Are you robbing God? or is he pouring out his blessings in your life?

Tithing: God’s most challenging commandment.  It is my belief that God put mankind in this world to be caretakers of the world.  Everything belongs to him and we are only the caretakers.  God gives us the choice to return 10%, a tithe, and in return we can use the other 90%.  He also encourages us to give offerings above the 10%. 

Malachi 3:8-12

New International Version (NIV)

⁸ “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. ¹² “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.

Did you see that in verse 10?  God says “Test me in this … and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”  Have you ever taken God up on that challenge?  Today is the story of a woman that did.

A woman sat in her kitchen with an envelope.  When she received her pay, she put 10% into the envelope and placed the envelope in her bible to take to church the next time she got to church.  Then she paid her bills.  Little by little her bills got further behind.  Attempting to do her part to make ends meet, she got a loan and went back to school while continuing to work nearly full time and taking care of her family. 

She was worried about how far behind she was getting with the family bills.  But the only thing she could do about it was pray and give it to God.  Then one day out of the blue, a friend approached her about a grant.  She worked with an organization that helped women that went back to school with some of their school expenses. 

It was an encouraging event on the day that she was told that she had qualified for the grant.  She knew that God had just blessed her through her friend’s organization.  But the blessing didn’t stop there.  The group directed her to another grant in the same organization.  At the critical point, where it was going to compromise the families living situation, she was given the word that she had been given the personal grant as well.  All of her bills that were in arrears were going to be paid in full.  Plus she was going to be given an amount for four months to keep up with the winter heating and utility bills. 

God poured out his blessings from heaven over her and made her bills once again manageable.  Her stress from finance was now gone.  - This is a true story.