My 3 Life-Changing Money Lessons I Learned From John PiperSample

"God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving." -John Piper

For years, I faithfully tithed as my income increased.

I was blessed to see some significant jumps in my income. Like a good Pharisee, I faithfully tithed off all that increase.

I gave God his 10%, and the 90% was mine.

All mine.

Honestly, I thought I had reached the “finish line” of Christian giving. I mean, only like 3% of the Church gives 10%, so I proudly gave my 10% as if I was doing some sort of favor for God, and He owed me something.

But the truth was God wasn’t prospering my career so that I could raise my standard of living to match my Pinterest dream board or take every trip an Instagram influencer takes.

But His intention was that I would raise my standard of giving.

In my case, He challenged me, out of my abundance, to begin “giving my age as a percentage of my income.”

So after many questions, prayer, discussion, wrestling with fear, and maybe a few tantrums, I yielded and decided to increase my giving from about 10% to 31% (at age 31) to obey what I sensed the Lord directing me.

It would take a whole book to share the wondrous things that God did after I obeyed His direction on this (and I’ll tell you about the book later), but suffice it to say that decision was by far one of the best decisions I have made in my life.

The joy, peace, and unbelievable blessing that followed forever changed how I view giving.

2 Corinthians 9:11 states, "You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God."