Reflections

“‘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.  I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,’ says the LORD Almighty.” Malachi 3:10-12

In the book of Genesis we are told about the story of Adam and Eve.  God gave Adam dominion over the earth and could eat of any tree in the Garden of Eden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  God said they were not to eat from this tree or they would surely die.  They could eat from every other tree but not this one.

God tells us in Malachi to bring Him the whole tithe which is 10%, this belongs to God and the other 90% we can keep.  But just like Adam and Eve we want to take that which God said not to touch.  Adam and Eve believed the lie of the devil, instead of God’s truth, ate of the tree and lost their eternal life.  They chose to take from the one tree God said not to touch.  Many of us take from the tithe and keep it from ourselves and in verse 8 of Malachi we are told that we actually rob God when we do not bring Him the whole tithe.

It isn’t that God is trying to keep something from us but He is actually seeing where our heart is.  He could simply take 10% or could have just not put the tree in the middle of the Garden to prevent Adam and Eve from eating from it.  God wants to know that we will trust and believe Him and not the lies of the devil.  God even said that if we bring the whole tithe we will have more than enough.  The lie is that if we tithe then we will not have enough to take care of our bills.  Without faith it is impossible to please God and God wants us to trust and believe what He says.  By bringing God the tithe we are saying to Him that we trust that He will take care of us and supply all our needs.  Keeping the tithe tells God that we do not trust Him and we actually believe the lies of the devil.

God wants to bless us and for us to prosper, one of the keys to this is giving God what belongs to Him and in return He will give us more than we deserve and can even contain.  He is more than enough.