Of course you don’t “have” to pay God anything, but if you want a blessing from Him, it’s another story. The principle of giving God 10% of your income goes back thousands of years. It was the way for Jews to support their religious system as well. But most of all, it was a blessing for the giver. Abraham started the tithe to God.
Hebrews 7:2-6 Now observe how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils.
And when you bless God, He blesses you back. Many Christians are only half-happy (or 90% unhappy) living without blessings. Maybe this has something to do with it? Furthermore, not giving God His due carries with it a curse.
Malachi 3:8“ Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘ In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings.
God has no blessings for robbers. In addition, the money given to God’s work must be His work. This is called, in scripture, the storehouse. A storehouse holds seed grain. The seed is the word.
Luke 8:11 “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
That is your requirement too – that what you give to God will involve His Word, not just any ‘ole charity. (Not everything that is tax deductible glorifies God.)
Years ago I left a church. I felt a sense of loss – I had some fine friends there but God told me, “I cannot bless you because I WILL NOT bless them.” There was no Word of God going out from that church. It was all social work and social work is man’s work. It was not a storehouse.
Here is the storehouse passage.
Malachi 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Finally, there is the issue of a good conscience. Sometimes we just do things because we want to be able to respond to God when He asks us – did we do everything we could when we were alive? These are called ordinances – we don’t do them in order to be saved. We do them because they are part of the witness of a Christian life. Your friends see it, your employees, your children, your neighbors. It shows you, God and others that you are serious about obeying God. In this passage, we are baptized in water occasionaly because we want the answer of a good conscience.
1 Peter 3:21-22 You know, even though God waited patiently all the days that Noah built his ship, only a few were saved then, eight to be exact—saved from the water by the water. The waters of baptism do that for you, not by washing away dirt from your skin but by presenting you through Jesus’ resurrection before God with a clear conscience. Jesus has the last word on everything and everyone, from angels to armies. He’s standing right alongside God, and what he says goes.
[from The Message version of the New Testament.]
Experiment with God. Give a tithe and see if you don’t see a change. And what do you have to lose anyway? You can pump up your faith and learn about His Kingdom at the same time.
7 Responses
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OLD COVENANT THAN THE OLD. READ IN THE OLD COVENENT. SEE IF ABRAHAM PAID ANY TITHES ON HIS OWN PERSONAL FLOCKS OR INCOME. PREACHERS ALWAYS BRING UP THE IDEA OF ABRAHAM PAYING TITHES BEFORE THE LAW WAS GIVEN. HE ONLY GAVE THE HI PRIEST,MELCHADECK, 1/10 TH OF THE SPOILS OF THE HE RECIEVED AFTER THE BATTLE HE HAD JUST WON. THE BIBLE DOESN’T TEACH HE GAVE ANY OF HIS OWN SUBSTANCE TO MELCHASDECK,EVER….IN THE NEW COVENANT APOSTLE PAUL WROTE A PASSAGE ON GIVING. II CHOR-
INTHIANS CHAPTER 9 : 6THROUGH 15.
MINISTERS LETS RIGHTLY DIVIDE THE WORD OF TRUTH. CANNOT “GOD” BY HIS SPIRIT MOVE ON HIS PEOPLE TO GIVE TO YOUR MINISTRIES?? WHERE IS YOU FAITH IN GOD…ARE YOU TOO WEAK TO FAST AND PRAY SEEK HIS FACE TO PROVIDE FOR YOUR MINISTRIES? DO WE HAVE TO INVOKE THE LAW OF TITHING TO MAKE PEOPLE PAY MONEY(WHICH IS BONDAGE) TO GET THINGS DONE FOR GOD, OR I MIGHT SAY THINGS DONE FOR SELF?? IS IT NOT THAT PEOPLE SHOULD GIVE AS THE LORD PROSPERES THEM.
AND AS THEY PURPOSE IN THEIR HEARTS? YOU SEE GOD LOVES A CHERFUL GIVER. A PERSON CANNOT GIVE CHEERFULLY IF IT IS A 10% TITHING LAW IN YOUR MINISTRY.
WALK IN THE SPIRIT THEN YOU WON’T FULFILL THE LUST OF THE FLESH..BEGGING FOR MONEYAND MAKING ALL KINDS OF WAY FAR OUT PROMISES ( GIVE $1000 AND MULTPLY IT 100 TIMES IS NOT GODS WAY. IT IS NOT GODS’ WAY OF DOING HIS BUSINESS IS IT? JESUS SAID IF I BE LIFTED UP I WILL DRAW ALL MEN UNTO ME. TRY LIFTING JESUS UP, PREACH WHAT HE DID AT THE CROSS,COME ONE COME ALL ITS FREE TO ALL WHOSOEVER WILL COME. HE WILL PROSPER YOU, HE TRULY WILL. BUT YOU MUST DENY SELF,YOUR WILL, AND SAY LORD I WANT YOUR WILL, THY WILL BE DONE. THE APOSTLE PAUL SAID I MUST DECREASE SO HE MAY INCREASE. LET US ALL BY THE GRACE OF GOD GET ON THE RIGHT TRACK..TRUST HIM,SERVE HIM,SEEK HIM WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND. AND WHEN YOU FIND HIM, KEEP HIM BY PRAYING, FASTING,READING AND RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF GOD WITH HIS HELP.
JESUS HAS SHOWN US THE WAY,HE WAS BAPTISED, RECIEVED THE “GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST COMING UPON HIM IN THE FORM OF A DOVE” THEN FASTED AND PRAYED 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS TO SHOW US HOW WE CAN HAVE THE SAME POWER AS HE HAD WHILE WALKING ON EARTH, IF WE DO WHAT HE DID..LOVE YOU ,. HE IS THE CHOSEN ONE TO SHOW US THE WAY TARRY BEFORE THE LORD, UNTIL YOU RECIEVE THIS GIFT FROM GOD “THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST” WITH THE INITIAL EVIDENCE OF SPEAKING WIT TONGUES AS THE SPIRIT GIVES THE UTTERANCE…ANY QUESTIONS ,I WILL BE GLAD TO HEAR FROM YOU AND HELP YOU..OR MAYBE YOU CAN HELP ME OK? BYE FOR NOW.GOD TRULY IS THE ANSWER.
MAY YOU READ WITH AN OPEN MIND TO HIM WHO PAID SUCH A TREMENDOUS PRICE FOR US ALL.
I’ve been very busy this holy week and will respond later.
In the 1st place, it is considered very bad form to type in all caps. I worked for several years with a man who did this, and one of the reasons I broke fellowship with him was because he was unteachable. I hope you are not that. So please in the future, type the way people read and write in the modern world. My guess is that most folks will not bother to read all caps anyway.
2nd, Abraham did take from his own flock a dinner meal for the 3 who visited him. If the trinity visited you, or even just Jesus alone I dare say you would have a nice dinner also.
3rd, this post is not about Law nor Grace as Jesus in His person subsumes them both. Our job as believers is to promote the Kingdom of God. At the core of our success (or failure) is our attitude. And attitude is what this post is all about. I have noticed over these 45 years as a missionary, both home and foreign, a sure sign that a person is not growing in God is his/her insistence that some scripture does not apply to them. Another way of dodging God’s word is the remark, “My denomination doesn’t teach that.” In all these cases I have noticed the individual’s growth is cut off at the very point of rejecting the application of the word of God. At this point, they seem to duck under a cloak of religion and are frequently never heard from again. But that is what the faith is all about – making a choice to believe or not to believe, to apply or not to apply, to grow or not to grow. And where I see personal growth, and as a teacher that is what I am looking for, it identifies students for me,
4th, the man who types in all caps, the one who is unteachable, I learned this past week has been in a protracted court case since 2008. There is always a price to pay for going one’s own way.