7 Reasons My Wife and I Plan to Give More to God’s Work in 2019

I write this post as both a confession and a commitment. Pam and I already give to support God’s work – by recognized averages, better than most church folks do – but we want to increase our giving next year. Here is some of our thinking toward that end that perhaps will challenge you as you consider your own giving for 2019:

1. It’s easy to get stagnant in our giving—especially when we’re already giving regularly. To be honest, we sometimes get “stuck” at one level of giving simply because we don’t regularly pray about increases. We don’t want to enter 2019 in neutral.
2. God has been good to us, and we can offer more for God’s work. Pam and I are at a different stage of life than young couples, so we can give more to support the faithful work of others. Yet, even if we were young again, He has been so good to us that we would still want to give more.
3. We can give more sacrificially to our church. Overall, we give the bulk of our offering to our local church, but we give to others as well. We could sacrifice more for our church’s work and still have dollars to give to support others.
4. We still need to trust that we can’t out-give God. We know that truth intellectually, and we’ve experienced it in the past spiritually—but those “stretching points” for us have been more past tense than present tense. We need a present-tense faith that requires us to lean more on Him.
5. We need to honor our long-term commitment to give well. Early in our marriage, we committed to give more to God any time we worried financially—and God always honored that trust. We don’t worry so much now, but that reality doesn’t give us permission to live in ease.
6. Our giving is an expression of love and trust toward our brothers and sisters around the world. Inherent in Christian stewardship is both love for, and trust in, the persons or organizations to whom we give. Pam and I can increase our giving because our love for those we support has only grown.
7. Even if we gave away most of what we earn, we’d still be blessed. We have a Savior. And life. And redemption. And love. And forgiveness. And health. And heaven awaiting. All the money in the world could never buy what God has given us freely.

May I give you a challenge for the coming year? Prayerfully push yourself to increase your giving to support God’s work. He is worth the sacrifice.