task is to repent from dead works (Heb 6:1, 9:14), and then to present ourselves as living sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1-2). God's Grace will work in us so that we are eager to do good and able to abound in every good work (2 Cor 9:8, Tit 2:14, 2 Tim 2:20-21).

Grace always outperforms law, every time, every way. The focus of the church on tithing is counterproductive. Neither the threats nor the promises that go with the message of tithing can motivate people to give as much as love in a heart that is overwhelmed by grace.

(Matthew Narramore – Tithing: Low-Realm, Obsolete and Defunct p 50)