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| 10% of Your Income, 100% of Your Heart. "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.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your
ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of
hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the
Lord of hosts" (Mal. 3:10-12).
Are you ready to take the limits off your income? I am! And the Lord has been showing me how we can do it. I'm excited about it because this is the day when we as believers need to prosper. We need to have enough not just to meet our own needs, but to see to it that the gospel is preached around the world.
Jesus is coming back soon! We don't have time to sit around wishing we had enough money to go through the doors God is opening before us. We don't have time to say, "Well, one day when finances aren't so tight, I'll give to this ministry or that one so they can buy television time in Malaysia, or print books in Tamil."
We need to increase so we can give - and we need to do it now! How do we get on that road to increase? I can tell you simply in words: through tithing and seed sowing. In the plan of God, tithing and wealth are so closely connected that in the Hebrew language, they both come from the same root word. Tithing is the covenant transaction that opens the door for God to be directly involved in our increase. It is a two-wayexchange in which we honor God by giving Him 10 percent of our income and He, in return, provides us with a "surplus of prosperity" (Deut. 28:11, AMP).
You can see how that transaction works in Malachi 3:10-12. There the Lord says: "Bring
all the tithes, the whole tenth of your income, into the storehouse, that there may be food
in My house, and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the
windows of Heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room
enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer ... for your sakes, and he shall not
destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine drop its fruit before the time in
the field, says the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you happy and blessed; for you
shall be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts." (AMP)
More Than a Religious Routine
You may say, "I know Christians who have been tithing for years and they're not wealthy!" Actually, you don't. You just know people who have put 10 percent of their income into the offering bucket. They went through the motions, but they weren't really tithing.
We've all done that at times. You see, tithing isn't just a matter of the pocketbook. It is a matter of the heart. That's the way it is with everything as far as God is concerned. He always looks on the heart. So when we tithe as a religious routine, not in faith, just because we're supposed to, and not as a genuine expression of our love for God, we miss out on the blessings of it.
That's what happened to the people in Malachi's day. They were bringing sacrifices to the Lord. They were going through the motions of tithing. But they were not being blessed. In fact, they were living under a financial curse because the attitude of their heart was not right. In Malachi 1, we can read what the Lord had to say to them: "A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is the reverent fear due Me? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise My name. You say, How and in what have we despised Your name? By offering polluted food upon My altar. And you ask, How have we polluted it and profaned You? When you priests offer blind animals for sacrifice, is it no evil? And when you offer the lame and the sick, is it no evil? Present such a thing ... now to your governor in payment of your taxes, and see what will happen. Will he be pleased with you? Or will he receive you graciously?" (vv. 6-8, AMP)
What was missing from the tithes and offerings of these people? Honor! They weren't giving God their best. Because they didn't love and reverence God in their hearts, they were offering Him their leftovers. They were fulfilling religious requirements by keeping a formula with no worship. As tithers, we should learn a lesson from them. When we find ourselves suffering financial lack and failing to enjoy the supernatural increase God has promised, we should check our attitude - fast! We should make sure we're giving God our best (not our leftovers) and honoring Him with all our heart.
Stick With God's Plan
If you're not sure whether your heart is right, here is one good way to tell. Check your attitude at offering time. Malachi 1:13 tells us what the Israelites' attitude was. They said, "Behold, what a drudgery and weariness this is!"
Have you ever had that thought when you were writing out your tithe check? Have you ever wanted to hide your pocketbook from God so you wouldn't have to give? If so, you need to change your attitude or it will prevent you from receiving your financial harvest. It will stop your increase. Refuse to harbor such dishonorable thoughts toward God in your heart. Rebuke them and say, "No! I will not have that attitude. I love God and I love to give my tithe!" Actually, we ought to be like little children when it comes to giving. Have you ever noticed how excited children get when their parents give them some money to put in the offering? They can hardly wait to give it. We ought to be the same way. We ought to look forward to giving our tithes and offerings all week long. God is the One Who gives you everything you have. He owns everything on this earth because He made it. He will give you possessions if you will honor Him in joy with the first fruits of your increase.
Don't Forget Faith
When you really understand what a great deal tithing is, you'll have a hard time not getting excited about it! You'll want to jump and shout and praise God every time you think about it. You won't be grudge God His 10 percent, you'll thank Him for letting it flow through your hands. Do you realize what a wonderful privilege it is to have a financial covenant with Almighty God? Do you understand what it means to be connected to His heavenly economy?
If you don't have faith that God will prosper you, then get your Bible and study the promises He has made to you as a tither. For "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17).
Meditate on the Word so you can tithe believing that God will keep His end of the covenant and bless you abundantly. God loves it when you tithe with that kind of confidence. He enjoys it when you give with an attitude of reverence and gratitude, trusting Him to take care of you. We should also say as the Israelites did, "Now, Lord, I have brought the tithe out of my house. I haven't kept it for myself. But I've given it just as You have commanded. So look down from Your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless me!"
Does that kind of talk make you nervous? Do you think God will be offended if you tell Him to bless you? He won't! He'll be delighted. After all, blessing us was His idea. It's what He has wanted to do all along. So don't be shy. Tithe boldly! Tithe gladly! Give God 10 percent of your income and one hundred percent of your heart. Then rejoice in faith and say continually, "Let the Lord be magnified, Who takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servant!" Begin to expect! Take the limits off God and let Him have a good time prospering you..Amen!
The Blessing of Tithing An extract of various bible teachers.
I'm so grateful that our relationship with God is an ongoing one, that He takes us literally "from glory to glory." And how glorious it is to be in an ever-deepening love relationship with our wonderful heavenly Father! Every day as I spend more time with the blessed Master in the Word of God and in prayer, I become that much more acquainted with His ways, that much more familiar with what is important to Him, that much more motivated to please Him in every way.
And as I become more and more acquainted with His Word, His will, and His ways, I become ever more convinced of the importance of tithing in our lives. Yet I sometimes talk to people - sincere, convinced brothers and sisters in the Lord - who say, "Tithing is part of the Old Testament law and not a requirement for believers today." Frankly, I cringe when I hear that. I fear that these good people are experiencing giving only as a requirement or demand when our heavenly Father wants us to experience it as a delight. No one requires us to give to someone we love - it happens naturally. It is delightful to give to those who have given to us first - and we experience this delight when we tithe.
But not only can people who interpret the Bible this way miss the joy, they also miss the fact that the very principle of the tithe was introduced with Adam, and Abraham tithed to Melchizedek. And so I want you to see in this chapter that from the very dawn of history, our heavenly Father has given us his best, and people who love Him give Him the best.
You and I cannot receive what is ours in Christ apart from obedience.The word tithe refers to a tenth or a tenth part of something. So when I'm talking about tithing, I'm talking about the privilege and practice of giving 10 percent of our income to the work of the Lord.
Genesis 2 is a very familiar passage of Scripture, but have you ever stopped to really think about how wonderful the world was that the Father prepared for Adam? The Garden of Eden was wonderful far beyond description. What a blessing it was to him, to live, work, rest, play, and pray in such a beautiful place! But not only was it beautiful, it was as big as a nation! (Gen. 2:11-14) And it was his to enjoy - more than he needed, more than he could use, it was a lavish gift of love to him.
The Father endowed Adam with a magnificent mind capable of marvelous creativity and capacity such that he could name and remember the animals. And he had a body free from the experiences of age, disease, and death.
He enjoyed rich fellowship with the Father, who delighted in Adam so much that He loved walking with him in the cool of the day. Oh, how rich those times must have been! No other created being had known the kind of fellowship with the Father that Adam was privileged to experience.
The Father loved Adam so much that He anticipated Adam's need for help and companionship and created Eve. For even in the midst of the beauty of Eden and the wonder of close communion with the Father, it was still not good for Adam to dwell alone.
God cared for him in every way, and in the midst of their fellowship. God surrounded Adam with wealth, excellence, and beauty. I love how Moses described just one element of its wonder: "And the gold of that land is good." (Gen. 2:12) Get the picture? Not just gold - good gold!
God gave Adam the wonderful garden to enjoy. Yet in the midst of all that God had given him, He warned Adam that one thing in the paradise was not his - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Gen 2:15-17)
In God's setting apart from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I believe that God established the principle of the tithe. Think about it for a moment: Adam was never forbidden to eat of the tree of life or anything else in the garden. So why would a God who had lavished such luxury on Adam forbid him to eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? I'm convinced that the Father did this so that Adam would have an opportunity to demonstrate his love for God through obedience. What I'm about to teach you now is very important.
You and I cannot receive what is ours in Christ apart from obedience, and in establishing this law, the Father gave Adam a chance to obey. In great love, it's as if our heavenly Father was saying to Adam, "I love you, and this magnificent garden is yours to enjoy. But I want your love back, and the way you can show Me that you love Me is through obedience, so don't touch that tree."
In that sense, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was set apart to God - it demonstrates the principle of tithe to God. In a similar way today, I express my love to God when I give Him what is His (the tithe) and don't touch it by holding onto it for myself. What a privilege to bring joy to the heart of our wonderful heavenly Father. God said in Malachi 3; that if we obey Him by bringing our tithes to Him, He will personally open the windows of heaven and pour down blessings (ideas for living, divine health and protections from the enemy and many more) upon us that our house won't be enough to contain them and He will rebuke the enemy for our sakes. What a mighty Father God we serve!
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