There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
Leo Tolstoy
It was late November. We were still living in the city, and I was working in the yard outside our house. My next-door neighbor saw me outside and casually walked over. I could tell something was heavy on her mind. She started explaining how she recently lost her job and was about to lose her house and car. In my usual business, I continued with my work while she rambled on. I had little patience for her (This wasn’t my first rodeo). When she finished, without looking up, I asked if she was a tither. She laughed and said, “No,” commenting, “I got freed from that.” I couldn’t resist. I stabbed, “Uh huh, how’s that working out for you?” She snapped and told me how tithing was in the Old Testament and that she was no longer bound by the law.
I stopped what I was doing and refuted, “Tithing came before the law. Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. This was long before the law was ever put in place.” For a moment, she didn’t speak. Then she argued, “I don’t know about all that.” Continuing on with my work, I curtly responded. “Well, I’m not the one standing in my neighbor’s yard about to lose my house, you are.”
“Bring all of 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 a blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. 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 hosts. Malachi 3:10-11
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Tithing will not magically make financial problems go away. Financial freedom takes continued budgeting, organization, and spending less than you make. But a spiritual law is attached to tithing that God honors when you operate under its constraints. It will start to seal up the leaks. Even Jacob recognized this when he made his vow at Bethel. He tells God, “…And of all that You give me, I will surely give a tenth to you.” Genesis 28:22
God can’t work outside of His word. The more time we spend learning how God tells us to handle finances through His wisdom, the more financial success we have.
It’s the million little things that happen daily that never turn into dollar signs that show me the windows of heaven over my life. Then, some events turn into nothing more than an inconvenience instead of an emergency.
Before she left my yard, she decided it couldn’t hurt to try tithing. Two weeks later, I saw her outside, and she could not wait to tell me what had happened. After we had talked, she went and paid her tithe at Church. A few days later, she was mopping the floors of her home and noticed something behind her refrigerator. She pulled out an envelope that had fallen off the counter when she had set the mail down weeks before. Inside the envelope was a job offer she thought was lost when she heard nothing back.
It is not easy to tell someone they are doing wrong. It is easier to smile and walk on, brush confrontation under the rug, and ignore it. I have done this many times. But ignoring won’t set people free. It is the truth that sets us free.
I love where Paul shows his tenacity to say something when Peter is willing to eat with the Gentiles in Antioch until certain men come from James; then, he separates himself. He does this not from theological conviction but from cowardice. Paul says, “And I withstood him to the face.” Galatians 2:11
Be bold and speak out the next time an opportunity knocks. It may be the thing that changes someone’s circumstances.
Render to Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s. Mark 12:17
