I realise that the members of the early church were not REQUIRED to give away EVERYTHING, e.g. selling their homes and possessions – each gave according to their own conscience. But my atheist friend has a very good point that the heart of the church should be giving way beyond any quantitative law or principle.

This is very challenging to those of us who have been taught to believe in the tithe.

Question B of course #5 is going to be taught all the time because most American preachers have sold out to the mortage lender, or mister money bags and want to get in his pocket….(forgive me for being sarcastic) we have lost one of the great gifts the early church had: trusting God for everything!

My wife and I were talking about this when I heard your comment come through.

Question A -Of the following five doctrines, which single one is the most important to be preached and re-preached?

1 Salvation
2 Baptism in the Holy Ghost
3 Forgiveness
4 The return of Jesus
5 The tithe

Question B – Which one is the most likely to be taught? Why?

I was told over twenty years ago I would never be anything in ministry because I didn’t know how to take an offering. My heart broke as I listen to someone who was, at that time, a mentor to me.

You and I will probably never stand in the same “caliber” as the minister you mentioned…but if we are able to stand in the presence of God on the Judgement Day, it will be worth it! Even if we don’t know how to take and offering!

Kingdom currency is simple and can be summed up in one word: giving. Jesus accumulated nothing on this earth. He gave it all away. Even his physical life.

I’ve encountered so many testimonies…

A little testimony regarding moving house and God’s provision.

As you know, Sue and I moved from England to Scotland some years ago under the unction of Holy Spirit. We expected to have jobs lined up and our house sold, but none of that happened. We couldn’t find jobs and our house wouldn’t sell. After months and months of disappointment we sat down one Sunday afternoon and told God that we would move come what may, that we’d find whatever work we could, hang our careers, and trust him for a roof over our heads. I handed in my notice at my employer on Monday morning. On Monday afternoon I got a call from a Scottish company that I’d written to 6 months previously, offering me an interview!

We moved a month later, living in the spare room of some friends in Scotland, all of our stuff in storage and our house in England empty and still not selling. This continued for months. When Sue became pregnant we moved out of our friends house into a rented house, still paying a mortgage on our house in England which still hadn’t sold. We had to drive to England once a month to stay in the house for one night so as to keep the insurance valid. Our finances didn’t look rosy at all.

Then the house sold, just a couple of months before Sue was due to give birth. But we had to accept an offer significantly below the mortgage value and so we found ourselves facing several thousand pounds worth of debt. But we were glad to sell the house. Conversely, in Scotland, houses were selling for far more than the mortgage value so it seemed impossible to buy another house. We were out of the housing market and back into rental, with a large debt in the bank. This wasn’t what we’d envisaged would happen by obeying God!

A few months later, the Inland Revenue wrote to us to tell us that there’d been a mistake in the tax calculation in our mortgage and we’d been over-paying while we’d been in England. The cheque covered half of our debt. Furthermore, that Christmas, my new employer paid everybody a handsome bonus and that covered the rest of our debt. We were now debt free!

But still unable to buy a house in Scotland. We just didn’t have the cash to make an offer above the mortgage value. The market went into boom and it looked like we would get permanently priced out. Houses were selling in a matter of days for silly money. But then we spotted a house that hadn’t sold. It was a four bed detached bungalow with plenty of space and a large garden (Sue loves gardening). We looked into it and found it hadn’t sold for two reasons. First, it was in an area that most people looking for this kind of property wouldn’t entertain. The surveyor told us it would make a very poor investment for this reason. But we were excited by the location – in and among lots of people who weren’t middle-class suburbanites. Second, it was empty, which always makes a property look less attractive.

We felt it was “right”, more than right in fact, we felt that God had reserved it just for us and for His glory! We put an offer in only to find that someone else was interested too and hence it was going to be sold under sealed bid. Our hearts dropped. We looked at our pitiful bank account and we prayed about what to offer. I had a figure in mind, but Sue really felt the Spirit tell her to offer 500 pounds more than that, which was a weird figure! We put in our weird figure bid with bated breath. We got it! The solicitor told us we only got it by a very narrow margin – we figured a 500 pound margin!

God is so good. Nothing worked out as we expected. Nothing continues to work out quite as we expect. My work is not what I expected it to be. We have no savings. I have no pension. But we have God! What more could one want? We’re learning that as we seek first the Kingdom, that He provides our every need. We thank Him regularly for the house and we use it for hospitality whenever we can. We keep a bedroom spare so that we can provide a bed to anyone in need at short notice.

I don’t know what the logistics of your answer will be … but trust Him, step out of the boat, and feel the water beneath your feet. He’s brought you this far. He won’t forget the details.