Tithing

For my first blog, I figured I'd just talk about what we talked about at church on Sunday.

Malachi 3:10
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

My pastor had a pretty good message about tithing. He explained that in the modern day church, we have set up the tithe to make sure that all the operations of the church are carried out. We are organized to carry out the many duties of the church and it requires us to make sure we are paying tithes to support all that. Each church needs a leader, and some that are bigger require more full time helpers, like the secretary and even other pastors that are submitted to the senior pastor.

I like the way he addresses issues in the church because its very practical. Without all of us doing our part, so many of the functions of the church would never get done. We are able to meet and hold services, we are able to feed the poor, we are able to attend various meetings in the community to coordinate the churches efforts and partner with other churches and a lot more. Without all of us faithfully tithing the church wouldn't be able to meet all of its budget needs either.

If we all want to be blessed financially, we are required by the Bible to tithe regularly. If we don't we are putting ourselves under the curse and could get in a lot of trouble financially. I think he was right when he talked about this. I see a lot of people in the church who are struggling financially. My pastor was really getting on our case to step it up and bring in the tithes so that all the people would get blessed and not struggle so much. I guess he had been talking to another church in our area and their tithe had actually gone up since the economy got hit, and that most of their people were doing OK financially. We were all encouraged to tithe even more so we could be blessed as well.

I think its important to discuss such issues and hold people accountable by stepping on a few toes from time to time so we don't get lazy about those things that are important to God. Brian