Faith-bearing Seed for the Soul
"While the earth remaineth,
Seedtime and harvest
....shall not cease"

Genesis 8:22

Finances So Tight You Can't Breathe?

Open the "Windows"!

Are you in a situation where you feel like the Lord is asking a very difficult thing of you? It might not even be something really great, yet you feel like you just can't do it? Perhaps it has to do with  finances.

I'm reminded of the Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well.  He asked for a simple drink of water for He was tired and weary.  Then Jesus told her that if she knew WHO He was, she'd be  asking Him for water. She wasn't thinking in the Spiritual realm, and immediately looked in the natural and commented that He didn't even have a bucket or rope with which to draw. As you know, the conversation progressed until the woman recognized the Lord as her Messiah. An interesting thing in this account is that Jesus never did get His drink of water, did he? Sometimes Jesus asks us for things that He full well knows that He may never get. But, He knows that WE WILL PROSPER from His asking.

There is a time in our lives that we may be learning to be abased, and times when we will learn to abound. I'm convinced that if we are in the process of learning to be abased, there is NOTHING we can do to change that, especially when we have made Him Lord of ALL. (Phil. 4:12) However, there are times that we suffer from our own doing...a lack of knowledge, sin, rebellion, etc.

One time when we weren't going to have money enough to eat on after tithing, I asked the Lord if I HAD TO pay our tithes (10% of our income for the week). It was such a small amount that I didn't see how that pittance could hurt Him if we didn't give it and bought food with the money instead. Sort of like the woman at the well, the Lord and I had a discussion about why He asks us to tithe. I felt He told me that, no, He doesn't NEED our tithes, the world and all that is in it is His. He doesn't WANT our sacrifices. So, why doesHe ask us to do it?

I expressed my thoughts to Him that I didn't like what I saw my tithe being used for in the church...fat salaries for the pastor and his sons and daughters who were all on staff, housing allowances, and not just a normal home, but a 1.5 million dollar home out over the ocean. Why would God want ME to give my few dollars to THEM? He showed me why! By the way, I'm not speaking about my present church...0:)

The Lord asks me to give my 10% because, if I was not willing to give Him 10%, how would I ever give Him my ALL? And just like at the well, Jesus may never get it, the tithe that I give may never be used the way I would like to see it used in the Kingdom of God...but He asks me for it for MY benefit, not His. In fact, when we look at it in the natural realm, we can find all sorts of reasons why we don't, or shouldn't give, but in the Spiritual, we grow spiritually when we obey His commandments because we love Him and don't question the reasons why, and when we trust Him in what He has commanded us to do, we are blessed. Remember that God's ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are greater than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)

Malachi 3:10-11 (emphasis mine)

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so that there will be food enough in my Temple; if you do, I will open up the windows of heaven for you and pour out a blessing so great you won't have room enough to take it in! "Try it! Let me prove it to you!..." says the Lord of Hosts.

In this Old Testament chapter He has also said that when we don't tithe we are robbing God. Robbing Him of money that He doesn't want or need? I think not! But we rob Him of a closer relationship with us because we are unwilling to be obedient in giving up something that has become more dear to us than He is, and we both lose. When we don't tithe we are robbing OURSELVES! For if we are unwilling to give that small amount, we will never surrender ourselves completely, for He says, to gain our lives, we must lose them. And He asks, what will we profit if we gain the whole world and lose our soul? (Matt. 16:24-26)

I believe we have missed it when we think that the meat or food that will be in "His Temple" is referring to a building. His "temple" is us...He dwells in us, and when we are willing to obey this command, it is WE, you and I, that are going to not only be filled with enough, but will have an abundance. And so what if Jesus never sees one cent of what we give? That's not our concern. That is between Himself and those we give it to. Our concern is that we be obedient and give so that He can pour out a blessing upon us, just like He did with the woman at the well when He blessed her with a personal relationship with Himself, even though He never did get His drink of water.

Hosea 6:6 (emphasis mine)

I don't want our sacrifices, I want your love: I don't want your  offerings-- I want you to know Me.

Se'lah...let's just stop and think about this for a moment!

Planted and rooted in Christ Jesus,

Marlene

P.S. I'm not even going to apologize for the length of this seed because I think every sentence was needed and some need to hear this thought. But, know that normally I try to keep them shorter.

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

COLOSSIANS 2:6-9

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