Is Tithing Biblical?

Foreign.

Hello, guys, it's Ron and Hope. And. What are you doing? It's Ron and Hope.

Unfiltered carbonation.

Yeah.

I don't want people to judge me.

What do you mean?

Because they gonna tell me. I thought she was a health guy. Don't you know soda's bad for you? And this is like.

You came right out of the gate. Don't judge me.

Yeah, but we. See, this is Coke Zero, and I don't ever drink artificial sweeteners. But it's all you had in the fridge. And I needed something because I've been kind of.

You sound stuffy.

Yeah, I've been kind of froggy this morning, so I go to carbonation whenever I feel that way. Anyway, you know what? We do these podcasts sometime because it takes other people to get them done. We do them together. I want you to enlighten everybody on your experience when you're just finishing up a minute ago, Ryan, because some of them may have just watched your last podcast. They have no idea what's going on behind the scenes.

This is probably not appropriate.

This is unfiltered. And they. They want. They want to know what we live, like, when we're not on stage. They cannot handle that knowledge. What a life. And Devo Carpenter's life.

I'm embarrassing. Well, I was.

Don't give too much information.

I was sitting here doing the podcast, and there's a door right over there to our bedroom.

We're doing this in the house. Yeah.

And there's a door to the bedroom. And I'm doing the podcast. In and out. I mean, it's.

And the three people helping us are guys.

Yes. Three guys standing here. And I look back, and there's Ron just standing there in his underwear, like, what an idiot. What are you doing? And all the guys are shaking, laughing, holding the cameras.

And you're having to keep a straight face with your guests.

What I live with, that's what I live with.

You gotta keep it fun, real raw, relevant, and nothing had been happening. Fun. We didn't get a lot of sleep last night. We've been having the riding camps. I think I went to bed at three.

You went to bed at three?

I did not. You stayed up pretty late for yourself. You stayed up like midnighter after.

That's right.

And so the writing camp was going on actually, here at the writing campus. Writing campus for our record label. You need to go follow Red Worship on Instagram. Red Worship. And because we're taking the wonderful sound of our longtime band and praise and Worship leader that's so liberated. And we decided to form a record label and throw music out there that we believe it's kind of a sound nobody's capturing right now. Did you just go? No, it's carbonation.

I think you just burnt. That's all.

You know, like, you went like this.

You went.

No, it's like. It's like. What do you call indigestion?

That's a burp. You just burp.

Indigestion here. Indigestion is not a burp, is it?

Run. God.

It's just. It's the. I was gonna, you know, anyway, and going through. What is this? Do you want me to edit that out or is this real? Wrong.

No, I mean.

Okay, welcome to the family, guys. Listen, we want to do something.

Underwear and burps.

Do something. And I don't want you to leave. Okay. I do a riff. Hope does a riff on Wednesday mornings.

I do Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning prayer time. I do a riff. Go to the riff. Social media platform. Follow Ron Carpenter. Follow Hope Carpenter. I do ask me anything AMA on Tuesday nights, 6 o' clock on the West Coast, 9 o' clock on the East Coast. And I mean, I get asked. I get hammered.

Yeah. Hard things. I don't know how you do it, man.

Those are not easy questions. And it's literally open. We take questions from the. From the thread.

Yeah.

And it's asking me anything. And I'm going to tell you they ask me anything. A lot of that following is non Christian, and so we really have access to talk to them about Christian things in an environment where they feel safe because I'm kind of coming into their world. Rif. We were the first people of faith to enter that social media platform. And so we're trying to build our follow. And I had almost 706, excuse me, 624 live the other night for 45 minutes. That's. That's pretty incredible. Yeah. So we'd love to have you over there. Let me tell you a question that I've been getting asked a lot. And so we decided to bring it into the podcast. And this is why I say, don't turn.

Are you ready?

I've been getting asked a lot of questions about Christians, especially preachers, church leaders and money and finances and blessing. And what does blessing look like? And is tithing biblical? And, I mean, I'm getting asked these questions frequently in almost every forum that I put myself on, whether it's fake books, whether it's riff, whether it's at church. I get Asked this commonly, even pastors are coming to me saying, how am I addressing these things now? And so Hope said, let's just take it to our podcast. Let's just talk about it. And here's what I promise you. I promise not to give you tradition. I promise not to give you Christian culture. I promise to tell you exactly what the Bible says. I don't know everything, but I have studied this thing thoroughly. And more importantly than studying it, Hope and I are a product.

We live it.

I sat last night with these young people in the record label writing camp, and I just told them testimony after testimony of what is happening in our life because we have been faithful tithers. Tithers and extravagant givers. Tithers. I did another word.

I wasn't going to say it.

Five in a row. Tithers.

I was not going to say it.

I can't even remember.

But this is a Tiber.

Tiber.

We have been a Tiber.

We want you to be a Tivol of your life. Tither, rather. And we were sharing it with them, and every one of them, you could tell, is just silence in the room as they were reevaluating their place with that. So I'll share some stories that are just freaking unbelievable if I can say it like that. But at the same time, I would like to be biblically accurate. I don't know how many you can play off each other, because I said, and I hope you know, if I do that, I got to do some instruction and some teaching.

I'll just keep you piped down.

Yes. Don't give me not preaching. Would you hang in here with me? Because I promise to go to the Bible and give you answers in the next few minutes and maybe even give you a few things just about finances in general, because a lot of people don't believe our story. They. They like. Oh, yeah. They say they came up from Little means. I. I told them again last night, I said, y' all have no idea.

We got the pictures to prove it.

I mean, y' all have no idea from where we've come from, right? The. The. The modest, not even modest, primitive means we've come from the small towns and. But, you know, just getting by. And even our early years on welfare and WIC programs and things like that, and living in houses with no heat and paying $200 rent and rats going across. I mean, that's. We come from that. So how did we come from that? What did you do, Ron? What did you do? You know what the first thing is when you talk about tithing. I hear this. It's an Old Testament concept. Okay, let me tell you something. Or it's a concept of the law.

Right. That doesn't apply to New Testament church.

Exactly. The law came 2000 years after Abraham. 2000 years. God initiated the tithe with Abraham. Tithe initiates God's covenant protection over your finances. There's a lot of people that do not have an income problem. They have a leap, they have a leak. They like the woman with the issue.

Of they got enough income, but they can't figure out where it all goes.

They can't hold on to it, and something's there to get it. The IRS doubles their bill in taxes, Their expenses double because there's no protection. So Abraham lost everything, and he was the wealthiest man in the world, most theologians say, at that time. And when he lost everything, he went and God enabled him to get it back in battle. But he stopped on the way home and went to the priest's home, Melchizedek, and gave him a tithe of all he had. Let's go back.

Why?

Because he had it stolen one time.

Yes.

And he didn't want it to be stolen again.

He knew that that would initiate covenant protection over his money.

So God says, when you tiThe in Malachi 3, the tithing chapter, he said, I will rebuke the devourer. The devourer?

Yes.

I will rebuke the seed eater. Seed is money. He said, I will rebuke the thing that constantly invades your home and eats your money. But I know people making plenty of money, but don't live nearly as good as we get to live, because they cannot hold onto it, because everything has access to it, and there's no protection over it. So another thing. Let's go back before Abraham to creation. The tithe is really not about money. The tithe is what I call the principle of divine portion. God gives you choice, and choice proves love.

That's good.

God gives you choice. God did not. People say, why did God create sin if God's a good God? Because God is love. Love, by its nature, has to have an object. It also wants to be reciprocated. God made man as an object to love, but didn't force man to love him back. He said, I'm gonna put a tree here. You can obey me, and this will be your proof of love. You can rebel against me if you want to, but how you handle the relationship is up to you. Just know, Adam, I love you. You're in Eden, and I Want to walk with you in the cool of the day.

So.

So here's what God did. God said, you can have it all, but don't eat this one.

Right.

God always, through the Bible, takes a portion and holds it back and looks at us and says, don't eat it. It's mine. And that is the proof of a commitment of a relationship to him.

Oh, that's good.

So Adam went and ate God's portion. And what happened? The curse came.

Yeah.

What does Malachi 3 said? The Bible says that if you don't, he said, you are cursed with a curse. Why, you have robbed me in tithe and offerings. When Adam ate God's portion, he had to leave the place called Eden. You go on to the next thing. You go to the law of Moses. There were 12 tribes. God said, All 11 of you, go take your land, Levites, you're mine. You come in the temple and you minister unto me. God keeps a portion to himself. God builds a tabernacle. You can have the outer court, you can have the inner court. But. But we're going to have a curtain. And right here in this holiest of holies, it's mine. If you come beyond that curtain, you die. Okay, so now we get over here into the New Testament. God said, your money, you can have 90% of it. Do whatever you want to. This is mine. Don't eat it. He said, if you do eat it, there's a curse that settles in. He said, but if you give it to me, he said, there's a blessing.

Yeah, listen. And I've heard people say, well, you shouldn't try to scare people. That's scare tactics, saying you're going to.

Be cursed for the first time. What did I promise them to tell them? I will tell you what the Bible says.

It's not that we or a preacher's trying to scare anybody. It's just the way God set it up.

That's good, baby. Let me. Let me go back and read Deuteronomy 28. The whole chapter. It's the blessings and cursings chapter. And God said, if you're faithful today to observe and obey all these things that I've commanded you this day, all these blessings shall come upon you. Blessed shall you be not. I will bless you.

Yeah.

Blessed shall you be. Blessing in the Bible, especially when it pertains to the tithe, is not a verb. It's a thing. Yeah, okay. It's a thing. So God said, blessed. When you observe and obey what I've told you to do, blessed shall you be. God doesn't curse people. God has initiated laws in the universe. There's so much here I want to teach. Baby, don't let me dominate the conversation. But, I mean, it's rolling out of me right now.

Preach, preach.

You say laws in the universe. What does that mean? What does that mean? Let me tell you something. When you get in an airplane, you live in a law you can't see.

And you better be glad about it.

It's called the law of lift. You jump off your roof, you're gonna live by a law you can't see. When you go outside and breathe, you are living by laws that you can't see, that you can't see, that oxygen. You are living all the time in a world of laws that you cannot see. The kingdom are laws, okay? When you flow with that law, the blessing is inside of the obedience. When you disobey it, the curse is it's not God curses you, it's you swim with the stream or you swim against the stream. That's life in general, period. And so you eat French fries, you're.

Going to get fat.

Exactly. Right. If you sit there and eat lettuce all the time. Yeah. So these are the laws that God has initiated in the earth. They called the keys of the kingdom. So much I could say the keys of the kingdom is where Jesus said, I'm giving you the power to cultivate the life you want. Here is the roadmap to blessing. Here is the roadmap that leads to curses. You get to make the decision as to how you want to live. Okay? So when you see Adam in Genesis, chapter one, God said, be fruitful. God blessed him.

Yeah.

Then said, be fruitful, multiply, Fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion. Okay?

1, 2, 3, 4.

He lost that blessing because he ate God's portion. You come to Malachi 3. And God said, bring the tithe unto me and see if I'll not pour out a blessing. That Hebrew word for Blessing in Malachi 3 is the exact same one in Genesis 1, God said the blessing that Adam lost. The tithe can reenact. So it's not something God does to you. It's a thing he puts on you. Bless shall ye be in the city. Blessed shall ye be in the field. So some of you are thinking, man, if I could just get such and such company to hire me, I got a resume, and it would be such a blessing to me. You've got it all backwards. If you're a tither, the blessing is not on. It no, it's on you. It's blessing on you. The greatest thing that company could do is hire you, because when you drive up in the parking lot, you have just blessed. You're a blessed person because you're wearing it, and it's like a magnet. It's like a favor. It gives you advantages. Now, can I just tell a couple of stories?

Absolutely.

I told them this last night, and they were just mesmerized. We. Without going into numbers, because I just get hammered if I do that. I'm not going to. I'm not going to do it. We right now are way out in the country on a mountain. We live an hour away from town. We're out in the country on a mountain. You wanted a flat lot. I told Hope if she would let me build wealth with our houses. We always bought houses that needed help in foreclosure. We would put money into them, live in them five years. She never got attached. And we would go to the next level and the next level. So we did this consistently. And we did well. We did well. And I told Hope, I said, hope, when we get around 50, if you don't get attached to the houses, let me build wealth. I said, Around 50, I'll just let you build your dream home. So it was actually about 48. About 48 years old. We were able to do that. And so we went looking for a piece of land. We had never built a house. We'd always lived in other people's messed up stuff and had to fix it up. And she said, I want to live in the mountain, and I want a flat lot. And I told her, I said, you know mountains.

I said, but I know what God showed me.

So we literally went and we looked all over the place, all over the place. And we had an $89,000 budget for a lot. That was our budget to buy a lot to build on. We went and we saw some pretty places with great views. And Hope just. She wasn't mean or she wasn't.

I'm just like, no, that's not it.

She just, I'm not feeling this. This ain't it. It's nice, but this ain't the one. And so the guy sits there and says, hold on a minute. And he makes a phone call, and he says, you know what? I'm just going to show you something. He said, I don't even know if it's on the market. I don't even know if it's for sale. I just want to show it to you. Because Hope would not Stop. About this flat lot in a mountain. So this guy drives us all the way up to the top of the mountain. I'd never been to the top of it. And here sits this lot, flat as a pancake. And Hope is coming out the back door before he even starts. She just jiggling the door.

Because I was like, this is it.

This is it.

This is it.

So I get out of the car and we look at it. It's all grown up, and there's briars and bushes and everything everywhere. And I tell Hope, I say, hope, I say, just let me. Just give me a minute. Because Hope knows that she has a husband that does his best to hear from God. I try to. And I walked out, and there's this big rock, and it was literally a flat lot, and it was the top of the mountain. There's a cliff. In fact, I heard years ago they used to hang, glide off of it, and it just fell right down. And so I went and stood on a rock at the edge of the land and I said, God, is it mine? And you have a video of it in your phone. You showed it to them last night. It started snowing on the lot where the guy's car was parked. It was not snowing when you got back to the road. It was not snowing. It snowed right there on top of my head on that rock. I went back to the car, found out that the guy who cultivated the whole development is. It was almost a million dollar lot, and he had lost it during the recession, and it was sitting there in foreclosure. And I took right near our budget, maybe a little more. And I said, offer the bank this five minutes. They took it for a tithe of what it was foreclosed on. Yeah, a tithe. That's how me and Hope have increased. People see our life, and they don't.

Know the story, y'. All. It's not an option for us. It's never been an option. That's why. What I don't understand about people who say they love God. How can you say you love God?

You can't love. You can't know the love of the father and be greedy, right?

And not want to give him something and not. I mean, I love my husband. I want to buy him things. I want to give him things. I love my kids and my grandkids. I'm always wanting. I never can tell them, no, you're the target.

You're the target market.

They're like, can I have it, Gigi? And I'm like, dang it. Yes. You know, because I love them, and I think that's the way. I just don't understand people's mindset who want to negotiate with God, you know, well, God, let me just give you this. This month or next month, I'll get caught. I mean, why do you negotiate if you love him so much? You know, the rules and the standards and the keys to the kingdom are set up for our blessing, not for our hurt, not. Not to hold us back or punish us or harm us. They're here to bless us. I just don't understand the mindset of, let's see how little we can give to God, the God who gave everything. But I want to see how little I can give to the God who gave me everything.

That's. That's amazing. So the right way to put it, and. And the fact is, Hope, here, again, it's a thing you wear. There was no way in the world that should happen. In fact, we went back to the restaurant nearby that had a lot of locals, and we met some people there that night. And when we told them we're going to be building, we just bought the lot. They looked at us like, how did.

You get that lot?

How did you get that lot? Because it was the premier place, and even the wealthy people could not get their hands on it. And here comes his pastor and his wife and got it for nothing. Because it's the thing, the thing that brings you advantages.

It opens doors.

Yeah. The thing that puts you in rooms you shouldn't be in, that gets you conversations you should not have. I believe the people of God are walking under the blessing, and the blessing gives you divine advantages. Let's face it, if there's not a blessing that comes with serving God, many people wouldn't want to serve him. So God has built in the blessings. Let me give you another example. Hope and I, one of the very first houses we ever bought, way back early in our life when we were getting established, getting on our feet, and nobody in my family had ever owned a home. Hope. They had owned a meager type home. So we were so excited about this home. It was a home in foreclosure. Nobody wanted it because it had to share certain parts with the neighbors. The way the subdivision was designed, so it was unattractive to people. And we went in there and we said, for that price. It had been on the market like two years and went there and bought it. It was a house nobody wanted, but they had marked it down so much, it was in our price Range. We were there months, and all of a sudden we get a call, this lady's come up from Florida and she wants to see your house from a realtor.

I'm like, our house isn't for sale. We just moved in.

We just took the tags off our furniture. I'm not selling it. I was nice about it. That was a Friday. He called back on Saturday. He said, this woman really wants to see your house.

Said she drove through the neighborhood and loves this house. This house, this house.

And I said, well, you know, there's a key under one of the plants or something. I said, you can walk through it. I said, but the house is not for sale. We just got it. We love the house. Called me back Sunday, said, if I remember right, is a quote, this lady is not going home until you at least let her make you an offer. And I said, what's the offer? When he told me what she was willing to pay, I said, sold. In Jesus name. I sold.

Why our house, right? And we'd only been in it two months.

Why our house?

And we made so much money, a random woman from Florida.

Nobody wanted it till we got in it, right? Because the blessing was not on the house. The blessing was. You see what I'm talking about? And so this happened right now on the west coast coast.

It happens to us all the time.

On the West Coast. We are in the Silicon Valley, which is the highest price zip code in all of America. So we've got a wonderful church building that I took over in a succession plan. Former pastor's been so good and so gracious to us. And I'm sitting here and all these other buildings around us, these office buildings all down first street are for sale. For sale, for lease, for sale, for sale. Because, you know, tech people have not been made to go back to work. So you got all these beautiful buildings for lease or sale. They can't get rid of them. We've had four different companies come to our church property and offer us hope insane amounts of money. And our building is not even for sale.

It's not for sale.

It's not even for sale. And I'm like, what is happening? The blessing of God. I feel his presence. The blessing of God is like a magnet that draws things to you that you could not do yourself. That's what the blessing does. And that is the testimony of mine in Hope's life. I got this guy, this preachers and sneakers guy. Oh, God, you know, I need to. I need to send him some candy hearts or something. I, he, he don't like candy hearts. I was in.

You know why he don't like you? Because he don't know you.

Yeah, I'm a nice guy. Yes, I'm nice.

If he would take the time to get to know you.

They put me in a document and not judge you. Nobody's ever told you.

Oh, what a concept.

Yeah. Nobody's ever talked to me. Nobody's ever interviewed me. But that. On the Hillsong documentary. I don't even have no connection with Hillsong.

You look good on it, though. He got. He picked a good picture.

We were on the Hillsong documentary, and then I'm course all over his Instagram. Then he took pages in his book and wrote about me, and I'm like, I don't even know who this guy is.

And we should send him some sneakers.

The thing they talk about is shoes.

Yeah.

I'm giving examples now. I want you to know my life. I'm. I'm letting you in my life. I have a lot of nice sneakers.

Yeah.

What percentage of them did I buy? 20%. 30.

Not a lot because you don't shop a lot.

I've had four pair of shoes, very expensive shoes, the same name brand, given to me in the last month.

Yeah. Four boxes sent to our house.

Most of the shoes y' all see me wearing that people mad about are given to me as gifts.

Just saying, I love you. Pastor wanted to bless you.

Pastors, they come from. We brought our son. Our son hasn't been to church in 12 years. He's never. He's been. Been bitter toward the faith and. But he fell in love with you. His life got changed, and we just wanted to bless you. And here's a. It happens all the time. So am I never supposed to wear them? I've got a watch, and it's so sad. I won't wear it. I keep it in a safe because I wore it and somebody took it and blew it up on the thing and put it on there and just started eating me alive. It is a very, very nice watch. But on our 25th year anniversary, I.

Was about to say, that's the one we all gave you.

On the 25th year anniversary of pastoring Redemption. For a quarter of a century, eight.

Couples, I think it was ten couples.

Ten couples went together, pooled their resources, and gave me that watch to say.

Thank you for 25 years.

Thank you for 25 years of service and how much they've been enriched by our life and gave me that watch. And it is precious to me, and I can't even wear it. Because people talk about you because they judge the watch, but they don't know the story. I didn't buy the watch, but even.

If you did buy the watch, so.

But the thing is the stigma. I told people on rifle, you're not.

Supposed to be able to buy yourself a watch.

That's what happened on Riff the other night. I had somebody not shout. The people on Riff were actually very respectful, although a lot of them are not anywhere near remotely close Christian. And. But one of them was asking me about, you know, the blessing that I walk in and how I dress and things like that. And I told him. I said. I said, respectfully, the same principles that I'm teaching everybody else. I said, they work for me, too.

Y' all want to be elevated. Your life. You want your life to elevate, but ours is supposed to.

You can't obey God and your life not be elevated. It's impossible.

And let me tell you this. You can't hate on a blessed man.

Yep.

Listen, you better be careful, because if you start hating on.

He said, I'll bless those who bless you.

Your life will never elevate.

So when me and Hope hear something great happen, I told the people in the writing camp, I said, our goal is to honor God with our music. I said, our goal is to write songs that bring a great God experiences to churches all over the world. I said, but if every one of you got so blessed, you could go out, they're all young, could go out and buy your first home. I said, I would be standing on the sidelines cheering and clapping and everything for you. Why? Because Hope and I have learned the art of celebrating other people's blessing. Because many times God will see if you can celebrate someone else's before he'll give you yours. And that's biblical.

He says, I will bless those who bless you, who bless you.

And I will curse those who curse you. So when you see someone blessed, don't curse them, because that person's a mirror.

Yeah.

And whatever you send toward them bounces right back and hits you. So if you see somebody blessed, the greatest thing you can do is bless them. Them, because it hits them and comes right back.

Celebrate them.

The worst thing you can do is begin to put curses on them with your mouth. Because what happens, it don't stay on them. It comes back on you and comes right back. So when you talk about the blessing of the Lord, the Bible says that thing, the blessing, it's not something God does. It's something that rests on you. He said, the blessing of the Lord maketh one rich and he adds no sorrow to it. Can you get wealthy outside of God?

Yes, absolutely.

I live in Silver Valley. There's people that respect God0 and are billionaires. Okay? But there's sorrow and there's repeated tragedy and there's repeated stress, anxiety, hospitalization, mental illness. There's all these types of things. But God said, I can get you to the same place without the tears.

And I bet you the people who don't even know God or honor God, they're givers.

They tithe givers.

They may not call it tithe, but they give to projects and to orphanages. And that. That's being a tither. It's a law.

It's a law. It didn't say where you. It basically. It doesn't say you have to be a Christian.

No.

If you know the law, gravity does not care if I know the law, if I'm a Christian. Okay, a key. I've got the keys of the kingdom. That front door over there does not care if I'm a Christian or if.

You own the house.

It don't care if I own the house. It don't care if my last name's Carmen. It cares if I have a key access. And so when you know the keys of the kingdom, the key gives you access to that boom shakalaka. And so those are the things I would love for you to walk away today saying, wow, the light has come on. Wow. I think this is life changing and revolutionary and thank you for talking about it instead of talking down at me. Because a lot of preachers don't teach the blessing and the tithe. They fuss. They get up and they fuss at the people. And that's not inspiring.

If you could even understand, honestly, how much we want your life to prosper because we've seen it, we know it. It's almost like when you get that, that supplement that you have been taken and you know it's life changing. You've been struggling with your back or your joints or whatever, and you find this supplement or find a lifestyle change that you know has helped you. You want to get it out to everybody that you know because it's worked for you. That's the way we feel about giving to God. It's not giving to a church. It's giving to God because you love him so much. And when you do it faithfully and you do it consistently, your life shifts and you don't become greedy. I promise you, if you implement this type of Lifestyle, I believe tithing.

God gave us tithing to break the spirit of greed.

It just opens your heart. It opens your heart and your hand to say, oh, I'm not in fear. Oh, I can't do that. I'm afraid I won't be able to pay my bills. When you see it, you test it. You do it. You prove it. You see the results in your life. Nobody can talk you down off the wall. Nobody.

And see, that's the reason none of y', all, your. Your theology or your philosophy cannot trump my experience, right? So if you come back with all of your theology and all of your Bible studies trying to disprove what I'm saying, the fact that is, I am walking under it right now.

Look, I got to give an example. Two Sundays ago, I was sitting in church. I had already given my tithe and my offering. My tithe comes out every two weeks. We get paid every two weeks.

Don't give under compulsion. Give as you.

Mine's on automatic draft out of my.

Account, and we go ahead and fix it.

So my tithe comes out automatic draft into my redemption app. Then every weekend, I give an offering. Well, I'd already done that in church. And I was sitting there, and there was somebody a few seats down from me. And the Holy Spirit told me to give $500 to this person. And I'm like, I start negotiating. I did. I start like, God, I've already given my tithe, and I've given my offering. He said, Give $500. I said, okay. So I reached out and said, do you have cash app? And they said, yeah. I said, send me your cash app. And I sent them immediately. $500, y'. All, I promise you, this is no joke. In 10 minutes, my phone, I felt it vibrate. And I looked down, and somebody from the East Coast. I was on the west coast. Somebody from the east coast had sent me $1,000. I was like, won't he do it?

God said, if you just obey, won't he?

And I just obeyed it. I held it and I tapped them because they had looked at me and said, thank you so much. And I looked at him. I said, I'm going to talk to you about this afterwards. I'm going to teach you something. And I said, look what God just did for me. I said, I just sent you 500, obeyed God, and somebody sent me a thousand.

How many stories do we have like that?

I can't. I can't even tell you.

We could write books. Let me give you another one. The power the good power of money. Do people abuse this? Yes. Are there preacher hustlers out there? Yes. And the problem is when you hear a story about one person doing crazy stuff, everybody gets painted with that brush. And that's sad because I know a whole lot of pastors and for everyone that's screwing up doing crazy stuff, there's a thousand trying to do the right thing. There really is. But I. We're off on a trip and I need a haircut. Okay? Now people want to fuss about tennis shoes and my watch, but they don't know. They don't see our giving, our extravagant giving. I don't live by what I make. I live by what I give. I'll let that sit right there. So we make this detour in Cleveland, Ohio, and I'm just like, I don't, you know, women would never do this, but I'm like, I need a haircut because I'm preaching for Pastor Parsley next night and I just need to be cleaned up. It'd been a while and so just literally pick some place random and well, this lady right here is open from. I'm like, I'll take it. I'll take the appointment. I went in there and went in her little cubicle and I could tell, I told him, I said, I could just tell she was a wild child. You could just tell. You can just not see it. You can feel it. She was just, yeah, she's a wild child. She lived pretty recklessly and wonderful young lady, but I could tell at already a young age, life had been pretty tough. And she gets in there and she seems kind of melancholy. And I finally, I just asked her, you know, because I'm a pastor, I can't help it. I said, are you all right? And she said, my sister just got murdered. I wasn't expecting that. My sister just got murdered. Her boyfriend is being held. He did it. He's awaiting trial. She had a three year old kid and this lady's having to keep the kid. And she's single and doing hairstylist and just tough circumstances. And I could tell she was probably drugged up. Maybe not illegally, but anti. She just seemed like sedatives. I could tell she was off and so I was leaving. I didn't go in, I didn't start preaching. I just let her talk. And when I was leaving, I said, I would like to bless you. I said, may I tip you? She says, yes. Well, my haircut was like 45 bucks. After the $45, I pulled out two $100 bills. I said, I just wanted to tip you. She looked at me, hope so confused. She looked at me confused. She's like, I can't accept this. And I said, no. I said, I'm a Christian. I said, and I believe in doing things like this. When I laid that $200 in her hands, she started bawling. That lady got my Facebook thing, got my website, wanted to know what time our I church services were. Said she would be watching it Sunday. She might be watching podcast. That woman followed me through the office, introduced me to everybody in the reception area, and followed me all the way out to the sidewalk, going to my car, crying, and telling me thank you. And that that moment had changed her life. The what opened her heart.

Then you. Then you were able to pray for her.

Yes. Oh, I'm glad you were sick. And then after that, she just sitting there bawling. And I said, may I pray for you?

Yeah.

And I started praying that God would heal her heart.

Yeah.

She just. But what opened the door?

Being able to bless him, the gift.

Being in position to have $200 to do that. What did the good Samaritan do? He had enough money for himself, but he took the man who was beaten and left for dead, put him on his own donkey, put him in an inn, and said, send me the bill. Some of you people say, well, I'm not going to be like that. I just want God to give me enough for me. How selfish of you. How selfish of you. God wants you to have enough for you, and God wants you to have enough for anyone around you that needs the blessing of God.

We should be blessed. I mean, how can we help the poor? The Bible says the poor will be with you always. There's always going to be different sectors in the world.

Who's your friend we had on the podcast of the day, the business lady, Tamara Andrews. Tamara, you remember what I said in that podcast? I said, it's amazing that people don't want me to say anything about tithing to your church, but they want the church to change the world.

Yeah. They want the church to be there for them when they need help.

They want the church to support missions. They want the church to have great childcare for their kids. They want A1 facilities. They want us to build Bible schools. They want us to support in services around the community, but they don't want to tithe.

And I'm like, it comes from the sky, y'.

All.

It just comes off the trees.

And the same people that don't want to give will hold me responsible. For how fruitful we are in ministry. And so there's a lot of stigmas that have to be broken. And if you were one that was in a church or situation where your gifts were abused, I apologize to you as a pastor, as a church leader. But the fact is, it's really not about advancing the church. It's about your personal love relationship with God's covenant. Yep. And God said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And so God knows that your treasure, your money, and your heart are always tied because your money represents your gifts, your talents, your time, your skill. It is a product of everything you are, and they're always tied together. And you can give God your song, your clap, your shout, your dance, but he still don't have your heart until he has your money.

I want us to end with this because I know a lot of people listening are great people, but maybe they're just bound in fear. Maybe they're afraid.

That's why God says, test me.

Malachi 3 says, test me. They're afraid. They're like, I already don't have enough to pay the water bill, the power bill, the house bill, and the shoes and the clothes.

Let me add to that. Let me add that we get it because we were there. We were raised in houses where tithing was not an option. I pulled around a push lawnmower and a jug of gasoline. And if somebody gave me $3 to cut their grass, my daddy would stand at the door and wait for 30 cent.

Yeah.

And my daddy would make me put that. I'm thankful for that. My daddy would make me put 30 cent in an envelope and take it down in the offering Sunday. So I want to admit I didn't get to a place in life where maybe some of you are. And you make. And you in your career and you're making a killing, and you're like 10% of this. You can't even imagine it. I grew up with it. And even if I didn't like God, my daddy made me tithe. You were in somewhat of the same home like that.

But there are people within fear. They're already struggling. But I want to encourage you to test God. I mean, do you want to keep struggling? Because clearly what you're doing is not working. Clearly not. Tithing is not working. So why don't you just try him?

Don't be mad at blessed people.

Test him.

Don't be mad at blessed people. Find out what blessed people are doing. Yes, Because God's not a respecter of persons, but he is a respecter of principles.

That's right.

We need to understand that God, I'm just believing for great things in the name of Jesus, your people, everybody. That's understandable. I pray that this podcast be one of the most listened to ever and that this be a radical life change for so many in Jesus mighty name.

It's Ron and Hope Unfiltered.

We'll see you guys. We love you.