When you have been trained to tithe, it is hard to be taught generosity. When your have been hurt by leaders in the church, it is hard to join the commuity of believers who go to a church. One of the goals of the enemy is to keep our life small. Remember, John 10:10 says, the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. The thief loves to plunder you, to scare you, to keep you living a small life of fear, locked away in your own little world. But God is calling His people out into wide open spaces which are holy places. The physical lockdown of 2020 was a great picture of what the enemy has been doing to people for centuries, but God is opening wide the doors, swinging wide the gates, and breaking open the springs in the hearts of people.

Jesus said in the same John 10:10 passage, but I have come to give you life and give it to you abundantly. Abundantly means superabundant, superior in quality, beyond measure, superfluous, over and above. Now this is not talking about excess money so you can buy another car, another house, another anything, for if we were honest, we know those material things have no ability to create in us a spirit of prosperity. A truly prosperous person, a truly rich person is not one who has a lot of money, but one who has an abundant life. Jesus said to the rich young ruler, there is one thing you lack, go sell everything and give to the poor, then come follow me. He was not preaching poverty, Jesus was preaching abundance, following Jesus, living extravagantly, generously is the abundant life.

Proverbs 11:24-25 says it this way, “There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, And there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want. The generous man will be prosperous, And he who waters will himself be watered.” The reason its hard to be generous when you been trained to tithe is because the tithe makes you feel like you did your part, but being generous means you have a spirit of prosperity. Truly generous people never fear running out, never think they are losing something by giving above and beyond. Truly generous people know the more they give away their time, their money, their gifts, their heart in service to God and others, the more abundant, wide open, their life is and they would have it no other way.