Tithing and Giving

God has set forth very specific directives about what He expects us to give back to Him. Malachi 3:8-12 clearly teaches that we are to give Him a tithe, which is ten percent (the word tithe is based on the number ten in Hebrew).

Offerings were gifts, often of material goods, given above and beyond the tithe. People normally made offerings for specific reasons – to meet a special need, for example, or thanksgiving for a special blessing. The children of Israel gave such a generous offering at the time they built the tabernacle that Moses actually had to tell them to stop giving (see Ex. 35:4-36:7)!

The tithe is given to God from our increase and for our increase. It is the way we open the door of our finances to give and then to receive God’s blessing. When we give the first tenth of our earnings back to God, we return to Him what was His in the first place, and what He asks us to give to Him so that He might give us even more.

The Lord is very specific in the way we are to give our tithes and offerings.

First, we are to bring them into His storehouse. Generally, that meant His tabernacle or temple in the Old Testament and the church in the New Testament. We are to give our tithes wherever we regularly worship the Lord – not to a mere charitable work, but to a work that bears the Lord’s name.

Second, we are to give our gifts regularly. Paul advised the Corinthians, “on the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come” (1 Cor. 16:2).

Third, we are to make our gifts joyfully. People who give grudgingly, solely from a sense of duty, do not fully open up their lives to God’s prosperity (see 2 Cor. 9:7-8). The joy in our hearts about giving is a direct expression of our trust in God to meet our needs.

Taken from The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible