Bringing Your Best To God Series

3. Realize the importance of giving (8-10a). Look at verse 8: “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings.” The word “rob” here means to “take forcibly.” On Wednesday I saw a story on CNN about a robber who stole the entire Sunday offering at a church in Nebraska. The reporter was really worked up about this and said, “He better watch out for the lightning strike…some have no shame…it’s time for confession, my friend.” Do you know what’s more terrible than stealing from a church? It’s ripping off God. How could they be stealing from God? They had begun to take what belonged to Him and kept it for themselves. They had lost sight of the fact that God owns everything.

As a way to recognize God’s rightful rule and omnipotent ownership of all things, God’s people in the Old Testament were instructed to give tithes and offerings. This word literally means “a tenth,” or 10%. Actually, if you were to add up all the requirements, the total would be closer to 25%. While some would say that this teaching is based on the Law, let me remind you that Abraham practiced tithing 400 years before the Law was even established in Genesis 14:20 when he gave a tenth of everything he owned to the priest Melchizedek.

Failure to tithe properly could have included not giving at all, withholding part of it, or not giving at the proper time. Whatever the reason, because they had been robbing God, verse 9 says that the whole nation was under a curse.

When we grovel about giving or withhold what is His, we are robbing God of His right to use us to propel His purposes in the world. Look at the first part of verse 10: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house…” The storehouse was the chamber in the Temple where the tithes and offerings were kept. Let me make three summary statements about the application of tithing for today.

* While we are no longer under the Law, tithing is a good benchmark for believers. In other words, it’s a good place to start, sort of like a “minimum guide” for giving.

* It’s easy to tithe and yet miss out on what’s really important. Jesus took the Pharisees to task not because they didn’t tithe, but because they had become so legalistic that they no longer cared about their love for God or for their neighbor.

* The practice of tithing is a good reminder of who’s in charge of my life. When I give at least 10%, it’s a way to be reminded that God owns everything that I have. God wants what my money represents—me. When giving to God, we’re simply taking our hands off what belongs to Him in the first place. Joe Stowell writes, “It’s not so much what you have but, rather, what has you that makes all the difference.”

I don’t have time to give a full picture of what the entire Bible teaches about giving but let me quickly draw three more principles from 1 Corinthians 16:2: “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income…” Giving should be punctual, personal and proportional.