1So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2
God wants to deliver us from having a selfish spirit.
He wants us to be generous—with Him and with others. When we refer to giving to the Lord, we often think of finances first. We will think of finances in a few moments but did you know there are other ways we can be faithful in giving to the Lord? Think for a moment about your time. Are you faithful in giving your time to God? Do you allow Him to help you set priorities in how you use your time each day? Do you give time to serve others through the church or in your community? What about your talents? What gifts has God given you that you can use faithfully? Have you—or will you—commit them to God’s service? How about the ways in which you can touch others uniquely through personal relationships? Are you faithful to give yourself to God to do this? Once you’ve looked at all the other areas in which you can be faithful, examine your use of money. Is the way you spend and give of your income in line with the rest of your life? What do the priorities of your spending say about your faithfulness to God? Do you acknowledge Him as the Owner and yourself as the manager of all He has provided you?
Waldo Weaning talked about three levels of giving:
This message is for those who want to understand the nuts and bolts of being a Christ follower. I am going to talk to you for the next few moments about subjects that are life changing.
There are four resources that God gave you and He wants you to use them. Four ways that you can use what God had given you. 
1. Time “Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” Ephesians 5:15-17
As one translation say, “make every minute count,”
We all have the same amount of time everyday. The question is, How do we chose to use them? We are all given twenty-four hours in which to live. For the Christ follower every one of those hours are given to God. That doesn’t mean you work for the church with every spare minute but it does mean you prioritize your time around God and your family and the ministry of the church. If everyone in this room would spend time organizing the time they have to work with no one in this church would feel overworked or overcommitted. We believe that a portion of every Christ followers time should go to doing something in the local church.
I want to remind you of the simple level of commitment that we call you to regarding those who are willing to give time on Sunday: Attend one, work one. Attend a service and work during another service. You will be spending around two hours and a half at church if you do that on a Sunday. Consider how God could use you and your time. 
2. Talent “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Pet. 4:10
Everyone in this room has been given a talent that God can use. The question is have you discovered yours and are you using them for God? Are you making a difference in your world based on the gifts and talents that God has given you?
Once there was a talent show at a local hall. The first contestant played a saxophone solo. It was so brilliant the audience cheered wildly and gave him a standing ovation. Shortly after he walked off the stage, a prominent individual in the music industry offered the player a recording contract and a chance to play with some of the young man’s jazz heroes.
The second contestant read a poem she wrote. The words and the way she read those words moved some people to tears. When she was done, the audience cheered enthusiastically. Shortly after she walked off the stage, she was offered a position writing poetry for the local newspaper and an opportunity to publish her work.
The third contestant walked out to the stage carrying a guitar. “Well,” he stammered, “I had thought I would play this guitar my father gave me. But since there are other players so much better than me, I didn’t put anything together.”
The crowd fell silent. Shortly after he walked off the stage, his father seized the guitar and gave it to the saxophone player saying, “Take this and use it so others may hear the music this instrument makes.”
I don’t know about you, but there are times when I’ve felt like that third contestant. Perhaps you feel you have a talent for something, but you’re not sure if you’re talented enough. Have you ever thought about where your talents come from?
God knows our potential better than we do! He gives us an abundance of talents because He trusts us with them. He trusts us to discover, develop and deploy the talents we have. 
3. Touch “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. Luke 10:33-34
Touching others at their point of need is one of the foundational truths in historic Christianity. There is a lot of preaching and teaching to be done from the story of the good Samaritan. Rev. James Forbes said, "Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor." You can find people who are poor in many ways other that lack of money. We are a church that believes and practices outreach. Touching others in practical ways to demonstrate the love of Christ. 
4. Treasure “In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:33
If you have not yet reached the place where you want to give yourself, your time, your talent, your treasure, and your touch in faithful service to God, will you ask God to help you get there?
When we use our time, talent, treasure, and touch for God’s glory, He rewards us. We may not see it now. We may not even be able to see any way good could result from our gifts.
A financial advisor named Ron Blue visited a rural village in Africa. He asked one of the villagers, “What is the biggest problem in your village?” He fully expected to hear about a food shortage or lack of medical supplies. He was hot prepared for the response he received. The man said, “materialism.” He explained, “If a man had a mud hut, he wants one made of stone. If he has a thatch roof, he wants a tin roof. If he has one acre, he wants two. Materialism is a disease of the heart.” You see, friends, even in a place that is completely lacking in all of the luxuries that we take for granted, materialism is alive and well.
A young couple had been married for about a year. They were struggling financially and decided to do something about it. They would develop a strategy. They sat down one day to talk about their finances, and after much analysis, the young wife said to her husband, “If we miss two payments on the refrigerator and one payment on the washing machine, we’ll have enough money to make a down payment on a new television set.”
We always want more that we already have. I think the following statement is one of the most common thoughts in America, “I think I’ll go to Wal-Mart and get something that will make me happy.” More stuff will not bring greater happiness. Empty lives are still just as empty.
I spoke yesterday to a friend of mine in another state who started a business that now has become a nationwide business. His name is associated with a very successful multi million dollar company. We talked about tithing. When I first met him he didn’t have much money to spare. He had a business and six kids but he never flinched about paying tithe. In fact, he told about becoming a Christian with two little kids and bills beyond what he could pay almost but he started tithing as soon as he became a Christian.
We are preparing to start some financial classes in the near future. Some of you will benefit from attending and learning more about investing in the kingdom of God.
The bottom line of tithing is this. It is as old as the Old Testament and it is taught throughout the whole Bible that everything belongs to God. Many of us in this room believe that while everything belongs to God we give Him the first 10% of what we make. We don’t manage it. We give it. We believe that it is not ours but belongs to God.
For some of you that is a concept you can’t even imagine. All I can tell you is that it is something God blesses and you can’t out give God.
Leighton Farrell was the minister of Highland Park Church in Dallas for many years. He tells of a man in the church who once made a covenant with a former pastor to tithe ten percent of their income every year. They were both young and neither of them had much money. But things changed. The layman tithed one thousand dollars the year he earned ten thousand, ten thousand dollars the year he earned one-hundred thousand, and one- hundred thousand dollars the year he earned one million. But the year he earned six million dollars he just could not bring himself to write out that check for six-hundred thousand dollars to the Church.
He telephoned the minister, long since having moved to another church, and asked to see him. Walking into the pastor’s office the man begged to be let out of the covenant, saying, "This tithing business has to stop. It was fine when my tithe was one thousand dollars, but I just cannot afford six-hundred thousand dollars. You’ve got to do something, Reverend!" The pastor knelt on the floor and prayed silently for a long time. Eventually the man said, "What are you doing? Are you praying that God will let me out of the covenant to tithe?" "No," said the minister. "I am praying for God to reduce your income back to the level where one thousand dollars will be your tithe!" (Contributed to Sermon Central by Joel Vicente)
The future ministry of this church depends on some of you stepping up to the plate (no pun intended) on this issue. I talk to pastors and staff people all the time from other churches and they are trying every creative way possible to raise money for their church.
There is nothing more personally nauseating to me than a church that has to ask the world to help pay and fund its ministries. When you see churches doing that you can know for sure that they are a church that is not supported by the people who attend there, at least not in a biblical manner. As long as I am pastor of this church we won’t be doing those kinds of things. I think it is offensive to God at a minimum. He established the system of tithing and if everyone in the church practiced it we would never have to raise a special offering or have a capital campaign.
I am deeply moved by some of you who give. I know you don’t make much money and don’t have near as much as others yet you honor God first with ten percent off the top.
I am challenging some of you today to start practicing biblical giving. Giving of yourself, your time, talent, touch and treasure.
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I heard a story of a missionary in Africa who received a knock on the door of his hut one afternoon. Answering, the missionary found a native boy holding a large fish in his hands. The boy said, "Reverend, you taught us what tithing is, so here. I’ve brought you my tithe." As the missionary gratefully took the fish, he questioned the boy. "If this is your tithe, where are the other nine fish?" At this, the boy beamed and said, "Oh, they’re still back in the river. I’m going back to catch them now."
Put God first. Do it this week. It’s the greatest investment you can make.
Will you take the blank check out of the worship folder and use it this morning as a focal point during this last song. Let God speak deeply to you and make some decisions about your life, your time, talent, touch and treasure.