My home team Bible study group has been doing a study called "Giving-Unlocking the heart of good stewardship" by John Ortberg.
Essentially the study is about studying the importance of giving of oneself to others and to God. The first couple of weeks were about stewardship, God's provision, and how to set the groudwork to pursue spiritual transformation in an area of your life. I was a little worried about entering this study because titheing is something I have never really gotten into and I have really dreaded. I have always struggled with discipline in my money spending choices and so titheing always seemed like something I could never afford to do. Titheing was always too much of a "chore" or "inconvenience" for me to be bothered with. Titheing actually fell in line as one more area of guilt that I couldn't find it in me to forgive myself.Taking all of the above into consideration, it's really amazing that someone signed me up to lead our discussion of this week's session entitled, "Titheing:
A Training Exercise for the Heart". As I led the discussion and asked everyone what was the first thing that came to their minds when I say 'Titheing', they responded as I did initially: obligation, discipline, etc.=everything that leads us to view titheing as a chore that we don't want to do. The thing that encouraged me is that this "CHORE" mentality is not at all how God sees titheing. He views this discipline as an extension of the relationship that He wants to have with us. God loves us all so much that He has provided for our every need and by giving back to Him, we are paying tribute to His provision in our lives.
The 3 scriptures that we read were: Psalm 106, Matthew 6:19-24, and Malachi 3:8-12. The coolest thing in all of these is the fact that in verse 10 in the Malachi passage is that God actually issues a challenge! God says, "Test me on this." God wants us to test His promise and see if He will "throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it."
Please join me in reflection this week on these issues:
Everytime I tithe, I remind myself that God is on the throne.
Everytime I tithe, I reinforce that all I have is from Him. He is the Owner, I am
the steward.
Everytime I tithe, I make a declaration, "I will trust you, God"--even when
trusting doesn't feel easy or natural.
I need to tithe to show my devotion and test God's promises in order to strengthen my trust in Him. Have a Great Week!!!
