Are all the tithes in? Through Malachi God commanded, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse.”
One morning while praying about a matter urgent and important, the Lord seemed to whisper to me, “The tithes are all in.” Those assuring words meant much to me, for I recalled that if the tithes are in, God has promised an open heaven and poured-out blessings.
But suppose the tithes are not all in?
Failure to tithe reveals that we are unappreciative of all God’s liberal giving to us. As “God loveth a cheerful giver,” so God loves to cheerfully and liberally give. No one can give so largely and so wisely as He. Tithing shows a thankful spirit for what God has done.
Failure to tithe accents our disobedience. The relative duties—church attendance, Lord’s Day observance, tithing—are important duties. The do no substitute for the “weightier matters—justice, mercy, faith,” but they are weather vanes that show the direction of our devotion. Just as we are taught of God to love one another, we are taught of God to share our material blessings.
Failure to tithe reveals our shortsightedness. The one who can’t afford to tithe fails to see the poured-out blessings that might be his if he only opened his heart and purse toward God and others. It’s a spiritual law: “He that watereth shall be watered also himself.”
Failure to tithe suggest that there are undisciplined areas in our lives. Systematic, proportionate giving (such as tithing) is helpful to the ordering of our life. To budget our giving is to budget our spending, and to budget our spending is to discipline ourselves.
Some will say that tithing is the law, legalistic. Suffice it to answer that liberal and proportionate giving has been God’s order in every age.
One blessed fact we must remember: the tithe is to be brought where God is. We do not send our money; we bring it (and the bringing involves the person himself) to God. God receives it and blesses the giver. And all this is true, even though fallible men like ourselves are charged with the distribution of the tithes.
--George E. Failing
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