I find it sad that, in general, it seems that grace does not have its intended effect on western Christians. We think of grace as warrant for getting away will sub-par service to God. However, grace is meant to do things like lead us to repentance and enable us to serve God extravagantly.
This morning I was thinking about this in terms of financial giving. I think the average American gives right around 3% of their income to their church and this type of tight-fisted giving has been a perennial problem in the western church. However, traditionally the stance of the church on offering is "tithing", which literally means "one tenth". The good thing about this stance is that it encourages giving 10%. The problem is that it does not encourage giving more than that.
When grace was first unleashed in the world the earliest Christians sold EVERYTHING and gave it to the church. The view of grace is that humans deserve eternal damnation for their sins, but that through Jesus' death and resurrection Christians have been gifted righteousness. So anything outside of eternal damnation is a gift from God. Therefore, ALL your money is a gift from God; in fact, all of your LIFE is a gift from God. So all of your money should be used in submission to what God would have you do with you money. This is the doctrine of Grace Giving.
With this definition of grace giving the whole discussion of how much ought to be given becomes really simple: you give everything. With this model the question is simply: where does God want me to use my money?
Here is what I think the church needs: more grace. I do not believe that giving is so stingy because times are hard, but because we do not understand the magnitude of the grace we have received. I truly believe that as our view of grace increases, so will our giving. So let's let grace take over.
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