A few years ago I found myself convicted for robbing God of the first fruits of my earnings. My wife and I found many excuses to slack on our giving, which included our house payment, other expenses and a savings account with many holes we couldn’t seem to plug.
Thankfully, our convictions brought us back to our faith journey and we dove straight into giving first to God. It was worth it. I believe we’re closer in our relationship with God today and can trust him greater with our finances because of our giving that we’re committed to protecting and maintaining.
Almost 3 and half years ago I started a small business – OneMoneyDesign.com. Over time the blog has earned extra money for our family, but not a lot. It’s been nice supplement of income to my day job as an IT project manager.
The blog has paid for entertainment such as eating out and vacations. It’s also helped us when groceries cost more than our budget could handle some months. Most recently the blog started contributing to 529 plans for my kids!
While extra small business income is nice, it led to more giving convictions. I began covering expenses for the blog and paying myself income. However, God wasn’t getting anything. Honestly, I didn’t really know if I should tithe on the small business each time I took money from the business account.
It can be challenging to tithe on a small business’s gross income, especially as many businesses struggle to meet expenses when getting started. However, I’ve learned that rather than tithing on gross income, we need to tithe on the income the business is paying when it’s profitable. This was some advice I picked up from a Crown podcast.
As a rookie business owner I started understanding more that my business was an entity. My business was earning money, but my business wasn’t responsible for tithing or giving. It’s not a person with a relationship with God. However, when the entity starts paying me, I have a responsibility, as a Christian and financial steward, to tithe or give on that income.
This began to make a lot of sense to me and the good news is that our giving has now increased based on this additional income. We now recognize the need to give of our first fruits no matter the source of income. I believe our finances are on more stable ground because of this commitment in putting giving and God first in our finances.
Sometimes taking this leap of faith is challenging. Sometimes the numbers don’t make sense and we can come up with a lot of excuses to avoid giving. You have to leave a lot in God’s hands when deciding to give, but I think that’s a great place to be in your faith as a Christian. I’d much rather depend on God than my own strength.
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. - Matthew 6:20
Have you ever struggled with giving or tithing on small business income?
About Jason Price