Culturally Irrelevant

I thought I was doing pretty good balancing out this whole 10% thing. 3 cups of New Testament, 2 tablespoons of Old, a pinch of people’s opinions…sip…almost there. But as I was out mowing the yard, God knocked the bowl over and sat me down.

I hear the Father saying, “Beloved, my Son isn’t counting pennies anymore because his hands are holding a cross going up a hill to die. Will you leave the money table to follow him?” Death, sin, sickness and the grave are conquered, but as long as the Bride is in the earth, Jesus joins her as she takes up her cross to climb a hill and die with Him there. And as that cross is lifted up, He draws the world in love. That’s what’s really going on.

Paul walked face to face with life and death, glory and pain, God and his persecutors. It’s no wonder that he didn’t get sidetracked with counting the Corinthians’ pennies and demanding his rights. He was there to die, to be poured out wine and broken bread for the sake of their eternal position in Christ. Like his Lord, he laid down his rights, became a servant, worked with his hands to provide an example for the Bride and then showed them how to live and suffer with power. If providing a life-sized example that would expose the “false apostles” for who they really were meant giving up money, so be it.

Have you ever seen a modern day pastor, overseer, apostle or prophet lay down his or her right to compensation for the sake of presenting Jesus’ Bride as a pure, spotless virgin? It’s rare.

I’m struggling with the relevance of a percentage while many of my friends, from Africa to America, are sleeping in foxholes and front line trenches, pouring out their lives for the ones Jesus’ died to save. They’re not giving token service, but sharing their very lives with AIDS victims, lonely orphans, widows, drug addicts, the demon possessed and the mentally ill.

A man I work with is fond of interrupting conversations and high-level meetings to remind everyone of something: “Guys,” he’ll say, “I want everyone to know that I deserve death…” (long pause) “…but Jesus has given me life.” When that’s our reality, do you really think we need to give a 10% guideline? I’d rather spend my time presenting the gospel with power, pointing people to Jesus’ death and resurrection, intimacy with the Father and real acts of religion, like sharing life with and meeting the needs of broken and hurting people. When that’s our reality, money won’t be an issue.

What was the cross really about? In the past I’ve taught about what it did for me. But that’s just from my perspective. The Word says, “for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.” It’s also about what the cross did for Jesus. He won a spotless bride, a woman ready to die with him so she can live with him. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. The cross isn’t just about us, our prosperity, healing and forgiveness. That’s all in there, but everything He has given us is meant to be given right back to Him in adoration, just like Jesus will turn around at the end of everything and give it all back to the Father.

So it’s about giving, not 10%. Giving what? My life, my body, my everything. That’s all He requires.