I Learned My Lesson - Tithe, Tithe, Tithe

¹⁰ Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the LORD of hosts,

“ If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
¹¹ “ And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the LORD of host
(Malachi 3:10-11)

This is one of the classic scriptures on tithing - one that is quoted virtually everytime when the concept of tithing is taught.

I have tithed since I became a Christian, a real Christian - one who finally decided to dedicate his life to Christ - back in 1998. At first I didn't know if it was a tithe on the gross or net. There can be fierce debate on this subject, and I used to tithe on the gross (I was told - "do you want God to bless you gross or net?"), but now am at peace to tithe on the net.

In this recession, things for my family have gotten tighter and our budget is pretty challenging, but I also realized that my family had piled on too much debt. In an effort to get it under control, I started reading Dave Ramsey (DR) and he's changed my perspectives about debt and budgeting, so we began to get our act together and thankfully did it before our debts piled too high.

What bugged me though was that I was tithing, but it was part of my monthly credit card bill, so we weren't actually paying it off until a month or two later. It seemed like a joke that I was tithing by adding to my debt rather than tithing out of my savings. The more responsible thing seemed to stop the tithe in order address our debt.

Now, I don't know how I came to rationalize and reason this out. DR even specifically advises that we should tithe 10% of our net paycheck. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the pressures and responsibilities of being a husband and a father. I'm the sole breadwinner and there is a huge responsibility in that. It was a hard, hard decision, however. My wife objected to this from the start, but decided to follow my lead and I charged ahead.

I can't tell you how restless my soul felt - I wouldn't call it guilt because it wasn't like that - it was just a gnawing in my spirit (or a wrestling with the Holy Spirit inside me). I had many conversations with God on my commute to work where I was trying to reason with Him about my choice and decision, but I never came to any kind of definitive peace or conclusion that what I was doing in foregoing the tithe was right.

My paycheck would come in and I would sit there, wanting to tithe, but yet I stuck to my "plan" of trying to pay down my debt.

But as much as I wanted to reserve the money that was to be tithed and pay off debt, more bills would flood in. DR calls them "visits from Murphy". And to be honest, Murphy did visit us before, but not that frequently.

Both of our cars required service - $600 - and the service performed was done, but at the same time I did not receive as good a quality of service as I have experienced in the past. Medical bills came in as I required an ultrasound and MRI which turned out, was my responsibility as it was under my deductible - another $500. Then, as I was backing out at Walmart, a woman decided to do the same on the other end of the aisle at the last minute and we have a fender bender. It was a rental and she has insurance so her rental car company wanted to pin the blame on me. WHAT WAS GOING ON HERE!

Then, I realized. And as I was commiserating under the cumulative stress of this with my wife, I asked her, "Is it because we haven't tithed?" She replied with a non-committal, "hmm...maybe," but had a knowing look in her eye. We agreed to pray about it together using our usual technique for important decisions (more on that at a later time). But, I sat at the dinner table by myself and really had a moment with God. In my soul, I knew that because I stepped outside of God's promises, I had opened myself up to the world's risks. By not tithing and being obedient, I had declared that I wanted to do for myself and by myself - so I limited God's ability to protect in my life. Willfully, I was disobeying part of what God told us to do.

I went online and tithed again a few moments later. The release of that moment is hard to describe. There was such a lifting on my soul and I felt such a deep sense of gladness and joy. Again, it wasn't out of guilt, but it was a sense that I was aligned again with the Lord. Something I had taken from granted.

God's promise in Malachi is not necessarily about blessings where we see increases in our salary left and right as we tithe. It is also about holding back the devourer from eating our fruits. By preventing the regular occurrences of life from coming in and nipping at our savings through even small random, unplanned expenses, he is allowing us to stabilize our lives, save and grow our wealth over time.

As a Pentacostal, I also believe in the works of the Spirit...That there is a tug of war in how we engage our Spirit. Some acts weaken the self and hence Satan's hold on our lives, because when you think about it, sins come from a desire to self gratify (disobedience to God, idolatry, coveting, envy, greed, murder, stealing, fornication). Fasting for instance was cited as something which weakens the demons which are attacking a certain problem (whatever you're fasting for) and thereby enhances prayer. While selfish acts where we seek to simply satiate our desires will take us outside of God's covering if we sin.

In Matt 6:21, Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Tithing is the ultimate heart check for a Christian. Can we trust that God will provide by giving up 10% even though we know that we could use that for something that seems necessary? The sacrifice of that for us is purposeful for God because He knows that our Spirits need to be divorced from the reliance on money.

After my experiment in not tithing, I see clearly how much the Lord has done for me via the tithe. Unbeknownst to me, so much over the past 13 years has been held back from entering my life from the Lord's blessing. I got a glimpse of just how that works, and I don't ever want to open myself up to the devourer again.

By the way...am I out of debt yet? As a Dave Ramsey listener would say..."everything except the house." And I know tithing is going to help keep it that way.