To the Father, through the Son-Jesus Christ, by way of the Holy Spirit--- Amen !

“ Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

Christ is the Resurrection and the Life:

Looking back at Israel in the Old Testament from a resurrection perspective, we understand that they were a "picture-people" intended to illustrate what God was to do in the resurrection in raising up a people for His own possession, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (I Peter 2:9). The physical Israel of the Old Testament represented a people "set apart" to function as intended, but they failed to thus function because of unbelief and disobedience (Heb. 3:16-4:6). By the resurrection of Jesus all Christians become the "Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16; Rom. 9:6); people "set apart" to function as intended; people who can collectively be called "Israel" because we have fought with God, surrendered to God and been conquered by God, spiritually.

    The resurrection gives us an eternal perspective of who the people of Israel really are.

God owns everything:

Since God is the owner and giver of all things, we are but trustees, managers, stewards of Another's goods. God entrusts some things to us  whatever He can trust us with. It is not "my" home, "my" car, "my" money, or even "my" child. I must avoid being "possessive." I am just a trustee of God's possessions. In fact, I do not even "possess" salvation or eternal life. Christ who is "Life" (John 14:6) and is the Savior possesses me! I am just a vessel for the functionality of God, the function of the Creator within the creature.

Christian Giving

Neither is Christian giving to be conceived merely as altruistic benevolence. There are many solicitations for charitable and benevolent contributions today, but Christian giving is not just a warm-hearted, self-less compassion responding to reports of those in distress.
Christian giving is not something one does because when you do it, it will make you "feel good," or as one solicitor stated, "it will resolve your worries when you help others." We do not give for the subjective benefit we receive thereby.

    Christian giving is the grace of God functioning in and through a Christian, the givingness of God expressed in the character of a Christian.

No study of Christian giving would be complete without discussing the gross misunderstandings that many Christians have about tithing. Yet Paul does not even mention tithing in this extended reference to Christian giving here in II Corinthians 8 and 9. For good reason! The ten percent tithe so often advocated is not a new covenant, New Testament, concept. In the old covenant tithes were levied to support the priesthood, but in the new covenant every Christian is a priest, "priests to God" (Revelation 1:6) in a "royal priesthood" (I Peter 2:9). Christians are not under the compulsory obligation of Old Testament tithes!

Tithing was instituted as a law in the second year after the Exodus. ...it was intended to provide the Levites with sustenance and payment for their services.

  The only ones ever authorized to receive tithes were the Levites. Ever since the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., it has been impossible to keep the tithing law. This is the reason Orthodox Jews, who still believe in the validity of the old covenant over their lives, do not tithe! No one is qualified to receive tithes now that the priesthood and temple have gone.

 ...it is absolutely impossible for anyone today to truly obey the...law of tithing.

    Christian giving is not a matter of compulsory mandated percentages! What often happens when the ten percent tithe is regarded as "Christian giving," is that people think that the ten percent belongs to God and the ninety percent is mine to use as I please. But, as has already been explained, it all belongs to God as owner and giver. All things are one hundred percent His, and we are to discern how He wants to utilize all one hundred percent of it.

There is a saying, "Impression without expression brings depression." If God has impressed us with what He wants to do and we do not allow for His expression then we will end up depressed and discouraged and unfulfilled.

God is a faithful God who follows-through on what He purposes to do, and on what He has caused us to purpose in accord with His will in our hearts. Of course, if our intent to give was just emotionally motivated in the first place instead of God-prompted, then we probably will not follow-through, because emotions are fickle and fade out. That is why so many "pledges" and "promises" remain unfinished and uncompleted, a testament to emotional impulse.

The ministry of Christian giving is the opportunity to serve and minister to others by allowing God to express His givingness through us.

There are those who have set out to remedy what they see as the inequity among men. They act to politically and economically create an equality of wealth; equal wages, equal goods and possessions, equal opportunity, etc. But socialistic communism does not work! It does not take into account the fallen condition of mankind in sin, and the selfishness and greed that always works against equality in selfish mankind.

  When the grace of God is flowing through Christians in Christian giving, the provision of God given to some can flow towards the needs of others. Supply can be directed toward demand. That does not mean that there will ever be absolute equality in the distribution of wealth in this sinful world in which we live.

"There is one who scatters, yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds what is justly due, but it results only in want. The generous man (lit. "soul of blessing") will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered. ...He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like the green leaf." (Proverbs 11:24,25,28)

The glory is to be God's alone! If it is Christian giving, then it is what God has done as the expression of His character of givingness unto His glory.