This Day in History: 0000-09-14
September 14 – Malachi 3:8-12
“Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me!”
But you ask, “What do you mean? When did we ever cheat You?”
“You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! Your crops will be abundant, for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Then all nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Have we been cheating God? Let’s take some time right now to reflect upon Scripture. Let’s consider our Great God and all He has done for us, and let’s take an inventory of our response. Have we been faithful to Him? Have we brought to Him the first-fruits of our lives? Have we offered Him our very best?
If you’ve never read the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, I would like to very strongly encourage you to do it. There are lots of great resources and plans out there to help you along. (My favorite is The One Year Bible. Each day the plan includes a few chapters from the Old Testament, a few from the New Testament, a Psalm, and a couple verses in Proverbs. It takes about 15-30 minutes to read each day’s Scripture and at the end of the year you will have read the whole thing!) When we read it all, and get the whole picture, there are so many things we learn about God. One of those is that He really, really wants our best. He wants us to offer to Him freely (because we want to) the very best of our everything. Our money, our time, our love, our service, our devotion, our loyalty, everything! Another thing that becomes clear is that when God’s people place Him first, He takes great pleasure in showering them with blessings in return.
So I ask again, have we been cheating God? Do we realize that every single thing we have comes from Him anyway? Have we been obedient in offering back to Him a portion of what He has blessed us with? Dear sisters, He has put breath in our lungs; have we offered back a tithe (the first 10%) of that breath in worship of Him? He has provided the financial means for whatever we have; have we offered back to Him a tithe of those resources? He has given each of us unique gifts and talents and personalities; have we offered back to Him a tithe of those treasures? If not, let’s start today!
He tells us to test Him in this! “Try me.” He says. He longs for the opportunity to pour out his blessings upon us as we simply walk in obedience to Him. And so much more will happen too! As we obey, we’ll find our gratitude greatly increased as well. Suddenly we’ll gain a better understanding of how blessed we really are. We’ll start to feel like His dearly loved daughters, and with that realization will come such peace! So let’s not wait. Let’s bring our tithes into the storehouse today!!