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. (Malachi 3:10-11) 1. God s blessing (singular form) will pour out from an open heaven. 2. He will rebuke pests from devouring our harvest. 3. We will surely have our harvest at the right time. Nothing will cast it off from the vine. The tithe is like a greenhouse because it protects the seed from pests, bad weather, diseases, worms, drought which are called the devourer. No matter how bad things are happening outside the greenhouse, crops are growing well inside the greenhouse and harvest is sure to be bountiful at harvest time. If the tithe is the greenhouse, the offering is the seed that we plant inside the greenhouse. The seed is in addition to the tithe. That is why it is called tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8). The tithe does not produce material things. it provides protection to the seed. When people give their tithe, they have a greenhouse, but if they don t give an offering, there is no seed to grow inside the greenhouse. Or people give their offering but they do not give their tithe. They plant a seed but there is no greenhouse to protect the seed from pests and the devourer. The tithe is 10% of our gross income but the offering is up to our discretion. Cars, houses, money, etc. will not fall down from an open heaven on the lap of the one who gives the tithe. Abraham became very rich but camels, goats, lambs and cattle did not fall down from heaven into his pasture. The blessing (singular form) that God is saying will be in the form of ideas, concepts, insights, favor from people, opportunities, direction, inventions, and wisdom that the Holy Spirit will tell us as we listen to Him. We will hear the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we spend time with the word, pray and seek God first. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you (Matthew 6:33). People pray Lord make me rich, make me successful . Prosperity is not just an abundant supply of money, although it does include that. But many in the world possess great riches and still don t find happiness. True prosperity is success in every area of life, including finding happiness. Many rich people live in fear of losing their wealth, of being kidnapped and ransomed. They set security alarms all over their house, trying to keep thieves from stealing their riches. For some, their millions are lost quickly from unwise management, because there are holes in their pocket (Haggai 1:6). We should rather prayer for wisdom on how to become rich and successful . So we become rich wisely. God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness to His children who are pleasing to Him. The sinner gathers wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God (Ecclesiastes 2:26). The blessing of the Lord brings wealth and He adds no sorrow with it (Proverbs 10:22). We should only plant our seed on fertile soil to have a bountiful harvest. Do not plant on rocky soil. Be sure the pastor also obeys God in tithing and giving. Even though the pastor is a very good speaker, most cults are, he could not be following God in tithing. His master is mammon or his wallet which is idolatry.

The root of all evil is the love of money. We can only serve one master, God or money. A pastor who is afraid to teach about tithing lets his congregation remain in poverty, including himself. Suppose God leads you to give a needy person some money and that person uses the money for the wrong thing, such as drug or alcohol. Or suppose the Lord leads you to sow a large offering into a church and later that church mismanages its funds and falls apart. Does this action of a person or church you ve blessed cancels out your harvest? NO! The law of sowing and reaping still works for you because you obeyed God s leading and gave as you purposed in your heart. Now God may hold that person or church accountable for misusing the money, but God nonetheless rewards your obedience in sowing. And your harvest remains yours to claim. The law of sowing and reaping is a set Spiritual law. It works every time. It is as true as the law of gravity. If I drop a book, it will fall every time. In Malachi 1:13-14, the priests were substituting injured, crippled or sick animals and then they offer them to the Lord while they get the good and acceptable animals for themselves. God said to try offering those crippled animals to your governor. Would he be pleased and accept them, that s in verse 8. The priests are cheating God and also the people who trusted them with their tithes. We should give our tithe in faith. Faith is the very thing that pleases God (Heb. 11:6). It is impossible to please God without faith. If we do not have faith, never mind about sowing and reaping. It will not work. The righteous shall live by faith (Romans 1:17). This means we talk, eat, sleep, go to work in faith. Everything we do is by faith. In fact, we are saved by faith. We also pray in faith. Most people give their tithe mechanically. They give their tithe because God might punish them or get angry. They are scared of the consequences if they do not tithe. We should give our tithe because we fully know God s character and His faithfulness which comes from our personal relationship with Him. Our desire is to honor, obey and worship God through our tithe. Abel was always so excited to give his offering to God. He already sets aside in his mind the perfect lamb that he wants to offer to God even though the lamb is still in the mother s womb. Abel always gets his offering from the firstborn of his flock (Genesis 4:4). King Solomon offered to God 1,000 burnt offerings and that same night God appeared to Him in a dream asking him what God can give to him (2 Chronicles 1:6-7). God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7). Give and it shall be given to you (Luke6:38). To have a harvest, we need to sow a seed. If we sow bountifully, we reap bountifully. If we sow sparingly, we reap sparingly (2 Cor. 9:6). It is proportional. God does not determine our harvest. We do! But most people give sparingly and expect a bountiful harvest. This does not happen even in the natural way of farming. To have a hectare of rice you need to plant the appropriate amount of seed. Everything belongs to God. It is a very good deal that we get to keep the 90% and we give back to God the 10% which belongs to Him, anyway. But once God touches the 10%, the 90% in our hands multiplies and become much more than original 100%. God does not need our money but He wants to fund the spread of the gospel through us, especially during these last days. This is not our permanent residence. The only things we take to heaven are the souls we bring to God s kingdom by sharing and funding the gospel.

God uses people as channels through which to funnel millions of dollars into the gospel. If our desire is to be able to issue checks in thousands of dollar for the gospel, God hears our desire and He will use us as His channel because we have proven that we are good and faithful stewards. Those who are faithful in little will be faithful in much (Matthew 25:21). Jesus endorses tithing in the New Testament. He said we should not neglect the tithe (Luke 11:42, Matthew 23:23). The local church today uses the tithe to pay for building expenses, pastoral salary, benevolent expenses, evangelical outreaches, etc. How can a person be cheerful while he is giving away his money? It is because he fully understands how God s kingdom works. He has renewed his mind on the Spiritual. The sower can see the harvest by faith even before he gets the blessing because he knows he has planted his seed. Firmly grasp and understand what God s will is (Ephesians 5:17). On the contrary, Hosea 4:6 says my people perish for lack of knowledge. Our eyes should not be on the blessings. All blessings come from God. If we keep our eyes on God, the blessings will overtake us. Stop chasing blessings, we can never catch them. But we can let them chase us by following and doing the word of God (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). When we give, do not waver and be fearful for the double-minded man cannot receive anything from God (James 1:6-7). He is like a wave that is tossed to and fro by the wind. Do not say it does not work. Tithing is futile, what did I gain by following God. This is what the priests were saying in Malachi 3:13-14. God said you say harsh words against Me. So be careful of our words that they do not contradict the blessings. Just relax and in advance, thank God for the harvest. Release your faith by speaking what you believe. That s how you were first saved and that s how you receive every promise in God s Word (Romans 10:8-9). You will be saved if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord. Tell the Lord specifically what you are believing Him to provide so that you will know when your harvest has come. Plant your seed into the kingdom of God with full expectancy of the harvest the Word promises! As you place that envelope containing your seed into the offering plate, release your faith first by speaking-over your tithe and offering for what harvest you are claiming them for, In Jesus Name. Have faith in God, Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, Go, throw yourself into the sea. and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will yours. Mark 11:22-24. In the first chapter of Genesis, God created everything through words. God said, Let there be . In 2 Cor. 9:10 God does not give seed to every Christian. He gives seed only to the sower because God knows that he will sow it. Why does God look for sowers? Because seed in the hands of who doesn t sow can never grow for the person or for the gospel. Why are so many Christians broke? Why isn t there much of a harvest in the body of Christ? It isn t an issue of harvest. It is an issue of planting. Seed just isn t getting planted.

You could not get full from eating one single kernel of corn. But if you plant that single kernel in the ground, it will produce two cobs of corn with an average of 450 kernels each. That s a total of 900 kernels from just one kernel planted in the ground. Now you could cook the two cobs and eat those 900 kernels and they could taste great and satisfy your hunger for a few hours. But if you had the mentality of a sower, you d think Wow!, if one kernel could produce that much more kernels, I think I will take these 900 kernels and plant them again! And 900 kernels will multiply with a harvest of 810,000 kernels or 1,800 cobs. That s nearly a million kernels harvested from one kernel by sowing the increase just once. You ve tapped into the power of sowing and reaping! In a 100 dollar income, there are ten 10-percents. So which 10% is the tithe? It is the very first 10 dollars that you set aside as your tithe. Not the left over 10 dollars after the bills. For the tithe is the first 10% for it to be called the tithe. Any of the succeeding 10 dollars are not the tithe. Paper is made of cotton but we do not say I am writing on a piece of cotton. But we say I am writing on a piece of paper because the cotton has already undergone through a process. In the same way, the tithe looses its place if it is not the first. Proverbs 3:9 Honor the Lord with your first fruits. For six years, we had been trying to save just enough money so that we can take our vacation in the Philippines. But every time we fully determine to save, everything turns negative or at the best just break even. There is a devourer that is always waiting to eat our savings. But when we decided to fully give 10% of our income to our church and plant our offering to a ministry that is a good and fertile soil, then without any change in income, we saved very fast in less than six months, paid our airfares way in advance and we brought more than enough pocket money in our wallets! God rebuked the devourer. The normal thinking is, when we give our tithe, we will have less cash in our hands which makes us afraid to give our tithe. But God is truly faithful in His Word, in fact He said to try Him in this for He will open the floodgates of heaven if we give our tithe so that He can use it for His kingdom work on earth, for the spread of the gospel and for the salvation of souls. Return to me, and I will return to you , says the Lord God Almighty. How do we return to you Lord? Through tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:7-8). God s word is true, as we give to Him our tithes and offerings, He becomes true in our Christian lives for He proves His Word to be true. God s pleasure is the prosperity of His servants (Psalms 35:27). He is capable of doing infinitely more than you can ask, think or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

Joey R. Pempengco Carson, California 2011