There is a truth I have found in my walk with God that is so important, and I want to share it with everyone. It is a truth that took me a long time to learn, but once learned, it changed my life significantly.
We are taught in the third chapter of Malachi that God says we are robbing Him if we do not tithe. I often wondered, robbing Him of what? Since everything is His anyhow, He obviously doesn’t need my stuff. In verse 10, God actually invites us to test Him, “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.”
As I began to understand this, I realized that God would not invite me to test Him if He did not intend to be faithful. Eventually, I came to the realization that what I was robbing God of was the freedom to bless me abundantly. His guideline was simple – Ginny, you tithe, and I will open the floodgates. Because I would not trust Him… because of my disobedience… I was actually preventing the floodgates of heaven from opening for me.
That is what I want to testify to. It is actually our choice whether or not we will allow those gates to open. Oh, how I wish I would have understood this many years ago!
Not trusting God completely was my real downfall, especially in the area of tithing. Would I trust Him in this? Did I believe that God is always faithful to His promises or not? A layperson in our former church gave a sermon on tithing, and God convicted my heart. It was as if He was saying to me, do you or don’t you trust Me? Honestly, I didn’t know.
My faith was not strong enough to just start tithing. It took a period of time of increasing my giving and noticing that I did not miss the money until I was able to do it. Amazingly enough, neither Ralph nor I have ever missed the money. Even after we both retired and our incomes were significantly reduced, we still have never missed the money.
What we have noticed is that the floodgates are open. The blessings simply cannot be missed, and my walk with God is much closer. His peace and joy live in both of our hearts. We both know that the blessings have nothing to do with who we are and everything to do with who God is. All we did was allow the floodgates to open.
God has taught me to trust Him, and trust Him I do. If I could have the money back, multiplied 10,000 times over, I would not be the least bit interested. I believe God is having a wonderful time blessing us, and I would not rob Him of that for anything.
~Ginny Dixon
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
link at the bottom of the devotion you would like to send. You will then be prompted to enter the email address of the person you would like to receive the post.
No comments:
Post a Comment