Believing in God and trusting God are not necessarily the same thing. Many believe in God, but trusting God is much harder, especially when it comes to money. In Malachi 3:7–10 God instructs us to “Be” obedient to Him in three areas. First of all He call us to be honest. Verses 7 & 8 say, “From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.” The call to return is a call of repentance. It all begins with the acknowledgment that there is sin in the camp and in our selfish lives. He just wants us to be honest about it and acknowledge our failure. The greatest thing about sin, is that there is a remedy. There’s no remedy for a bad upbringing, or a genetic disposition, or a societal influence. But there is hope for us if we can be honest and call it what God calls it: Sin! But like the Israelites we argue that we don’t know what God is talking about. They said, “how shall we return?” God explains that they are robbing him! They again don’t understand how and say, “how have we robbed you?” God answers “in your tithes and contributions.”
God then calls for them (and us) to be faithful. He says in verse 10 to “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse…” The word means one-tenth. Many Christians argue that this standard is no longer relevant for us today, but I strongly disagree. It was obvious before the law was given when Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek in Genesis 14. it was alive when Jacob promised to return a tenth of all God blessed him with when he woke from his dream at Bethel. The New Testament calls for us to give “proportionately.” The only thing Jesus commended the religious leaders for was tithing. He even said, “yes, you should tithe” but don’t neglect the more important matters of love, truth and compassion.
Finally the call to obey God with honesty about our giving, and then faithfulness in meeting the standard is followed by the call to give expectantly. God promises to bless this faithfulness. Verse 10 concludes, “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!”
Trusting God always has an impact on our check stubs.
Chuck
“Bring this tithe to the designated place of worship…Doing this will teach you always to fear the LORD your God.” Deuteronomy14:23