Since the beginning of the Hebrew faith, God has required followers to tithe their earnings, profit, time, inheritance, and blessings. Call it what you want but in order for the church to move forward and accomplish those things, which God sets before us, it needs resources. Webster’s defines tithing as giving a tenth of one’s income. Resources come in all different shapes and sizes. The obvious resource in our modern world is money. Cold-hard-cash. This description, in a way, explains why we should not stop there as we should not be cold toward God’s edict nor cold toward the people Christ expects us to reach.

In general, God warns us not to test him by doing things like running off a cliff and expect that he will protect us from the result. But God does invite us to test him when it comes to giving.
Malachi 3:9-11 says the following: 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—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 you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty.
God provides blessings in many ways as He describes in verse eleven. Pests could be described, as many things in today’s world, like preventing an old car from breaking down, or letting a water heater last 25 years instead of ten years. If you think about it, we could find hundreds of things that could have gone wrong but haven’t because God has blessed us.

Conversely, if we are not faithful to God; he will not be faithful to us.

We cannot out give God. You can take that to the bank, literally. Try testing God in your giving. As you increase your giving, you will find you continue to have money for the things you need and maybe some wants.

Christians are described as and expected to be Christ like. That means we care about the plight of those around us. A solid Biblically based church takes need as a challenge and digs in to fill that need.

We are currently in an economic downturn and yet “religiously active” people are just getting started. A study shows that 57% of religiously active people are giving more during these tough times than they did in 2008. Food banks are finding 30% more people on their doorstep but they also are finding people giving 20% more food and 46% more cash.

I believe this is a defining moment in our church. Are we part of the religiously active who tries to follow God’s will for us or are we religiously anemic, watching the parade go by and sand bagging the church so the money doesn’t run out?

If you would like information on the above statistics, you can look them up at the following website:

USA Today Article 1

USA Today Article 2