Tithing, or giving to God, is something that many people can get wrong in the church. I mean, we hear about giving your money to God, but who do we give it to? How do we give?
How much do we give? And why should we give? I mean, if God is God, shouldn't he be rich? Why does he need my money? So, if you'd like to learn how to correctly give to God, I have seven tips that every Christian should know.
Tip number one. Giving is to God. Genesis chapter 14 verses 18 to 20. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God most high.
And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abraham of God most high, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tithe of all. In this passage, Abraham, whose name will soon be changed to Abraham, just rescued his nephew Lot, and the king of Salem, who's named Melchizedek, comes to greet him. And Abraham gave this king and priest a tithe of everything he gained from the battle.
So, who was this Melchizedek? Hebrews chapter 7 verse 3 tells us that this man doesn't have a father or mother, and he doesn't have any genealogy or family record, and he will never have a beginning, nor will he have an end. And the only one who doesn't have a beginning is God himself.
So that being said, Melchizedek has to be Jesus because he's the only one in the Godhead who possesses a physical body. And if you look, there's actually many instances in which Jesus visited earth before his physical birth by the Virgin Mary. So, Abraham, the father of our faith, gave Jesus a tithe of all that he gained. And if you look at the original language, the word tithe means tenth.
So Abraham gave 10% of what he gained and then he gave it to God. So the first tip that I want to give you is to know that when you give, you should use Abraham as a template. And Abraham gave a tenth of what he gained. So for Christians, if we make an income, we ought to keep track of how much we make, calculate what 10% of that is, and then give that 10% to God.
Now, do Christians have to give 10% to God or do we have the option to? And that leads us to tip number two. Giving should be done.
Malachi chapter 3 verse 8. Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. And you say, in what way have we robbed you?
In tithes and offerings. In this passage, God speaks through the prophet Malachi, and God says that the men of Israel have robbed him. And the people are like, what?
How have we robbed you? And God responded, you didn't tithe and you didn't give offerings. Now Israel was God's people, and he commanded them back in Leviticus to give a tenth of everything. Their seeds, fruit, flocks and herds, grain, produce. But they didn't give them.
So all that to say, as God's people, We must recognize that all that we possess came from God himself. James chapter 1 verse 17 tells us that every good and perfect gift comes from God. Yet despite God giving us everything that we have, he only asks for a tenth of it back.
But why does God need our money? Pay close attention to tip number three. Giving is for us, not for God.
Psalm chapter 50 verses 10 to 12. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all its fullness. In this passage, Asaph, one of the psalmists, speaks on behalf of God and says that every beast of the forest, every cow, bird, are all his.
And it doesn't stop there. God says that the world and everything in it, belongs to God. So why does God want our money if everything already belongs to him? And the answer is because God wants complete ownership of us, and he doesn't want money to be in control of us. You see, many times we can make money our God, and we can focus on it, think about it often, and then give our time, energy, and attention so that we can get more of it.
Look closely at Matthew chapter 6 verse 24, which reads, And the word mammon here is riches. So if we're Christians, the question that we have to ask ourselves is, who is the Lord of our life and who do we serve and obey? Because if it's God, then we should bow and give all that we have to God. And that includes our finances.
You see, by giving this 10%, we are making the statement, God, all that I have belongs to you. And I give this 10% because money is not my master. You are.
And if you... If you've ever given 10% of your income for a long period of time, you'll find that giving that much money hurts, especially if you have bills to pay and mouths to feed. So if you start becoming reluctant in giving 10%, we need to remember tip number four.
Giving must come from a cheerful heart. 2 Corinthians 9, verse 7. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. In this passage, Paul tells the Corinthian church to decide in their heart to give and to not give because they have to. And then Paul says that God loves someone who gives cheerfully and joyfully.
So for those of you who haven't had much experience giving to God, giving should not be done out of obligation. And that looks like us looking at our paycheck, taking out 10% and saying, all right, here God, you said you wanted 10%, so here you go. You see, it's important to note that God cares more about our hearts than our money. And the secret to being able to give cheerfully is to identify everything that you possess that God gave you. And it helps if you look at what you have that could not be bought with money.
For me, when I look at what God gave me, I see a family that loves and supports me, friends that have my back, a job that I love and my health to work. And I see my sins forgiven. I see God's patience with me. despite me constantly failing.
And I see a life after I die and my home in heaven. And on top of all of those things, I see a God who never gave up on me and loves me enough to die for my sake. So if you want to learn how to give with a cheerful heart, you only need to look at the God you're giving to and the joy will come. So now that we have the heart to give, the next question is, who do we give to?
So tip number five, giving can be to your church. Galatians chapter six, verse six. Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.
In this passage, Paul tells the church in Galatia that if a person is taught under someone to share good things with the person who teaches. So if you're currently going to a church or being taught under somebody, the Bible says to share what that person teaches. So if you're looking to give your church that you're learning about God in, could be a place that you can give to God. In the past, I've heard people give their tithe to support ministries or missionaries that honor God.
So these are other options. However, giving your money should be done with careful consideration. So before you give your tithe, I would encourage you to follow two steps. Research and pray. For research, look up the church, ministry, or missionary that you're going to give to and find out if they're really moving forward in the work of the Lord.
And after you've done the research, pray about it and tell God, Hey, I want to give to you. Can you give me wisdom on who I should give my tithe to? And these two steps are crucial because money is a tool and people can misuse it.
At the same time though, don't let that be an excuse not to give because there's many people out there doing God's work. So look to see if you can support any of them through your tithe. And once you find one or two organizations to support, you can start.
it's important to give them your tithe correctly. So pay attention to tip number six. Giving should be done secretly.
Matthew chapter six, verses one to four. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may be praised by others. Truly I say to you, Amen.
they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. In this passage, Jesus teaches the multitude and his disciples how to give and he tells them to let their giving to be done in secret and that God who sees in secret will reward them. So with giving, it's important...
not to do it so we can look holy in front of other people. God says that those who give so that they can be recognized by others won't be rewarded by God and that the praise of those people is their reward. So when we give our tithe, we need to do our best to remain anonymous. You see, people should not know that we're the one that's giving. Now, there's some cases when you can't be completely anonymous, especially if you give online and you need to give your information.
You can't be completely anonymous. But the main idea is to not tell people either through your words or through your actions that you are a good Christian because you give money. Giving. should be done secretly. And now to our final tip.
Tip number seven, giving can be more than 10%. Luke chapter 21 verses one to four. And he, Jesus, looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury.
And he saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So he said, truly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all for all these out of their abundance have. put in offerings for God, but she, out of her poverty, put in all the livelihood that she had.
In this passage, Jesus saw all these rich people giving, and then he saw a poor woman who put in two mites or coins, and he said that this woman gave more than those rich people. And the reason why is because those rich people only gave because they had tons of stuff, and giving all that stuff hardly affected them. But for this woman, she literally gave everything that she had. And after doing some quick research, Tyndale.com says that two mites or two copper coins looks like 1 64th of a denarius. And a denarius was considered a day's wage.
So it's argued that two mites or one quadrants or 1 64th of a denarius was about $2 today. And by this woman giving these coins, she gave all that she had. So when it comes to giving. please note that you can give God more than 10% of your wealth.
And I would challenge you to, because I've heard that God is a debtor to no one. And when people give to God with the right heart, God can't help but bless them. In fact, let me tell you a quick story of what happened to a close friend of mine.
My friend was telling me that one day he felt compelled to give $10,000 to the church. And he was warring within himself because he was thinking, Is this from God or are these just my thoughts? But as time passed, he kept feeling this urge to give the church $10,000.
And he even lost sleep over it. Finally, he goes up to his wife and says, Hey, I feel like God is telling me that I need to give $10,000 to the church. And he said this thinking, there is no way my wife will say yes to this. And she paused and said, can we afford it?
And my friend said, yeah, we need to move some things around, but we can do it. And his wife said, okay, if you think God is telling you to, then do it. So my friend goes and writes a check and gives $10,000.
And once he did, he felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders, and he was finally able to live his life again without these thoughts plaguing him. Well, about a week passes, and while he's at work, his boss comes up to him and says, hey, so I was looking at our finances, and I figured out that we haven't been paying you what we should. So we wanted to apologize and give you what we owe you. And here you go.
And the check to him was for $20,000. And here my friend told me that he learned that God was the God of his finances. And the reason why I'm telling you all of this isn't to promise you that God will double whatever you give him, but to teach you that there are special blessings reserved for those who give more to God.
Okay? So if you're wondering on how to tithe or to give to God correctly, remember these seven tips. Tip number one, giving is to God.
Tip number two, giving should be done. Tip number three, giving is for us, not for God. Tip number four, giving must come from a cheerful heart.
Tip number five, giving can be to your church. Tip number six, giving should be done secretly. And tip number seven, giving can be more than 10%.
And as we close, please remember that. As Christians, we shouldn't just give God our money. We should give God all of us.
The Bible says to love God with all our heart, souls, minds, and strength. And to give God 10% of our money is just a small part of that. And should we ever reach a place where we feel like we don't want to give, may we stop and remember that Jesus'life, which has value beyond all measure, was given for us.
And with it, God gave us the promise of eternal life with him to those who trust in Jesus and his death for our sins. So I hope this video blesses you. And should you decide to give, always remember, Jesus loves you.