Tithing, a Letter to My Children

My dear children,

As you begin to earn money of your own, I feel it is my duty as your earthly father to remind you that what you have is not yours, but is entrusted to you by God for proper stewardship. A "steward" is defined as, "one who manages another's property, finances, or other affairs." It is for this reason that I encourage you to view your duty to tithe (give back a tenth) not as a drudgery or laborious task, but as an act of grateful worship. It helps to think of the remaining ninety percent as the gift from God received in thanksgiving, rather than to consider the tenth something you must give up. The world will try to convince you that the total was yours, but they are wrong. The ninety percent is the gift from God. The tithe (ten percent) is His test for you. It is an opportunity to demonstrate your faithfulness. Welcome the opportunity as a blessing, and return His portion with a smile on your heart, and the knowledge that He is pleased with you and will reward your obedience.

The tithe is the only promise of God about which He encourages us to test Him. ""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) A father always wants the greatest blessings he can secure for his children. I would not be doing you justice if I failed to properly instruct you with regard to opening this door of blessing. When you give, be sure that you are not giving only to receive this blessing, but because you are grateful to the God who loves you and provides for your every need. This is one of the portions of your life that require a good attitude. Your offering must come from a pure heart.

There are some special considerations for your giving. Elsewhere in God's Word, He makes it clear that when we give, we ought to do it discreetly, not expecting the praise of men, including parents, friends, or even husbands and wives. He says, "Do not let the right hand know what the left hand is doing." (Matthew 6) He also says, those who give to receive the praise of men have received all the reward they are going to get. Give in such a way that you and the Father will have a secret to share, and a smile to exchange between the two of you. When God smiles at you and pats you on the back, it will mean much more than when a human does it.

There is another caveat (watch-out warning) to the practice of giving tithes and offerings. God says that when we harbor anger and resentment against another person, it separates us from Him, and keeps Him from being able to fully communicate with us. He says, "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5:23-24) When you drop off money at the bank, you deposit it into your account, and obtain a receipt. That ensures you get proper credit for your deposit. Good stewardship requires that you properly give, with a pure and clean heart, unblemished by the stain of un-forgiveness. In this way, you and the Father can enjoy that warm smile of approval, without God having to bite his lip as He looks upon your fruitless motions.

There will be times when you will be tempted to keep the tithe for your own purposes. I remember on more than one occasion justifying passing the plate to the next guy and sitting on my wallet. Looking back, I can almost see the satanic snake wrapped around my leg as I reasoned, "God, surely you must want the needy to have the money you get. Well, right now, I'm needy. So I'll just save the deacons the trouble of counting it out." I'm sure the tempter will come up with all kinds of what sound like good reasons to skip the offering. I remember once I told God that I would have to owe Him, because things were tight. The problem was that things just got tighter and tighter, until I had to surrender to God and admit that there was no way I could run a tab on God's blessings.

Make sure God is priority one. Give God what is His before anybody else gets their share. Before the rent or the insurance, the bank loan or even the I.R.S., give to God what is His, and learn to live on the ninety percent. To do otherwise is to rob God. That seems like harsh wording, but it is the words He chose. The same passage that describes the blessing of the obedient, describes the stingy Christian as a robber: "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings." (Malachi 3:8)

As you make giving a habit, it becomes part of your personality, and eventually will become part of your relationships. You will find, when you give to the Lord the money that is His, and feel His hand of acceptance on your life, the donation of money seems a meager gesture. I encourage you to find ways to give God His portion of other parts of your life as well. "'A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD." (Leviticus 27:30) Imagine if we gave God a tenth of our time for His service. There are 168 hours in a week. If all Christians gave 16.8 hours a week to serving, what wonders we could do for His kingdom!

As I opened this letter, I mentioned that the money we obtain in this life is not really ours, but God's. It is important to remember that when spending the ninety percent too. In Moses' time, the priest took the sacrifice, burned parts of it for God, and then took a portion of it, waved it in the air as a "wave offering," and then he and his sons could eat the part offered as a wave offering. Try to keep in mind that when God blesses us with resources He expects us to do wise things with it. When you spend the portion that remains after the sacrifice has been offered, consider it a "wave offering," and spend it accordingly. If you cannot say about a purchase, "God, thank you for the resources to make this purchase," then you probably ought not spend God's money in that way. Try to remember that anything on which we spend God's money should please Him, and you will be pleased with the results when He sees you are a good and faithful servant. If you prove yourself faithful with little, He will trust you with much. (Matthew 25:23)

Remember not to get so caught up in the tithe that you forget the rest of Christianity. Jesus chastised the Pharisees for tithing according to the Law, but neglecting "the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness." (Matthew 23:23) Be sure to give to God all the service, love, and honor due Him as well as the money.

May God's blessings rest on you in every possible way, and may we be joined as co-heirs with Jesus on the Day of the Lord, forevermore. Amen.

I love you no matter what!
Dad

Declaration of Independence from the Past

Everybody who has ever been to a wedding has heard the passage from I Corinthians 13 about love being patient, kind, never boasting, never proud, not rude or self-seeking, not easily angered, and keeping no record of wrongs, right? Right! But this week something occurred to me. It knocked my socks off, so I feel I have to share it.

I always thought that the perfect agape love described in that letter to the Corinthians was between two people. I thought it meant, "If you love (perfect agape) someone, you will keep no record of wrongs done by, toward, or in regard to that person." But this is only partially true. Ogres, onions, and love, and I all have layers, and here is the deepest layer of true agape love:
The PERFECT agape love can only come when the lover keeps no records of ANY wrongs done to him/her in the past regardless of who did the wrong.

When one holds on to the bitterness that results from disappointment or hurt feelings, one poisons oneself and cripples him/herself from being able to truly love anyone today. The only way to truly develop the perfect agape love described in I John 4:7-8, is to make a declaration of independence from your past. . . to die to it completely, not just the sins you have committed, but the sins committed against you.

Most have felt the sting of betrayal, the disappointment of a friendship broken, the crushed heart of an extinguished flame of romance. Most of us know that the scars of the past have an effect on us today. Unfortunately, we tend to chalk it up to "experience" and move along to another volley of pain caused by another attempt at love between two people who are not learning the valuable lesson God has tried, in so many ways, to show us.

I have been wronged in the past, and those wounds have crippled me from loving perfectly today. But, in order that I may truly love tomorrow, I declare my independence from yesterday. I leave all yesterday's hurts, its failures, its insults, and all its rejections in the past where they belong. Today, I take up my cross, shoulder it with a grin, and look forward to the crown that comes because I was able to turn away from what held me back. (Luke 9:23)

Never again will the love I share with others be bound to a superficial level for fear of pain or loss. Never again will I look at someone today and see the reflection of the ones who hurt me yesterday. From now on, I claim the power of the One who holds tomorrow, and love with His love. I hope you will too.