Tithing Testimony

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.  Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”  Malachi 3:10 (NIV)

Malachi 3:10 is the only place where God actually says to test Him.  Everywhere else we are warned to obey and not to test our God.  However, He knows we cannot out give Him, but here He wants us to try.  So let me tell you my testimony of how I learned I better tithe and even see how testing Him in this worked out.

I started out my walk with Christ having a hard time tithing.  I understood it, but that first year after a divorce and losing a high paying job, it felt even harder to do.  I gave a lot of things up in order to start over due to the financial burden I had put myself into over the years that worsened with loss of a job I really enjoyed.

The second year of my walk with Christ, I tried harder at giving even if my acquired job started off paying less than my unemployment.  Things seemed to stall through the year with no solution in sight.  So in January 2004 I decided to finally go for bankruptcy.  This was something I never wanted to do as I felt it was the cheating way out.  But let me tell you how God showed up at this time due to my whole hearted attempts at tithing correctly and praying for guidance out of the mess I had made for myself prior to knowing Him.

First, I learned even my 401Ks would be closed out to resolve the debt issue.  I had the bankruptcy plan in hand.

Second, I was forced to wait a week before the lawyer would even bother doing anything due to his current work load.  That did not bother me.  What is one week after nearly two years of squeaking by and having creditors even trying to subpoena you?

Third, within three business days my credit card company calls up.  “We’ll forgive half the debt if you pay half by February 2^nd.”  I had two weeks to do this.  Maybe they got wind of my plan, but the lawyer said he would be unable to do anything for at least a week.  God obviously fixed this timing.

Fourth, in another day or two I received my 401K statement.  This had been hit during 2002 and earlier in 2003.  It really hadn’t looked good up through the third quarter of 2003, though I knew it had enough money to pay off a good portion of debt.  The economy did recuperate the end of that year, but my 401K went above and beyond what even I could expect in one quarter.  Another awesome thing I could thank God for.

So I closed my 401Ks, paid half of that huge credit card bill, and did not have to deal with bankruptcy.  I even had the ability to buy a newer used car to replace my eleven year old model I had at the time, which was becoming a money sink to keep on the road.  It was even cheaper to pay the car off and do a payment plan to the IRS for my taxes.  I can only thank God for how I came out ahead in this.

My finances are looking pretty good now.  I know beyond a doubt from my own tests with God they go really bad fast when I rob God of His tithe no matter how good I think my excuse is.  Besides, I know I’m working on treasure He wants me to have in heaven as I obey Him while on earth.  Cheating on God just winds up being me robbing myself and others of God’s blessings.  I hate cheaters and never want God to say I was one.  How about you?

Some Time with God

I know it has been several months since the last post I did.  It turns out that most everything I tried writing in this time was something God wanted me to learn first.  He also wanted me to learn to be even closer to Him.  If I'm not walking the way He wants me to, there is no way I can share things here that will actually help you get to know Him, as well.

One of the things I am doing now is reviewing the copious amount of journal notes I have taken over the years from sermons, conferences, and various studies.  This is helping me a lot.  It is a very long process because I do this I am also adding all the handwritten notes into a Bible program that allows addition of notes.  I know it is already sparking some ideas that can be shared here.

Be assured that more things will appear here as God leads me on.

The Words We Say

Our society has freedom of speech in the United States.  I believe we abuse this right because we go to the point of using it as an excuse to shut down others who do not agree with us or who ask us politely to stop talking with vulgarity or other unsavory words.  We must remember respect and love for others over the desire to simply blurt words.

I love the fact I can talk to people from around the world via the internet.  This leads to a wonderful mix of cultures and beliefs easily rolled together via a common cause or thing that pulls people together.  The internet is where you may easily share, but still be unknown at the same time.  So take all this cultural mixture and the lessening of fear of real repercussions and some offense is bound to happen.  Now a lot of it is based on ignorance, though that should not be an excuse; however, a lot of people will use this to get away with more offensive behavior.  It is not hard to figure out who simply slipped up and who wants to be the troll.  The troll wants a fight, not to back down to admitting a wrong by apologizing.  Thankfully I know more people who simply make a mistake and apologize than trolls in my online wanderings.

I know I slip up enough to know I still need to work on how I say things and when I say them.  I used to be pretty bad and in the camp that did not care what others thought.  Then again, that led to lots of anger management sessions and work probation.  So having this behind me, I’m an advocate for trying to be G-rated as much as possible when talking on the internet or anywhere.  I call people on it too, in a polite manner, knowing what problems it caused me.  I have been called a party pooper and other things for wanting people to keep things clean.  I know just the other day I called someone on it in the online gaming community I belong to for a nasty reference used in a character name.  They did not like being called out for it and that I would have to report it.  So I asked them, would you care to explain that to my eight-year-old niece that can read it?  She was not here, but I wanted to see what this guy would answer.  It made him back down on his idea of what was cool, but I have seen some people not even care that kids play games too and will be repeating these nasty things they see.

The words we say carry way more power than we realize. We cannot just run around saying what we want because we are not the only ones on earth.  The Bible tells us a great deal about the power of words.  Most of us know the difference from right and wrong, but sadly we tend to tilt towards wrong rather than right without having things in writing.  Even the gaming community I belong to has rules in place to help keep things family friendly and those rules fit well with what the Bible says.

Peter lays this out pretty good and he should be able to.  He said a great deal of right things, but he was the impetuous fellow Jesus also had to rebuke several times for what he blurted out.  Peter sounds like most of us and I can definitely relate.  He sums things up well in 1 Peter 3:9-13 (NIV):  Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.   For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.  He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.  For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."  Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?  I love this question.  

If you are saying good things, no one is going to call you on what you are saying.  If you know how to express disagreement in a courteous manner people will not harshly brush off your opinion.  Okay, they might brush you off, but it tends to be done more quietly.  Healthy, understanding discussion cannot occur by force, but it will occur by showing respect for the other person’s point of view.  Common sense tells us this, right?  The Golden Rule:  “Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.”

Now I want to take this a step further for those of us who are professing to be Christians.  Are we really talking like we should?  Are we making people around us realize what we have that they do not have; that thing that gives us hope where they see no hope?  Or are we going on and on about how this is wrong or gossiping about how so-and-so messed up?  I hope we are doing the former not the latter.  The latter makes me cringe and I have cringed at myself slipping into that negative side of things.  Before I accepted Christ, I easily blew off the Christians who gossiped and complained and never seemed happy.  Obviously, they had nothing better than what I had already.  Ouch!  Jesus is getting a bad reputation with the world when we go down this path instead of showing the truth.

We Christians have a direct line to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, our helper, is with us.  The world is not going to see this unless your words align with His and your faith appears alive and active to them.  In Matthew 17:20 (NIV) Jesus answers his disciples after they ask why they failed to expel a demon.  He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”  Is your faith showing hope and moving mountains or are you just another complainer wondering why the world is going to hell?  Rather blunt choices there, but if we are not speaking our faith, we cannot execute or show our faith in the world.

Now the Bible says God spoke everything into existence in Genesis chapter one.  If words have the power to create then they also have the power to destroy.  I have seen people torn apart by words and destroyed to the point of wishing they were dead.  I have also seen kind words brighten someone’s day and totally diffuse some of the worse fights.  Are you tearing down or building up with your words?  Are you working for your own ends at everyone else’s expense or are you trying to be a team member?

Our words come from what we think and what is truly in our hearts.  Mark 7:20-23 (NIV) says, He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.'  For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.  All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'"  No matter what we want people to think of us, in the end our mouth will always reveal what we truly believe.  Jesus makes this clear by saying, “The way to identify a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit that is produced.”  Matthew 7:20 (NLT)

It’s a Relationship, Not a Religion

In studying and praying about what I should write next here, I came to the conclusion some things I had already taken on faith.  I knew that I knew, but never tried writing it out before.  So after studying faith, grace, love and mercy further, I found that I could spend years on these topics alone.  Of course, the most important thing was where to start.  I decided to start with how we relate to God and how He wishes to relate to us.

Sure the Bible is full of rules God gave us for how to live, but the truth is we cannot follow them on our own power.  We need His help.  He is willing to help if we believe in Him and ask.  Without faith in who God is, we cannot even access what He has for us.

His love is unconditional in all this.  John 3:16 is well known by many, which states:  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (NIV)  He sent Jesus to be our example and the only way to Him, knowing we needed the help.  He did not want us with our free will to be lost to sin, but have a way to climb on out of the mire.  This demonstrates how unconditional His love is and is stated in Roman’s 5:8.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (NIV)

Why bother doing this other than for love?  He could have just as easily remedied this some other way.  He would have never had this issue if he had decided to make us automatically do His Will without question.  However, we were given free will in order to chose to believe Him or not.  We have free will so we have the choice of returning His love or not.  He wants us to respond to Him freely and as unconditionally as He has to us and will continue to when we call out to Him in faith.

His grace gives us what we do not deserve; what we cannot earn with our own power.  His mercy makes sure we do not get what we truly deserve for our sins.  So no matter what we have done or how bad we think we are, God has given us a way to connect with Him and His great love.  All we have to do is believe in Jesus, who He sent to show us the way and the truth.  God’s love towards us is about this reconciliation that He has made available.  2 Corinthians 5:19 says, that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  (NIV)

Jesus told His disciples they were friends, not just servants in John 15:13-15.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (NIV) God, through the power available in Jesus, wants us to know Him better and act more like Him, but will not force us to.  Sure, like any loving parent, He will definitely let us know when we are off track, but He does love us enough to let us step out and learn even if it means we make a mistake or two.

Being a Christian is not about going through the ritualistic motions correctly and being in church on Sunday.  It is about us having faith in God so we can access His love, grace and mercy as a friend.  Our faith allows us to learn who He really is and how to properly apply His amazing grace to life knowing He is there for every step, wrong or right.  It is a relationship that grows over time as we learn about Him and lean more upon Him.

The Bible is the Code

Even though I believed in my power to figure things out intellectually, there was always something deeper I could not understand.  It turned out to be spiritual.  But what was the way to satisfy and nurture this part of my being?

I tried several New Age ideas, as well as, oriental ones.  I wound up with a mish-mash of things, taking only the things I liked or proved to have some sort of power behind them.  Still, I remained unsatisfied because none of these lasted more than a few months before I moved on to something else.

I finally wound up with no idea what to do or where to go.  I still did not go running to the Bible at this point because life was at least good on a physical and mental level.  Emotionally it was not good, but despite how angry and disgruntled I felt, I did not feel off compared to my friends and acquaintances.

No, the Bible had made no sense before and I did not expect it to, ever.  But one night at mom’s when we stayed up really late talking; she said I should try reading the Gospels.  She even pulled out a Bible and handed it to me.  I actually did not feel offended or pushed into having to read it by her actions.  Good thing because I already had a huge dislike for Bible Thumpers.  I’ve learned over the years that I don’t always want to do what mom says, but most times she just suggests and lets us barrel our way through to prove her wrong or right.  I chuckle a lot now knowing she was usually right even if I still don’t always agree with her.

So now I had a Bible in my hands and I had no idea what she meant by the Gospels other than it had to be some of the books in the Bible.  That left me with the honest question of, “Which books are those?”  I remember only two weeks in vacation Bible school and two or three Sundays in church my first eighteen years.  I remembered some Bible stories that most seem to know if they heard anything about the Bible at all, but nothing much beyond that.

Mom replied, “The first four books of the New Testament.”

Okay, I understood that much.  “Any set order I should read them in?”  I’m the nerdy, studious type with anything I delve into and like to tackle it systematically.

“Just start at the beginning.”

So that’s what I did after a good night’s sleep.  This time it made far more sense to me and did not come across as some far-fetched story written to impress me into believing in Jesus.  There were plenty of examples of the right way to live along with all those miracles and things that I honestly was still not entirely sure of.  I already knew I was off base with my lifestyle and the way of Jesus proved it all the more.

This time around it made enough sense I wanted to go to church with Mom the next day.  Last time I stepped into a church on a Sunday I felt like I walked into some place where people went through the motions in hopes of something changing.  It felt like a different trapping trying to do the same thing I had done with New Age ritualistic ideas.  What was the worst that could happen if I walked into another church on a Sunday?  I jokingly told my mom that even if I had to sit through Sunday school too, that I doubted the building would fall in on us if I walked in with her.

Now here is how the Holy Spirit is awesome with how he sets a trap for you.  I mean that in the best way because God is awesome to the point of knowing exactly what will get your attention: when, how, and why.  What I read in Matthew and a good portion of Mark that struck me as good ideas was built upon by what the class had to study for this Sunday.  I was like, “Okay, this is proving most interesting.”  What blew things away was how the sermon added another building block.  No human force can take mom’s choice of what I should read in the Bible, what came out as the main points in a Sunday school class and a preacher’s sermon and line them up like the perfect laying of a foundation.  Only God can pull off such a feat, so by the time the pastor made an altar call at the end, I was a weeping mess.

Now it was grandma that got the honor of walking with me to the altar at her gentle encouraging.  During the service my mom had been doing duty as an usher, so she was not able to attend to me alone.  As the pastor walked me through the sinner’s prayer and my acceptance of Jesus as my savior, I could barely speak due to the emotions that made me cry pretty hard.  Then God made it feel even more remarkable by making me feel like power shot through my whole body and I was being pulled up even as I felt too weak to stand.  I still laugh remembering that when I finally could not take this moment with Him any longer, I begged to be allowed to go grab a Kleenex.  This blew the socks off any power I felt in any New Age ritual I had ever done.  Believe me there was power there, but God rules and He proved it to me that day.  The choice was made and I was hooked.

Ever since that day I’ve been an avid studier of the Bible knowing that each nugget I get out of it is truth that improves my relationship with Jesus.  That is what it is really about.  Without the ever growing relationship with Jesus, Christianity might as well be another set of man-made rituals that make us think we are getting somewhere that we really aren’t.  It is a long road, but well worth the goal at the end, eternity with Jesus.  I’m a work in progress, but God always completes what He starts.  So here I am still on that road ten years later and never wanting to stray from it, but learning when I do.

To me BIBLE stands for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.  I did not make this up myself, but when I heard it for the first time I latched on to the idea.  The Bible is truly our code for a life well lived while here on earth.  One that will lead to an eternity and a hope we can cling to as if we can already see, feel, smell, hear and taste already.  We only have it based on our faith, but it seems more tangible by the day.

I started this blog because I feel the desire to share what I have learned on my walk with Jesus.  I’m sure it will show where I didn’t get it right and maybe not getting it entirely right yet.  So take it from a work in progress, I think you will get something out of this whether you are ready to agree with me or not. All I ask is that you take the time to think about what I write and why it makes you feel the way you do before making any quick answers or judgments.