Malachi 3: 8-12
Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, How 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 prove Me now in this, says the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of Heaven and pour out on you such a blessing that you will not have room enough to receive it.
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the products of your fields; neither shall your vine cast off its fruit before its time to be ripe, says the Lord of Hosts.
And then all Nations will call you blessed: for you shall be a delightful land, says the Lord of Hosts.
Here he's using a question and answer format again.
This whole Universe belongs to God, including this Earth, and everything in it. He chooses to let us use and enjoy what He's put here, but we need to acknowledge that it's His, by giving back the first ten percent. This is His Owner's Share that He requires.
But when the people didn't do this, He sent "the devourer" to eat up what they had. Just like Haggai told them, in the second year of King Darius, when he told Zerubbabel the governor in Judah and Joshua the high priest, that they were satisfied to live in their beautiful houses while the Temple still lay in ruins (Haggai 1:1-11).
This is the only place in the whole Bible where God says we can test Him (prove Me in this), in giving Him the first portion of our income.
I have a personal story about this. When our children were small, and we were barely scraping by financially, my husband suggested that we begin to tithe.
I was already "prioritizing" the bills, deciding which ones I could pay this week, what I could put off 'till next week, and what I could pay part of.
So I decided that if I was going to tithe, I would have to take it off the top first, or there'd never be any left. After a few weeks of this, I noticed that I was able to pay what was due each week, without putting any off. And a few weeks after that, we had a little left over to donate to our friends who were missionaries.
We didn't have any more income, or any less bills: God had stretched our 90% to cover more than our 100% had previously. I don't know how He did it, but He kept His promise. He rebuked the devourer for our sakes for our obedience, just as He said He would. We took Him at His Word, and He came through!
But I wouldn't presume to test Him in anything else.
We show what we value by our checkbooks and our calendars. What we spend our money and our time on. That's what displays where our hearts are.
O my Father, thank You for always being faithful to keep Your promises to us. Whenever we decide to obey You, You always come through with Your rewards, even stuff we didn't even expect. You are so good! You are good to us every day, all the time. You want to bless us more than we can stand, and we deprive ourselves of Your good gifts when we try to do things ourselves, on our own.
Help me, Father, to always remember Your goodnesses to me; especially whenever I turn a corner and need to appreciate another aspect of Your personality.
O Father, I will never in this life be able to understand all You are. I don't know if all eternity future will be long enough to really get to know You. There is no end to Your beauty and Your majesty and Your power and authority. There will be no end to the increase of Your Kingdom and Rule; You will continue to cause Your Creation to grow and evolve and change: from this Era of Man, to the next New Heaven and New Earth, to whatever will come after that, forever and ever.
And every knee will bow in adoration of You, and every tongue will confess Your authority and ownership and glory. How good for us to choose to worship You now, rather than be compelled to do so in the next stage of existence.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
