If you are, unfortunately, a person who is afflicted with the character trait of being “tight” with your finances, I have help for you.
First of all, let me define “tight”. The word is a fifth-ward euphemism meaning: one who is stingy or miserly. (We were not conversant with words like parsimonious, niggardly or penurious, but we knew tight). Being “tight”, stingy or miserly is not God’s way, nor is it how God would have us live our lives. God is the God of abundance.
Hear the Word of God. “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38). The ability to overcome being “tight” is found in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Church, Chapters 8:1 – 9:15, where he addresses the matter of the collection of money for the poverty-stricken Christians in Jerusalem. In discussing the churches of Macedonia, Paul gives the true principle of all Christian giving. In verse 5of chapter 8, there is the key “first gave their own selves to the Lord”.
It is astonishing the difference that God’s grace makes in the lives and attitudes of His people. When you first give yourself to the Lord, His will becomes your will. A spirit-filled person realizes that he/she is a steward and that God is our source. Freely we have received, freely give. “He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will He pay him again” (Proverbs 19:17).
To overcome being “tight”, give yourself to the Lord and He will direct your path.
Pastor J. Amos Jones
