Money's Where The Heart Is

Recently I was having a conversation with my friend Charlotte, who was a full-time missionary to Brazil, but now, after a short time in the States, is moving to Portugal to be a full-time missionary there. I don't know how it came up, but we started talking about tithing, and the traditional 10% that most churches teach is the "right" amount to give to the church, or to the Kingdom. Charlotte then started talking about how she hated the fact that tithing or giving has been limited to 10%, so that some Christians give the 10% and think that's enough; they're covered. She thought we should stop preaching about tithing all together, which I though was crazy because tithing is what pays my paycheck!

But after talking about it with her, I think she's right. Because the only place in the Bible where it talks about giving 10% is in the book of Numbers, which was laying out Jewish Law. And even there, it says you should give AT LEAST 10% of your income.

I think it's funny how we do try to give just 10% and then say we've done our part. I mean you look at Paul's life, he didn't even view his own body as his, so he didn't care if he was beaten, whipped, jailed, whatever, because he saw his body as belonging to God, so if it suffered for God's sake, then praise God! So why is it we limit our giving at all? Everything we have is God's. All our money. Our families. Everything. His love for us limitless, so why is our giving for Him limited?