It also takes faithfulness. That's right. How you manage the financial resources you have today will determine to a great extent how richly God can prosper you tomorrow.
Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. The Bible consistently emphasizes the importance of faithful stewardship. In Luke 16:10-13, for example, Jesus said:
Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money (NIV).
Some Christians have interpreted that scripture to mean you shouldn't have money - that somehow it's pious to be poor. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible says God takes "pleasure in the prosperity of his servant" (Psalm 35:27).
The fact is, God not only wants you to prosper but He considers it your responsibility to do so. He expects you to multiply your resources to increase His kingdom on the earth.
God has expected that from man ever since the beginning. Read the first few chapters of Genesis and you'll see what I mean. They reveal that Adam's primary responsibility in the Garden of Eden (in addition to fellowshipping with God) was to exercise dominion over His assets. Genesis 2:15-17 says: "The Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
In that passage, we see that God told Adam to do three things. First, he was to dress the Garden, to work in it and keep it productive. Second, he was to keep it or protect it. And, third, he was to refrain from eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Although God expects us, like Adam, to do all of those things with the resources He has given us, I want to focus especially on that third instruction. I want you to think about the fact that God actually commanded Adam to withhold himself from a portion of the Garden's bounty.
Why would God give such a command? God wanted Adam to acknowledge that He was the owner of everything that had been put under his care. God wanted Adam to realize that he was simply the steward of His resources.
The same thing is true for us today. If we're to be successful money managers, we must remember - first and foremost - that God is the true owner of all we have. We must recognize that now, as in the Garden of Eden, the whole world in all its fullness belongs to Him (Psalm 50:12).
How do we acknowledge His ownership? By tithing. By withholding ourselves from the first ten percent of our income and giving it to God. "Well, I don't know about that tithing stuff. I think I'll just skip it and go on to another key to money management."
If that's what you're thinking, you might as well forget about financial success right now because scriptural prosperity is only available to the tither. You can't go any further financially until you meet this basic requirement. In fact, you'll eventually lose what you have now if you don't tithe because the devil will devour it. (See Malachi 3.)
Think back about what happened to Adam and you'll see what I mean. He had dominion over the Garden as long as he tithed. But then he followed Satan's counsel, ate from the tree and, in essence, stopped tithing. As a result, he forfeited his authority to Satan, lost his right to stewardship, and was driven from the Garden. From then on, instead of enjoying the abundant blessings of God, Adam suffered under the curse.
In the same way, if the devil can talk you out of tithing, he can strip you of your rightful dominion over God's resources. He'll have entry into your finances that will allow him to steal from you and keep you in financial bondage.
But you may say, "Pastor Mac, that's Old Testament stuff. I thought Jesus came to restore our lost dominion and redeem us from the curse of the law." Yes, Jesus did redeem us from the curse, but He didn't relieve us of our responsibility to tithe.
Hebrews 7 says Jesus is a High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. What did Melchizedek do? In Genesis 14:18-20, we find he blessed Abraham and received Abraham's tithes.
And that's what Jesus does today. He blesses you by acting as your High Priest and interceding with the Father on your behalf. You acknowledge Him as High Priest by paying your tithes. That qualifies you to be a steward of God's resources.
Once you've determined to meet the basic requirement of tithing, you're ready for the next key of biblical money management: making a written plan.
Many believers make the mistake with their finances of spending carelessly instead of planning in advance. As a result, much of their seed is wasted and they don't enjoy the return God intended.
Don't let that happen to you. Obey the instructions in Habakkuk 2:2 and "write the vision" you have for your finances. What does it mean to write your financial vision? It simply means to design a budget that will help take you from where you are now to where you want to go; and to put that budget down in black and white so you can see it all the time.
I realize "budget" is a dirty word to a lot of people but it is an absolute must if you want to prosper. God isn't going to put great amounts of wealth into your hands if you have holes in your pocket. He isn't going to dramatically increase your income if you can't keep track of the amount of money you have now.
So set aside your dislike of budgeting, sit down and figure one out. If you don't know how to begin, you'll find some good books on the subject at your Christian bookstore. Once you've established a budget, stick to it. Plug the holes in your pocket by watching carefully over what you spend.
Make sure you're putting your seed in good ground and not wasting it. Then you'll be in position for God to give you more.
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Mac Hammond is the senior pastor of Living Word, a large and growing church in Brooklyn Park (a suburb of Minneapolis), Minnesota. He is the host of the Winner’s Minute, which is seen locally in the Minneapolis area on KMSP Channel 9 at 6:44 a.m. and 11:11 a.m. He is also the host of the Winner's Way broadcast and author of several internationally distributed books. Mac is broadly acclaimed for his ability to apply the principles of the Bible to practical situations and the challenges of daily living.
