As we marshal our resources, as we count our shekels, we want to remember what the biblical definition of prudence is. We want to be prudent in our how we raise money for our sanctuary, but we don’t want to be so prudent that we are tempted to think we could do something like this apart from God.
God is in the business of doing for His people beyond what they could ask or think. But He does this for His people who are walking by faith in the light of His Word. He does not do it for those vain daydreamers who build sky sanctuaries in the clouds.
So the issue is not how much we give. The issue is how much of us is contained in what we give. The Lord Jesus commended the widow who put two pennies into the temple treasury, and He commended her because she was obviously “all in.” The reason Ananias and Sapphira were struck down was not because they didn’t give enough money. It was because they tried to pretend that their gift was a token of their whole being, and it plainly wasn’t. When the widow feeds Elijah with the small amount of meal and oil (1 Kings 17:12), God uses it far beyond what she could ask or imagine. The same with the five loaves and two fish. God specializes in this. He loves doing it this way.
“Two things have I required of thee; Deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies: Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain” (Prov. 30:7-9).
We don’t want to raise so much money that we are building a temple to ourselves. And we don’t want to raise so little that we are tempted to connive and manipulate and steal the way many churches have.
So let the stones cry out.