Perhaps the more important question is: to whom are you indebted? Are you trying to ‘pay it back’? Think about it… but not in financial terms. To whom do you ‘owe’ a debt? How does it make you feel to be indebted? Embarrassed? Irritated (at yourself… at the one you are in debt to)? Frustrated because there doesn’t seem to be a ‘way out’? And perhaps a myriad of other feelings. Are you doing anything about the debt? about your feelings?
Now lets consider our debt to the Lord. Do we have one – of course. But what is it? How do we ‘owe’ when it comes to spiritual issues. How about the tithe? No one really likes to talk about it… because it makes us feel guilty if we aren’t? If ever we feel guilty, whatever the issue – these feelings reallllly need to be considered because they are speaking to us. Ignoring only postpones.
“Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.” (Malachi 3:8-10, NKJV)
These verses provide a great deal of information. Bottom line though is that we were told not to rob God. A noted theologian, R.C. Sproul wrote an article that would cause any evangelical Christian to reconsider the issue of tithing. I’m cherry-picking some of his statements but would recommend reading the whole article (https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/will-man-rob-god/).
“It declared that of all of the people in America who identify themselves as evangelical Christians, only four percent of them return a tithe to God.” …
“This immediately raises the question: “Why?” How is it possible that somebody who has given his life to Christ can withhold their financial gifts from Him?” …
“Nowhere in the New Testament does it teach us that the principle of the tithe has been abrogated.”
If you feel that tithing is only Old Testament – not – or you can’t afford to tithe… then look at the end of the verse when the Lord says He will open the windows of heaven. Do we not believe this? Do we always find a reason not to tithe? Do you know WHY you believe about tithing in the way you do? In the final analysis, I suspect that the tithe really shouldn’t be considered as a debt… rather as funds that never belong to us in the first place.
