What does God want from me?!?
Why is life so hard?
Why can’t I just do what I want to do?!?
So many questions!
So many answers from this world!
All I want is peace and love!
The Holy Bible says that God is love. So God is ENOUGH for us! Then why is life still so hard? Why do I feel rejected and unwanted? Why is it so hard to find love and peace in this life? Why isn’t God filling me with His love and peace? What am I missing here?
Throughout the Bible we are taught about the importance of spreading God’s love. Jesus even tells us that one of the greatest commands is to love others. Sadly, loving others is one of the hardest things to do when we are trying to love all as He commands. If we can manage loving a few, why can’t that be enough?
God says, “Oh, land, land, land! Hear the word of Adonai!” Jeremiah 22:29
He is pleading with us to listen to Him. To repent, turn from our wicked ways and obey His commands and follow Him. When we follow God wholeheartedly we will find truth and answers to all of our questions. It is through a personal relationship with Him that we find out how important obedience is to our Heavenly Father. Our obedience to God is the key to finding the love, peace, and hope we spend a lifetime searching for.
Tithing cancels a multitude of sins
NOT!!! Now that I have your attention. Let’s talk truth.
According to 1 Peter 4:8, it’s love that covers a multitude of sins. God is love, love is important, but love is not enough. We can’t just stop there. There is so much more to having a relationship with our Heavenly Father. As an example, if you are married, is love enough to keep your marriage going strong? Or do you have to also do other things to make the marriage work? Let’s find out what God is trying to teach us. Let’s break things down to make them easier to understand and put into perspective for you.
How many times have you said, “But I’m a good person, I love people, I tithe, I try to go to church every Sunday and do good things? God doesn’t care about everything I do; He doesn’t care about my little needs. I can handle those myself; I don’t want to bother Him with that stuff. He doesn’t care what I do as long as I love others, keep tithing, and being a good person, right?” Wrong! God does care and is very clear about how He will judge those things that He sees as willful disobedience.
What does God’s Word say about tithing?
To help you begin to learn about obedience to God, let’s start with clearing up the question of what tithing is according to God’s Word, not what flawed humans taught us. As always, do your own research, go to God’s Word, begin in the Torah, and study it to see what He tells you.
I grew up in church and was taught to give a tenth of any monetary income to the church. What I’ve observed over my lifetime is a pattern of deception and lies in the church. In 1 Timothy, we learn that money is the root of all evil. What the world has witnessed since the beginning of time is that the shepherds that lead the flocks can’t handle having money; pride bites them every time. Through the years, pastors, prophets and evangelists have taken advantage of believers by guilting them into giving and giving, some even selling their homes out of guilt from their religious leaders. Leaders that they trusted to teach them God’s truth, telling them that God expects them to give up everything or they won’t be blessed by God or get to go to Heaven. These are the very same leaders who are living the highlife off of corrupt tithing tactics.
Rather than focus on tithing corruption, let’s focus on what God truly expects from us; you will find the truth in your instruction book for life, the Torah. So what does God’s Word say about tithing that you were never taught? Here is just one verse of many, please do your own research in the Bible. Pray for God to show you His truth. Look to God for the answers, not flawed humans.
“You must set aside a tithe of your crops—one-tenth of all the crops you harvest each year.” Deuteronomy 14:22
So what does that look like today? When you are studying the whole Word of God, He is very clear about what He wants. He never tries to deceive you, confuse you, or complicate His messages to you. He wants you to learn them, so He keeps them simple and repeats them over and over to help you remember.
As for Deuteronomy 14:22, if you are allowing the Holy Spirit to plant and grow things in your spirit, through studying His Word, then you are to “tithe” what He “grew in you.”
What has He taught you? What have you learned through studying His Word and allowing Him to teach you things you didn’t know? What was it that you are supposed to do? Love Him, obey Him, and spread the Good News, right?
“Call out to me, and I will answer you—I will tell you great things, hidden things of which you are unaware.” Jeremiah 33:3
When you call out to Him, He will answer you. He will tell you what to give and to whom to give it.
“The religious observance that God the Father considers pure and faultless is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being contaminated by the world.” James 1:27
God says repeatedly to care for the poor and the widows. There are countless stories throughout the Bible. Caring for them is a form of tithing in His eyes. It’s obedience to give to them how He tells you to give.
“In everything give thanks, for this is what God wants from you who are united with the Messiah Yeshua. Don’t quench the Spirit, don’t despise inspired messages. But do test everything—hold onto what is good, but keep away from every form of evil.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18-22 (CJB)
Why doesn’t my tithing and serving keep me out of trouble when I sin? I give God so much.
You can be the largest tither in the world but if your hope and trust aren’t wholeheartedly and willingly in Him, your tithes don’t matter to God. Large tithing and many hours serving at church do not make up for the disobedience in your life, whether the sin be small or large, it’s still sin, which is disobedience in God’s eyes. Before you continue over-tithing and over-serving, let’s learn here what matters most to God so that you can make sure you are doing what He expects from you so that you can finally experience His lasting peace.
God says in 1 Samuel that He prefers obedience over sacrifice.
Obedience
OVER
Sacrifice
“Sh’mu’el said, “Does Adonai take as much pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying what Adonai says? Surely obeying is better than sacrifice, and heeding orders than the fat of rams. “For rebellion is like the sin of sorcery, stubbornness like the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of Adonai, he too has rejected you as king.” 1 Samuel 15:22-23 (CJB)
Not only does He tell us here that He prefers obedience over sacrifices of tithing and serving Him, He is also saying here that witchcraft is no worse than being disobedient to Him. So now you have more questions, right? Ask Him. He wants you to come to Him with all your questions. He wants a relationship with you, so draw near to Him. We must be wholehearted and willingly obedient to God and all His commands for us; it matters to Him.
“Of all those I rescued from Egypt, no one who is twenty years old or older will ever see the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for they have not obeyed me wholeheartedly.” Numbers 32:11
God doesn’t need your money, He wants your heart. He wants you to choose Him over this temporary broken world and what it offers you. He wants you to be obedient to Him with a whole heart that is willingly serving however He commands. We don’t get to choose how we serve Him, He wants us to do what He created us to do for Him. He set you apart for a special purpose that you haven’t been able to see because you have been so busy doing what the world told you to do to please Him. It’s time to get alone with God and see what He is saying to you.
The first five books of the Bible, the Torah, given to Moses by God, is your “instruction book for life.” God teaches you there how much He loves you and that if you obey His commands and rulings, that He will bless and care for you while you live in this broken world. It is in the Torah that you learn of His love for you and what He expects from His followers.
I’m successful and wealthy so God must be happy with me
God’s Word does not say anywhere in the Bible that blessings = rich in money. He blesses you in countless other ways. In fact, He says (through Timothy also) that money is the root of all evil and causes people to sin, so that is NOT how He chooses to bless you well. God does not tempt you to sin.
As an example, the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was not put there to tempt Adam and Eve to sin, it was put there to teach them obedience. He wanted to see if they would obey Him and stay away. God was blessing them in so many ways, they did not need that fruit to be wise like Him, they were already made in His image. The enemy slithered in and deceived them into believing that God was not being honest with them. God does not tempt you to sin, nor does He lie to you.
Being prosperous with money is not how God chooses to bless His followers; He created them to love Him and spread the Good News. Having success, money and nice things has never proven to cause people to serve God well in ministry; in fact, it has done the opposite always creating problems beginning with pride.
Prosperity gospel is not God’s gospel. Think about how ironic it is that “Prosperity Gospel” is a phrase; it’s blasphemous actually. What is the Gospel, or as the Hebrew Bible calls it: The Good News? It’s spreading God’s love for salvation, period. Prosperity is not “love.” Make sense? We must be content with what we have and not always be wanting more. (See 10C10 – Exodus 20:17)
“Now true religion does bring great riches, but only to those who are content with what they have. For we have brought nothing into the world; and we can take nothing out of it; so if we have food and clothing, we will be satisfied with these. Furthermore, those whose goal is to be rich fall into temptation; they get trapped in many foolish and hurtful ambitions which plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all the evils; because of this craving, some people have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves to the heart with many pains.” 1 Timothy 6:6-10
He’s referring to the Narrow path here. Teaching that rich people will love their money so much that they won’t want to give it up to follow God’s ways. For those who love their money more than God, will not see Heaven. (Matthew 7:13-14)
If you believe that you are right with God because you have been blessed with success and wealth, what would you say if God asked you to give it all up for Him today and follow Him wherever He leads you? Consider this…
“Someone came to Jesus with this question: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” “Why ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. But to answer your question—if you want to receive eternal life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” the man asked. And Jesus replied: “‘You must not murder. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else must I do?”Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” Matthew 19:16-24
In summary
Who knew until today that God prefers obedience over our sacrifices of time and money to Him? The things you do “for” Him are good, but you have learned today that those things without a personal relationship with Him are worthless. If you want to truly experience the lasting love, peace, and hope He offers, stop and pray now. Keep it simple. Repent, ask Jesus to come into your heart, and for the Holy Spirit to fill you, guide and teach you all things you don’t know. Be still and rest in HIs arms as you study His Word with Him beginning in Genesis 1:1. Here’s another challenge, block out the world’s voices and offerings for a year and just focus on Jesus and what God’s whole Word says. Grab one of our journals to keep notes of all God teaches you. I guarantee you that if you go all-in with Him for a year, He will transform you and renew your mind and heart. You will never be the same. It is through this commitment to Him that you will find all you need.
God bless you.