Are you like the man sharing with his mate who finds that he has nothing left to put in the offering plate once all the bills are paid?

His wise mate gave him an interesting response.  He said maybe the problem is that his budget was upside-down!   He needed to give the tithe first and then pay all his bills after that.

Sparrow-like faith

It seems to me that we need Sparrow-Like-faith as mentioned in Luke 12:7.   Faith that believes and understands that God will provide all our needs.  So it’s about getting things in the right order… and giving back to God what is already His must be our first priority.

• If Faith is taking action, then Sparrow Faith is trusting God to take care of our needs by putting Him first.  He cares for the sparrow, how much more will He care for you?
• This Faith is confident that God actually does own everything, and we are only stewards.

If you are having trouble finding the tithe in your budget, then can I challenge you to put God at the top of your budget?

Turn your budget upside-down and then prioritise all other spending under this.  Pray about it, commit it to God and see what He does in your life.  See how He will provide.

What is tithing?

Now we have our tithe at the top of our budget, let’s deal with that age-old question “should we give the tithe from our gross income or our net income?”

If we truly understand who God is, then this is really the wrong question.  God is the owner and provider, we are the stewards – so 100% of it is already His… He’s just asking us for 10% for our benefit – not His.

• Just to be clear, a tithe actually means one-tenth… or in other words 10%.  You can’t tithe 5% – that’s not tithing.
• Therefore it is my belief that we should be giving 10% of our gross income.
• Maybe you think that tithing is from the law and not something Jesus spoke about. Didn’t’ he come to set up free from the law and from tithing.  In Luke 11:42 Jesus does clearly confirms tithing  –  don’t believe me, then check it out for yourself

If you are like me, one day I want Jesus to welcome me into heaven saying “well done good and faithful servant”… this means we really do need to get our finances in order and become the good stewards God wants us to be – this includes tithing.

So if you’re not tithing, can I challenge you to take a step in faith?

Be assured… God is trustworthy, and faithful, and merciful, and kind, our heavenly father AND the generous provider of all things.

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