Saturday, August 27, 2011

What makes a person tithe

This is not a chastisement to those who don't tithe.  I don't tithe.  It's not really even about tithing or money.  It's about how Jesus changes how we think, and rewards that.

A Deacon from a local church told this story about a man who had a family to feed and was on welfare who decided to tithe.  Yes, a man on welfare gave 10% of his meagre income to charity.

The Deacon at the time was without a paying job (Deacons have to hold down 9-to-5 jobs to make ends meet).  He was in a men's group meeting when the topic was tithing, and he was saying, rather, justifying that when you don't have much money to feed your own family, the priority has to be on feeding the family.  He was saying that he only gave $20 to charity in the entire prior year, and said it was the right approach. He was strongly stating that he didn't believe the church should require, for example, a man on welfare to have to tithe.

At that point one of the other men in the group offered out loud that he and his family are on welfare, and he was praying about the finances, and he was led to tithe.  His wife and he agreed to trust God beyond logic.  And he was happy to report that after they began tithing, they became very blessed by God.  Their mental burden reduced.  And in addition, the part time jobs he was able to pick up allowed him to feed his family adequately.

My commentary:  It seems that the welfare man and his wife were not making a decision they saw as primarily financial in nature.  It seemed to be primarily a faith decision; motivated by a desire to do what God wanted them to do, with the primary objective of pleasing God.  I'm sure that if their primary objective was to get something in return, the results (especially the part about the mental burden easing) would not have been the same.

Comments?  What are your thoughts?  Had something similar happen?

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