Emerging Conservative

To understand today’s miracle, you have to understand the time line of several events.

At the beginning of this month, I left for a two-day sabbatical to seek God on the vision for our church. There is much I could tell you about that trip but for now, I came home impressed on my heart that we were “To be a real community that fulfills the Great Commission by being people of faith, displaying hope, and acting in love.” I know that at first pass that might not sound so profound but if you stop and think of the ramifications that such a goal would be, it’s pretty mind-blowing and calls for great submission.

We have been spending this month at the church going through a series I’m calling “Come Together”, in part to talk about our roles within this vision. There are many areas we covered but the one that affects this miracle was our stewardship with our money and resources.

Two weeks ago, I talked about this while discussing Malachi 3: 6-18. The short version is God is robbed when we don’t bring into the storehouse our tithes and offerings. He invites us to (get this) “test me in this” that if we bring Him our tithes He will “open the floodgates of heaven” and “pour out so much blessing that you will not have room for all of it”. Now, I’m not a big “Follow God = You will get a big house, big car, and lots of cash guy” However, I do believe if I am financially faithful, He will take care of our needs to say the least.

That was a five-minute talk in the middle of a big talk. Yesterday, however, our Financial Faith Elder, Josh Kramp gave a GREAT message on financial stewardship. In it he mentioned two things that stood out to me.

– “You can do more with God and 90% of your money than you can with 100% of your money on your own.”

– “Let today be the day we remember than we started acting in faith and took one step closer to being the Acts 2 church we wish to be (or something like that =)  

Still with me? I’m telling you, the path is half of the story……

So let’s go back and I’ll explain the B story line in all this. About the same time I went on the Sabbatical, I felt that God may be laying on my heart to give back to the church two of my paychecks in faith. And when I mean in faith, I mean IN FAITH!

Those who know our story know that we own a Christian bookstore that is struggling pretty hard right now. In working the numbers for January (one of the slowest months of the year for us), I knew that we would not be able to pay any of our merchandise fees and would be about $1500 short of paying the bills we HAD to pay (rent, utilities, payroll tax, sales tax, ect) The plan was to take the extra pay we had this month personally and give it to the store to survive. However, if we gave back those pay checks ($1200), that personal answer was gone and the store had no way to make it work.

I talked to my wife about it and she said she was behind me if God made it clear I was suppose to do it. I prayed about it for two weeks.

Well, a couple Sundays ago, as I stepped on the “stage” at our church to close the gathering time, I was very strongly convicted that I was to move forward with the donation. I did not want to, if I’m being honest with you. Through some tears and some fear, I told the church what was going on and donated back the two checks.

After this, I started feeling like I was suppose to challenge our church to a similar thing. What if each of us got out of our comfort zones and gave like we never gave before. If we brought into the storehouse in a new and bountiful way, what did God have planned for it that we didn’t know yet? However, I am not a big “fund raiser” guy so in my stupidity, started to resist bringing it up. Then, while listening to Josh’s message, I dropped the excuses and brought it up to our church family. I pray they jump in as I’m now convienced He is gathering for something that is about to happen if we follow Him in faith.

So, what is this miracle already! Spit it out! OK, OK!

Today, I sat down to figure out the end of month bills. The time I dread when I compare what we budgeted and what really happened.

After looking at a few of the mandatory bills, I found there were some significant savings over what we thought it might be. This rarely happens. However, grand total savings of the ones I had paid = about $1000!

Ok, that could just be luck but catch this!

In the mail, came our rent billing from our landlord who we have had nothing but frustrations with over tha last 3 years. They are a national company who could care less about us. They never contact us unless they want money. Each year, in April, they review the accounts and each time, have wanted more money.

For some reason, they reviewed our account and decided to REDUCE one of our costs and it went back several months. I don’t understand some of the legal wording yet but here’s the jist…. this change (out of no where) means we do not owe them any money this month and still have a $600 credit for next month!

God asked us to give Him $1200….. He gave us over $5000! This is INSANE! If you told me this would happen when this story started, I would say “It would take God for that to happen” and guess what, IT DID!

If God is calling you to take a faith step in your finances… DO IT! Test Him in this! Follow God and see what blessings He has for you!