The first mention of tithing comes in numbers 18:21, it essentially was about God telling the Levites (who were the people taking care of the Tabernacle where God’s presence dwelled) that whether the people gave to them as a “thank you gift”, 1/10 of it should be returned back to God.

Tithing in general or in essence is the giving or returning of 10% of what God has blessed us with

What else does the Bible say about tithing?

Deuteronomy 14:22

Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year

Malachi 3:8

Will a man rob God? Yet you rob Me “But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings

Let’s emphasize just a little bit more on Malachi 3:8,

God is the God of all the universe, He owns the cattle on a thousand hill, He created every single thing that we see today in nature and yet He says it is possible for us to rob Him? Pretty interesting logic don’t you think so? When we are supposed to give a tenth of our income (allowances for most of us), we use the money for something else that we think it is important. When the Holy Spirit impresses upon our heart to give a certain amount, we think its just something weird thought or even the devil telling us to give! The devil actually tells you to give nothing to God!

But because God is so full of grace and mercy; Grace is the getting the gifts that we do not deserve and Mercy is not getting the judgement / punishment that we deserve. He still gives us abundant blessing, ensures that we are taken care of with shelter and food over our head, gives you and me confidence to walk with our heads high because He is watching over us and will never leave us no matter what. That’s our God!

And more than that, our God speaks to us clearly later after Malachi 3:8 what will happen if we do start to tithe and obey His commands! Remember what we learnt last week in Deut 28? It talks about the blessing of God when we begin to obey His commandments!

Malachi 3: 10 - 12

“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 you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit, “ says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be delightful land, “ says the Lord Almighty.

There are 4 effects of tithing (and thus, the important of tithing)

1.) Throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it

2.) I will prevent the pests from devouring your crops

3.) The vines in your fields will not cast their fruit

4.) Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be delightful land

Throw open the floodgates and be overwhelmed!

What is a floodgate? It is something used to restrict or to restrain an outburst! You see, God has always been blessing us, everything we have is a blessing from God. God of course does not want to “restrict” the blessings on our lives but we must learn that the promise of God always comes with a condition. In Deut 28, His abundant blessings on our lives will come when we obey Him. In Joshua 1, God tells Joshua he will be prosperous and successful only if he obeys God’s commands and meditate on His word. The promise of eternal life is in John 3:16 but it comes with a condition, to believe in Him. And the same thing with us, we want financial breakthrough and freedom then we must learn to understand the condition that comes with the promise.

And when we begin to fulfil the condition of tithing, the promise of the floodgates of heaven opening on us will begin to take place. Not just normal blessings, but abundant blessings and it will overflow and overflow and overflow so much that we will not have enough room for it! It is similar to taking a 1.5 litre of water and pouring it into a shot glass, get the idea? And that’s what God wants to do in our lives! Share with you guys something personal, i didn’t use to tithe consistently, only when i could “afford” it actually, but since the start of this year, i promised God to really give Him 10% of my allowance / income no matter what, even if i had to forsake some stuff and God has been faithful! He has blessed me above and beyond all that i could ask or imagine! J wanna find out more? Then stayed tuned for the session on Faith Tithing on two weeks! Be prepared to be blown away by God’s goodness. It IS possible to be overwhelmed by the blessings of God, to have not just enough but more than enough and overflowing!

I will prevent the pests from devouring your crops

Haha this is an interesting promise especially considering that none of us are farmers here! J but back in those days, they did not have jobs like marketing manager, sales persons etc, and the only source of survival or income is growing their own crops. And how many of us know that growing crops is not easy? (even though we are not farmers HAHA) and how many of us know that pests like crops? (again HAHA) Crops represented the source of income in those times and when we take it in our context today, it is essentially God saying that He will NOT let anyone or anything destroy our income when we decide to tithe 10% to God. Pests like sickness, depression, like recession will not affect our income, let’s be honest with one another, the global did not really affect Singapore as much as the other countries because God is protecting us, and in our recession we managed to clear our building loan of 1.6 million SGD!

He is able to ensure that nothing will touch your income and when you lose your source of income, you can be assured it is temporary and something much better will come your way. He will prevent the pests from devouring our crops!

The vines in your field will not cast their fruit

I was looking through dictionary.com and through the millions of definition of the word ‘cast’, one of the most intriguing one that i found is ‘to give birth prematurely’; e.g. the cow cast a calf. It means premature birth.

What is a fruit that is born prematurely? Unripe fruit! Does it taste nice? Nope! Ever eaten an unripe banana? It is quite bitter or tasteless and hard. But ripe fruit or in this case we use ripe bananas, it tastes like it should taste and should be soft too.

The uses of Grape Vines was quite interesting actually, not only just for wine but also for healing purposes. The sap is used to cure skin and eye diseases, leaves were being used to stop bleeding and pain, ripe grapes were used for the treatment of cancer, cholera, skin and eye irritations, kidney and liver diseases as well.

Growing of grapes or vines that grows grapes will take about 6 months? In the northern hemisphere it is from march to about September or October and in the southern hemisphere it is from September to either march or April.

What good is a fruit that is unripe? There are things for in our lives that we are praying for in our lives to come to past but it needs to come in the right time! The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing (of course some of us can’t wait.. ) God will bring the right thing to pass at the right time for us amen?

All the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be delightful land

When the blessings in your life overflow, when your income is stable or increases tremendously, when the issues or things in your life that you are praying for comes to pass in your life, people are going to take notice and see! And therefore all around will call you blessed because you are filled with the joy of the Lord, you are filled with the abundant blessings of the Lord.

When you are the light, it cannot be hidden. Because God has not created our light to be hidden nor our light to be the “quiet” type. Light is no matter what, still bright and piercing in the darkness.

Tithing as we can see is MORE than just giving 10% of our income, to be honest, God does not need our money because He is the one who gave it to us and He owns the cattle on a thousand hills! It is more for our benefit that God says we must tithe!