As we walk with God, there are some areas where trusting Him may come easily — our salvation as we recognize we can’t save ourselves or our guilt and grief that are too heavy to carry on our own. Over time, we begin to trust Him with more, handing Him our relationships and time. However, when the topic of money comes up, for some of us, something shifts.

We become more guarded. We start running the numbers and lining up the reasons why we shouldn’t trust God in this area. Some of us may even believe that our money is off-limits to God. We may find reasons to change the topic or convince ourselves that we’re doing enough somewhere else in our lives.

These thoughts are innately human. From the very beginning, Scripture shows humanity reaching for the same thing: to be in control, striving to be the owners and authors of our own lives.

In Genesis, we read how God promised Abraham and Sarah a son, but the promise was taking longer than they wanted, so they stopped waiting and tried to engineer it themselves, on their own timeline, in their own strength (Genesis 16:1-2).

We see it again with the Israelites in the wilderness. God gave them manna every morning, exactly enough for that day, and told them not to store it up (Exodus 16:19-20). Some of them did anyway, allowing their fear of not having enough outweigh God’s provision. They wanted tomorrow secured on their own terms, rather than trusting in God’s.

The desire to own our lives, to secure our own future, runs straight through the human story, and it is a human condition we must confront.

The Psalms says:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”
‍- Psalm 24:1

Everything. The air in our lungs, the years ahead of us, the money in our bank accounts. None of it is ours. All of it came from God; He is the source, He gives to us long before we know how to ask.

This is exactly where Week One began. While we were still sinners, before we wanted anything to do with Him — before we asked — Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). We did not climb up to God. He came down to us with His hands open. Generosity begins with God. And the same God, who gave Himself to us in love, asks that we do the same — give back to Him in love.

Learning to give is not about losing what we have; it is about being set free from its grip. The most generous people in the world are the ones who have stopped being owned by what they hold and have found freedom and joy in giving it away.

We Are Managers, Not Owners

Imagine this: you hand your life savings to a money manager. You walk into his office, set down everything you have, and say, “Take care of this for me.” A few years later, he calls with good news. He has doubled it. You are thrilled. Then you say, “Wonderful, I’d like some of it back.” And he pauses. “Well,” he says, “there is a catch. I have already spent it. All of it. On myself.”

We would not call that a misunderstanding. We would call it theft. The money was never his. He was the manager. We were the owners.

Jesus tells a very similar story. A man is going on a journey, and before he leaves, he hands his wealth to his servants to manage while he is gone.

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability.”
‍- Matthew 25:14-15

He does not give the money away. He entrusts it. When we read the rest of the story, we see how the two who invested what they were given are welcomed in. The one who buried his master’s money, treating it as a thing to protect rather than to steward, loses what he was given. This is the first thing we need to get really clear on about what the Bible teaches regarding money. We are not owners, we are managers.

The New Testament has a word for it, oikonomos, the household manager in the ancient world. He ran the entire estate for his master. He handled the accounts, paid the workers, directed the resources, and made daily decisions over everything the household owned. He held the authority and the responsibility. But he owned none of it. Every coin he managed belonged to someone else, and one day his master would ask him how he had handled it. This is the role God has given us. He is the owner, and we are the managers. He has trusted us with what belongs to Him.

The Temple We Already Serve

When we take the first step, acknowledging our money belongs to God, we begin to notice how tightly we’ve been holding onto it. If we follow our money trail, we discover where we’ve placed our trust.

Every one of us has a temple. Every one of us gives our resources to it. We all have things we instinctively trust to make us feel safe, secure, and in control. Consider these examples:

01 — Our Appearance

We pour money into how we look, projecting a certain image in order to feel admired, accepted, and enough.

02 — Our Home

We pour money into our houses and upgrades, hoping that what we build will make us feel secure, settled, and successful.

03 — Our Investments

We pour money into savings and investments, trusting that a climbing number in an account will keep us safe from a future we cannot control.

Wherever the money flows reveals the temple we serve. Jesus put it in one sentence: “Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Notice the order. Our heart does not lead our treasure. Our treasure leads our heart. To find what we actually worship, we do not search our emotions. We follow our money.

Where we spend our money reveals what or who we love. When a religious leader asked Jesus to name the single greatest command, He went straight to this matter of the heart:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
‍- Matthew 22:37-38

We tend to read that as just good advice to follow, but it’s so much more. “It is the first and greatest commandment.” Only a few forces in this world are strong enough to compete for that kind of love, to lay claim to the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole mind. Money sits at the very top of that list; it is our rival master to God. Jesus said so clearly.

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
‍- Matthew 6:24

Jesus does not say it is hard to serve both. He says it is impossible. Money makes a claim on the same throne God demands. That is why it matters so much. Not because God needs our resources, but because our resources reveal who is actually sitting on the throne of our lives.

We watch it happen in the Gospels. A rich young man runs up to Jesus, sincere and eager, asking how to inherit eternal life. He has followed the commandments since he was a child. Jesus lovingly looks at him and names the one thing standing between them.

“Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. At this, the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.”
‍- Mark 10:21-22

The young man had kept all the commandments except the one that had kept him. He thought he owned his money, but in reality, it owned him. Only when Jesus asked him to let it go did he see the difference.

Owners ask, “What do I want to do with what is mine?” Managers ask, “What does the owner want me to do with what is his?” That is the dividing line Jesus keeps drawing us back to. Money becomes dangerous when we begin to see ourselves as owners instead of stewards. But when we remember that God owns it all, generosity is the natural response. One day, like the servants in Jesus’ parable, we will stand before the true Owner and give an account (Matthew 25:19). The goal is not to have accumulated the most, but to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

Near the end of his life, king David gave in ways few people ever have. He is funding the temple that his son Solomon will build, and he gives a staggering amount out of his own fortune. Then the people see him giving, and it propels them to give as well. Standing in front of all of it, David prays one of the most honest prayers in the Bible.

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.”
‍- 1 Chronicles 29:14

“We have given You only what comes from Your hand.” Listen to where David’s giving comes from. It rises out of a heart that knows every bit of it was God’s in the first place. He was not giving to be seen or acknowledged. He was giving back to God what was already His.

This is the difference between giving to and giving from. The to is the destination, where the gift goes. The mission, the ministry, the church, the poor. In David’s case, he was giving to the building of God’s temple. The to is good, and it matters, but the it is not what frees us. The from is the source, the place inside us that the gift comes out of. Learning to give from is what loosens money’s hold on us.

We give from a multitude of places:

— From Gratitude

We give from gratitude, like David, because we know it all came from God’s hand first. Gratitude is the most natural starting place for generosity, because it begins by remembering. Before we ever held anything, it was given. Every skill we used to earn it, every breath we took while we worked, every open door we walked through, came from the Lord.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
‍- James 1:17

When we see our lives as a stack of gifts rather than a pile of earnings, giving stops feeling like loss and starts feeling like the most natural response we have. We are not parting with what is ours, we are returning what is His.

— From Obedience

We give from obedience, because God is worthy of our trust even before we understand what He is doing. There are seasons when generosity does not feel possible, when the budget is tight, and the timing is wrong, and nothing in us wants to let go. Obedience is what carries us through those seasons.

“Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.”
‍- Deuteronomy 16:17

Obedience in giving is brave. It requires trusting that God’s instructions are for our good before our feelings or circumstances catch up.

— From Trust

We give from trust because we believe what He will provide is better than what we can secure on our own. Generosity, for many of us, presses on a nerve: the fear that there will not be enough. Trust is what loosens that fear’s grip. It rests on the character of the God who fed His people in deserts, provided in famines, and always meets our needs.

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”
‍- Philippians 4:19

Our giving becomes a declaration that we know where our security is found.

— From Worship

We give from a heart of worship, because giving is one of the truest ways to say that God is worth more to us than what we are holding. Worship, at its simplest, is assigning worth, and money is one of the clearest measures of worth we understand. What we are willing to release for God says, in a language the heart understands, exactly how much He is worth to us.

“And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”
‍- Hebrews 13:16

This is why a gift can be an act of worship as real as any song. We lay our resources down the same way we lift our hands, and for the same reason. Both are ways of saying that God is our treasure, not what we own.

Back in Week Four, we saw that worship is not only a song. It is when we offer our whole lives — our time, our talent, and our treasure — to God.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”
‍- Romans 12:1

A Cheerful Giver

Our money is an offering. When we give, we place our resources before God just as we lift our voices and open our hands in worship. And in a surprising way, giving works like the Sabbath. Every seventh day, God’s people stop their work as a living confession that the world keeps turning because God sustains it, not because they do. Giving is that same confession in another form. It is a way of saying that our security has never ultimately rested in what we possess. Both Sabbath and generosity admit the same truth: He is in control, and we are not.

God wants us to bring our offerings with joy. God delights in the cheerful giver — not the reluctant one, and not the pressured one.

“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
‍- 2 Corinthians 9:7

A cheerful giver is simply someone who has learned to give from the right places — gratitude, obedience, trust, and worship.

Why We Give to the Local Church

Now that we’ve talked about the heart of generosity, let’s talk about where our generosity goes.

Both the Old and New Testaments have examples of how God’s primary design for His people’s giving is not random distribution to every good cause. Giving was to strengthen of His covenant community so it could worship, grow, and carry out His mission.

In the Old Testament, Israel’s giving was directed toward the place where they worshiped, the tabernacle — which later became the temple. These gifts supported the Levites, who had “no inheritance” of land like the other tribes because they were set apart for ministry (Numbers 18:21). In other words, giving was intentionally structured to sustain the worshiping community and ensure that spiritual leadership continued within Israel.

In the New Testament, that same heart of generosity continues, directed toward the local church. Paul instructs the church in Corinth to set aside regular giving to support ministry and needs within the church (1 Corinthians 16:2), and he teaches that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from it (1 Corinthians 9:14).

The picture is not of believers independently funding whatever causes feel good, but of local churches stewarding resources together for worship, discipleship, and caring for the least of these. Giving to a humanitarian cause and giving to a local church do two different things in the human heart.

We pray for a church that is radically generous in many ways, while still giving our first gift to the local church. Jesus’ heart is for a body of believers that return to a heart of surrender and obedience before focusing on a return on investment. The local church is not the only place our generosity should go. It is the place our generosity begins and is formed.

A River and a Dead Sea

God’s intention is to let His blessing move through our lives. When we only receive and never give, we stop reflecting the life of God because we stop participating in the movement of God. This is the spiritual reality underneath Jesus’ teaching on money and generosity.

The prophet Ezekiel is shown a vision of a river flowing out from the temple of God (Ezekiel 47:1-12). It begins as a small stream at the doorway of God’s presence, but as it flows outward it becomes deeper and fuller, ankle deep, then knee deep, then a river to swim in. And everywhere it goes, it brings life.

“This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live.”
‍- Ezekiel 47:8-9

Life follows the flow of the river. Ezekiel’s vision highlights what would be familiar geography to Israel — where the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea, but nothing flows out. Water comes in, and it stops. Because it only receives and never releases, it becomes lifeless. The difference between a river of life and a sea of death is not what comes in, it is what is allowed to flow out.

This is why Scripture says we are blessed with a purpose beyond ourselves, we are blessed to be a blessing. When God blesses Abraham, He makes this clear from the beginning:

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”
‍- Genesis 12:2

We give because we have first been given to, and because what flows to us is meant to flow through us. A closed hand cannot receive or give. Open hands are the only posture that works in both directions at once. We let go, and we are filled, in the very same motion.

An Apology

If somewhere along the way money and salvation got tangled together for you, if you ever heard that giving buys God’s favor, or that your standing with Him rises and falls with your offering, we are sorry this was conveyed. That is not the gospel, and we do not preach that here.

You cannot purchase what Jesus already paid for. Your salvation is not for sale, and your giving does not secure it. This chapter is not about earning anything. It is about freedom. Money is simply one more thing competing for your heart, and we care about that the way we care about everything that competes for your heart. We do not want something from you. We want something for you.

A common question asked is, “How much should I give?” God is not looking for a specific number; He is looking for the softening and transformation of our hearts. God meets us wherever we are, on the journey from zero to saying everything belongs to Him.

This is not often an instant change but a gradual formation, where God leads us step by step into a life of growing trust and generosity.

Step 1 — Something

Where someone who has never given anything gives something. That first dollar placed in God’s hands matters far beyond its size, because it breaks a lifetime of holding.

Step 2 — A Percentage

Where giving stops being a reaction to guilt or emotion and becomes a decision made on purpose. Deciding ahead of time how much or what percentage you will give, and doing it regularly is a deliberate act of faith and stewardship.

Step 3 — A Tithe

Practicing the rhythm of giving a tenth as an act of obedience, trust, gratitude, and worship, acknowledging that all we have comes from God. Setting ten percent aside first, before anything is spent, is our first act of stewardship and gratitude.

Step 4 — Radical Generosity

Where giving moves beyond obligation or even discipline, and begins to reflect a heart that is being shaped to look more and more like the heart of God. It is generosity that Goes First with love, freedom, and responsiveness to the needs of others. This is where we begin to see people, resources, and opportunities the way God does, and respond with open-handed, radical generosity.

Wherever we find ourselves on this journey, the invitation remains the same: keep Going First. God is not ultimately measuring the size of the gift, but the posture of the heart from which it comes. This is a path of ongoing formation, and the only way we can be off-course is refusing to take the next step He is calling us into.

The Widow and Her Two Coins

The book of Mark offers us a clear example of Jesus looking at the hearts of givers. One day, He sat down across from the temple treasury and simply watched people give. The wealthy came and put in large amounts. Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small copper coins, worth almost nothing. Jesus called His disciples over to make sure they had seen it.

“Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
‍- Mark 12:43-44

She gave the least, and Jesus said she gave the most. Not in amount, in posture. The wealthy gave out of their excess, the part they would never miss. She gave out of her need, and kept nothing back. God was looking at their hearts, not counting the coins.

The First, Not the Leftovers

In the Old Testament, the concept of firstfruits is discussed. In an agricultural world, the firstfruits were the very first of the harvest, gathered before the farmer could know whether the rest of the crops would even come. That is what God asks of us — to give our first before we are guaranteed the rest.

“Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.”
‍- Proverbs 3:9-10

Not the leftovers. Not what is comfortable once every bill is paid, and every desire is met. The first. The first dollar before we know how the month is going to go. The first line item on our monthly budget. It is easy to give from whatever is left, after our own security is already covered. But giving the firstfruits puts God first, and ultimately says, with our dollar, “God, I trust You.”

This is why tipping God will never be the same as firstfruits. A tip is what we leave when the service was good. It is decided at the very end, sized to how satisfied we felt. This is a common habit of giving. A little something once everything else is handled, scaled to how good the year was. But God did not come to be tipped based on how we perceive His service. He asks to be trusted. The difference between tipping God and trusting God is which part of the harvest He gets — the first, or the leftovers.

The First Principle

As we mature and grow in generosity, giving stops being a line item. It stops being a question we answer every month and becomes a decision we already made. That is what a first principle is. It is a decision we settle in advance, a fixed point every other decision gets measured against. We decided it once, and now we build on it. When giving becomes a first principle, it becomes the first thing we add and the last thing we take away.

Saying yes to God with our finances, and saying yes again to greater depths of generosity, is not only a decision about what we do — it is a decision about who we are. And once that decision is made, it affects every decision thereafter.

A first principle is chosen in the calm so that it can weather the storm. Joshua stood in front of a whole nation and made a household decision, out loud, before anyone else had chosen.

“But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
‍- Joshua 24:15

Notice that Joshua decided for his family before the pressure ever came.

Daniel also had a first principle. When he was faced with a test, he already knew his response.

“But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine.”
‍- Daniel 1:8

He resolved. When the moment came, there was nothing left to decide. When we establish generosity as a first principle, we silence the thoughts saying, “When money is tight, I will give a little less. When things feel more secure, I will give more again.” We understand that instinct, and God is gracious toward it. But it misses the point of generosity altogether. Giving is a decision based out of obedience. It says, through relinquishing our resources, no matter what may come, “I am not my own provider and savior, God is.”

When a hard month comes and the reflex is to trim our giving first, we return to a heart shaped by God’s Word — pulling us in the opposite direction. Our giving becomes the last thing to go, not the first, and everything else in the budget flexes around it. The streaming subscriptions, eating out, and online shopping stop before our giving does. Obedience, in a tight season, often looks like taking things away from ourselves so that we never withhold what is His.

Trust in Legacy

There is a rather surprising math in God’s economy. He once taught His people to work six days and stop on the seventh, trusting that He could do more with their six days than they could do with seven; we refer to this in Week Four, when we talk about Sabbath. Generosity runs on the same logic. When we tithe, giving ten percent of our household income, we believe God can do more with the ninety percent than we can with one hundred percent clenched in our fists. Rest and giving are the same practice: when we rely on God, He is able to provide far more than we ever would on our own.

For those raising children: long before our kids hear what we say about money, they are watching what we do with it. The way we hold or release our resources becomes part of the inheritance they carry, shaping how a whole generation after us will see money, trust, and God.

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”
‍- Proverbs 22:6

The Chains We Carry

For some of us, the obstacle is not a hard heart. It is a hard situation. We want to be generous, but we are buried in debt. Every dollar and more is spoken for before it even arrives.

Scripture is clear about what that does to a person.

“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”
‍- Proverbs 22:7

Debt is a chain. It does not make us bad, but it does make us captive, and it can steal our freedom to respond to God when He moves us to give. So part of stewarding well on this earth is working our way free of debt.

If that’s your story, we want to help. Financial Peace University is a resource our church offers to walk people out of debt and into freedom, one step at a time. The same God who wants your heart free of money’s grip wants your life free of debt’s weight.

The Invitation to Test Him

There is one place in Scripture where God looks at a people who are holding back what is His:

“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and offerings.”
‍- Malachi 3:8

The people are stunned by it. Robbing God? How? They are taking everything from God’s hand and then closing their hands around it. To be blessed and refuse to be a blessing is its own kind of theft. The river was meant to flow through them, and they blocked it off. God does not just call hoarding unwise. He calls it robbery.

And then, in the very next breath, God does something He does nowhere else in all of Scripture. The accusation turns into an invitation:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse... Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”
‍- Malachi 3:10

“Test Me.” Nowhere else in scripture does it tell us to test God. In Malachi, God turns it around and invites us to test Him in our generosity. Go First, test Him from a place of obedience, and watch what He will do.