A friend asked me recently if I thought there should be preaching on giving in church. Of course Jesus taught on giving in church (the widow’s mite), so did Paul (2 Corinthians 8 & 9 is one big exhortation to give radically).

But it gets better if you understand that God wants our focus on what he can give us to bring into his house, into his kingdom. Many people shop churches - they’re looking for what they can get out of church, what church will best meet their perceived needs. The truth is that God has raised up candlesticks (local assemblies) and has anointed ministers there. He then draws believers in around these ministers, around the locus of his presence in the earth.

This can be followed through the entire Word of God. God drew Abraham to Melchizedech in order to give him a tithe of the battle spoils. Exodus 35 & 36 gives us an amazing account of a call to give into God’s kingdom (specifically the materials needed to make the tabernacle to Father’s blueprint), and an overwhelming response to that call - so much that Moses had to tell the people to stop giving.

David gave a powerful offering message not long before he died: he basically took a large chunk of the national treasury and of his own personal estate, placed it on the table before God…and then threw out the challenge for all his governors to throw in with him. This lavish offering supplied everything needed to build Solomon’s temple.Teaching and preaching on beautiful excessive giving is not only necessary but a source of incredible overflow for God’s people. All of a sudden we are drawn into a place where our treasure is literally in heaven - allowing us specific access into setting our affections there; access that we’d never have otherwise.

Reckless giving recalibrates us to thinking and feeling just like our Father; we begin to possess a focus on what we can bring in rather than what we can take away. Look at how in Leviticus 27 Moses offers God’s people the opportunity to make special vows, offerings way above and beyond what could come out of a place of obligation; and look how this same inspiration swept over the early church at the end of Acts 4.

It’s an entrance into a life where your cup runs over. The Torah and the Psalms talk about “when the tribes go up.” It’s a perfect picture of God’s people coming in to church barely able to contain all God has blessed them with. Look at how the tribes went up when God gathered them around his anointed servant David in 1 Chronicles 12. Every single tribe had something substantial to bring - starting with their very lives, then getting very specific in terms of skills and gifts God had given them to bring to his kingdom.

Then look at 1 Corinthians 14.23, where Paul challenges us to all bring into church something only the Holy Ghost can give us: a song, a hymn, prophecy, tongues and interpretations, teaching and revelation. The offering starts with simple finances and then goes far beyond what money can buy. The Holy Ghost makes our lives an offering to Jesus by baptizing us into his body fresh every time we assemble ourselves. Here is where Solomon’s charge to us resonates deepest, that we honor the Lord with our substance, and with the firstfruits of our increase. In this we will see the church in our lifetime, in a very tangible way, increase with the increase of God.