Gifts to God: A Smart Investment Plan?

-->Hello everyone this is Timothy! Philip asked me to contribute to the blog, and I am happy to accept the invitation. Ironically, my first contribution as a contributing writer is about contributions.

I was thinking the other day about how bad I have been over the years with fulfilling my obligation to tithe. The problem has never been that I don’t really want to or that I don’t see the reasoning behind it. I did always believe my Dad when he would say that whatever you give to God, you will get even more in return. And the few times that I would tithe, I would somehow get more in return. But I think that my thought process would usually go like this; Thought 1: ‘it’s the beginning of the week and I have this [insert small amount of money] that I am going to give to the Lord on Sunday.’ Thought 2: [Insert idea for wasteful way of spending money] Thought 3: ‘That is, unless there is something that I MUST spend it on.’ Of course, there would always be something to spend it on.

If we think about tithing logically, though, it makes perfect sense. For example, when we have money to be managed by an accountant or an investment advisor, we want to choose the most knowledgeable, most experienced person that we can find so that our money can be turned into more money. We also want the person with the most integrity and one who is trustworthy to manage it. So let’s think of the person with the most integrity, knowledge, experience, and trust (and wealth, and power, and clientele, and respect, etc.). God! There is no better candidate to manage our money that God. I suppose that is how we somehow get more in return. God is able to take our monetary investment in Him and turn it into more. Rather than thinking of it just as a gift to God, think of it as an investment; a low-risk, high-return investment that is morally sound. Of course, this is not the reason we should give to God, but it helps me to better justify giving money to God and hopefully it can help you do so as well.