How Does The Credit Crunch Affect Christians?

Today I am posting the first in a series of three posts about how the credit crunch in the UK affects 'family on a mission'. We start with how the credit crunch affects the individual Christian.

Christians are taught to give to God in a way which goes beyond the Old Covenant (where a tithe/tenth was required of God's people), to be the most hospitable and generous people on earth. Because Jesus demolished every requirement of the law over us when he died as our perfect substitute on the cross and magnificently rose again, we are free from the constraints of the law. Jesus encourages us not to worry about provision, but instead to trust God for everything we need.

We are not consumers of God, the church or His servants, but rather co-investors in a fast-growing kingdom all over the earth. Perhaps one of the biggest monthly challenges for Christians is trying to maintain the Biblical mentality that investing in the Kingdom is not simply paying for your pastor's time but storing up treasure for yourself in heaven, investing into something eternal, unseen. There is a grace to giving which we cannot understand, but by some mystery God enables His people to hilariously give vast sums of money into His work all over the world. It's not only a grace to the church, but a grace to the individual Christian too.

And as I have thought about what the credit crunch means for individual Christians, it is this precious truth which I believe will come most under fire. With the cost of living increasing, people will be tightening their belts in an attempt to reduce their expenditure. And if individual Christians are to continue to experience the grace of giving, there will be a challenge. Either we can see giving as a grace and continue to give hilariously or we will simply see our giving as a line on our list of monthly expenses and apply a legalistic mindset.

The credit crunch gives Christians the opportunity to test themselves in that which God invites us to test Him. If we see giving as a line of expenditure in our monthly outgoings and simply extend our consumer mindset to our giving we risk missing out. But if we see our giving as an adventure of faith and grace with God, investing in something unseen, I believe God will open the floodgates of heaven to us and we will encounter again and again what it truly means to be a people of grace.