Justin R. Lester argues the church, not secular agencies, should receive your tithe. He defines the tithe as 10% that goes to the storehouse, cites Malachi 3, and says a well-funded church can be the primary force addressing homelessness, addiction, and family breakdown in your community.
Questions this video answers
10%
An offering is giving above and beyond the 10% tithe.
Chapters
This is an awesome. This is an awesome question. So when we talk about tithes and offerings, the tithe is what comes off the top and goes to the local church. Make that very clear that the church is the most powerful change agent. The reason other things pop up in the world is because the church is not doing her job. So the church is God's baby. Literally, it's not even his baby. It's his wife. So we're taking care of God's wife. And so to take care of God's wife, the tithe, in terms of our resources, goes directly to God's church. 10% goes directly to God's church. That's why Malachi 3, what we're preaching for. On Malachi, chapter 3, it talks about how the tithe, the meat, goes to the storehouse so that the community can come to the church. And the church has meat to give to the community from the storehouse. The reason why other things pop up is because the church doesn't have any meat in the storehouse, so we have to go other places. So God says, first of all, bring the tithe to the storehouse. 10% of my money to the storehouse. When I bring the tithe to my storehouse, then after that, the text then says, tithes and offerings. Offering is above and beyond the tithe. A lot of. A lot of times we get mixed up where we give God offerings and we're not giving him tithes. Let me say this, make it very clear. Malachi talks about this too. The offering will not be blessed if we do not tithe. The tithe is the first step. Above and beyond the tithe is the offering. So that's where the offering comes out of the 90%. Because the 10% is not something you question. So you give God 10%. And above that comes the offering. So that's where. When we talk about how can I give to other local agencies and give to other nonprofits, sure, Please do it. There's so many amazing people doing amazing work in the community. But it starts with you first saying, God, I'm going to give you 10%. God, you're worth doing 10%. You're worth making 10%. Because when the church functions at her best is when all of the people in the church are giving God the 10%. All the people in the church are giving God 10% of their time. All the people in the church are giving God 10% of their gift. And the church is the most powerful change agent in the world. Think about it. When everything happens in our community when everything happens in our world, the first place everyone runs to is the church. Because the church is the most powerful change agent. The reason the church doesn't know what to do sometimes is not because they're not equipped, not because the pastor's not there, not because the choir can't sing certain songs. It's because when people come to our storehouse looking for meat, we don't have anything to give them. I pray that this series can challenge us to want to have everything in our storehouse so that when things happen in our community, we don't have to go find someplace else. But we're the place the homeless can be. We're the place where men's and women shelter. We're the place where addicts can be changed. We're the place where families can come back together. We're the place where young adults can come back together. We're the place where generations can cross hairs. We're that place until we bring meat to the storehouse. There's some things we just can't do.
