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Day 7
"Bring the whole tithe
into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,"
says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of
heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for
it.”
(Malachi
3: 10)
Ah, any
discussion of stewardship will sooner or later treat the tithe.
What was it? And does it have any application to
us?
In Old
Testament Israel,
God required His people to give to Him the first one-tenth (a tithe) of
their income. It went to support His work.
And no, God has no such requirement for His New Testament people.
Christ Jesus nailed to His cross not only our sins, but also all
ceremonial requirements of the Old Testament law, and He crucified them all
away.
So, no talk
of a tithe any more, right? Well, not so fast….
If God’s own beneficial requirement for His Old Testament people was
a tithe, who are we puny people lightly to say, “Well, of course, that has
no application whatsoever to us!”? In fact, wouldn’t it
be better to say, “If God required from His Old Testament people a tenth –
and they had so few blessings compared to us, and they knew so little
exactly regarding Christ compared to us – shouldn’t we try to consider a
tenth a starting point for our giving?” In fact, under
Christ’s command, still in effect – “Love your neighbor as yourself” –
shouldn’t we probably aim for fifty percent?!
“But
Pastor, you don’t understand, I can’t possibly give a tenth of my income, at
least right now!” Maybe not. And no
faithful pastor would want to burden your conscience with a requirement
Scripture does not apply directly to you anyway. But
might you consider increasing your offering one percent per year until you
get to ten percent (or even over it—which is easier than you think)?
Maybe some of that could go to our capital project together….
Incidentally, the tithe was a firstfruits offering: a sort of a down-payment
from God to God guaranteeing more income to come. Did
you know that Christ’s resurrection is the same? The
Bible says the eternal life to which He has been raised is the firstfruits:
the down-payment guaranteeing our resurrection to life in the future.
Now that’s a message worthy of spending money to proclaim!
Questions to Consider
1)
What
percentage of income do you give directly to Christ?
2)
What
percentage do you think you should give directly to Christ?
3)
How are you
going to get there, step by step?
Prayer
Jesus: You are one hundred percent God and man
and Savior. Make me give one hundred percent to You—and
the right percentage of it directly. Amen. |
