Tithe

P 3293 Hypothetical??

/ DVH

James 2:2-4: “Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

When I read this thought today I saw something I haven’t seen before … but …more about that in a minute. The Lord often says to me: ” What the bible doesn’t say is just as important as what it says.”  It took me quite a while to figure that one out, but the Holy Spirit helped me by telling me: “That means turn the coin over.” This is a saying I have known from my youth. It means something is there but it will only be apparent when we exercise our faith, and actively press in to find out. We need to think laterally, with His help.

My point today is a bit like the parable of the ten virgins Jesus Himself told. 5 had enough oil, the other 5 didn’t. But EVERYBODY fell asleep. I didn’t see that one for years, even though I read it, and reread it over and over again. At the same time, I was keen to make sure I had “oil in my lamp”… the Presence of the Holy Spirit … so I could keep on burning, like the old song says. But the fact that the bridegroom was later than expected actually meant that NOBODY was awake and waiting for Him! 

Yeah. That’s kind of big eh? I think that means no matter how hard we try, we are still human, and our humanity will let us down. The thing was, the 5 virgins who came prepared for any eventuality didn’t miss out. Big clue there! That instantly explains to me, that near enough won’t be good enough. Let’s be so devoted to Jesus and His cause, that we will always go the extra mile. And that will probably include lugging along more oil than we think we will need!  I wonder … how often does convenience get in the way of obedience?

Now, let’s go back to James, the trip to Matthew 25 was a side thought, but still on point for what I want to say today. Be prepared for any situation. Just to remind you: “…  a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in…”  This poor man came to church. He was smelly, and dirty … a-n-d… he rolled up to church. Maybe he too needed Jesus! He couldn’t come in his best clothes because he didn’t have any. Imagine what would happen if a dirty old poor person turned up to your church and came and plopped himself in a pew, or on a chair in the middle of the congregation? Picture it. Hilariously, all I can see in my mind’s eye is that everybody else is squished up, far way, peering surreptitiously at this person. Maybe they were hoping nobody else would notice what they were doing?

It seems James had similar thoughts. “Stand here,” … as far away as we can get you from the clean people! Or  “sit there” … on a seat of the congregation’s choosing … preferably the floor! This whole idea made me smile.. It is amazing how little we know about ourselves until the situation occurs, and the smelly guy wants to sit next to me! Here’s a happy clue, BTW, if you are sensitive to smells … because street people can be very smelly — very few cities have free shower stalls available… Any-way, whack a little bit of Vicks Vaporub under your nose, it does the trick. FYI we used to serve street people for a number of years. Ya learn a lot about who you really are when you serve them! 

The reason for all that caution, in this passage, is pretty clear. The rest of the congregation won’t like sitting next to someone like that, and because the rest of the congregation are probably tithers … let’s not tick them off!However,  the nice clean rich guy might just like us, and if he likes us, then maybe he will tithe and the kitty will get fuller. Yeah. Like I said, you learn a whole lot about yourself. 

Funnily enough, without even thinking about it — Jesus took the sweet smell of heaven with Him everywhere He went! Earthly smells did not bother Him! He prayed for lepers and blind beggars .. all kinds of people. They were the people who knew they needed Him. The rest of us go to the doctor, or take out a loan. It’s a bit difficult to do that when the only collateral you have is yourself and a whole lot of grime. Being poor in spirit is a huge plus.

James is full of God’s wisdom, but at the same time, he is also full of the knowledge of how people like us operate. His advice is as pertinent today as it was back then. You see, he knows what the outcome of that kind of behaviour has, it corrupts the person who participates in it. It leads to discrimination and judgment. 

James is caring for the reader’s soul, because they were heading in the wrong direction with their attitudes. So he does what Jesus often did. He told a story. The Lord’s stories are designed to diagnose what is wrong in our lives — so they are a good place to listen and act. Did you know there are over 2,000 verses or stories regarding how we are to treat the poor? Maybe what James said, is not so hypothetical after all. Bye. 👋

P 3278 Who owns what?

/ DVH

You may recall this scripture, it is in: Matthew 19:21-23: “Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Boy, Jesus really loves to speak plainly! No wonder angry, greedy, power-loving people plotted to kill Him, He spoke into the very heart of the things that most people embrace. Money is a big thing to all of us. If you haven’t got any, then you need it. Yet at the same time it seems like you can never have enough of it! Sometimes others have more than enough, and they like to give, but they carefully dole out what they can afford to give and not care about. Giving involves a cheerful open heart. We give because He gave us everything, and everything we have belongs to Him.

We have learnt through the bible, that the Lord doesn’t want us to have a grudging attitude. He is teaching us about His kind of priorities. Meanwhile, money is a difficult subject for most of us. Let’s be clear, the Lord neither wants or needs OUR MONEY. He has gates made out of pearls, and walls made out of precious stones, and HIS streets are paved with heavenly gold. Add to all that the fact that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills – the conclusion is – our God is not poor! That’s a good thing to remember!! 

Talking about money is actually never about money or who needs it or who deserves it. That’s works. It is about the state of our faith. This young man could not follow Jesus, because the things he owned, owned him!  When we let the Lord dictate what we do with our money, we are putting Him in charge of our wellbeing. We know that without money and assets, our societies today cannot function. Unfortunately, that line for ‘enough money’ moves away from us. One of the best places I know to test how your personal faith is doing is … money. For fifty years God has shown me His faithfulness regarding finances.

Many years ago, I was convicted about tithing. My ex was not. In the end, after some wrestling with my own conscience, I decided the only money I had that I controlled was my housekeeping money. Co-incidently, our tithe was the same amount of money as the sum I had! So I did a deal with the Lord. I told Him I would tithe the housekeeping money to make up the shortfall. That meant no food was going to be bought that week, plus a grumpy husband. (There is always a risk involved!) In the car, on the way to church… (I keep telling you God is never in a hurry) … my ex suddenly said – without ANY discussion at all: “I think we need to tithe.”  You could have heard my sigh of relief in Pakistan.

Almighty God says this in Malachi 3:10: “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 there will not be room enough to store it.”  He invites us to test Him about this matter, by making sure whatever and whenever we give, we are generous. Generosity is not a legalistic thing, it quite simply bubbles over. If we hesitate about how much money can we afford to give, we will lose the spirit of what the Lord is saying here. The barn is meant to be full. That’s excess, not need. Because it’s not about the money! It is never about the money, or the goods and things we own. It’s about whether that stuff owns us!

When we get things sorted out, faith-wise regarding money, we are standing in a place where God can teach us in a concrete, seeable fashion about faith. It is always about our faith. Diagnostically we can tell what state our faith is in, if we look carefully at how we prioritise our finances. I want to leave you with one last scripture — it’s in two places in the Gospels –  Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4.  Let’s look at Luke: “As Jesus looked up, He saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

The point the Lord is making here is that He loves sacrificial giving. Giving out of excess is still giving, but Jesus Himself commented on the sacrifice this woman made. The amount is irrelevant, it was the fact that this widow gave all. Don’t concentrate on the money, look at her heart! This is what faith requires – ALL. We simply can’t afford to live this life using part-time faith. To start with, it will become more and more difficult to try to figure out which bit is His and which bit is ours! We need to give up everything to follow Him, or the devil has a place to stand on in our hearts, and he will torment us. It’s the same with sin, whatever we tolerate gives our enemy room to plague us with doubt, unbelief and indifference. 

Many people make scriptures like these about money. Money is simply a byproduct of an attitude we can secretly have about the Lord. That attitude is often steeped in fear. If we look at our need, we will end up with greed. We have chosen to follow SomeOne Who did not care about material goods. What makes us think we can follow Him well, if we are obsessed with them? The big question today is: Who owns what?  Bye. 👋

P 2786 Risk takers.

/ DVH

Each one of us needs to find our place, our ministry within the Body of Christ. And the Precious Holy Spirit is standing by, waiting, He wants to show you or I what He has for us to do. He dearly wants us to blossom in His kingdom, here and now – starting today.  All we need to do for that to happen is to take a risk, use our faith, and believe He wants to help us. Here’s a clue that I’ve learnt over the years, that can help prime the faith pump. Giving opens all kinds of doors. Holding onto our money carefully has become a necessary lifestyle today, but if we want to start moving in faith, we can start with increasing our giving — beyond the tithe. Generosity attracts the Holy Spirit.

I am talking about this subject of walking in faith from what I’ve seen and learnt myself, and what I’ve seen happening in my husband’s life and the lives, of other people around me. However sooner, and hopefully not later! — we must step out of the boat we have carefully constructed to contain our own little world, and start walking on water. Christianity is about taking risks.

You can check that statement out in Acts 9:10-19 with a man named Ananias who qualified to be an enormous risk taker. Read the book! The book of Acts is filled with risk takers. This man was scared … but he did what God asked him to do anyway, and Paul was healed on the spot. I love Ananias, BTW, the Lord asked this man to go and pray for Paul, and Ananias was like: ‘Is this really you Lord? Haven’t You heard this guy kills Christians?’ Actually, when we use our faith, the assignment doesn’t matter. I  believe we put much too much value upon the assignment bit, by analysing this and discounting that.

When Peter walked on the water Jesus simply said “COME”. What matters is stepping out to do what He has asked us to do. Doubt is not a negative thing unless it acts as a deterrent to faith. My motto is: do it anyway. You might look like a goose, but that helps us with humility … win-win! Jesus wasn’t fazed about making Himself a Man of no reputation!

Most Christians are satisfied with so little when it comes to knowing the Lord. We happily enter His gates, with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise, Sunday by Sunday. Then we sit down on our comfy cushy seats and wait to be instructed … again! Plus we kind of pat ourselves on the back for even going to church, or bringing morning tea, or doing the flowers, or mowing the church lawns, and setting up the auditorium. Without the Holy Spirit’s instructions – these things are essential, but they are fleshly things. Helping is a good beginning but it isn’t the whole ballgame.

The things of the Spirit have His spiritual power in them and we can do far more than we can ever imagine. I always know it is the Holy Spirit when I feel surprised by what happens next! However, not every spiritual gift involves talking. I know someone who has the gift of service and that person is learning to blossom in it. But my hubby gets words of knowledge like he is gathering daisies in a meadow! He gets them, before, during and after His conversations with people-he-never-met-before. Spiritual gifts impact other people’s lives in an astonishing manner. 

Jesus once told us: “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” I look at that verse this way … a yoke is bound to feel strange until you get used to it. We must become used to the Lord talking to us, through His book, and internally, in our heart as well as through others. Christianity is not for experts – it’s for dumb bunnies who dare to believe Him.  As we live this way, we will settle into His yoke.

Repentance is also a wonderful tool to open up the things of the Spirit – because it takes faith to do it! It is very humbling to go to someone else that you have been secretly nursing a grudge against, and confess your fault. Especially if you do it in such a way that the other person doesn’t get condemnation or blame or shame from what you’ve said or done. Operating under the Holy Spirit’s guidance for whatever reason, always takes faith.

When you read the Old Testament, carefully, that whole scared-the-daylights-out-of-them stuff happened to many people when they chose to obey. But they were blessed to be able to see the difference between what God does and the very little we can do by ourselves.

Once, at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry, satan tempted Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple because the bible said God would send angels to catch Him …and Jesus wouldn’t do it. This is why we need to know the Lord’s ways, through the book. That will help us to identify any tricks that other guy might throw at us. You and I can do so much for His kingdom, however, we need to be prepared to risk our reputation for Jesus’ sake – He risked His reputation for ours. Bye. 👋

P 2596 There is no hole too deep.

/ DVH

Psalm 16:1-11MSG: “Keep me safe, O God, I’ve run for dear life to You. I say to God, “Be my Lord!” Without You, nothing makes sense. And these God-chosen lives all around—what splendid friends they make! Don’t just go shopping for a god. Gods are not for sale. I swear I’ll never treat god-names like brand-names. My choice is You, God, first and only. And now I find I’m Your choice! You set me up with a house and yard. And then You made me your heir! 

The wise counsel God gives when I’m awake is confirmed by my sleeping heart. Day and night I’ll stick with God; I’ve got a good thing going and I’m not letting go. I’m happy from the inside out, and from the outside in, I’m firmly formed. You canceled my ticket to hell—that’s not my destination! Now You’ve got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of Your face. Ever since You took my hand, I’m on the right way.”

Isn’t this a terrific Psalm full of good advice? It is a testimony speaking about living life His way. When I read this today, it reminded me of a fantastic testimony hubby and I have from years ago, and today I thought I would share it. Many years ago my husband was working full-time as a clinical nurse. One day he was walking an older gentleman back from a procedure, when the old man slipped and started to fall. Hubby reflexly rotated to try and catch him before he fell and my dear fella badly injured his back. Thank the Lord the old man was unhurt.

Long story short, hubby went into months of agony with countless steroid injections, back braces, scans, X-rays, and saw many, many doctors and specialists. The diagnosis was grim, he had worn away the disc between L4 and L5 and the bone was rubbing on the bone, producing constant excruciating pain. The pain was never going to go away, plus he had to take pain killers for months and months… Meanwhile the pain killers messed with his head.

At the same time the hospital kept trying to prove there was nothing wrong with his back, and they were not at fault. Work Cover insurance ignored us. Eventually we were informed that because we had fallen far behind in our mortgage payments, the bank was going to take our house, within the month. It was an awful, awful time. Even back then I was not well, and we had no other resources to fall back on. This went on over eighteen months.

You know, in order to see a miracle, we must need a miracle – they are not just entertainment! … We loved our house and we were going to lose it through no fault of our own. The lady from work cover consistently said that hubby would NEVER receive a pay out – even though everybody knew that he had been injured through work – meanwhile we had endless rounds of appointments talking to people who continued to say: “no help for you!” We kept praying, sometimes complaining, and sometimes with little or NO faith.

Months later out of the blue, this lady called us again. She said: “I’ve got some news for you, I don’t agree with it, but they have taken your case to a higher power.😂 So they have agreed to pay out your superannuation.” Hubby was still on the phone with this lady he had talked to for months, but his knees hit the floor and he cried out: “Thank you Jesus!”  I heard him from the kitchen! Meanwhile, we knew who the ‘Higher Power” was!

The pay out was a bit more than we needed to get rid of the mortgage once and for all. But in order to get this payout we had to go for financial counselling, because it was hubby’s superannuation – so we agreed. The morning of the appointment a word from the Lord dropped into my heart. He said: “Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to Him.” OK, we didn’t know what that meant but … we took note of it. Everybody at the financial counsellor’s offices was lovely to us. ‘Would we like a cup of tea? The parking’s  free. How can we help you?’

So in we go to see the consultant. The nice man began explaining how he could save us even more money, with a bit of creative accounting we could avoid paying any taxes on the money we received. He said this earnestly, insisting that it was legal! God reminded us of what He’d said, and both of us knew immediately what that meant. No wriggling out of doing what was right. We had to pay the taxes, $18,000 – $20,000 … a fortune to us. And we thanked the man sincerely and explained we were Christians, so we wouldn’t be depriving the government of their tax.

It was hilarious. The mood in his office changed instantly. The nice man couldn’t get rid of us quickly enough, well we did give testimony about how we got the money in the first place! He probably thought we were going to preach at Him! Especially when we explained that we also needed to tithe on this money. So, we didn’t GET a cup of tea. Nobody gave us a voucher for the parking, In fact they couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. Meanwhile we laughed all the way down in the lifts!

When we arrived home that same day … true story! We had a letter in our letter box – it was a cheque for the exact amount of money we needed to pay the tax!  (We tithed on that too!) God is never any man’s debtor. Praise the Lord!! 🙌 There is no hole too deep that the Lord Jesus cannot find us, there is no difficulty He cannot get us out of.

ps Hubby had an operation shortly after all this … but that’s another testimony. Bye 👋

P 2278 A great way to stretch your faith.

/ DVH

Over the years, I’ve learnt that giving is one of the best ways to prayerfully grow our faith. If you are a regular giver and have projects or organisations that you give to, as in offerings – bless you! I’m crazy about generous givers, however they do it. 

However, I have found an interesting way to breakthrough to another level in my faith. It is simple. Give more! No, I have not lost my tiny mind, and yes, I know that is definitely not a favourite subject in these hard times! Most of us need more money … not less…please bear with me.

Human beings can easily settle into a rut. That rut can be an alternative or even a substitute for stretching and expanding our faith, because we think we are already meeting God’s requirements. ←Sadly there is no faith in the previous sentence! The thing is, we can get comfortable even with things like our giving habits. If we already tithe and give special offerings, that means we are probably already giving way above the ‘prescribed’ biblical suggestions.

Although this is a great system, it is still a system. We can get stuck in it and stop using our faith, and give out of habit instead. We need to remember that Jesus is described as the pearl of great price in the bible. We all like to tell Him ‘You are everything to me, Lord’ … then we inadvertently organise our lives to suit our own financial situation, our logic and liking. Living day by day using our faith is neither comfortable or easy. However because He is now Lord of our lives, so He owns everything. Even the stuff we don’t want to think about.

What we really need to pay attention to is whether what we own, can own us!  Realistically speaking we don’t actually own anything … and that even includes the people we love.There is this guy I’ve mentioned before in the gospel of Matthew 13:45,46. He found a precious pearl buried in the ground. He immediately sold everything so he could buy the land it was buried in! He shows us that money is a tool, not an end product. My point is we can easily get stuck in a rut and think that ‘ I‘m already giving above and beyond what is required of me!’  That’s the time to remind ourselves if we want to be guided by the Spirit then most of the time the Holy Spirit’s guidance will probably cost us. 

Meeting the requirements of whatever internal law or agreement we’ve personally settled on, is not walking with Him guiding us – step by step. So my policy in this area, when I realise I’ve become stuck, is to increase what I am giving to an uncomfortable amount.  Actually it is only really uncomfortable because I am stretching my faith by following His plans not mine. Faith is a muscle remember? 

I have applied this lesson for giving above what I’m already giving, many, many times. We pray then we increase that amount permanently, That action made me extremely nervous. In fact I discovered I was fearful in a whole lot of places that I didn’t even know about, simply because they weren’t being stretched. Then I realised had more undiscovered holes in my faith walk than there are on a 18 hole golf course! ⛳️ Eventually I also came to understand that it is not faith if you feel you can control it. Ya might want to think about that. 🧐

At the same time I also learnt that you cannot out-give God. For some reason, after being stretched beyond what I thought I could do, having faith for other things became easier. But whatever I have left monetarily— which, BTW, hardly ever looks like it will be enough —actually stretches further. Sometimes it may only be a few dollars of extra giving, but those few dollars matter. The sacrifice counts. In fact my faith in His ability to sustain my life on less money actually increases my faith everywhere else.

Even though our comfort factor matters greatly to us … another word for comfort could be inactivity. And that is not good, at all! Human beings enjoy having routines, budgets, lists of things we can cross off when done. Unfortunately things like that are novocaine to our faith walk. Our God LOVES adventures. Read the book. Giving is one of the best and easiest ways ever to stretch our faith. Pray, ask the Holy Spirit what to give, and then carry it out.  Forget playing this life safe. Be a risk taker, use your faith.👋🏻