For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. Hebrews 8:7, NIV We only emphasize that Christian life we are in is not based on another form of religious ritual but on a covenant. The question is what type of covenant are you in? Is it a covenant of religion or a covenant of love? It should be a covenant of love. Love is a person and that is God (see 1 John 4:16). The covenant we are in is a covenant based on who He is and not on who we are. It's based on what He has done and not on what we have done. When you sign an agreement form, you understand what type of covenant or agreement you are signing in. And this is the reason why still many Christians missed the true essence of Christianity. It's because they don't understand the covenant they are in. In result, many are so called Christians are still living a life like they don't have Christ. There's no real transformation happened. They think Christian...
If you will study tithing, it is not just in the Mosaic Law where we can always hear and read Malachi 3:10 preached from most of the churches today. It was also mentioned in the days of Abraham about 400 years before the Law came.
In those days, there was no law yet, but Abraham gave his tithe to Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20). Melchizedek who had blessed Abraham was a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. The bread and wine that he holds represents the body and blood that will be pour out on the cross thousand years before. It only shows that in the New Covenant of Grace, tithing is not a rule to obey but a lifestyle of every believer.
How tithing protects your finances?
Tithe means a tenth of all. Like Abraham, it was the 10% of what he had earned in the battle. It is a 10% of our earned income today. So when we give our tithe to God, it represents our whole income. That's how we bring glory to God through our finances. We show to the devil that our earned income is purely from God's grace and not from our own human effort.
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.
Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:10-11NASB
Understand that in the New Covenant where we are in, these verses has changed. We now have a different view on these verses because of the finished work of the cross. In these verses we will notice the conditions when you bring your tithe into the storehouse. Notice the word "if", sounds familiar, isn't? It was also indicated in Deuteronomy 28, the blessing if you obey and the curse if you don't. Obviously, it is the Old Covenant Law system. Under the Law, even you are God's people, there always be conditions. That how the old covenant works. But we are not under the old. We are now in the New Covenant of Grace. Grace says, we are blessed in every spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). It means, in Christ you are greatly blessed even if you don't see it yet.
In the New Covenant we don't give our tithes in order to be bless. We don't give our tithes in order for God to overflowingly bless and protects us. He already done it on the cross through His only Son. The bible says, Christ has redeemed us from the cursed of the Law (Galatians 3:13). We bring our tithes to the storehouse because we are already blessed with our union with Christ.
Your storehouse today is your local church. Tithes and offerings teaches us not to be greedy and not to have the love of money. There's nothing wrong in having money, but the love of money is a devil's trap that God is protecting us from. Like what we have said, when we give our tithes to the Lord, we show to the devil (the devourer) that he is a defeated foe. No pestilence will come to our finances when we our protected. That's how we declare our protection when it comes to our finances is by bringing our tithes into the storehouse.
Thoughts Of The Day:
"Tithe is not a payment for God's protection but a declaration that I am greatly blessed"
Written by Jaccel Aclan