JW March 4, 2014 Graham Glover

It’s Not Your Money

This post is for everyone that is legally obligated to pay taxes to their government and/or financially able of tithing to their congregation. It is also for anyone that has ever “earned” a single dollar in their life: Your money is not your own.

Every dollar you have is a gift given to you by God. So stop complaining about paying taxes and stop coming up with reasons not to tithe. It’s not your money in the first place. It’s God’s. And it’s time to stop robbing that which is His. It’s time to start giving back to Him who has given you everything that you have. And oh yeah…render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.

I know we Americans have an innate aversion to taxes. We still seem to be suffering from our hangover to a certain tea party. And I’m not sure anyone has ever liked giving more of their income back to the Lord. But the idea that our money is all our own, with the implication that every dollar we have has been earned exclusively by our work is an absurd assumption. Equally absurd is the popular notion that we have no responsibility to give back this money to those who helped us earn it, or that we who are financially able are not obligated to give to those who are incapable of sustaining theirs and their family’s life. For brevity’s sake, I won’t even begin to discuss how ridiculous and unworthy it is when we try to justify giving the smallest amounts of our income to the church.

My purpose here is not to advocate one particular tax policy over another. I suspect that debate will continue indefinitely and never find resolution. Moreover, I’m pretty sure the Almighty could care less about tax rates. Nor is my purpose to guilt anyone in to tithing a certain percentage of their income (gross or net). 10% is a nice goal, but certainly not a requirement for eternal salvation or to receive God’s grace.

Rather, my purpose is to suggest that our incessant love of money has got to stop. We Americans love money. We love having money…and lots of it. I can’t imagine many Americans saying they can have too much money. I know, money itself is not the problem. Nor are those who make a lot of money. But Americans are fixated on the idea that our money is our own. We have little interest in putting more into the society that helped make us our wealth and no interest in tithing until it financially hurts our pocketbooks. I’m certainly no saint on this topic. I’m guilty of the greed that ensnares our culture. More often than I’d like to admit, I don’t like finding ways to increase my family’s tithe. I’m part of the problem. And so are you.

US Senator Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), hit the nail on the head in a speech she gave in September of 2011:

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I wanna be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for…You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along”.

In my continual effort stir the pot, I don’t anticipate a lot of folks liking this post. Truth be told, I don’t like it. I want to keep as much as possible of the money I earn. I want the new car and big house. I want a well stoked cabinet of bourbon and wine and a humidor with the finest cigars. I want to travel, wear nice clothes, and eat out at fine restaurants. I want these things just like you do.

And I can have them…after I give back to the society that gave me the ability to earn my paycheck and after I return to the Lord the innumerable gifts He has given me. I have a lot of work to do on the later and some campaigning to do on the former. But this truth remains:

“It’s Not Our Money.”

13Comments

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1

Ross on March 4, 2014 at 12:18 pm

Please tell me I’m not the only one who read this and immediately thought of the JG Wentworth commercials?

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  Graham Glover on March 4, 2014 at 12:25 pm
  
  Ross, that might be the best reply ever. Fantastic!
  
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  Frances B.N. Meadows on March 6, 2014 at 3:05 pm
  
  Haha! Can you imagine the parody on this?
  
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Ross on March 4, 2014 at 12:52 pm

In all seriousness, our love of money can be pretty intense. We want it. It’s “ours.” We need more of it. We save it and spend it how we see fit, often forgetting to love our neighbors or love the Lord our God with the very gifts He bestows upon us. What we save and spend our money on certainly can tell us a lot about ourselves.

When someone or something upsets us, our first response usually is to take our money and go somewhere else. Upset at the direction the government is going? Either make sure they get less of your money (legally or illegally) or at least complain louder about taxes. Mad at your church or pastor (whether justifiable or not)? Then stop giving or give noticeably less and make sure to let as many people as possible know that you are giving less or not at all.

There must be some truth to those words in 1 Timothy 6, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil..” I certainly know that the latter part of that verse is so very true.. “some people, eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs”

I’m with you Graham.. our incessant love of money does indeed need to stop!

(I’m with you too when it comes to loving money, for I’m quite guilty for loving money and nice things too.. especially whiskey and cigars and fancy books..)

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JGPadawan on March 4, 2014 at 1:26 pm

Oh, I really need to start reading these earlier in the day so I can comment with more ghusto and vigour! Suffice it for now to say, I agree! I find this not distasteful, I do however reject the idea that some might contrive from it that the answer to social ills is higher taxes. Responsible giving and responsible spending, with accountability! Here, here!!

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Graham Glover on March 4, 2014 at 1:54 pm

Rosa and JG…great replies. Thanks for commenting. Although, JG, I think you know I disagree in principle with you on the tax comment. However, the purpose of this article is not to debate a particular tax rate, so for now…we agree!

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Jim Patterson on March 4, 2014 at 10:21 pm

Great article. Reminds me of God’s providence and also reminds me of why my sense of entitlement should be abandoned and replaced with gratitude and generosity.

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Robert W. on March 5, 2014 at 12:50 pm

Where i disagree with your column is not the overall gist of your column, but with your use of the word tithe. I think at best it is an ugly use of the law that is rejected by both the Roman Catholic Church(catholic answers: Although the Church teaches that offering some form of material support to the Church is obligatory for all adults who are able to do so, it does not specify what percent of ones income should be given. Remember tithing was an Old Testament obligation that was incumbent on Jews under the Law of Moses.), and Martin Luther( in the sermon, “How Christians should regard Moses” August 27, 1525); and at worst a Theology of Glory embraced by evangelicals that Lutherans would be better steering clear of , along with Contemporary Christian Music and Christian bookstores!

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Graham Glover on March 6, 2014 at 7:49 am

Jim, thanks for the reply. Robert, I take no exception to your comments. I used the term “tithe” because most understand what is meant by that term. I absolutely concur on the music bit and by and large, the bookstores. This is why CPH and Ignatius Press get a lot of my business!

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Frances B.N. Meadows on March 6, 2014 at 3:08 pm

I’d like to see tax cuts and the return of the kinsman redeemer system.

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Michael Siefert on March 7, 2014 at 4:40 pm

Graham,
A fine article, that, hopefully, will stir up all of us.

In my limited gardening experience, I’ve found that weeding is better served when getting to the root of the problem. May I suggest that our reluctance to contribute to the social contract or to the Lord’s Kingdom will go a lot more smoothly when the more fundamental issue of who is sitting on our personal thrones is settled. Taxes to Caesar may be more palatable when when we love our neighbors –all our neighbors–as ourselves, and tithing to the Lord (from a willing heart and not Mosaic law) will be more palatable when we remember that we ourselves were bought and redeemed by God and we really should not dare claim ourselves as our own. If we really, and daily, surrender our selves to God, it will be easy to surrender something as transitory as money, or position, even reputation and earthly life.
Pax,
Michael Siefert

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Graham Glover on March 8, 2014 at 3:37 pm

Michael, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Great insight. Really appreciate your comments. Yours is a tough thing to do. Tough, but absolutely on point.

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Repent! on March 25, 2014 at 9:46 pm

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto GOD what is GODs. What in the world does that have to do with the tithe? Remember this one fact! The Lord speaks specific! He is the true truth! so when it comes down to it, let EVERY MAN be a LIE! and let GOD BE TRUE! So let’s only speak about things that we know (studied) and not what we’ve heard lest we lie and lead others astray. Back up everything with scripture and prove all things. I also believe that: Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s was referring to a literal tax imposed by Caesar. But render unto GOD what is GODs” is something that I believe Him to be saying: render the all of you to GOD, mind, body and soul in full service, day and night. The body of Christ is suffering because we are willingly ignorant. We will not study/read for ourselves. We rather be lazy and depend on a man/pastor/preacher instead of Jesus the one that saved us. Remember! Christ is the Head! everyone else is the body and that includes your pastors and bishops. They are merely your fellow servants. Everything that you want to know concerning TRUTH is all found in the WORD. If you want to know about the tithes, take time out and commune with the Lord in His Word and He with show you The Truth about the tithe, if you really want to know! The tenth/tithe is simply of a food source and has been given to a specific tribe of Israel, the Levites! Numbers 18. The tenths/tithes is not on a filthy buck but on FOOD! and I challenge anyone to find in scripture where the tenths have been changed from food to money by the Lord Himself or where is it written any where in the scriptures that the tenths/tithes have been transferred from the Levitical priesthood and given to a gentile minister/preacher/pastor/prophet/bishop. We are all priests in the body of Christ. Please don’t believe that lie that they did not have money back then because that is a huge lie, study it for yourself. This false tithe that men take today and it’s frequency is not found written anywhere in my Bible according to my 4 years of research. Can anyone tell me if they have received a poor tithe or did you even know that it existed? What about the festival tithe? this tithe was eaten before the Lord in the place that he would prescribe. We were all duped by following man/pastors with the book of Malachi, and it’s our own fault! All we had to do was to read the book of Malachi starting with chapter 1. The Lord clearly say’s who He is speaking to, and it is not us. He tells you plainly who is robbing him and what nation he is talking to, the scripture did not say the ENTIRE WORLD. He is speaking to a specific people in a specific nation, and if I may say the windows of Heaven is simply rain, and meat in MY house is simply food and the devourer is literary insects/bugs eating up the crops. So the question is! why are these ministers telling us this falsehood, it isn’t but two reasons why. They are unlearned and are following the traditions of men or they are doing this intentionally, either way they are wrong. If by tradition of men! then why are you telling people things that you know not about, or on the other hand, if done intentionally! it is our job to confront these wicked ministers and to expose them, or continue to sin with them. Remember! there is no mediator between GOD and man but JESUS alone, NOT any PASTOR or any man, they are just your fellow servant. Also why do we give to one man/pastor? The scripture says that he is to get his living from the Gospel NOT TO MAKE his living off the Gospel. Have we lost our minds! Why do we continue to give to one man and neglect our brother or sister sitting right next to us? Have you ever realized that you have to wait mystically, in faith, on your financial blessing! but the pastor gets his right off the top which takes no faith at all. So either the Lord loves a certain part of the body more than the other, or we have this thing all wrong. Listen, if I have anywhere from 3000-30,000 people that I have convinced to give me money every Sunday and Wednesday plus twice in one day! and some Monday’s! then guess what? I’m paid, and this does not include the unscriptural 10% tithe that they take/demand, that does not belong to them. Sorry, but for the most part the gathering should be for those that have a need, that the needs of the people might be met. We are all guilty of making one brother/pastor/fellow servant wealthy and left all others in the same body lacking, and then we actually believed that this foolishness was from the Lord, to boot! Why would we keep giving to one person that is obviously well supplied and fed. We knew to stop in our hearts when we seen the Mansions and Rolls Royce’s plus the benze’s. What part of this resembles Jesus, john the baptist, or any of the Apostles. We have over paid these pastors/members in the body of Christ and don’t even realize that we have done evil. This is not what took place in the early Church as per the book of Acts. They at least tried to meet the needs of the brethren that there would be no lack, and I don’t mean making one rich or excusing anyone from working a job. Let’s get one thing straight, these pastors, preachers, bishops, and alleged prophets are NOT Apostles. You all know full well that you can’t find any of the apostles or Christ himself asking for or receiving a tithe. How could they? When all of the tithes were given to the tribe of Levi, the Levitical priesthood by GOD for the work they do for serving at the meeting tent, and that’s within the boundaries of Israel. So let’s stop equating these gentile pastors and bishops to the tribe of Levite or The High Priest, in which JESUS CHRIST himself alone is now our High Priest and not any man. By the way, who told you as a gentile to pay a tithe? was it a man or the Lord? Before you answer, back up your answer with scripture and not with what a man told you. That would be putting man before God. To really know the truth about the tithe and any other partial or snippet of scripture that you think that you were taught by these alleged pastors, you would have to step away from the visible Church house and go directly to your source, The Word of God and ask the One that created you, saved you and The one that you plan on spending all of eternity with, and see if He will help you. Also the visible Church is not the Church nor the Temple, the people that make up the body of Christ is the true Church and our bodies are the temple, in fact any body in the body of Christ is the Church. Be not deceived! quite a bit of these ministers may have started off well, but have become overtaken by money or fame (egged on by the people) and their own ego. Remember! you cannot serve mammon and God. If you think that this can be accomplished by the majority of ministers, just see if they will sell all and give to the poor. OK, lets try this, how many people do you know personally that have been healed? 1 person 2 people? half of the people or all of the people? how many delivered? how many raised from the dead? or how many made wealthy among you? as if the gospel was delivered to us to make us wealthy. The scriptures say that the poor you have with you all way, so you see that we have a conflict! lot of these ministers say that you are suppose to be rich. So who’s lying here? We know it’s not The Word of God. We have fallen into all of this false teaching and twisting of scripture because we will not study! or in better words: commune with GOD through JESUS in His Word, The Bible. We have substituted getting to know our Husband The LORD by not studying, and have looked instead for brownie points by going out to a building that we call the Church every Sunday and Wednesday and saying within ourselves that this should be a credit to my account for getting into Heaven, knowing full well that we have not learned anything, but you can say that the Choir was nice! or things like! he sure did preach! He preached what? Do you mean that he was entertaining? because for the most part the saint that has been saved for any period of time have already heard this same message. We’ve heard the gospel preached, received the Gospel and are now saved. So why do you keep listening to the Gospel message again and again after you have believed and received. Shouldn’t we ought to be spreading the gospel after we have received it? Congregating is nice, but how is this developing your relationship to get closer and closer to the Lord? For the most part these ministers/pastors are not going to encourage you to move on in the Lord by insisting that you study to further prepare yourself for your own work in the Lord, because we are all in the body for a reason to do something. But why wouldn’t they tell you this? First you might learn and know more than they do, and second, they may have a fear of you leaving thus losing headcount, funds/money. We were never saved/called to follow a man to this degree. I have personally never met a true pastor. I’ve met a lot of preachers. A true pastor is a somewhat overseer and warns the people in hopes of not losing any brother or sister in Christ. So what is a mega Church? by the way this place we call the Church is actually a meeting place and it does not take a million dollar building, tents and folding chairs will do. But if you say you go to a “mega Church” then who is overseeing you properly? or if you have a “mega Church” how are you overseeing thousands? Also as a large side note, or pretty much a question, Please show me in scripture this message that these ministers are preaching about health wealth and prosperity or any of these raising-money a-thons. Where and when did Jesus or any of the Apostles carry this message? We fall into many hurtful things by not knowing the scriptures. Do you people realize how many times these pastors have sent their children to college on your money while you can’t send your own kids? and buy these huge homes with the people money while you can barely afford pay your rent and bills? or do you even care? Do you think that these people are more loved or special than you in the sight of THE LORD? really? Interestingly the Apostle Paul worked a job and provided for himself and if I’m correct I believe he said that he helped those around him. Although Paul received some help here and there, he also said that he rejected the people’s gold(money) and fine raiment. So are we saying that these pastors are above the Apostle Paul? Absolutely NOT! unless we have lost our minds completely. Have we? People! we are bordering on Idolatry by placing a man above Christ or on the same level as Christ. This is a grave error and should be stopped immediately! I believe that we have lost perspective. This way of thinking did not come from above. As for the entire body of Christ, let no man deceive you. Let no man take your crown nor give it to him. Let no man/pastor/bishop or alleged prophet tell you that you have nothing to say as a member in the body of Christ. Please remember that you were personally invited to the wedding feast by The One who saved you and not by man. You are very important in the body of Christ and let no man tell you otherwise. We should be willing to give all to GOD through JESUS. That is our heart, mind, and body. Please do not be afraid to point this out, speak up and expose any and everything that is not like GOD in accordance to the scriptures, no matter if they be a bishop or a pastor. Do these things internally. Keep JESUS first and endure till the end. Remember! in the world you will have trouble but in him you will have peace, but the Scripture did not say: in the world you will have trouble but in him you’ll be made wealthy. I found out the truth about the tithe and that there is no tithe under The New Covenant about 19 years after being saved and I did not receive it from a man directly. Also, lets not fall for the Abraham argument. Let’s not revert back! The last information that we were given concerning the tithe before the Old Covenant was closed off, is that! The latest and the last update that we have is that The Lord gave all of the tenths/tithe to that particular tribe of Israel, Levi, and there is no known scripture that reverts us back to pre-law, and even if the tithe was supposed to have preceded the Law, be it the Abraham or Jacob tithe, again! the latest and the last update that we have is that The Lord gave all of the tenths/tithe to the tribe of Levi and even if we were to revert back; to whom would we give them to? We would have to find Melchizedek, drum up some spoils of war, give the tenth part, and then give the 90th part back or 90% back, which would leave the tither with zero. None of these ministers/preachers/pastors/bishops/alleged prophets are Melchizedek nor a High Priest. As a side note: I have heard some of the Melchizedek Shem debate. Please read! Please read! Please study for yourselves and repent.
Your fellow servant in Christ

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The Jagged Word

It’s Not Your Money

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