Do You Trust God with Money?
One day in my devotions, I was reading my Bible when surprisingly, “Return to me,” (Malachi 3:7) leapt off the page and into my heart. I paused taken aback, and read on!
And then, I came to one of the greatest promises in Scripture: “…’I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Graciously, God said that despite the sarcasm: “How can we return when we’ve never gone away?”
What’s more, if you really don’t want to know, you probably shouldn’t ask. God often responds with a question or two of His own. Since you asked, God answered: “Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me” (3:8 NLT)! Ouch!
Furthermore, robbery and cheating are far below any level of acceptability among the people of God. And still we have the audacity to argue with God. Got questions? God has answers.
Evidently, I tried to rationalize. “Look Lord,” I reasoned.
“I paid the tithe on the money before I put it in savings?” No, I argued.
“Besides, doesn’t my extra giving put me above 20%?” I said, seeking to justify my math. To which God simply said,
“ALL means ALL.”
He means what he says and He’s quite specific: storehouse, not your favorite charity! For me “My Temple” means my local church. And for good reason: “So there will be enough food in my Temple” (3:10, NLT).
Some or None?
The people to whom Malachi preached apparently were guilty of bringing some or none. “The coup d’état is the tithe,” challenges Mark Batterson in his delightful book If. It’s a place of “sudden defeat.” Practically, for many professing Christians, tithing is the place of their defeat. Simply put, they don’t fully trust God’s economics.
Here’s a few responses I’ve heard:
“We get to decide how much to give!”
“Don’t you know Christians are grace not law!”
“That’s Old Testament, not New Testament!”
No wonder we preachers are hesitant to preach on stewardship. Who wants to endure blatant, in-your-face objections? I can’t say I cherish “tossing a grenade in the sanctuary,” as Tom Gilson describes preaching the whole truth of the Bible on Sunday mornings. But equally important is “the troubling trend in the evangelical church to neglect, water-down, or avoid altogether in the hope of not offending members and building a large audience. Judgment is never mentioned, repentance is never sought and sin is often excused. We want to build a church rather than break a heart; be politically correct rather than biblically correct; coddle and comfort rather than stir and convict.
On one occasion, I preached a Faith Promise Convention. We had even exceeded our goal. Surprisingly, a woman approached with a scowl on her face. She was in no mood for a handshake.
“I’m sure glad my husband wasn’t here today!” she muttered. Without missing a breath, she snarled,
“He’d have gotten up and walked out!’ Taken aback by her vitriolic response, I asked, “Why?”
“Tithing!” she sneered.
Above and beyond giving
Obviously, she did not understand faith promise giving. I implied, if I did not say outright, that the first challenge for a Christian is to begin tithing.
Here’s a cogent definition of faith promise: “A form of worship by stepping out in faith and relying on God to provide the funds that we might not see to raise funds to support and fund the spread of the Gospel around the world.”
Most non-tithers justify the percentage (none or some) they have settled upon quoting Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 9:7 CEV — “Each of you must make up your own mind about how much to give. But don’t feel sorry that you must give and don’t feel you are forced to give.”
Poking her boney finger in my chest she muttered,
“I get to decide how much I give!” with an exclamation point. She stormed out with a parting shot, “I don’t need a preacher to tell me what to give!”
I don’t think she had the gift of generosity!
The Bible is not a bag of trail mix!
I managed a gentle, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Come to think of it, if that’s the way you read God’s financial challenge, you’ll find this blog offensive. So let me tell you my story and what I believe: the Bible is fundamentally right. It is living and active, not ancient, and archaic. It is not a bag of trail mix. I can’t just go through and pick and choose which Scripture passages I want to live by and spit out the rest. “Cafeteria-style” Christians opt for the easy ones and pass by the challenging ones.
Without a doubt, the angry woman should have read on. That same 1 Corinthian passage says, “God loves people who love to give.” Not those who give “reluctantly or under compulsion,” (NIV); rather, “a cheerful giver.” If you don’t read on, there is so much to be missed. Our hermeneutics professor in often reminded his ministerial students, “A text without a context is a pretext.”
Trust the Mathematician
Unquestionably, my sturuggle with this truth began when I retired and began living on a fixed income. It became my pattern for nine years. Until.
On July 29, 2023, the Spirit reminded me that only 80% of my tithe was going into the storehouse, my local church. And correspondingly I was likely receiving 80% of the blessings he promised. The truth the Spirit revealed to me was that I really didn’t trust God’s math. I had been relying on my human calculations. It’s a matter of trust.
And yes, I had not read all of Malachi 3:10, especially part B —
“‘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 3:10b, NIV).
Trust changes everything
First, I repented and then I thanked Holy Spirit for bringing this to my attention. I recorded in my Gratitude Journal, “Nothing between my soul and You, Lord Christ. This is huge, Lord. Thank You for your faithfulness, your mercies to us. I don’t know what effect this will have on our finances, but Your Word challenges me to put You to the test specifically in tithes and offerings.”
Well, I sent a check for the other 20% and journaled, “I will walk in obedience to what You tell me, always. 7/29/23.” Looking back, I believe I was saying, “Lord, I’ll trust your math.” Do you? Or will you?
This wasn’t a tithing challenge as some churches have issued. The Journey Church, for example, challenges people to take that hardest first step. They call it their “90-day Tithing Challenge.” A money-back guarantee of sorts in which people enter “a contract based on God’s promises in Malachi 3:10-11. Their website makes the following commitment: “If you tithe for three months and God doesn’t hold true to His promises, we will refund 100% of your tithe.”
Mine was an obedient response my gracious God. God raised the issue, and I wasn’t about to say to Him, “What’s mine is mine and I can do whatever I want with it!” Randy Alcorn in a delightful, little book, The Treasure Principle, reminds us of God’s ownership. “Whenever we think like owners, it’s a red flag. Think like stewards instead, investment managers, always looking for the best place to invest the Owner’s money. “
Take the Test!
I took the test and I’ve been recording 7/29 blessings ever since. I rediscovered what I should have known all along–God always makes good on His promises, even those timeless ones near to the end of the Old Testament.
Honestly, I wondered what impact this would have on our finances and journaled my uncertainty. I can testify that I’ve had more in my checkbook at the end of each month than ever before even with high inflation. Doors for ministry that I used to complain seldom opened to me, have opened steadily. Financial blessings that I never expected began to rain down.
One is worthy of mention. Insurance on our home and cars had jumped to over seven thousand dollars. I did something I seldom do; I answered a telemarketer’s call who put me through to an insurance agent and reduced our annual premiums with greater coverage to less than one-half of what I was paying.
When we say I will God says He will!
“Put me to the test,” God said. And before that, “If you do…I will.” Testing is about trusting. I said, “I will, and He did! Soon after, an unanticipated settlement check came in the mail for over eleven hundred dollars from a class action lawsuit I didn’t even know I was involved in. Floodgates.
Tithing is about trusting. But please don’t just get hung on tithing. Your issue may something else. Got it. What is that one thing you may be refusing to bring into alignment with God’s Word? Confess it. Return to God and He will return to you. Remove the obstacle.
What hindrance prevents God from opening the floodgates of blessing in your life? Why settle for 80% blessings when far beyond 100% blessings are available when you bring your stewardship into alignment with Scripture. Don’t take my word for it. Test for yourself and trust for yourself.
When I came into alignment with God’s will and way, Immediately, I took steps to correct it increasing my storehouse tithe by twenty percent.
Open the Floodgates!
In October 2023, God opened the door to travel to Guyana one #MissionTrip48. Our assignment: conduct Leadership Conferences with my pastor friend David Rambarran. Our budget was $7,500 for airfare, hotel, free books, and conference fees. I had donated to Bags of Hope for the tickets, but we lacked right at six thousand dollars.
Just then, my phone rang. It was my lifelong friend since seminary days, Ted Lee. He told me he had a friend who might want to assist with our expenses. Two days later, a check for six thousand dollars was deposited completely underwriting the expenses. Floodgates!
We’ve been really slammed with a lot of extra bills since I made the decision to increase my tithe. I had calculated and made excuses for settling for the eighty per cent I thought I could afford. I figured that my extra giving covered my earnings on investments. But once I fully obeyed, answers to prayers came rolling in like the tide. New doors of service are opening as well.
Remove the curse!
Summing up, you will never go wrong trusting God to do what He promised to do. If there is a curse, we impose it. Remove the obstacles and God’s mercy and grace begin to flow to us despite our former miscalculations. Put God to the test and you will see His blessings rain down upon you in ways you could not have imagined.
