Keeping with my tradition of searching for truth in the scriptures I have to visit a most often quoted and in my opinion abused scripture. Malachi 3 is used to beat people into tithing money to a church or an organization. It has been used to bully people and guilt people into handing over 10% of their income to the church. I am not going to teach on the tithe and how we should support our churches today in this blog entry but to just hint that God was not talking about money here.
Let's go back and set a foundation. God created everything. We know the Earth is the Lords and it is also his footstool. We know he is the same yesterday, today and always. God in the creation week looked and saw everything was good except one thing. He said it is not good for man to be alone! Spiritually we know it is not good to be alone. God knows this very thing and has created mechanisms to bring his people together to celebrate with each other the fullness of who He is.
The tithe was a celebration and a feast all together. It was a way God provided for the sons of Aaron but also to draw close and gather the people he called his own together to celebrate and worship! Today we miss that part. We have made it all about money. Will a man rob God? Right before that the Lord charges that he never changes and that his people have constantly failed to obey his commands, laws and decrees. They had moved from this celebration to "religion" or a phariseeical approach to giving.
When we do the letter of the law without the spirit of the law we Rob God! We rob ourselves too! Those that fear the Lord talk with one another, pray with one another and celebrate the God that is inside each other with love. Remember Paul taught on this another way by comparing our corporate spiritual organization as a body? Pauls inspired of the Holy Spirit reiterates that it is not good for man to be alone and that we have need of one another. We have need for fellowship and need of encouragement and prayer. When we try God and not do what he has commanded and then complain we rob God of His Testimony on the earth as we are the current representation of Christ alive on earth today. How many have something the world would buy? Even have interest in?
Its not about money! Its about obedience to the decrees and laws of God in the spirit they were and still are meant to be followed today. When we disobey God we Rob him. And its not about the 10% you may or may not feel compelled to put in the plate. Its not about how many books you read or how many home groups or seminars you attend. It is letting Yeshua Jesus Christ be the focal point of who you are and what you do and what your world view is. It is all about him and zero about you. When we serve him with wreckless abandon and foresake all others we then become the bride of Christ and no longer the flirting woman who changes with every season. I encourage you today to re-think on how much we have robbed God and to come to Him in a pleasing manner.
In His Service and Under His Mercy!
Brian Winograd
