“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!” Malachi 3:10 NLT
If you want to debate about whether or not a Jesus follower should tithe (give 10 percent), you’ve just given me more information about you and your perspective than you might have wished. Before we get into an argument 😊, let me explain.
A characteristic of committed Jesus followers is that they do not get caught up in rules and minimum requirements. They want to be as much like Jesus as they can, keeping a loose grip on everything but Jesus.
A committed Jesus follower realizes that when he lays down his life to follow, he has given Jesus everything. It all belongs to Him. God is committed to meeting his needs, and he is committed to managing what God has given him well.
When a person is committed to wholeheartedly following Jesus, she intentionally and prayerfully decides on a generous, cheerful, and willing strategy of honoring God and fulfilling His mission with the resources entrusted to her (2 Corinthians 9:7). She is never looking for the cheapest, least costly way of following.
A committed person who understands God’s character and resources knows that GOD doesn’t need my resources – He owns it all. I need to give in order to participate in God’s work in the world. It will satisfy and fulfill me because He created me to receive from Him and then release back to Him in a rhythm that blesses the world and grows me.
Jesus followers who commit to truly follow Him in sacrificial living get enrolled in the open windows policy of heaven. God says we will never be able to outgive Him. Every time we obey His urgings to surrender what we think is ours, He overdoes it on blessing us in many varied ways. He says He opens the windows of heaven and overwhelms us with blessing so great we don’t even know how to take it in. These are blessings money can never provide.
- God is so committed to blessing you, He invites you to try it out. Put Him to the test. He has never yet failed a person who trusted Him. No debate about tithing or giving even more than that with God. He just wants to bless us, but if we want to do it on our own and handle our own affairs, He’ll let us. Pretty foolish, but we can.