Monday, July 9, 2012

This is Why We Tithe

Photo source: ColinBroug
I have never hidden the fact that we are Bible-reading, devoted Christ followers in our home. We tithe.  What is tithing?  We give 10% of our (gross) income to our church.

There are many places where you can argue about how much to tithe, whether to tithe, or when to tithe. I'm not here to have that discussion. I'm here to tell you why WE give and how faithful our Father is when we are obedient.

We give
  • out of obedience (Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce  Prov 3:9)
  • out of worship (Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord. Lev 27:30)
  • from our gross income (The firstfruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleece of your sheep, you shall give him. Deut 18:4)
  • a 10% tithe (And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you. Gen 28:22)
  • out of trust (And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  Phil 4:19) 
  • because God not only promised us, He challenged us (Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.  Mal 3:10)  
And there are may other verses (let me know if you want more and I'll hook you up!).

Anyway...not telling you this to brag that we give. God supplied it to us in the first place, we have nothing to brag about.

I'm telling you that we tithe because I want to show you a beautiful example of God's promise in those last two verses up there fulfilled. Here is the story I've been getting at:

This past month was horrible for our spending.  We were truly irresponsible with our money and spent it on a lot of stupid things. It's been a long time since we've been as spendthrift as we were this past month, and it doesn't need to happen again.

But we did tithe this month.

And God (despite our poor stewardship of His blessings) still provided for our needs.

My car has been needing an oil change frequently. Too frequently. We knew there was a small oil leak because of this frequency and because there would be trace amounts of oil in my parking spot in the garage. But it didn't look too big.

A week and a half ago, Chip took it in to the shop to see what was going on. It was a much bigger leak than we knew. A leak to the tune of $500. Yikes!  And I knew that we hadn't been as careful with our money as we should have been, but was determined not to put it on our credit cards but to pay for it in cash. Just less money to send to the creditors, I thought.

Last Monday we were on our way to pick up the car and pay the $500 invoice when Chip happened to mention, "Oh...we got a check for $950 from our insurance company today for overpayment of home owner's insurance." What?!  That's almost an entire year's bill of insurance and we're getting it back? We are getting back enough to cover our bill AND cover the childcare costs that we will pay while Chip is on orders?!

Man oh man...God is so good!

Do you have an interesting story of God's provision that showed up just when you needed it?  I'd love to hear it, so either link to it or leave it in the comments and let's celebrate how good God is!

2 comments:

  1. I love stories like this! We pay our tithing every month, but don't have any miraculous stories. I know my mom does and I have heard of many others who have struggled financially and paid their tithing despite not having the money to pay all their other bills. Then something happens - often through the generosity of others, or just good timing - and they are able to pay the bill. God works in amazing ways. :) Thanks for sharing your story!

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    1. I have one other amazing story that happened when I first started tithing. It wasn't something I was brought up doing, and it was hard for me to let go of control. But I felt convicted once and when I wrote the check we didn't have the money in the bank for it. And I knew that. Through a series of bank errors over the weekend that I wrote it, my next paycheck was in the bank before the errors were cleared up and the check officially cleared. I basically said, "Ok, God. I hear you loud and clear!"

      Some people would think that the money is already in the mail and would have happened anyway. I'm not so sure. I'm not sure if the check would have been mailed at the right time if God didn't foresee that we were going to be faithful.

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