Tithing to God

In my last post, I talked about giving to God, specifically, giving a tithe to the Church.

Tithing can be a challenging idea for many of us. As I’ve stated in a previous post, I know that many have endured financial hardship and strain lately. It simply may not be possible for you to begin giving 10 percent to God right away.

But I encourage you to take a step in that direction. Perhaps you can give 2 percent or 5 percent or 7 percent. God understands where you are, and God will help you make the adjustments necessary for you to become more and more generous.

Jesus saw a widow who gave her last two copper coins, and he said, “This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (Mark 12:43-44). The Lord understands your situation and is pleased when you give freely with a grateful heart. The Lord also is ready to help you make the changes in your lifestyle that will enable you to tithe.

We who are blessed with more than enough money to meet our needs should consider how we can give beyond the tithe to organizations that do God’s work and change the world. When we do, we begin to understand what Jesus meant when he said, “To whom much is given, much will be required” (Luke 12:48). We truly enjoy having money that is designated for giving; it is a source of great joy to us.

Our tithes and offerings are a tangible sign of our desire to live wholly for God. They are an expression of gratitude, worship, and praise. They demonstrate that we put God first in our lives. They are an investment in God’s work through the church. And, without a doubt, they please God.

(adapted from Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity)

Four Spiritual Action Steps  

     Determine what % of your gross income you currently give God.
     Find a way to increase that percentage.  Discuss this with your family.
     As you do, note your feelings, thoughts and attitudes.  What do you notice?
     Read 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, 9:6-15

As you do each of the above, the Lord will be revealing things to you about Himself and yourself!.  What are you discovering?

But I Don't Have Anything Left to Give

November 2, 2012          

         

   “Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they  
   can go  . . . and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here." ¹³ He
   replied, "You give them something to eat."    Luke 9:12-13

          Frankly sometimes I just don’t feel like serving others.

          The disciples didn’t feel like it all the time either.   Who knows, maybe Jesus in
          his humanity, didn’t always feel like it either.   

In the feeding of the five thousand narrative, the disciples were tired, but Jesus, always the great coach, refused to let them off the hook.   So they did it.   They found some food, approached Jesus, and as they served, Jesus multiplied their resources.  

This is exactly how it works.  Jesus replenishes depleted resources.    When I take action for God I gain energy and discover resources I wasn’t aware of.    When I avoid serving God I lose energy and never mine the resources available. 

Of course this depends on heeding Jesus’ call, not the call of codependency, and this requires discernment.   It also requires daily time with Jesus in prayer and bible reading and weekly worship.  

Yet the call is consistent throughout scripture.   We are our brother’s Keeper.

 

“Lord, help me to say yes to you a whole lot more than I say yes to myself.   Amen”

My Sin and God's Holiness
November 1, 2012    

“¹ One day  . .  Jesus  . . . said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." ⁵ Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." ⁶ When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break . . . . When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" ⁹ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken . . .  . Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men.""   Luke 5:1-11 (NIV)

         Why did Peter ask Jesus to go away?  Why didn’t he try to hire Jesus?  
               With that catch of fish another person would have been seeing dollar signs!

At that moment Peter experienced something that I think every Christian must experience at some point in their life with Jesus.  Peter saw his smallness, his sinfulness, his unworthiness.   He saw himself in contrast to God in Jesus Christ.

Have you ever had some version of this experience?    You see yourself as you are and it’s not pretty.    You see God as he is, as Holy and before Whom none can stand.   But then you experience the shock that you are loved, forgiven, accepted and chosen anyway.    And it’s overwhelming, perhaps to the point of tears.    In this experience lies the power of God.   If any of these three experiences are missing  (God’s holiness, your sin, and God’s love of anyway) ask God for them.   The Christian Life  is not just incomplete without all three, it is impossible. 

“Lord, Help me to see myself as I am, You as You are, and then, dare I ask it, that you clothe me with the Grace of undeserved love.   Amen”

How Your Life Must Also Be Your Mission
October 31, 2012 
            

        “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news    of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness . . . Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."     Matthew 9:35-38  

 

Janitors or cafeteria workers employed by Wycliffe Bible Translators in Orlando, when asked what they do for a living, answer “we translate the Bible”.    

Similarly I think you and I, when asked what we do for a living, should be able to say to ourselves, “I seek to connect others to Jesus”.    I can do this as a carpenter, parent, coach, secretary, scientist, or business person.   You and I can do this by simply having eyes for people.   We can notice the others in our environment.   We can care.   We can initiate interactions and when spoken to we can listen, really listen.  And we can pray. 

Once, when Jesus was touched, he felt power go out of him.   We I care about another, listen, and pray, the power of God that resides within me goes out to the other and begins it’s transforming work . . . .simply because you connected, you became a conductor of God’s healing Spirit.    This very simple action is powerful but rare.  

This week do with a few what is rare.   Seek to care, listen to, and pray for the others God puts in your path. 

“Care, Listen, and pray” Lord lead me beyond myself this week to exactly that.   Amen”

Giving to God

 



From the early days of the Old Testament, God’s people observed the practice of giving some portion of the best of what they had to God. In the beginning, the practice was to burn these offerings completely, saving no portion of the offering for food for themselves or others. This was a way of saying, “God, I give this to you, and it’s all yours.” In later times, the people would bring their offerings to the priests and offer them to God for the work of the temple and the priesthood.

A gift offered to God was called the first fruits or the tithe, and it equaled one-tenth of one’s flocks or crops or income. Abraham was the first to give a tithe or tenth. After victory in battle, Abraham took ten percent of the spoils of war and gave them to the priest-king Melchizedek for God’s glory (Genesis 14:17-24). Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, whose name also was Israel, made a covenant with God that included giving one-tenth of all he had to God.

In the time of Moses, the tithe was codified in the law. God claimed one-tenth of the best the people had. Before giving to the poor and taking care of themselves, they were to bring one-tenth of their first fruits to God.

Leviticus 27:30 says, “All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the Lord.” Whether it was produce of the ground of the offspring of the flocks, the first tenth was holy to the Lord.

As Christians who live under the new covenant, we know that we are not bound by the law of Moses. Rather, we look to it as a guide. What, then, does God expect of us today regarding the tithe? Most Christians agree that the tithe is still a good guideline for our lives, and one that is pleasing to God.

(I’ll explore the idea of tithing further in my next post.)

(adapted from Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity)

Four Spiritual Action Steps  

     Determine what % of your gross income you currently give God.
     Find a way to increase that percentage.  Discuss this with your family.
     As you do, note your feelings, thoughts and attitudes.  What do you notice?
     Read 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, 9:6-15

As you do each of the above, the Lord will be revealing things to you about Himself and yourself!.  What are you discovering?  

The Kingdom
October 26, 2012



                                                                                  Luke 4:38-44(NIV)  

Pop  Quiz             What topic did Jesus talk about and teach far and away
                              more often than any other topic?  

Answer                 See verse 43  

Jesus’ one theme in his up to three years of ministry was The Kingdom of God.   What does that mean?

First, this Kingdom has a King.   Even though each of us feels like we live in our own little worlds, we don’t.  We actually live in God’s Kingdom ruled by God Himself.

So, what is his Kingdom like?   It is that place that remains after Jesus has performed what we call a miracle, but from His perspective is a Kingdom building exercise where he takes on more step toward“ setting the world to rights”, free from evil, sickness and sin”.    He begins to “fix” the broken world we live in.   He heals the sick, he confronts evil, he casts out demonic powers and he “threatens” the religious elitists who are in power.   He calls them hypocrites and tells them that God will bring them down if they don’t repent.

Jesus heals because he loves people.   But more than that that Jesus’ miracles are signs, foretastes, mini-pictures of the day that Heaven comes to earth in the great merger/marriage which will produce the New Creation.

“Behold, I am making all things new,”  said Jesus in Revelation 21:5

Notice vs. 42.   If we follow Jesus we would do well to see this inward/outward rhythm in his life.   He moves from exhausting ministry to empowering prayer in silence and solitude and back again. 

“Lord, forgive me for living as if you are not king and as if someone else is running the world.   Help me to see every healing, every escape from danger, every good thing on planet earth, every act of grace as having come directly from your powerful, healing, rectifying and reconciling hand.  Amen”  

Jesus and Evil Spirits
October 24, 2012 
        

Then Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people. They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority. In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice,

"Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!"

"Be quiet!" Jesus said sternly. "Come out of him!"

           Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring
            him. ³⁶ All the people were amazed and said to each other, "What is this teaching?
           With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!" ³⁷ And
           the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.  Luke 4:31-37(NIV)  

 

When the Rabbis taught they supported every statement with quotations. They always said, "There is a saying that . . ." "Rabbi so and so said that ..." They always appealed to authority. When the prophets spoke, they said, "Thus saith the Lord." Theirs was a delegated authority. When Jesus spoke, he said, "I say to you." Jesus didn’t do either.   He acted as if He was God! 

This is astonishing.    It meant that Jesus was either a megalomaniac or that he really was speaking as “authority” incarnate.   Jesus was speaking as God Himself which forces those who heard him 2,000 years ago and those of us who hear him today to make a decision:   is he God, or is he megalomaniacally crazy, or was he just lying?

As for me I have concluded after much study that demonic powers do exist in the world and that they can wreak havoc in individual persons and in societies.  I also believe that modern medicine and even some aspects of modern psychology offer certain forms of relief from some manifestations of evil.   However, in order to be truly free, in order for a full cure to take hold, in order to experience the fullness of  life in God, one must go to the one and only cure from the darkness of demonic powers, and that is the Light.

Jesus still drives out demons.    In fact demonic powers of darkness cannot survive in the presence of God.   So how does one get “delivered”?   The place to start and the place to finish are the same place.   Be where Jesus is.  And where you find him in the Bible is two places:   in worship and in serving wherever there is a need.   

Finally, just ask.   List your “demons”. Confess them.   Then ask Jesus to set you free.   It may hurt and it may take time and you will need friends.   But if you ask believing and don’t quit, you will meet the healing power of Jesus.

“Lord, you are the great physician, the great healer, the Creator of the universe, the Sustainer of all that is and you are also a Father who loves me.   Lord I give you my hurts, hang ups, all my demons and ask you to heal me.   Amen”