We have all been there before. The church has a giving goal, and we wish we could give more, but we don’t have the funds. We see others going to the mic to announce a big offering, and our offering doesn’t stack up. We look over our life and see all that God has delivered us from, all He has done for us, and our gift seems inadequate. Or worse, we look at all the sins we have committed since we learned of Christ, and we try to make atonement through our giving, to make up for the bad person we have been. And sometimes we stretch just to give to prove our faith to ourselves, others and God.

But thank God that He doesn’t expect, nor does he want anything that we don’t have to give. It is our heart towards giving that concerns God, not the amount. We know this to be true because Jesus thought the woman who put in two mites gave more than the people who dropped large sums into the temple treasury.

In 2nd Corinthians 8:12 Paul when speaking about voluntary giving, says,

For if the [eager] readiness to give is there, then it is acceptable and welcomed in proportion to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

I will take you through what sacrificial giving is, and more importantly, what is it is not and go through a few misconceptions about sacrificial giving. When you finish, you should feel confident that God never requires us to give what we don’t have.