Previous | Next 

God doesn’t want your money

Craig Frere

Hearing the words “God doesn’t want your money” might produce a number of reactions in different people. Some might celebrate, church treasurers might protest, and others might doubt the theological validity of that claim. Before you do any of those things, listen to the rest of the story. God doesn’t want your money – He wants you.


Many people, particularly those with little or no church background, have the idea that all the church wants is their money. From God’s point of view, that is completely untrue. You see, money isn’t the issue. Our relationship with God is the real issue.

The quality of our relationship with God reflects in our giving to Him. The closer we are in our relationship with God, the more we trust Him and the more secure we are in our lives. When we are secure in our relationship with God and we trust Him, giving becomes much easier.

One afternoon, I took my 3-year-old son Geordi to McDonald’s for a snack. I got Geordi his favourite – fries and ketchup. We sat down together. As Geordi was eating his fries, I did what is every father’s right. I reached over and took a couple of fries. His response was, “Hey, those are my fries. You can’t have them.”

As the father, I was indignant, maybe even a little hurt. Clearly my son has a few things to learn about his father, his fries and his relationship to his fries and to his father.

First, he needs to realize that I am the source of the fries. It was my money that bought the fries and it was because of me that he had any at all. Also, he doesn’t understand that I, as his father, have the power and the authority to take away all of his fries if I want to do that.

Something else that Geordi doesn’t understand is that I have the power and the resources to walk over to the counter with a $50 bill and say to the person behind the counter, “Bury him in french fries.” Geordi needs to realize that I don’t really need his french fries. I don’t need his french fries because I can buy my own if I want.

Do you know what would be even better than me taking a couple of Geordi’s french fries? It would be if he said, “Here you go, Daddy. Have some of my fries. You gave them to me.”

That is a very simple yet accurate picture of our relationship with God. We need to realize those same things about God and our money.

God is the source of all that we have. God has the power, the authority and the right to take everything that we have – because it is all His in the first place. God is our source.

Second, we need to realize that God doesn’t need our money. God doesn’t need my money, and He doesn’t need your money. We don’t give to God because He is needy or He is lacking resources. When people give grudgingly, they are giving out of a mindset that God somehow has need of their money. That is a wrong mindset.

God wants us to give freely. Just as a father loves it when a child offers him a french fry, God desires for us to take the initiative. He would much rather have us say, “Here, Lord. Take what little I have and use it,” than for Him to have to ask. He is not in need of our money, and yet it pleases and honours Him when we are faithful in our giving to Him.

God doesn’t want your money, and He doesn’t need your money. He wants to be in relationship with you. So often we miss out on the blessings that God has for us because we are afraid to step out in faith. We trust ourselves too much, and we trust God too little.

The solution is simple, almost too simple: Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33). So simple and yet so important. When we build our lives with the things of God and not the things of the world, we will experience the full blessing of a relationship with God.

Craig Frere is pastor of Mountview MB Church in Stoney Creek, Ont.

Previous | Next 

Last modified May 26, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.