INTRODUCTION – KINGDOM LAWS FOR PROSPERITY
There are various laws that rule the universe. Some of which are the laws of gravity, the law of cause and effect and the rest of them. What is particularly important to note about these laws are the fact that whether you know about them or not they apply to you. You have no choice in determining the outcome. For instance the law of gravity says anything that goes up must come down meaning that if you throw an object up into the air it has no choice but to come back down. Same applies to you if you jump up into the air you must come back down. It does not matter whether you know the law exists of if you have ever heard about the law it still applies to you. Same goes with the law of cause and effect which basically states that for every effect there is a cause. That the sum total of our lives today (effect) is a sum total of the things we have done in the past (cause) the fact that we do not agree with this or do not know about it does not mean it is not true.
Same it is with the kingdom of God. There are certain laws that have been put in place to make you prosperous and like the universal earthly laws it applies whether we know about it or not, whether we believe it or not. These laws are set to make us successful and to make us prosperous. It does not mean we are trying to buy the blessings of God It simply means that God has a place in our success.
First we need to note that money is crucial and extremely important in our serving God. This can be seen in Nehemiah when God told the people to go and rebuild the temple and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The first sign that the people heart has been turned to God was the money. In the book of Malachi the people of God had abandoned God totally and God came to them scolding and shouting on them that if I am a father among you where is my honor? What was He calling honor? Money. The bible also tells us that God said if we honor him he would honor us. What does this refer to again – Money. So money is crucial in our serving God.
Though many might say they served God better when they were poor, that can never be the case. You can never serve God better when you are poor than when you are wealthy.
God wants us to be prosperous. He needs us to be prosperous. His reasons are far beyond you because if the money is not in your hand God suffers because he cannot do anything on this earth without money. As money is needed to build churches, aid in T.V ministry and publish books e.t.c. as such he needs money in the hands of believers. Even Jesus had a team of financiers a group of women who wrote of his ministry. (Luke 8:1-3)
What we need to understand is that money on itself is not evil but an amplifier. It amplifies what you already are. If you are bad money would amplify it and if you are good it would also amplify it. Many people hide under the cloak of poverty to conceal their wickedness but once money comes this wickedness is expressed then people say money ruined him. No he was always evil he just didn’t have the money to carry out his evil deeds.
The bible clearly tells us that it is the love of money that is evil not money itself. (1 Timothy 6:10). It is the love of money that would not make you give, it is the love of money that would not make you tithe , it is the love of money that prevent you from giving adequate offering. God tells you to give and you say no because you love money. But if you understand God you know giving is your pathway to abundance. As you give doors are opening up to you.
As stated earlier when it comes to the issue of finances there are laws that have been set in place some of which are the law of first fruit offering, the law of tithing and the law of seed time and harvest with regards to our offerings. Today we would be discussing TITHING.
THE LAW OF TITHING
Your tithe is defined or described as one-tenths of your increase. This we see in Leviticus 27:32 which says – “Every tithe of the herd and flock—every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod—will be holy to the LORD.” In this scenario everything that passes under the rod in present day would signify anything that is given to us be it in the form of salary, gifts etc. Everything and not what is left after expenses have been removed.
Some say the tithe is of the old covenant and not the new so does not apply to us. But that’s not true because we have to note that what we commonly refer to as the old testament i.e. a signification of the old covenant which started with Moses is not inclusive of the tithe which did not start with Moses. The old covenant or mosaic laws began in exodus as such everything in Genesis is not a part of the Mosaic Law. Genesis is the beginning of everything in both the new and old testament and anything that did not begin in genesis should be thrown away.
ORIGIN OF TITHE AND WHY IT APPLIES TO US TODAY
Tithe was first mentioned in Genesis 14 where we are told Abraham gave tithe to Melchisedek on returning from war but it is not clear whether tithe was in existent before this. But from logical deduction it can be said that tithe was in existence because there was a word for it. If this was so then it would mean it was in existence, and if it was in existence then it would mean Abraham being a devout man of God would have been giving his tithe. The word tithe is also said to mean tenth. If this also is the case the tenth that is given has to be significant. Why did Moses choose 10% and not 20% or 5% then? There had to be a command to the effect of giving a tenth.
The story is seen in Genesis where we are told Abraham fought four kings and defeated them because they took his nephew lot. As he was coming back from back from his victory he met with Melchisedek and gave him tithes to which Melchisedek blessed him. (Genesis 14 from Verse 17)
This is the first time the word tithe was used and it was Abraham that did it and the bible says if you are Christ then are you Abraham seed and heirs according to his blessing. How do you tap into that blessing – your tithe is the key.
The law was put because of transgression and was not supposed to come in. With this in mind, for those claiming that tithe was under the Mosaic Law even if you take away the law it is still clear that Abraham gave tithe even before the law was instituted.
What we need to understand is that God wants to bless us and for him to do so there are certain things that needs to be done. One of which is tithing. Abraham tithed of his own volition but the Jews were going the wrong way. They were to used to being slaves before they were released from Egypt and so the only thing they understood was a strong hand, to be commanded, law and punishment so God put what was already in existence in the form of a law that they had to abide to for one reason only and that is so that he can bless them. God wants to bless us and looks for every means to do so even if it has to be done with a firm hand. This clearly lets us know that the tithe precedes the Mosaic Law and begins in the beginning of all things which is Genesis.
WHO ARE WE GIVING THE TITHE TO?
The moment he gave his tithe we are told Melchisedek blessed him. (Hebrew 7 shows us that Melchisedek is the key factor. We need to understand what he represents)
Hebrews 7:1-10 (Common English Translation used to ease understanding)
This Melchizedek, who was king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, met Abraham as he returned from the defeat of the kings, and Melchizedek blessed him. 2 Abraham gave a tenth of everything to him. His name means first “king of righteousness,” and then “king of Salem,” that is, “king of peace.” 3 He is without father or mother or any family. He has no beginning or end of life, but he’s like God’s Son and remains a priest for all time. 4 See how great Melchizedek was! Abraham, the father of the people, gave him a tenth of everything he captured. 5 The descendants of Levi who receive the office of priest have a commandment under the Law to collect a tenth of everything from the people who are their brothers and sisters, though they also are descended from Abraham. 6 but Melchizedek, who isn’t related to them, received a tenth of everything from Abraham and blessed the one who had received the promises. 7 without question, the less important person is blessed by the more important person. 8 In addition, in one case a tenth is received by people who die, and in the other case, the tenth is received by someone who continues to live, according to the record. 9 It could be said that Levi, who received a tenth, paid a tenth through Abraham 10 because he was still in his ancestor’s body when Abraham paid the tenth to Melchizedek.
The bible says Melchisedek abided a priest forever. We are also told that he was a typology of Christ, a specimen of what Christ was to be. Some theologians claim that it was a one time appearance of Christ but this is not so as the bible never mentioned this. The bible didn’t say when he was born and when he died. His priesthood was likened to that of Christ who also lives forever. From verse 7 we are further told that without question the greater blesses the latter which means Abraham the possessor of heaven and earth was blessed by the greater Melchisedek who abideth a priest forever.
What we also have to note here is that the Levi’s who are not of the calibre or level of Melchisedek subsequently began to collect tithes. They were called to be priest but it is not said they abideth priest continually because it is recorded that they died. But here we are told that as Abraham gave tithes to Melchisedek they as descendants of Abraham can also be said to be giving tithes to Melchisedek through Abraham i.e. since Melchisedek was not present for the Jews to give tithes to they gave it to the Levites who gives it to the priesthood that lives forever on our behalf.
From the above it now should be very clear who the tithe goes to. It does not belong to our priests it goes much further than that as it goes to Jesus Christ himself who basically directs those on earth what to do with it.
WHERE SHOULD YOU TAKE YOUR TITHE TO?
If we have been following closely we should have come to realize a few things by now: Tithing is not of the mosaic law i.e. It precedes it beginning from Genesis the beginning of all things both in the old covenant and the new covenant and Secondly the tithe is not given to man but given to Christ who lives forever though it is collected on his behalf but those here i.e. our priests here.
The question then is – How do we determine which priest or man of God to hand over our tithes to?
Many have had various misconceptions saying they would sow their tithes as seed to someone’s life, or to a ministry they saw on TBN or to a pastor different from the man of God in their place of worship. This is extremely wrong because the bible has clear explicit instructions on where the tithe should be brought to no matter who provided you with the revelation about the importance and the use of the tithe. What this means is that no matter how you come to learn about the tithe be it through your man of God, through the T.V ministry of another church or through publications the bible tells us where to take our tithe to. This can be seen in Malachi 3:10 which says – “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house……” By storehouse the bible is referring to the place where you worship, where you are fed spiritually and where you serve God. This means no matter from who the revelation of tithing was given to you, you still have to take your tithe to your own place of worship i.e. your own church and not to the church of the person that opened your eyes to tithing or to the author of the book or T.V program that opened your eyes to tithing.
This is a mistake very many people make and though their intentions are clear they totally miss out on the benefits of tithing as with any other law if not applied correctly is a waste of time. So take your tithes and hand them over to your priest in your place of worship.
ROBBERS IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD
I remember the way I felt when I first realized that I had been stealing from God. Yes stealing. It hit me deep down in a place I now know was my spirit or inward man. The accusation was a shock as up until that moment I had not understood the gravity of what I had been doing and the ramifications in my life.
We are told in Malachi 3:8-9 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Here we are clearly told that not paying our tithes is robbing God, it is stealing from God. No matter how you look at these verse and no matter how you try to explain it away it still boils down to one thing. Those who do not pay their tithes are robbers, thieves in the site of God. Even if there is no benefit to tithing (fortunately for us that is not the case) for this reason alone we have no reason not to pay our tithes. No reason at all. It goes further to tell us the implications of this. I would not use the word punishment because the New International Version says it better - You are under a curse.
The idea most people have and what many preachers preach is that God would place a curse on us if we do not tithe but that is not the case. God can and would never curse us. What we need to understand is that from the days of Adam the earth has been cursed and the only thing that saves believers is the blessing of God. Where the blessing exists it overshadows the curse but if taken away the curse that is already in existence prevails.
For a better understanding of this let’s take a look at the following analogy. What is darkness after all if not just the absence of light? Can u bring darkness upon someone? The answer is no. All you can do is take away the light and the darkness appears. We can also imagine light as having a brightness knob or control in which 10 is the brightest and 0 is the least bright. When the knob is turned from 10 to 0 the place becomes less bright and more dark until it gets to 0 where there is no light at all then you have complete darkness. So really coming to think of it there is no darkness only varying degree of light starting from a bright intensity to no light at all.
This is exactly the situation with us. The bible says when we rob God by not paying our tithe we will be under a curse not that he would curse us but that the blessing which is preventing the curse to come upon us would be taken away and all we would remain with is the effects of the curse.
We know blessing signifies life and the curse signifies death. Again we also need to note that death here does not refer to physical death but spiritual death in the form of separation from God and all that is good. This is made clear from the fact that in John 14:6 Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the life, it can also be seen in John 10:10 where Jesus describing Satan said The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I (Jesus) am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. In both situations he was not talking to dead people so what does he mean he is life and he has come to bring them life? This must mean apart from life and death as we know it there is another form of life and death.
All the above can be summarized into the fact that when we willfully disobey God’s word by not doing what he says we open up ourselves to the curse by causing the blessing to depart from us. A curse comes to devour what is yours to kill, steal and destroy what you have.
All those that are talking about breaking of financial curses and near success syndrome have no idea what they are talking about because they don’t tithe they don’t give and they expect prosperity. Fasting is not the way to prosperity, praying continually is the not the way. We have been given the way but most times we ignore it.
BENEFITS OF TITHING
As I always say almost everything in the bible we do for basically two reasons: one because it is important to God which in this case we have discussed above where we are told tithing is tantamount to robbing God. Secondly because tithing is of extreme importance to our finance and prosperity. It is one of the laws which have been put in place for our prosperity.
Malachi 3:10 says “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it”
There are two very things that are highlighted in this verse one of which is that the lord tells us he would open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing. I am sure by now we know there are no grammatical errors or typographic errors in the bible and what is said is what was meant to be said. The fact that here the bible says “a blessing” signifying singular and not “blessings” means just that. The lord would open up the windows of haven and pour out a blessing.
As a tither God would not repay you with money. He would not send money to you. The bible says God would pour out a blessing on us and as a result of that blessing we are going to prosper and would not have room enough to contain the riches. We would be so prosperous that generations after us would still be reveling in the blessing. Many of us would be very conversant with the commonly heard saying that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him fish for if you give him fish he eats for a day but if you teach him to fish he eats for a life time. This is exactly what the singular blessing is to our lives. It teaches us to fish i.e. the blessing provides us with divine inspiration and ingenious business ideas and strategies or corporate insight for those who have a career to enable us put actions into play that would ensure abundance in prosperity and riches. This is done as opposed to giving us fish which can be described as people giving us money. In the second scenario how long can that last? How long? How long would people continue to be directed to give us money? We are not charity cases and as such we need not be treated that way. The blessing would provide a sure source of income.
This is seen in the life of a renowned tither in the bible called Jacob. The bible tells us how Jacob vowed to give a tithe on everything he made (Genesis 28:22). Jacob started his life with only the clothes on his back and the vow he made to God to give tithe on everything he makes. Let’s go further and see what happens with him and if indeed the tithing had an effect on his life.
Genesis 30 tells us the story of how when Jacob was working for his uncle Laban who had been cheating him immensely. Jacob growing tired of this decided he no longer wanted to work for Laban and tried to resign but Laban refused to allow him to go saying that it had been revealed to him that the presence of Jacob working with him had caused him (Laban) to prosper mightily so he should name his wages and he would get it. At this point is where the divine inspiration of the blessing manifests itself. Instead of Jacob asking for an increase in his pay or a profit sharing formula that is done in many firms today he did something many would consider utterly ridiculous and stupid and beyond the comprehension of the mortal mind. He told Laban to separate from his flock into two groups. For ease of description these two groups would be referred to as a group that consisted of all white flock and the other group consists of spotted flock and flock of other color. He then told Laban that instead of money what he wanted was for Laban to take all the flock that were spotted and of other colors deep into the forest (a 3 day journey) such that they could never find their way back. And of the white flock that was left if they mated and any gave birth to a spotted lam or lamb of a different color it would belong to Jacob. This being almost genetically impossible and Laban being a greedy man jumped at this deal. It so happened that hence forth all the lamb these white flock gave birth to only spotted and those of other color leading Jacob to end up more prosperous than Laban.
The question is – Why did Jacob come up with this strategy or plan? Why was he confident of the outcome? How did it happen?
Every plan or strategy has two parts: strategy formulation and strategy implementation. With regard to Jacob’s case the strategy formulation aspect was out of his control as it was by divine inspiration through the blessing from his tithing which we see in Genesis chapter 31:11-13 how the plan was revealed to Jacob in a dream. It says “And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob: And I said, Here am I. 12And he said, Lift up now thine eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the cattle are rings raked, speckled, and grizzled: for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. 13I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me: now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.
What we have to also not here is that though the business ideas and strategies are given to us as a result of our tithing we still have a role to play in carrying out the idea i.e. implementing the idea as we see Jacob do by first voicing it out and then taking specific actions as seen in Genesis 30:37-39 which says “And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. 38And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. 39And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle rings raked, speckled, and spotted.”
Out the outset of this section I mentioned that there are two very important things we need to not about Malachi 3:10 with regards to the benefits of tithing. The second is the phrase “PROVE ME NOW”. This is one of the only places in bible where the Lord told us categorically to put him to the test, to try him and see if he would not do what he says. This is of immense significance also because though what I am about to say may sound like blasphemy to some it is the truth the fact that God is a prisoner to his word. He is bound by his word, once he says it, it has to be done. There is no “I was just joking” with God. As such if for nothing else we should prove him, test him by giving our tithes and see if he would not open the heavens and pour out a blessing on us.
Just a moment, the benefits listed out to us in Malachi 3 are not over. It goes further to tell us that the lord himself would rebuke the devourer for our sake. There are lot of things that as Tithers we are being protected from that we have no idea about. There are a lot of attacks that we have been shielded from just because we are Tithers that would never come to notice. This can also be seen in the life of Jacob when he was protected from the wrath of Laban who wanted to bring harm to Jacob because he felt he had been swindled. He wanted to kill Jacob. The bible tells us that Laban was running after Jacob and an angel appeared to him warning him saying “Neither speak evil nor good to him” so he backed out. So he now meets Jacob and just basically bids him farewell. There are wars a tither would not fight in this life because the lord would take care of them. Those that you know about are because you have been given the power to handle them.
We are also told in Malachi 3 that we could be called blessed among nations. For us to fully understand this another example of a prominent tither would be used and his name is Abraham. We are told in Genesis chapter 12 God met Abraham, Chapter 13 v 2 Now Abraham was very rich in cattle Gold and silver just one chapter difference he had become a very wealthy man. Why is Abraham an example of the effect of tithing on prosperity? Let’s take a close look – Genesis 14 – tells us Abraham fought four kings and defeated them as he was coming back he met Melchisedek brought forth bread and wine and he blessed Abraham and Abraham gave him tithes of all. We can see that the riches and blessing of Abraham are in keeping with what was read in Malachi 3. Same was the situation with Jacob and David. The men knew the effect of tithing and took full advantage of these law and were blessed beyond measure.
CONCLUSION
Many have been tithing for years. Don’t give up because God is bound by his word. The bible tells us having done all to stand keep standing. Finally to let us know that it happens even till this day I would give one last example of someone amongst us in the super church.
For those of us that were at the leader’s conference we heard and witnessed a testimony of the effect of tithing in the lives of one of our members. The testimony really hit home because this is someone we can see, this is someone we know how he was only a few years ago and now we can see the effect of tithing on his life. The law of cause and effect can also be applied here because it also states that whatever we want to achieve in life all we have to do if look for someone who was once in the situation we are and is now where we want to be both physically and spiritually and if we do exactly what they did we have no other choice but to arrive at the same results they did.
Now we have clear examples of the kind of prosperity we want in our lives both from the bible and in our immediate surroundings, we have been told they achieved this by tithing and that the law is irreproachable. The only logical then is to do it. What are we waiting for?
