To Tithe Or Grace Give?

 

At Grace For Eternity Church, we have never asked for tithing but grace giving. The difference is we believe the new covenant changed the old covenant “law” of tithing to giving generously by grace. Anytime money is mentioned in our church or among Christians in DFW, we often hear the question, “What about tithing?” Tithing is defined as giving ten percent of your income to the Lord. The word tithe means “tenth” in Hebrew and was a law and taxation in the old covenant. In the new covenant, the early church didn’t levy tithing, it wasn’t about percentages but principles. In the new covenant, it wasn’t about the amount but attitude. Before the new covenant in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said to the Pharisees that “tithing” was a matter of the law (and less weighty matter of the law). Since Jesus didn’t come to destroy the law but fulfill it, he encouraged those under the old covenant to continue tithing. Now fast forward to after the cross and the resurrection and we, believers, have a new covenant and something many churches around the world call “grace giving.”

At GFE Church we do believe giving generously to the church testifies to the world our love for believers. GFE Church is a practical place to gather and giving helps us to equip and bless the saints.

There are 5 principles/attitudes of grace giving in the new covenant:

1. GIVE FIRST –1 Corinthians 16:1-2 ESV Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. ² On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.
2. GIVE PROPORTIONATELY – 2 Corinthians 8:1 ESV We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, ² for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. ³ For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord,⁴ begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints
3. GIVE GENEROUSLY – 2 Corinthians 9:10-12 ESV ¹⁰ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. ¹² For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.
4. GIVE CHEERFULLY– 2 Corinthians 9:7 ESV Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
5. GIVE WILLINGLY– 2 Corinthians 9:7 ESV Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 

We believe that Jesus, inadvertently, can be robbed of His glory by teaching mandatory tithing benefitting freedom from curses. Need spiritual protection or a blessed life? Yes, Jesus through the cross provided that benefit as well, not the law or the tithe. So why give if there is nothing personal to gain? When the church (two or more) come together, it’s practical to join our heart through giving and it takes finances to equip believers.

Under the entire new covenant in the Bible (from the death and resurrection of Jesus through Revelation) we have only one mention in Hebrews regarding tithing. The verse recalling Abraham tithed once the spoils of war (as a concerned pastor I ask you to please don’t go to war with your neighbors and give the ten percent winnings of their belongings to our church).  I believe the author of Hebrews was making a point that we have a greater high priest in the order of Melchizedek.  The context of Hebrews was to bring glory to Jesus as our great High Priest and some teachers have taken that verse and say “see tithing is mandatory under grace to be blessed!” If tithing is mandatory under grace then why didn’t the Apostle Paul remind the young churches how to live a blessed life by tithing, have supernatural protection and stay away from curses? 

There was extreme poverty in the early church, even persecution. There are some that believe Paul could have stopped all of that with a good teaching on tithing?  Jesus didn’t come to destroy the law but fulfill it. Please understand that the law was given by God to protect the people. We absolutely should not commit adultery, however, life in the spirit empowers us to do more in our marriage than not commit adultery. Grace empowers us to love our wife and be intimate relationally. Life in the Spirit helps us to love the Bride of Christ and be intimate relationally. The new covenant is better than the old and the new covenant empowers us to not only give ten percent but be cheerful givers to the church in unity with other believers.  There are hundreds if not thousands of great teachers teaching the new covenant “grace giving” in healthy and growing churches around the world!

 

Pastor Brandon Pollard

http://www.graceforeternity.com

 

Create in me a wicked heart?

 

For years growing up in the church I would question my heart motives and whether or not God could change my heart that week. I felt that if I had a great week seeking Jesus and life was full of blessings then I credited having a changed heart. But then trials and tribulations would come and those blessings were shaken and the seeking of Jesus was harder because He obviously wasn’t changing my heart. The circumstances and behavior in my life must be due to the wickedness of my heart? I could hear the preacher giving glory to his blessed life and church because “it’s all about the motives of the heart.” We would end men’s meetings and accountability time asking, “How’s your heart?” I would cry out to God in tears and ask him to change my heart! At the age of 30, my body was dying and I was averaging 3 hours of sleep at night and I blamed it on the condition of my heart. Why wasn’t God changing my heart?

Fast forward to today and I feel healthier in my body in my forties than I did in my twenties and thirties. What changed? I believe, this is the greatest question you can ask when reading the Bible or looking for answers! 

Jesus revealed truth to me and I want to share it with you in case you believed the same lie I believed. The lie, that your heart is wicked, that it needs to be cleaned comes from actual scripture in the old and new testament. “Wait, Brandon, you just said that a lie can come from the Bible? I can’t keep reading this blog, it’s sacrilegious!” In case you are still reading, I will make it clear that the Bible is not the one lying but the father of lies knows it backwards and forwards, the enemy’s favorite thing is to twist scripture to the believer and use scripture to lie to them! Let’s begin with some scripture you may already have heard or read in church that would lead us, the believer, to believe we have a wicked heart in need of cleaning:

Psalms 51:10

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick: who can understand it?

Genesis 6:5 ESV

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

 

I can hear the enemy now yelling at you, “See, you are nothing but a sinner with a wicked, evil heart!”

Even Jesus said in Matthew 5:8

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

Well you have never seen God with your natural eyes so you must not have a pure heart, right?

But let’s not take scripture out of context, because when we do we are left with a con. We have to ask the question, “What changed?”

Galatians 3:23

Before faith came, we were kept under law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

 

Before faith in Christ Jesus all of us were under the law. We all had wicked and evil hearts. King David didn’t have the promise of the Holy Spirit sealing him or Jesus to give him a new heart. He and other prophets had a glimpse though, that God’s promise of a new covenant was coming!

Ezekiel 36:25-26 ESV

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.

 

When I gave my life to Jesus as a young boy, I didn’t feel like I had a new heart. Certainly my body didn’t change? Maybe you have asked the same great question, “What changed?”

Well scripture let’s us know we are made up of body, soul and spirit. Our body didn’t become new and certainly our soul (mind, will and emotions) didn’t become new. So what changed? Our spirit and spiritual heart. Ever notice that since you became a Christian you can’t enjoy sin? The real you is born again with a new heart and the Holy Spirit and you are now hidden with Jesus (1 Peter 1:20-23, Ephesians 1:13).  Your new heart wants to please the Father. Your soul must be renewed to remember who the real you is. Paul said the old you is dead, crucified with Jesus and buried. So God is not trying to clean your heart, He killed it. He also doesn’t talk to your old zombie hearts but the new heart to remind them of this:

Colossians 1:21-23

And you, who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard,

It takes faith to believe Jesus is your righteousness, holiness, sanctification. You must come before him by faith. What doesn’t take faith is to continue to ask God for a clean heart, to ignore the cross and focus on sin consciousness instead of Christ consciousness. This is called self righteousness and takes absolutely no faith but a religious victim mentality that says “I am just a sinner.” This is a slap in the face to what Jesus did on the cross. A believer is a saint that is in the spirit. We as believers have a choice to not walk after the flesh (sin) but after the spirit (Jesus). So our position is who we are, we are in the spirit. How do we walk after the spirit and not the flesh? Everything we do as believers we must do by faith in Jesus Christ, that something changed when we became born again…….our hearts!

Listen to our “New Hearts” teaching podcast here

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Our greatest ministry begins in our home!

 

One of the most powerful and effective witnessing tool to the world can be the Christian’s marriage and family life. Marriage for the believer is a mirror of the love affair between Christ and the church. Christian parenting can be a reflection of the unconditional love and forgiveness the Father has for His children. Of course it is incredibly difficult to love our spouse and children if we don’t take the time to receive the love that Jesus has for us. Jesus said those that have been forgiven little, love little (Luke 7:46-48) and I used to think that I had a very little to be forgiven since I had received salvation at such an early age. The truth is, we have all have fallen short of the glory of God. We all have been forgiven exactly the same, because if you break one commandment then you are guilty of breaking them all. As Christians we don’t all meditate on exactly what was paid by Jesus for us and because of that, we don’t all love the same. We all were born into a kingdom of darkness and the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) was our father. Once we were saved, we were completely forgiven and given the gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17). By the way, gifts never require payments in this new family and will not be returned. How can a Father be this loving? When we meditate on this kind of forgiveness and unconditional love, then we begin to receive it for ourselves and can’t help but overflow to our spouse and children.  Yes, the first recipients of our ministry begins in the home but you can only give (in power) what you have received from Jesus (Mathew 10:8). Meditate on the cross and how much you have been forgiven and paid for, because your family needs that kind of unconditional love!

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Jesus Overpaid For Our Children!

A couple of weeks ago, sitting in my mom’s kitchen with my awesome and not too distant family members, a true story was told of paying off an enormous debt to the IRS. Five years it took this family member to finally pay off the debt that wasn’t even his fault. The debt caused by an employee/ traitor in his business , ultimately became his responsibility as the owner of the business. He was forced to pay the IRS three times the amount of his house payment every month and was left with little to nothing to live on each month. So of course when he announced to the family it was finally paid off, our entire family rejoiced with him, right there in the kitchen!

Now here is the most interesting part, once the IRS bill was paid for, the next month they still sent him a death threat/ bill saying he owed! He immediately called his contact person there and asked what was up! She explained that it takes a long time for them to get it into their computer system and they will continue to send bills out to him but just know to ignore them.  The funny thing was when she was about to hang up, she said, “Sir…. uhm….., you actually overpaid, turns out we owe you!”

What does this have to do with your kids or even you?  Well, often the enemy pretends to be God’s voice and tells you and your kids that you have to work harder and owe God for His favor, that more works have to be done in order to receive His favor. But I have good news my friends, Jesus overpaid with His work on the cross so that we can receive God’s undeserved favor apart from our works! It turns out the enemy may be sending you death letters (condemnation) and threats but the truth is God overpaid  for  you and your children’s behalf! Receive what Christ has done for you and your family and throw away the condemnation today!

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When will our children stop listening to dummies?

When I was a kid I loved the puppet show in children’s church. Kids today aren’t easily impressed with puppets but amazingly there still is a ventriloquist in the church today!  Last week I had a long conversation with my ten-year old son, we were talking about how the enemy loves to imitate the voice of God! Proverbs 19:12 says, “A kings rage is like the roaring of a lion” and most people know that 1 Peter 5:8 says “the enemy goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour”. What children need to know is the devil is imitating the voice of God’s anger. Even adult Christians and sometimes leaders of churches believe the lie that God is angry with disobedient children. Every religion in the world believes their god rewards obedience and is angry with disobedience, but Jesus tells the story of a prodigal son who was extremely disobedient and then only because he was hungry decided to return to His father. All was forgiven in the story without the child even asking (yes sons and daughters have this incredible favor). The wrath of God was poured out on His son Jesus on the cross and Jesus was forsaken so that His children would never be forsaken. Can’t believe in this kind of undeserved favor? Neither could the brother in the story of the prodigal son. The brother wouldn’t enter the house of his father to join in the party because he had worked so hard at being obedient and never saw this kind of favor! But then again, he never asked! Am I for my children being disobedient to God? Absolutely not, but I understand receiving God’s love and redemption gives them power against disobedience! Relationship is greater than the law in God’s eyes and He fulfilled the law through the cross. When He speaks, God always reminds His children who they are in Christ Jesus and their destiny, not their past.

How did Jesus empower the women caught in adultery to sin no more? He spoke no condemnation and then said go sin no more. Our children will never hear condemnation from God because they are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). They will however hear the enemy giving their best God impersonation and it is our job as parents to call a dummy a dummy!

If you enjoy our blogs visit www.graceforeternity.com for our new praise and worship album and sermon podcast  available now on itunes!

 

Protecting your child’s calling and purpose at church!(part 2)

Show me a parent who has won thousands to Christ all over the world and built a hundred churches and I will ask one question, “where are their children during this time of ministry?” For years my wife and I would arrive at church hours before the doors opened and then we would be the last ones to leave, fortunately this was only a season and before my wife and I had children. I love being at church and my passion is people at church! Today, however, we still have the opportunity to volunteer as much as we like, and when we do, our children must wait in a classroom or sit quietly in church while mom and dad minister in whatever capacity.

Often times life and our actions speaks louder to our kids than we do about church. For my six-year-old, he sees church as a place where adults make him get up early (Mom and dad have to practice hours earlier for worship), sit still and don’t talk loud in the sanctuary (His name is Zeal, his normal voice is loud) and then go to a classroom and sit still and don’t talk loud (did I mention that is what he does best?). Church is like school to my six-year-old, he doesn’t understand why he has to be there for so long and be quiet for so long, but it has to be good for him, right?My wife and I are a little unique in that we minister together in worship and have for nearly fifteen years but I am very protective of my children’s time spent at church.

My father was a pastor and missionary when I was a child and I remember being at church five times a week. His passion and calling for the church was very strong but he struggled in including his family in that passion. My father was unable to keep our family together, despite winning thousands to Christ, seeing thousands of miracles, dead people raised to life and starting a Bible School that today has graduated hundreds of pastors.  Moses struggled with including his family as well, when all the miracles in Egypt took place, his family was nowhere close to being apart of it. Why couldn’t Moses’ children lead the people to the promised land when Moses died? Because he failed to include his family in ministry!

As my kids are getting older, we are including them more in times of ministry outside of the church building (no one can light up a nursing home like a child) but they still are unable to join us in music ministry while we are at church. My job as leader of my family is to get my whole family involved in their calling and purpose at church even at the expense of my desire of volunteering in church being scaled back. Dana and I have friends that are pastors and full-time ministers doing a fabulous job at including their kids in ministry but everyone needs the grace of God to purposely protect their children!

We recently recorded a worship album for my wife (www.graceforeternity.com) and my children sat quietly on the couches in the studio, my heart ached as we constantly had to quiet them for hours upon hours, day after day! Then the final group voices were needed and we were able to convince the producer that our children could sing and would do great! I stood beside my family and about ten other people as we sang praises to God while the microphones recorded for over an hour. The kids were not perfect singing, their timing was off which probably made the producer a little irritated, but finishing the album with my family by my side meant so much to me.  I wouldn’t trade that one hour of family togetherness for a lifetime of ministry alone!

The best way to love your children, simply love your wife

The title of this blog was actually the title of my first song, written out of my own experience of being a child. I directed the song at fathers and in the chorus sang, “It’s not money or knowing the right thing to say, it’s not time and always being there to play. But if you want to have a happy family life, the best way to love your children is to simply love your wife.”  Again I wrote this song a long time ago and since then I have been through rough waters in my own marriage and I understand I need Gods grace in my own marriage and life, so please do not feel condemnation if you are divorced or remarried. My heart is not to judge but to share life with you. God’s will is for marriages to last in love. I have seen children take priority in marriages over their spouses, but this is not what God intended. Our children will never be loved more than when two parents love each other and make each other a priority! Does this mean we send them off to boarding school, yes……Wait NO! There is a balance and order that comes with loving our children. How many times have you seen teenagers move off to college and life, only to see husbands and wives are not friends and have nothing in common. Their whole world revolved around their children for a season but when that season is over, then they often times don’t know what to do or how to live.

So how do you win back your spouse if you have neglected loving them as a priority over your children? Begin by standing up to your kids on their behalf! My wife and I are a team (they outnumber us, so we have to be) and we have each others back. If I hear disrespect towards my wife coming from my children’s mouth across the room, you can guarantee that child now has to deal with me. My wife does the exact same thing for me as well. My children understand that mom and dad were here alone before they were born and mom and dad will be here alone when they are gone. That may sound harsh to some parents, but I guarantee there is a spouse out there somewhere reading this, telling me to preach it! Also a good thing to practice is giving your kids quiet time (a time to read in their rooms or play) so that mom and dad can have some alone time. All children will try to manipulate you into doing everything they want, at the expense of your marriage if you let them. I pray that is not your family and that you guard against this and protect you and your spouse time together. I have made tons of mistakes as a parent and so will you, but loving your spouse will blanket a world of mistakes.  Your children depend on you loving your spouse to receive the greatest love from you!

To learn more and hear our podcast “Raising children in grace” visit www.graceforeternity.com