Ch4: Episode 5: The Blessing of the Tithe: Unleashing God's Overflowing Abundance

0:00 Well, welcome back to Diary of a Black Woman podcast. I'm your host, Connie Morris. And in our final episode of this series, we will be discussing the blessing of the tithe found in Malachi chapter 3, verses 8 through 12. This episode highlights the spiritual principle of giving back to God and the blessings that follow And so today we're going to be looking at Malachi and we're going to use the NIV translation So if you have that translation or just the Bible that you have you want to follow with me We're going to start in chapter 3 verse 8 And we are in what chapter four?

0:48 What is in your hands from the simple to the supernatural? And so what do we have in our hands? And so we have tithes in our hands this week. So let's read and see how God wants us to handle his money. Okay. Verse eight. Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, how are we robbing you in tithes and offering? So tithes is 10%. You are under a curse, your whole nation, because you are robbing me. Verse 10, bring the whole tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house.

1:36 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. Verse 11. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty. Lord Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty.

2:16 We see here that God challenges his people to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, promising to open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so many blessings that there is not room enough to store it. He also promises to prevent pests from devouring their crops to ensure their vines produce fruit. So what is the cultural background of a tithe? So we're going to do a little biblical study here. So the practice of tithing was an integral part of the Israelites' law law, instituted to support the Levites, people of low income and functioning of the temple.

3:05 So people who, the Levites, they worked for the sacrifice, right? They worked in the temple. And then people who had low income. So we have people back in biblical days who didn't make a lot of money, right? So that happens still today. And then, and the functioning of the temple. So So people had a little mediocre job. So let's go to Leviticus. We rarely go to Leviticus. I have a devotion on Leviticus too. We'll get to that. I don't know what number that one is, but we're going to go to Leviticus and see what Leviticus says about the tithes. Leviticus. Leviticus chapter 27, verses 30.

3:47 I'm reading from the NIV. Verses 30 through 33. to support the Levites. Okay, they were describing the people with low incomes and the functioning of the temple. So people who worked in the temple, that money went for them. And so verses, chapter 27, verses 30 through. 233, let's see what the Bible says about tithing. Here it says, A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from soil or fruit from the tree, belongs to the Lord. It is holy to the Lord. Whoever will redeem any of their tithes must add a fifth of the value to it.

4:32 Every type of the herd and flock, every 10th animal that passes under the shepherd rod will be holy to the Lord. So everything that you plant was holy to the Lord. And then let's go to Deuteronomy 14, 22 to chapter 14. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 14, then verses 22 to 29. Let's see what else the Bible says about the tithe. It reads.

5:29 As a dwelling for his name so that you may learn to to reverence the Lord your God always. Verse 24, but if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God, cannot carry your tithes because the place where the Lord will choose to put his name is so far away. Then exchange your tithes for silver and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. Verse 26, use the silver to buy whatever you like, like cattle, sheep, wine, or other fermented drink, or anything you wish, then you and your household should eat there in the presence of the Lord your God. Verse 27, And do not neglect the Levites living in your town, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

6:17 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites who have no allotment or inheritance of their own, and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come eat and be satisfied, So that the Lord your God may be blessed in all the work of your hands. So the importance of the tithes that sometimes always get a bad rap, it is to go to the storehouse and it takes care of, we see the widows and those that Levi's who don't have an inheritance, but also goes to pay for the storehouse, which is your church, electric.

7:02 Also, most of the time it pays for the salary of your pastors and the staff and whatever it takes to keep that church going. So tithing was a demonstration of faith, obedience, and gratitude to God for his provision. And so the offering is anything that is above the tithe. So you maybe I maybe have a building fund, a lot of things that kids always. Children's church always have activities. They have camps and things that you give into. Those are kind of the offerings that you offer above your tithes. And so what does God do? The significance of the tithe. Tithing acknowledges God's sovereignty and provision.

7:49 It acknowledges that God gave it to you and you are honoring him when you return the tenth of it. So by giving a tenth of their produce of earning, the Israelites recognize that everything they had came from God. That's what we do. We recognize that everything that we have comes from God. And if you are a tither, you know that you never go broke, right? Because you can never outgive God. Things can be tight, but God always comes through. It's always us it is also a way to support the community and ensure that everyone needs were met reflecting god's care for his people if you get a chance you can read the book of acts and it shows how that the church that they would sell their land and everything to make sure that every person was taken care of in the church so it wasn't like we the people had their hand out for the government, the church was responsible for providing for the community of people that attended their church.

8:56 So there was no one left behind, no one's hungry or homeless, right? That each person would give, sell their land to make sure everybody was taken care of in that church. The role of prophets like Malachi. What was Malachi's role? Prophets like Malachi were sent by God to call people back to faithfulness and obedience. Malachi's message challenged the Israelites to return to proper worship and trust in God's promises. And so things got a little tilted like they always do, right? So Malachi calls everyone back, but his message was raw. all.

9:40 It was like, will the man rob God? He said, you have robbed him in tithes and offering. So things still today and even back then that have to be reminded that can a man rob God? And so that we still use that verse in offering scriptures, tithes and offering scriptures today. day. But God has other promises. What is the blessing of tithing? God promised to bless those who bring their whole tithes, ensuring that their needs are abundantly met. The phrase, open the floodgates of heaven, signifies an overwhelming outpouring of blessings.

10:27 And so a lot of times we get so concerned about we giving our tithes to men, we give our tithes to God and they mess it up. They got to handle it. And, you know, God don't play when it comes to his children. And we see in what we just read, he don't play when it comes to his tithes. And then provision and protection is offered to us as we do our part. God promises I mean what we have in our hand We have tithes in our hand Right And so God promises To extend beyond provision and protection. Preventing pests from devouring crops And ensuring if you have a farm It's very agricultural Then if you own a farm You want your farm to produce well You don't want the pesky birds To eat up all your produce God promises that he will protect, even your produce. How powerful is that?

11:27 You know, this reflects God's comprehensive care over every aspect of our life. So whatever you're tithing, God's protecting, right? God is protecting. He said he was open the floodgates of heaven. There are so many stories I can share with you, but I don't want to keep you long. But once you begin to get in the habit of just allowing God to bless what he's given you, give him back. And so if you have a business, you give him 10% of your business, give him 10% of what God has given you, he will bless you in abundantly. You would never want for anything, right?

12:10 I said he would even rebuke the devourer. So you've got your security over everything that he has promised you. You know, let's read that again. Let's not forget the promises of the blessing. I don't want you to think that I'm making it up. Let me find it again. Go back. Even if you have it, go back to Malachi. Go back to Malachi. Malachi 3, verses 9 through 10. He said, when you bring your whole tithe into the house, that there may be food in my house. He says, 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 be not room enough to store it.

12:58 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it's ripe, says the Lord Almighty. Then all your nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty. Every translation has a different way of saying it, but he will bless you. He will bless you. God's promise extends beyond provision to protection, preventing pests from devouring your crop. And this reflects God's comprehensive care over every aspect of our life. What is this? It says Elijah question.

13:38 It says significant testing of God. Malachi 10 is unique in this, that God invites his people to test him in their tithing. This challenge emphasizes God's faithfulness and his desire to bless his people abundantly. God says, test me, see if I won't do this so that's kind of like a challenge like challenge me see if i will not bless you if you, don't if you if you just he didn't say that in any of the other ones but he said it if you just test me in this that i will not open that windows of heaven for you that's the one i always remember and i will not rebuke the devourer for your sake Hmm.

14:31 It's a tithing teaches us to trust God with our resources, recognizing that he can do far more with our obedience than we could ever achieve on our own. He can do far more with our 10% than we can do with our own. Right. At 10% is nothing to him, but it can stretch further. It can make our 90% stretch much, much further. So when the Bible says storehouse, what does that mean? The storehouse represents the temple, the place of worship and community support. So he says, bring all the tithes to the storehouse.

15:12 The storehouse is a place where you pretty much get fed, where you worship God. It's your church home, I call it. It's your community home. So bringing tithes to the storehouse ensures that the needs of the community are met and worship can continue unhindered. We know that salvation is free, but running the church is not. Right. And so bring your tithes to your place of worship. If you get your worship from being online, then you take it to that place, your place of worship.

15:55 Similar to the widow with the mite. Remember, she gave her whole. She gave her mite. The feeding of 5,000 gave her mite. Tithing demonstrates how God uses our faithful offering to accomplish his purpose. What do you have in your hand? The lady with the mite gave all she had. It wasn't just in her hand, but it also seemed like it was in her heart too. The little boy with the food, with the fishes and the loaves. He said, here, you can use me. You can use this. So call to tithe requires faith and willingness to trust God's promises.

16:37 It reflects a commitment to honor God with our resources. So how do we trust God? We can say, I trust the Lord. But when he says, trust me with your tithes and your offerings, That's how it shows that we trust him. What can God do with our tithes and our offering? What can God do with what we have in our hand? He wants to bless us. Can we trust him with our tithes and our offering? Throughout the scripture, faith and obedience are intertwined. The act of tithing exemplifies this principle, showing that when we honor God with our resources, He responds with provision and protection.

17:22 We don't have to worry about the crazy world when we know we're doing what God requires of us. Remember, we're following the instruction. What's the instruction for this episode, for this lesson? He says 10% in offerings. And I will bless you. You won't have room enough to receive it. I will rebuke the devourer for your sake. Wow. I will protect you. I will make sure that every, you will have good produce. You will be productive. Is it worth it? Or do we still want to do things on our own? What do you have in your hand?

18:04 From the simple to the miraculous, the simple to the supernatural. All right. How do we apply this basic principle to our everyday lives? Number one, we reflect on your resources. Take a moment to assess what you have. And so we can always know when we do our taxes done and we look at our final W-2, if you're in America, and you can see, did I actually tie my, did I do the right thing? proper thing? Did I honor God with my income? We can always check and verify if that worked.

18:47 That's how we can do that with our tithes and our offerings. Did we really give God his true value in 2024? Also, we're still looking at the skills and talents and our time and our finance. That's where we get the financial resources point from. Did we really honor God with our finances? What do we have in our hand from the simple to the supernatural? Remember, start small, right? There's nothing too small for God to use. You know, I remember, you know, starting small. Like, you know, I was when I started church, I didn't really have. Remember, we're going to tell my story later, but we'll just we'll keep it going because I don't want to keep you long.

19:31 All right, scripture for that is each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in a various form. So make sure you put everything you have that God has given you. Use that grace to serve others. Act in faith like Israelites. Step out in faith with what you have. Trust that God can multiply your humble offerings beyond your imaginations. I mean, he gave you enough to give back to him. Isn't that like, God, I'm going to give you this job so you can be able, so I can bless you more, right?

20:13 I'm going to give you this job so you can tithe and give offerings so I can promote you more to a higher place. Just give me back 10% and watch yourself get promoted. Interesting, right? Hebrews 11.1, now faith is the confidence and what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see. Number three, obedience brings blessings. God promises blessings for those who faithfully bring their tithes and offering. Offering our obedience to God's guidance can unlock this supernatural provision we do want to unlock that supernatural provision so God's promise obedience brings blessings we know what to do now it's just time to do it if you're tired of that job if you I don't know where you work but if you're tired of that job you're tired of working overtime to make ends meet.

21:13 Start giving your tithes and offering and watch God become your provider, your source, and watch how that begins to change. I remember that I was working a lot of overtime and I said, you know what? I'm not giving God enough money because I don't have that. I'm just tired. And I said, I'm just going to start tithing and giving a lot of money. Pretty soon, I didn't really have to work a lot more overtime, you know, because I'm trying to make more money to do what? But, you know, it didn't really start to add up because remember, you know, the tax man going to get his. So let's not, the tax man automatically is getting his. I think his is like 26, 36%. It's way more than 10% ripping us off.

22:00 And we came to give God 10%. So let's give God 10% so he can get the tax man off our back. How about that? That sound like a plan? So obedience brings blessing. Our obedience to God's guidance can unlock his supernatural provision. Remember, it's better to obey, but better than sacrifice. So we have to get into prayer and find out how God wants to bring a balance to this. Because we can create some bad habits of thinking that we can work our way out of some issues that we develop. But God, Just like the Queen of Sheba asked for wisdom, we can ask for wisdom and God can show us a way out of our situation.

22:45 Expect miracles. Anticipate that God will show up in miraculous ways when you act in faith. God promised to open the floodgates of heaven signifies an overwhelming abundance of blessings. Wouldn't that save you from working all that overtime? Because to me, it never balanced out. Because once Uncle Sam takes his cut... You know, it just never balanced out. That extra 50 or a hundred dollars was never, it seemed like it was never, ever enough. So I put back on the overtime, spent more time with my children and start giving tithes and offering and then volunteering at the church. It seems like what?

23:30 And then when they said, ask me, do you want to work a little more overtime? I was like, no, I'm good. I learned that I don't need all that extra overtime because it wasn't really adding up. something to think about. Remember, trust Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. Because our own understanding get it all twisted, doesn't it? Our own understanding, you get it all twisted. We keep leaning to our own understanding. We tired. I remember I listened to a friend, we're having lunch. She said she was working 80 hours a week. I said, how do you work? Is there 80 hours in a week? She said, yes, there is. I said, I was figuring out how did you sleep?

24:14 I mean, that's kind of like an impossible thing to do. 80 hours in a week? You know, you work 40 hours, you double that. When do you sleep? And so I was still puzzled because something was missing from that framework. Framework, the blessing, the God part was missing from that part in her life, right? You know, that was, that was interesting, you know, and then we know that faith without works is dead, but not the works in your own flesh, right? Work your faith, find a way to work your faith. Okay. So if you, if you have began the tithe and you find out that God is doing a supernatural in your life, I would love to hear about that.

25:02 If you have some unexpected blessings that happen because you have obeyed the word of God, I would love to hear that. This is our final episode, so I want to go over these decrees with you. This was very good, very interesting, and really kind of helped me, remind me of why we do the things we do in the Bible. Sometimes we can do things out of habit and forget the main purpose of why we do things. We become so super spiritual or so habit We forget to pull on the faith that we should be pulling on So this just reminded me that Hey, I got some blessings coming my way And I'm not at the overflow So I need to pull on God's coat a little bit more Amen If that's you, you do the same So just remind, let's do the decree, And repeat after me I decree that my faithfulness and tithes and offerings are.

26:02 I'm sorry, let's repeat that. I decree that my faithfulness and tithes and offering will release God's overflowing blessings and protection over my life. I decree that as I honor God with my resources, I trust in his promise to open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings beyond measure. I decree that my faith and obedience will unlock God's supernatural provision. I decree that I will expect and receive God's miraculous interventions in my life.

26:48 I'm so excited that this was so good. It was such a refresher to remind ourselves that God wants to take the simple and make it into the supernatural. Like, he's a supernatural God. You know, he's a supernatural God. It's not all about money. It's just about wisdom. Queen of Sheba said, I got money. I don't need the money. I just want that wisdom, right? I want that intervention. I want that supernatural provision. So thank you. So thank you for joining me through this series. The blessing of tithing reminds us of God's incredible faithfulness and generosity.

27:31 Hope these episodes have inspired you to see the extraordinary potential in what you hold in your hand. Stay blessed and keep believing and continue to trust God's supernatural provision. The next episode is going to be chapter five. It's embracing God's unchanging call. It's really, it's the gifts of no return, embracing God's unchanging call. And throughout the next episodes of chapter 5, we're going to explore God's call on our lives, remain steadfast, and guiding us through seasons of change and uncertainty.

28:12 When God calls you, he has not changed his mind. So hopefully that this next chapter will stir up the gifts and callings that he has on your life. And so join me as we uncover the powerful ways in which embracing God's call to lead to a life of purpose, fulfillment, and unwavering faith. Don't forget to download a copy of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 will be available on my website, Diary of a Black Woman, LLC. And you can access other resources there. This has been fun. Chapter 4 has been fun. and I'm looking forward to chapter five.

28:54 If you have any breakthrough moments, feel free to just leave a comment, share your journey, your insights. Please don't hesitate to reach out. You can email me directly at ConnieMorris at DiaryOfABlackWomenLLC.com. And if this has inspired you, please share it with a friend, subscribe and enjoy. Until next time, this is Diary of a Black Woman podcast.