Ilife, Part 3

I picked up some good things in my history growing up as a kid. And one of those is the value of giving. You know, we gave 10% of everything that we had. I’ve always known this it was ingrained in me as a child. If I got $5 allowance at the end of the week, that 50 cents belonged to God. Can you say amen? Right off the top! It was His! If I got a birthday card in the mail...if I got like $15 in this birthday card, that $1.50 it belonged...it went straight to God.

You know, my Grandma, I have a "MeMe" -- any MeMes in the house? Her name was Gladys, we called her MeMe Glassy...MeMe Glassy would call us to her back bedroom and boy, I got excited because every time we went to her bedroom she would go to that top drawer, and she would say, now listen, don’t tell your parents but I’ve got a treat for you. She’d pull out that top drawer and slip me a $20 and she’d say, shhh, this is just between us. And without fail we’d get in the car and Daddy would say, hey, that $2 belongs to God. I mean, how did he know?

And so, I’ve always grown up giving 10% of everything I had to God. Now when I got older, and I went off to college...you know, you’re really an expert when you hit college aren’t you? You get smart. I’m thinking wait a second, what’s up with 10% of everything going to the church? I mean is this an idea that a handful of shady preachers got together and they made a decision in the back room saying, hey, here’s a cool way where we can drive all the expensive cars we want. Where did this idea where giving 10% to God come from?

So I came across a scripture in Malachi chapter 3. I want you to turn with me to Malachi...it’s the last book of the Old Testament so if you find Matthew, put it in reverse for a couple of pages and look at Malachi 3...I came across this verse in college and I began to understand where the principle of tithe came from. Malachi chapter 3, look at verse 10. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in My temple. Now that word "tithe" literally means 10%. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in My temple, if you do, says the Lord Almighty...you need to underline that or circle that in your Bible. In other words, it wasn’t a handful of preachers or a group of men coming up with an idea. This was actually spoken by God. If you do this, says the Lord Almighty...watch this, I’ll open the windows of heaven for you and I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in. Can somebody say amen?

And notice how He gives an exclamation point at the end of that statement. And then He says, try it. Let me prove it to you God says. Do you know that’s the only Scripture in all the Bible where God says, test Me in this. You see, God values giving so much that He wants to use that to prove how good He is to you. So I read that in college I thought, well wait a second now...this is a Biblical mandate, the Lord instructs me to give. It’s a non-negotiable.

So you know what I did? I was playing basketball in college and so we were busy traveling and playing and I didn’t have a lot of time to even go to church. So the 5 or 6 months out of the year that I couldn’t go to church, you know what I did? My little campus job that I had, my little income -- I wrote out a check every single week and mailed it to Pastor Dino when we first started this church. Because I knew that 10% belonged to God. It wasn’t mine -- it was His. I thought, you know what, I would rather rob a bank than rob God. Hello, come on somebody. Now I’m not into robbing banks cause I know that there are severe consequences that come along with that, but I sure don’t want to rob God. So I sent it to Pastor Dino.