In many areas of life, we find minimum standards. There are minimum daily requirements of vitamins. There are minimum speed limits on the interstate. You probably remember a time in your student life when a paper was assigned and the first question a student asked was, what is the minimum number of pages this paper can be?
Why did this question annoy the professor so much? Because it represents the wrong attitude of how little can be done to just fulfill the assignment. The professor wants his students to be so enthralled by their work that a minimum number of pages does not even come into play.
Wanting to know the minimum does reveal something about our attitude. If we ask what the minimum standard is we can give to the Lord and still be OK then it reveals a problem in our relationship with the Lord. We find joy in giving abundantly.
I used to work for Quaker Oats. Our founder Henry Crowell never asked what the minimum standard was he could give. For 50 years he gave 65% of his income to the Lord’s work. He was a chief contributor to the work of D. L. Moody. He believed that God gave him bold marketing ideas that took Quaker Oats from a tiny little business to a fortune 500 company.
The right attitude in giving is going to see our giving as a privilege, not as a duty. The prophets rebuke God’s people when they make giving a duty.
Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,
you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy
and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”
2 The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness:
“The time will surely come
when you will be taken away with hooks,
the last of you with fishhooks.
3 You will each go straight out
through breaches in the wall,
and you will be cast out toward Harmon,”
declares the LORD.
4 “Go to Bethel and sin;
go to Gilgal and sin yet more.
Bring your sacrifices every morning,
your tithes every three years.
5 Burn leavened bread as a thank offering
and brag about your freewill offerings—
boast about them, you Israelites,
for this is what you love to do,”
declares the Sovereign LORD. (Amos 4:1-5)
The prophets were used by God to preach strong messages calling God’s people to turn back to God. They preached these harsh messages when God’s people turned their back on God. Amos may have been the harshest of all the prophets, but he preached under the most desperate of situations.
There was impending doom on the northern Kingdom. They could not conceive they needed a harsh message when they were an affluent society and had a high percentage of people attending worship. Underneath the façade was moral and spiritual bankruptcy. Things were not right with God, and they needed a harsh prophet to call this out.
He opposes all but he particularly called out the women of society. They were demanding luxuries to maintain their high society status and put pressure on their husbands for more affluence. They found ways to oppress the poor to keep their standards up. Amas calls these society seeking women cows of Bashan.
There is judgement coming and the Assyrians will conquer them. They will be led out with two kinds of hooks. The first is cattle hooks the second is with fishhooks. Their worship was a mockery. There was moral failure in the midst of economic prosperity. This moral failure would lead to the destruction of Israel the Norther Kingdom.
Jesus said where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Instead of coming and worshiping at Bethel, the place where Jacob met the Lord and vowed to tithe, they would go and sin. They would bring a tithe and it was a façade. It was about maintaining the minimum. Their real concern was materialism and society.
There giving was just going through the motions to ease their consciences. They would boast and brag at their tithes, but they were giving with an empty heart. The prophet Amos has picked up on a theme that is consistent with New Testament giving and that is their motivation for giving.
When Jacob gave a tenth at Bethel it represented a giving heart to God. They are giving a tithe for outward show. There is a two-stage spiritual deterioration seen in giving. The first is what we see in Amos when giving is for outward show. The second stage is seen in the Malachi chapter about finding ways to give less.
The prophet Malachi speaking God’s word to the people brings a heavy message. The problem is that they were bringing blind and crippled animals for sacrifice. Giving has become a burden for them and they treat it with contempt.
“I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. 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 there will not be room enough to store it. (Malachi 3:6-10)
The Lord’s people have not set their heart on honoring His name. Their heart has gone out of giving. Once the heart goes out of giving, they will look for ways to give the minimum and even how can they lower the minimum. To lower the minimum standard Israel asked the priests if they could bring a blind or crippled animal for sacrifice.
They wanted to give to the Lord what was useless to them. The sacrifices were to be the best. They represented the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ who was to come and lay down his life a sacrifice for our sins. God is saying his people are robbing him by not bringing the tithes God requires.
When the heart is wrong then soon the giving drops. When the heart is far from God then spending on ourselves is justified. In reality spending God’s tithe is robbing God. The results of giving with a wrong heart, looking for the minimum to give and giving the leftovers to God is futile. It led to a futile worship experience (Malachi 3:14).
It is wrong to give to get. If you give because giving pays then it doesn’t pay. Your heart is wrong when you ask what is in it for us. Real heartfelt giving out of love for God and a relationship with Jesus Christ does pay. It brings spiritual treasure stored up in heaven.
It is interesting that here in Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament God calls his people to right giving from a right motive. His final words before the 400 silent years and the coming of Jesus Christ was about giving with the right motivation. It is a call to preparation for real spiritual revival.
Now in our materialistic society God calls us as he did the Israelites. Test me in this and bring the whole tithe. Look at the invitation.
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. 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 there will not be room enough to store it. (Malachi 3:10)
God will throw open the floodgates. No wonder it is the closing appeal of the Old Testament. When there is right giving there is a right heart in worshiping God. God pours out his blessings and the floodgates of heaven are open. This is the principle that applies to Christians in the age of grace.
I hope you will experience the blessing of joyous giving. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38)
You can know the blessing of giving abundantly to God. When you know this experience, you are not asking any more what the minimum standard in giving is.
The prophets were harsh, but it was so important to get the people to a right heart. It is so important in your spiritual life that you give abundantly to God. Give with a joyful heart. Test the Lord and see if He will not open the floodgates running over of heaven and blessing you.
