I always find it interesting that at the end of each year, I start to receive letters from ministries encouraging me to do some end-of-the-year giving. These letters seem to imply:

          1.      People haven’t been giving as they should, so now is a good time to catch up on your giving
                   before the tax season ends.
          2.      People are going to give from their leftovers at the end of the year, so this ministry would be
                   a good place to give some of those leftovers.

At Abundant Life Covenant Church, we have never pushed end-of-the-year giving. Our end-of-the-year letter consists of a simple explanation that there are laws about when the last deposit can be made for a person to receive tax credit for that year, so there will be a deadline for giving in that year for tax purposes.

I believe a better approach to encouraging giving would be at the beginning of the year, rather than the end of the year. Here is why:

Honor the Lord with your possessions,
And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
So your barns will be filled with plenty,
And your vats will overflow with new wine (Proverbs 3:9-10).

The Scriptural admonition is always to give from our first and best, never from our leftovers. As we give from our first and best, God’s promise is to make us people of abundance, more than enough, so that we will be a people with leftovers.

The best time to set goals for our giving in 2012 is January 1^st. As we commit to give from our first and best, rather than from our leftovers, God promises to manifest Himself as a God of abundance, and in 2012 we can believe that our vats will overflow.