Yes agreed. The Lord loves a joyful giver after all. I think the key word you mentioned is “sacrifice”. Sacrifice implies that we give up something in order to give. The parable of the Widow’s Mite comes to mind.
Tithing - giving 10% - has, over time come to be a “goal” number. The reality is that it was meant to be a minimum. (Relative to what the government requires for example, it’s a pittance.) There’s an argument to be made that our goal should be “reverse” tithing. Unfortunately, I have a long, long, long way to go to get there.
Interesting article here about Rick Warren - the “inventor” of reverse tithing:
Here’s a couple of quotes:
"Warren became a household name, and his book became the biggest blockbuster in American publishing history. Even though he began to “reverse tithe” — that is, to give away 90 percent of his income — he was still earning millions in royalties. More than that, he had cultural influence approaching that of the Rev. Billy Graham. But this success prompted him to do some soul searching. Warren realized that the American evangelicalism he had pioneered catered to the needs of the rich while ignoring the poor.
“I had to repent,” he told a group of religion writers in 2005. "I had to say ‘God, I’m sorry, I can’t think of the last time I thought of widows and orphans.’ "
As an interesting aside - on being pro-life:
"Warren, who had largely avoided politics, became a key figure in the 2008 presidential campaign when he invited Sens. Obama and John McCain to a televised forum on faith and world view.
Obama’s campaign thought Warren would stress international and social justice issues. It didn’t turn out that way.
Warren’s question — “At what point does a baby have human rights?” — prompted Obama’s nadir moment, in which he said those decisions are “above my pay grade.” As Obama stumbled through one the worst performances of his campaign, Warren peppered him with other litmus test questions: Have you ever voted to limit abortion? Would you support a constitutional marriage amendment? Do you favor stem cell research?"
