Tithes and Offerings

By Hayley Boud

Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me.
But you say, ‘where have we robbed You?'
In tithes and offerings
Malachi 3:8


When I read this verse I was surprised at the wording. “Rob from God”. Is that even possible? How can we steal from God since He sees everything. If Michelle is watching me, I won’t steal from her, ‘cos she is watching. She will catch me. So how can we steal from God while He is watching? Because we forget that He is watching us.

Usually we spend our time forgetting about God all together. How many times a day do you think about God? I often only think about Him when I need something or when things are going wrong. I might remember Him when I’m driving and it looks like I’m gonna be late, “oh God, help me to get there on time”. And when I arrive late, I might forget to say thank you for getting me there safely, instead I complain that I arrived late.

Because we forget God is watching, we can easily fall into sin. We won’t sin if we remember God is watching. We won’t fall into the temptation if we remember God is right there with us, looking at us. Most of the time, temptations are a good way for God to test us, to see how we will react. When we remember that it’s a test and God is watching, this can help us not to fall into the temptation.

Next time someone offends you and you feel like getting angry, remember it’s a test from God. Next time you feel like giving up, remember it’s a test from God. Next time someone disappoints you, it’s a test from God. Next time you feel like complaining, or you feel impatient, or you feel discouraged, remember it’s a test from God, and don’t fall into that trap. Don’t complain, don’t judge, don’t talk rudely or react badly, don’t become angry, don’t eat too much or sleep too much or watch too much tv. Remember, God is watching everything we are doing and when we remember that, we won’t sin.

The second reason why I thought it is impossible to steal from God is because I wondered, who would have the courage to steal from someone who can kill you and not only kill you physically but He is the one who decides if you go to heaven or hell. I wouldn’t steal from the mafia? Would you? I would be too scared to steal from the Mongrel Mob or Black Power but yet some of us aren’t scared to steal from GOD!

The reason why we can easily steal from God is because we forget that He is God. He is the one who created you and He is the one who can do what He likes with you. It’s best to keep in His good books. I wouldn’t make enemies with powerful people. How much more powerful is God than any human? If we remembered how powerful He is, we might stop ourselves before we sin.

Because we forget God is watching and we forget how powerful He is, this is how we steal from Him. We steal in our tithes and offerings. What are does tithes mean?

Tithe means 10%. God has given us 100% and when we became Christians we decided to give Him our lives 100% but because God knew it’s not possible to give 100%, He asks us to give 10%. That is pretty good of Him. Only one tenth. If I were God I would probably ask for at least half of everything. We could share 50:50. But God says to only give Him 10%.

So when we receive our salary, or any money for that matter, we must remember to put aside 10% for God straight away. We must know that 10% doesn’t belong to us, it’s not ours. We sometimes think that is not fair ‘cos we worked for it, but it is a sign that we are giving to God to show Him how grateful we are for what He has given us. He gave us that money in the first place and now we give back only 10% to show Him how grateful we are. It’s a way of telling God that we appreciate Him for giving us the job, the talent, the intelligence, the education etc that enabled us to earn the money. Many people don’t have the chance to work and in many countries people don’t get money at all, so we have to remember that and not forget where the money came from.

Some people believe tithes is an Old Testament message and not for us today. Many try to say we no longer live in the Old Testament but this is not true because God is the beginning and the end, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. We must know that tithe still exists today. Hebrews 7:5,8-10, even those who receive the tithes must pay tithes and we know that Melchizedek didn’t have a mother or a father and we know that He is the living God, the God without generation; meaning that tithing also doesn’t have a generation, it means that it didn’t just belong to the generation in the past but carries on today. Also, Jesus said that He didn’t come to destroy the law but to fulfil it (Mathew 5:17)

We must not only give 10% of our money, we must give 10% of everything that we have. Lev 27:30 talks about the produce of the earth and we know that we are the product of God taking dirt from the earth and creating human beings. Therefore, we must give 10% of our body which is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The fruit is also mentioned in here meaning we must give 10% of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22). If we have been given the fruit of joy, then give 10% of your joy to others. If we have love, then give 10% of love to others.

If you have a voice, then give 10% of that voice to God. We can use our voices to sing praises to God, to pray to God, and to share the Word of God with others. When you have physical rest, do you have 10% spiritual rest?

Often we say, “God I give my life to you completely” but do we really give 100% of our lives to God because if we are not able to give 10%, how can we give our whole life? It’s very difficult to give 100% because we need to sleep, we need to work, we need money for ourselves. I’m pretty sure we couldn’t give God 100% ‘cos we would never eat, we’d just keep giving the food away. We would eventually die.

During our 24 hours per day, we must know that 2.4 hours doesn’t belong to us. We must give that time to God and find a way to do it, whether it is reading the Word of God, going to church, going to Bible Study, praying, worshipping, sharing the Bible with others. We must find a way to spend 2 and a half hours every day for God. If we don’t, we are stealing from God. Do we really want to steal from God?!

One very practical way to make sure we give God His 10% is to keep a journal and write down every day what you did for God. If you find you are not giving 2.4 hours then find a way. Write down in your journal how you will manage it. Sunday and Wednesdays are covered with church and bible study. What about Monday? Perhaps you could write down, ½ hour for prayer in the morning, ½ hour bible study at night, ½ hour talking with my work colleagues about God, ½ hour reading a bible story to my children before bed, ½ hour singing to God. This is just a suggestion but if we write down how we will use our time for God, then we will be sure to do it.

What is offering?

This is different to tithes. This is what we decide in our hearts we would like to give to God. This is to offer something to God which is above the 10%. We don’t have the right to divide our tithes in two and then say a portion of the tithe is offering. That is to mock God. He knows how much our tithe is. He can count better than you and me.

Give your tithe and then decide from your heart how much of your time and money and everything else you have, would you like to offer to God.

Mal 1:8, when you offer something to God and you have sin in you, know that it is a lame and sick offering and God will never be pleased with it. Therefore, remember Mat 5:23-24 and if there is a problem make sure to fix it before giving your offering. If you want to pray for someone, that will be a lame prayer if you have sin in you or you have problems with others. Fix the problem first and then give your offering.

A good question many have is, “where to give my tithes and offerings?” This is between you and God but if you don’t have a strong conviction where to give the money, then give it to your church because they will use it to help the poor, the orphan, the widower, and for programs that spread the gospel. Sometimes God might tell us where to take the tithing and when He does, we just obey and we must not judge others. If I see the tithe bag being passed around and Hayley isn’t putting money in, we must be careful not to judge. We don’t know where God told Hayley to take her tithe.

So in conclusion, tithes and offerings are still for today and we must take them seriously because we are dealing with the One who can destroy our soul. Make sure to give to God what belongs to Him so He won’t accuse you of stealing from Him. This would be a very grave accusation on judgement day because the Word of God says that thieves will not enter the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

Tithes and Offerings (part II)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only)

Lev 27:30

The fruit mentioned here is the fruit of Spirit which is in Gal 5:22 which is also a part of the tithe. Someone asked a question about the tithe in the New Testament, I found something in the book of Luke 18:12, we can find that the Pharisees and Sadducees in the new testament knew about fasting and tithing. So why did they talk about it in the New Testament? It means that the foundation that God has laid can never be moved by people. People try to interpret things to change the meaning but God’s word will never change. Many people try to say we no longer live in the Old Testament but this is not true because God is the beginning and the end, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He said that everything can pass away but His Word will not. When the Pharisees asked Jesus questions they always referred to Moses’ law to show Jesus that what He was doing was different from law of Moses. Jesus wanted to show them that I am the Lord and I prefer spiritual things over physical things, but they couldn’t grasp that.

You must know that the tithe still exists today. Heb 7:5,8,9 those Levites who were working for God would get 10% from the other people. The Bible says that the Levites were men and they would die which is different from Melchizedek. We know that Melchizedek didn’t have a mother or father, He is the living God, He the one who met Abraham for the first time in Genesis. The God without generation, meaning that tithing also doesn’t have a generation, it means that it didn’t just belong to the generation that is past but it still carries on.

We are going to read the last point in Matt 23:19,23, in v23 Jesus was threatening the Pharisees. They would tithe and the Bible says that these tithes were like thyme and all the plants. I tried to analyse all those herbs and found that they are useful for cooking, they smell nice, they are attractive and just looking at the leaves we can see something of the old world, it means that when you come with your tithe before God it is something precious for God. When the world saw what they gave to God it pleased everybody but God wasn’t pleased with it because in everything they did they forgot the law. Although they were giving they didn’t care about God’s Word, they didn’t care about justice. Justice means to live with a good mind. They were also not kind and faithful.

When we tithe there must be those 3 things, justice, kindness and faithfulness. If you don’t live in justice and you offer God millions it doesn’t make sense. If you are not kind and you give money to God, God cannot see anything special in it. God cares more about the spiritual than the physical. However, I am not telling you not to give physically. That’s why Jesus said you give and that’s good but you lack something- justice, kindness and faithfulness.


Jesus said in v19 that they were blind. How do you understand that the offering has more worth than the altar because without the altar we cannot offer. It is the same thing with us Christians, without the spiritual foundation we cannot do anything that pleases God.

We must give 10% of everything that God has given us. So you can give 10% your voice because God gave you a voice. For example, from morning to night, do you give 10% to God when you sing, do you share the Word of God 10% of your time with others, when you think is 10% of it about God or not? When you sleep or have a rest do you have 10% of your spiritual rest in God? When you have physical peace do you have 10% of spiritual peace?

Often we say, “God I give my life to you completely” but do we really give 10% of our lives to God because if we cannot give 10%, how can we give our whole life? We might be found liars before God and that would be sin. We say before man that I have given my life to God but when others look at us, we don’t prove it.

One day has 24hrs, you have planned for your day, you sleep for 8 hrs, you study for 6 hrs, you go and visit your friends and so on. You have a whole plan, but during your 24hrs you must know that 2.4 hours don’t belong to you. Do you pray, sing and give glory to God during that time? If you don’t do it, you must know that you are stealing from God and you are a theif. There is no difference between you and someone who robs a bank.

Mal 3, “you steal my share” doesn’t only mean money, we steal many other things from God. For instance when you take care of your body, you wear make-up to go somewhere, but God is watching and He says I gave you this body, I gave you also the money to buy your cosmetics, so where is My share for the spiritual beauty? You will see that people forget completely about God’s share. When we eat and drink we must know where is God’s share because in the end God will say I was hungry but you didn’t give me any food to eat.

This issue of 10% will make many Christians not earn what they should have deserved, we will be found as thieves. Although they will say to God, no I haven’t stolen, God will call them thieves and they won’t inherit God’s kingdom.

When you eat you must know that some people don’t eat and you must know how you can help them and give them something to eat. They don’t ask you for 90% of your food but only 10%. Sometimes we have food that we can’t eat and sometimes we can even throw food away. How can we throw away food knowing that others suffer? This is the physical, what about the spiritual? We always share God’s Word here at church, we always eat God’s Word, but in everything you have learnt here, have you shared 10% with others? It means that we are sometimes selfish and if we are selfish we neglect and selfish people will not inherit the kingdom of God, that’s how important it is.

SUMMARY

- We have to give God 10% of everything He has given us (time, money, thoughts, our voices...)
- Tithes and Offerings is important for today
- We must have justice, kindness and faithfulness for our tithes to be acceptable to God
- God cares more about spiritual things than physical things
- Whatever spiritually your receive from God give 10% to others (share Word of God)
- If you don't give 10% you are stealing and thieves will not enter the Kingdom of God

For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com

OFFERINGS & TITHES (part I)

By Odon Bulamba (summary only 8th Sept, 00)

When we talk about offerings it means that we give something without having it back. It means that you give and then you completely forget about it. You put aside any ideas that you will get something back. This is very different from bargaining or trading or when you buy something with money. Giving an offering is not for investing. You also should not give to someone to please them so that they can be grateful.

The tithe is about taking from what you have and sacrificing it. You give it completely and then forget and you remember that what you have given does not belong to you anymore. When you earn your salary you know that you have made the effort to work, however you know that 10% is not yours. You might ask yourself, why does 10% not belong to me? I worked for it. That 10% doesn’t belong to you because it is an offering of thanksgiving and gratefulness.

A tithe means to offer to God because I am grateful for what God has given me. Let’s take an example; Michael who is a dentist. Where did he find the experience that he has? You might think that it was at university, someone else might think that it is because he has worked for 5 or 10 yrs. But before learning his job he needed to have the capacity to think and before being a dentist Michael had to come to life. We will find that the source of everything is God himself, because it is God who gives him life, wisdom, experience etc. Now God asks for 10% of all of this and He lets us have 90%.

Another example: Sylvie has a piece of bread and she gives this bread to Nathanael and afterwards she asks Nathanael to give her a piece of bread. Some children will say no, especially those who are between ages 1 – 4. They’ll say, “no I don’t want to give you” forgetting that just 5 minutes ago they had been given some bread. This is the same thing between God and us.

When God gives to us we forget to give back to Him what He asks us. Lev 27:30, here God says, you must consecrate something to Me, He doesn’t ask for 20%, if you want to give 20% you can but He doesn’t ask you to. You must know that the 10% you give to God is His. If you think that 10% is not enough for God, you can say, I can add some more to that.

As we know the 10% is not only about money, in Lev 27:30 it’s talking about the fruit of the trees and the produce of the earth. God produced something from the earth (dirt) which is our body. The Bible says that God took some mud and put life into it. This means that the body that I have is just something from the ground, so that must be a share for God. That’s what is written in 1 Cor, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, meaning it is something that is kept for God.

SUMMARY

- Offer without expecting anything in return
- Give 10% of everything (not only money)

For the full message please email: littlebethlehem@windowslive.com