A Biblical budget by Pastor Ed Young

What kind of budget should we have?  We should live by the give, give, live budget.  The give, give, live budget.  This is a Biblical budget.  The give budget.  See Roman numeral I on your outline?  When I get paid the first thing I should do, the Bible says, is I should give 10% to God.  I should give 10% to God.  And the Bible says give it to your local house of worship.  If you are a member of this church, you should give the first 10% of your money to this church.  If you belong somewhere else, give it there.  The Bible is plain about this concept.  It is called tithing.  Every time I talk about giving I see those who are generous and they are kind of smiling, thinking yeah that’s great.

And those who don’t give are going, whoa, man, talking about money.  Just relax.  The Bible says that we should be cheerful givers and if you are a cheerful giver God is going to take care of you. He is going to bless you.  The Bible says in Proverbs 3:9-10   “Honor the Lord by giving Him the first part of all your income.”  You see the amount is insignificant.  If you make a million dollars a month or if you make ten dollars a month, the Bible says the first 10% should go to God.  Why?  Does God need our money?  No, God does not need our money.  God uses money to test us to see if He really is Lord of our life.  Because Jesus said if your treasure is in a certain place then it indicates that your heart is in that same place.

We can look at our financial portfolios and tell what is number one in our lives.  Is it travel?  Is it clothing?  Is it a home?  Is it a car?  Or is it the Lord Jesus Christ.  And a lot of people are wondering why doesn’t God bless my finances.  Why doesn’t God give me opportunities?  Why doesn’t God do this or that?  Oftentimes it can be traced back to the lack of generosity, the lack of giving to the local Body of Christ.  Honor the Lord by giving Him the first part of your income.  “And He will fill your barns (or you condos) with wheat and barley and overflow your wine vats with the finest wines.

I believe God talked more about giving than any other subject in the Bible because when we give we are more like God.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave…..”  Surely we don’t have anyone here who has a disease called cirrhosis of the giver, do we?  Does anyone have that?  That was kind of bad, wasn’t it?  When I get paid I give the first 10% to God.