God Blesses You When You Tithe - Tuesday

Tithing is giving the first part of your income (traditionally 10 percent) back to God to honor him. So if you make ten dollars, you'd give one dollar back to God.

Does God need your money? Of course not. He owns it all anyway. But he wants what it represents - your heart.

Let's take a closer look at today's verse. "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house." What's a storehouse? It's wherever you worship. Your act of giving is an act of worship in the house of worship.

Did you know that in the Bible, this is the only place that says you can prove there is a God? God says, "Try tithing and see if I don't exist. We'll play a little game. You give to me and I'll give to you and we'll see who wins."

I've been playing this game with God for 35 years and every year I lose. When Kay and I got married, we decided we would tithe the first 10 percent of everything we made. We even decided that if we were in debt, God would still get paid before anyone else. And I will tell you, sometimes it was scary. Sometimes I was out of work and I didn't know where the money was going to come from, but God provided.

Trust God and see if he doesn't "pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."

I feel like this devo really focuses on giving your all to God, or in a more practical matter, giving all that you can to Him. Although it is good to give back to God, you must do this with a humble mindset and a loving, caring, and giving heart. For example, if you are giving part of your income or giving anything for that matter to God because you are wanting Him to return the favor later on, you are in the wrong. God doesn't want your money or valuables, it is the loving heart that you have while giving to Him that He truly looks at and loves. Whatever we give to Him, we should always remember and keep in mind that this is the little that we can give back to Him for everything He has done for us and what He will continue to do for us.
Another thing to keep in mind is that God does receive our "gifts" in gratitude when we give to Him from our heart and not out of force or regret, but it is not a requirement in order for him to bless you with all of His wonders. It is not mandatory to give Him our income, and since all of us or the majority of us are yet to have jobs and make income, in our case it is not mandatory to give him our so called gifts to Him. He doesn't expect us to give Him our gifts, our love and obedience to His word is enough for Him. I feel that although it is good to give Him what we have by giving him offering or other gifts, we shouldn't get caught up in the thought of having to give him a physical gift in order for us to be better Christians or make us feel like better Christians because we give our thanks through gifts. Overall, when you give, be humble, and give with thanks for everything that God has done.
        

Wether you don't have much or you have a lot, the amount doesn't matter...he wants it from the heart.
There are two examples that come immediately to my head:
Cain and Abel
I don't know if there is an exact name to the other story, but its the one that really got me thinking.
Its when Jesus is with his diciples at the church and some of the rich give a reasonably great amount of money, and the poor woman who gave little of what she had. Jesus told his diciples that God is more pleased by this woman.
So with all you have, give it back to God. Even if you think its not much, give with a full heart.
God accepts those offerings and blesses those who do.

I want to share a quick story with you guys.
As I was in the car today, I turned the radio to 98.1CHFI and they were doing that "Big Bag of Cash" thing where a caller will start with bag 1 and either choose to take the money inside or move on to the next bag and hope the next bag is the "bust bag" (where you loose all the money). You can win up to $10,000
So anyways, this calm man was today's contestant and he was a bag 5 (which holded around 3 thousand dollars) and said he did research that 80% of people fail on bag 6 but he said he had to advance to the next bag and get up to $5,000. The radio host asked if he needs the money for something. The man explained that he is donating all of the money to the CBM (the Christian Blind Ministry) which gives treatments to the blind. It only costs $40-$60(That's what I remember) to help a person. So anyways, the next bag opened and it was exactly $5,000! The radio host said that he can advance to the next bag if he wanted to but the man said that he has reached his goal and will not risk it and get too selfish.
So he won that money and just for fun, we opened up the next bag to see wether he could've gotten more money...the next bag was surprisingly "bust".

Alright, good night guys! ;D
~Audrey~

Ohh this message is yelling at my greedy side... I can be generous when it comes to time but I'm usuay greedier with money. So I could gladly spend hours helping or making a gift for a friend but if I gave 20 bucks to that same friend I might count the days until s/he gives it back. Then when it comes to giving to GOD... I am very greedy. At least with friends you can get immediate gratification and a reaction to what you gave them. When you give to God it just feels like you out your precious money into an inanimate box. God blesses us at a later time, when we dknt expect it. Hes already blessed us with so much even before we give anything to him. Its like this really annoying thing that my dad says whenever he promised to do something but doesn't; "delaying of gratification". I think its really cool that God challenges us to try and see who gives more in our relationship with God through tithing and counting our blessings. On a side note that no one is probably going to read, who writes these devo messages? Cuz Sam is single and Pastor Dan is married to Rebecca... Idk a man married to Kay

Whenever I get some Birthday or Christmas money, I always feel selfish and hesitant to give tithe although my parents make it clear that it should not be an option. I'm reminded of what my parents tell me each time my selfishness clouds my judgement. God gives us so many blessings that would be impossible to count, even things as taken for granted as a loving family and shelter. These blessings are not deserved by us, rather God gives us blessings because of his love and mercy. When acknowledging how much God has sacrificed and has done for us, giving just 10% seems so insignificant to the magnitude of the blessings we receive from Him. In comparison, 100% of our blessings are because God gave them to us out of His endless love.

I'm guilty of being selfish when it comes to tithing.
I never liked the idea of tithing in general, partially because I wanted to keep the money I had, but also because I thought that if we say that we have given our lives to God, then shouldn't 100% of our money be God's? And if so, are we to give all of our money away or keep it and manage it as God wills us to?
While thinking about these questions, I eventually trailed off into not tithing at all. However I think I missed the whole point of tithing. Tithing isn't to transfer money from ourselves to a figure that represents God, nor is it to receive blessings in return for our tithe.
It's about giving and wanting to give to God from our hearts.
But I was so concerned with that 10%, that I forgot the reason why we tithe in the first place, which is to give gratitude to God, and have faith that the money you give back will be used for good according to His will.
I think a lot of the time we can become focused more on the specifics than the real meaning of what we do, so it's important to keep our hearts and minds and souls focused on God instead, and the rest becomes much clearer.

PS: @Jessie I think its a guy named Rick Warren lol

i know for a fact that we are all guiilty of being selfish. Its natural habit for us to be selfish because first off, it is money and in this world and economy money can get most things on earth. Some people give $1 in their offerings, others put $5, and others even put $50. But its not the amount you give, but its about how you give. I remember someone saying to give until it hurts and i totally agree with that. I know that its really hard and in the near future when were all grown up and have a job, we should put in a % of our income and just have full faith in God that he will provide for us.

For me personally, I don't have money to myself that I can spend at will, because I don't receive allowance money or such, but I think I can still tie this in with giving God my 110% in everything I do. I feel that sometimes we get lazy as people to do our best work, and to give it our all in everything we do, and it can sometimes happen when we do it for God. God deserves our best and nothing less, and everything that we do in our daily lives should work to glorify Him. You can't expect your relationship with God to move on if you're only putting in your effort half-heartedly into things you do for God. For example, it could be through the praise team (not practicing to your best extent), daily devotionals, quiet time, etc.
Furthermore, if we put in our best, we'll see that God adds on to our effort in a way. Such as in the example of offering, we may not see much gain in tithing since some of us may have a perspective that we're "losing" something, however, God sees the effort we're putting in to an offering through sacrifice and will bless us by it. He adds on to our character of sacrifice and making a step forward for God by contributing to the church by blessing us. Most likely, what God blesses us with will be infinitely greater than the amount/value of offering money we gave.
Through whatever we may do, we have to keep in mind that's it's for God and His glory. Through this mindset we should strive to do everything with all our hearts, and to our best effort, knowing that God deserves nothing less than our very best.
Work hard for the Lord.

23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,
24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
(Colossians 3:23-24 NIV)