The word this week for Five Minute Friday is TRY. When you think of the word TRY, one of the most famous quotes to pop in my head is from Star Wars. You probably are familiar with it too. The Jedi Master Yoda tells young Luke Skywalker "Do or do not, there is no try." It's a great motivational quote to remind us that every action we take we are either doing or not doing something. Also that we must remember to say "I will" instead of "I'll try." But you know, that is just one quote that comes to mind with the word TRY. There are several scriptures in the Bible with the word TRY in them. One of my favorites though comes from a lesser known book Malachi.
In this portion of scripture, God is calling to His people to just give Him a chance to bless them. He asks them to trust Him to take care of them. He reminds them that tithing is one of those ways. A biblical tithe is 10% of your income. And the biblical method of tithing actually contains three tithes. A first, second, and third tithe. Now many choose to not follow this any longer. But our family has chosen to obey the law to tithe, and we send in 10% of our annual income to God ministry through our church. We also choose to save second tithe as well. We save a second 10% of our annual income to use for our worship and celebrating at the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall of each year. It allows us to travel to the different feast sites, get a hotel, rent a car, and just have a WONDERFUL time. I mean--we can spend 10% of our annual income in just 1 week because of this special tithing law to go with the keeping of the Feast.
Now many of you are saying--wait. 10% for first tithe. Another 10% for second tithe. That's 20% of your income GONE. Yes. Yes it is. But here is where we have chosen to rely on the scripture that is found in Malachi 3:10
"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try 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 such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it."
~Malachi 3:10
When we read this passage we see God asking us to trust Him. To trust that event though we are giving up 20% to His work and plan for His children (because the Feast is just a step in that plan), He will NEVER let us go hungry. In fact He will bless us so much, we will be overwhelmed.
And for our family this is exactly what happens. We are blessed in so many ways every single year. With God, you never know how that will play out each time--but it has been abundant.
And so we choose to "TRY Him" and to trust Him. And so we honor Him with money He's blessed us with so that His word will continue to go out among the nations and many more sons and daughters will know His truth!
We have heard from friends and family members who also tithe as we do, about how amazing it is that even though we all willingly are giving up 20% of our annual income to doing God's work, we somehow end up with more than we plan for. And that's how God works. Every single time.
No comments:
Post a Comment