Unlock the Power of Worship through Tithing

All right, all right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the King's Council Podcast. We're back at it today on the Kingdom Money Principles. Today, today we are diving into worship. Yeah, yes, the principle of worship.

Third principle we've covered, ownership. We have covered stewardship. Now we are on to worship.

Yes. This is going to be probably one of my favorite topics to talk about.

I like it.

Yes.

This is going to be worship in general. It's one of my favorite things to do as a Christian. But today we're, we're looking at it from the perspective of a money principle.

Yes. Which is interesting. And I think you guys might be, might be some new thought process to this, I guess, as we kind of dive into this today of like, what does worshiping actually mean with our money? Because we did talk about, again, the 4 principles you mentioned, the ownership, God owns everything, stewardship, we're gonna worship, and then in the upcoming weeks we're gonna dive into kingship and what that really means. And why we've boiled them down to these 4 principles, first off, I always just want to mention that these are principles. This isn't like something you have to do. These are just, if you do these, good things are gonna happen to you. If you acknowledge that God is owner and you are a manager, and our job is to steward well, And then how today, as we're going to dive into how do we use our money as an act of worship and then ultimately walk in kingship. And the point of these principles is one of them is not just on a standalone, just operating in one of these is not going to allow you to truly experience the blessings that God has for us within the kingdom. These are independent, but they're synergistically, they work in unison with each other. And that's why we've boiled into these four principles here for us to walk these things out here together in our walk here and ultimately bringing his kingdom come here on this earth today and now. Amen. Amen. So worship, that's what we're diving into today. And ultimately, when you think of worship, we certainly don't, usually don't think of money. We think of, you know, singing songs.

Yeah.

But our lives should be an act of worship in everything that we do, right? We are living sacrifices. This should be our spiritual act of worship and what we do with everything in our life. And I think money, financially, this is a huge component of our life. As we would've mentioned in last week's episode, that it's interesting that I think our lives are in constant battle between God and money, right? And like, that's the competition that is thwarting for our heart. Right? If it's— if we know we can't serve God and money, of all things, why did he say that? It's— there is a constant battle. And if we know we can't serve both of them, it's impossible. How do we do this here as followers of Jesus? I don't even want to say as Christians because that's just such a, a word that's just floated around. I think most people in America— maybe not now, I guess it's kind of crazy— but, um, a lot of people would consider themselves to be a Christian, but they're not really following what the Bible says. Yeah. In most areas of their life.

Yeah. Identify as a Christian, but they have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, which is evidence of your salvation.

Yes, that's good. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So when we say followers of Jesus, that's really what we mean of like, hey, we've given our life to Jesus as Savior and now understanding of Lordship. And again, this just this process here of sanctification until he calls us home. Yeah, because we know our citizenship is not here on this earth. Praise the Lord. We do have citizenship in heaven. And so how do we bring those kingdom principles here on this earth? And I think this is this principle of all of them. It's the acknowledgement of God owns everything. Really the acknowledgement and the practice of stewardship. But this, I think, that we're diving into, which ultimately is the concept of the tithe being a spiritual act of worship. And I think this is almost the beginning or the starting point of what God wants to do in and through us.

Would you agree? Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. Well, the absolute best way to acknowledge truly that God owns everything, and you know, we did two episodes on that, is to really worship him with your tithe, with your money. Because if there are two things striving after our heart, well, God is not a thing, but God's always striving after our heart, but the enemy's striving after our heart, and he's using money as an idol. He's using covetousness, our own greed, our own pride against us. Well, the best way to actually acknowledge that God owns it all, everything you have, whether your paycheck's $100 a week or $100,000 a week, is to give back to him at least some of what he blessed you with.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And that's again back to, if God owns it all, it's not that he just owns the tithe, um, he owns 100% of it, right? And, and this acknowledgement of giving back to him what is already his is just that acknowledgement of ownership, uh, that he owns it all, and I get to work with this 90% on this earth. And that's where stewardship comes into play. But, you know, Miles Monroe is someone that I've listened to a lot over the years who's just what was an incredible teacher on the kingdom and just the kingdom concepts of really truly understanding that, that like the gospel of the kingdom, like that is really truly what is the good news. It's God's present rule and reign in our life today. And we get to walk in that with the authority and the ability that he wants to pour out on us, right? It isn't when we die, when we leave our flesh suit that we enter the kingdom of heaven. It's like, no, when we pray, 'Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.' Like, that's a daily prayer. That should be a daily prayer and, um, steps of faith that we take on a regular basis. And I think one of the things that he said in regards to the tithe was that this is like our, our management training program.

It really is.

Yeah, it was kind of cool to think about. Like, you know, he wants to work through us, but if we don't get this simple thing— it's so simple— but if we don't get this right it's hard for all the other areas of our life to, you know, manifest, we'll call it, in with what the kingdom actually truly has for us.

Yeah, if you don't walk out your Christian life in discipline with obedience, then again, are you really a Christian? Yeah. Are you really a follower of Christ? And with this, I mean, this is a good practice to put into place to discipline yourself, to practice being obedient in this regard, as far as just starting with the tithe.

Yes. And it's not even about the money at that point. No. Right? It's like, that's irrelevant. Right. The amount is irrelevant. It's just, are you being disciplined? Are you being obedient to what God has asked of us? Right? And we know that the tithe was in the law and we're not gonna get into it now, but eventually we're gonna get into how did that even come about? When I had this revelation, I was like, whoa, there's way more to this than that. Because I was always like, ah, you know, 'cause you hear some pastors are like, that's a New Testament, that went away when— Old Testament. Yeah, that's an Old Testament concept. And we live in the new days now that when Jesus has returned. And it wasn't that the old law went away. Jesus came to fulfill the law. But these principles are still there for us to be able to walk out. And anytime in the Old Testament when you would hear of people being blessed, they were blessed financially. Like they were rich in silver and gold, right? And I think that all of it came down to, okay, were they, were they being obedient to God? And they were tested in many of those situations. And I think one of the first times that we even hear of the concept of worship in the Bible is in Genesis, right? With Abraham being tested in regards to Isaac. Right. Right? And so these testings actually take place in our life, whether they're— you're 3 minutes saved or you've been walking with the Lord all your life, there's still times where we're going to be tested because God is He is a jealous God. He wants our entire devotion and our entire being to be him being not just acknowledged, because you can acknowledge something, but then you can throw it to the wayside as well, but to actually walk these principles out because that's truly how our faith is evident in what we do, not in what we say.

We've talked about it in the past how when Adam was called to tend the garden, that Hebrew word there could also be used as worship. So, like, yeah, we both probably pronounce that terribly. I said the same thing as you. But the first worship of God in the Bible here is Abraham when he goes up to the mountain, Mount Moriah, to sacrifice Isaac. And the worship, I see it as an action of obedience that required sacrifice because he was called to sacrifice Isaac, right? So the verse is actually Genesis 22, chapter 5. It says, and Abraham said to his young men who accompanied Abraham and Isaac on the trip to the mountain, stay here with the donkey. The lad, the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you. So they're saying, well, "Go up and worship, and we'll come back to you." And the cool thing about this is, like we mentioned, when we just envision worship, we usually think of praise and worship before a church service, something like that. But the idea of worship here is really to bow down, to bow down, to bow down your will to the will of God. And worship, of course, in the Old Testament also included the lifting of hands, the praising with your mouth, that sort of thing. But here, the first reference to worship in the Bible is actually to bow down. So when we think about this, and of course we know the story where Abraham brings Isaac up into this mountain, and you notice that he said, well, he tells his guys, he's like, we'll be back down. It's like, wait a second, you're actually going to fulfill this act in obedience of sacrificing your son Isaac, but you say we'll come back down. And just that just blows my mind because I don't think Abraham was counting on God calling him out, saying, Abraham, and him saying, here I am, as he had the knife in the air to sacrifice his child. I think he truly believed that somehow, some way, if this is the seed, right, I'm going to be the father of many nations. If this is— if God is calling him my only seed, then God's going to just bring him back to life.

Yep.

Right. It's just crazy to think of the faith that Abraham had, the obedience that he had to actually do this. And I love up, uh, what the Bible says here, because it says that— so I'll just pick it up in verse 6. So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac. Then he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, my father. And he said, here I am, my son. Then he said, look, the fire and the wood, but where's the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, my son, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering. So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him, and Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order. And he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham! So he said, Here I am. And he said, Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me. That's radical. Now an omniscient God is telling you, "Now I know because you actually showed it to me through your action. Your obedience, your faith was proven to me by actually acting it out." Yeah.

And that's why— that's wild, right?

So think about how many people tithe or say they have a generous heart, but don't tithe. Like, "Oh, God knows my heart. God knows my heart." Well, yeah, God knows your heart, but guess what? He's not convinced that you are who you say you are, that you have a heart that you say you have. He's convinced when you actually act it out. And it just blows my mind that an omniscient God says, "For now I know that you fear God." Now I know, 'cause you actually were willing to do this.

Yeah. You actually took that step of faith.

And that whole process is an act of worship. That whole scene right there is an act of worship where it's that bowing down, where Abraham is truly bowing down his will to God's.

Yeah, yeah, that's so good because so many times, I mean, I've used that phrase before, "Oh, God knows my heart," and that it's like, well, your heart— what you do is the evidence of your heart. The words you speak is the evidence of your heart, right?

Uh, try using that on your wife. No, you know my heart, right? I know I forgot our anniversary, I know I didn't get you a gift, but you know my heart. You know I love you, girl, right?

Yeah, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way.

Yeah.

That's great, man. And so I want to, we're going to dive into ultimately, so kind of setting the stage with that, the point that we're making is it's not what we say or even think, it's what we do that is actually the evidence of faith in our life. Right? And so I want to dive into, obviously I think the most well-known scripture references about tithing come from the book of Malachi. Um, so I'm gonna— we wanna dive into that specifically, uh, verse 10. Sure. And then we're gonna unpack this, uh, quite a bit here on this episode. What really truly is this even saying? So if it's all right, I'll just read this. Malachi, um, chapter 3. We're just gonna read verse 10 here. It says, to bring all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. And try me now in this, or some versions will say, test me 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. Yeah, this is the only time in the Bible that I'm aware of in which God actually throws it up and says, test me. Just come on, boy, test me in this thing. Yeah, you want to, you want to actually truly see if this works or not? Test me in this and see if I don't open up the window of heaven and pour out such blessings upon you that they're not— there's not gonna be enough room to receive it all, which is crazy to think. And, and again, this is Old Testament. We read the New Testament, there is never really a true command that you have to tithe. Sure. But there's definitely references to it, specifically what, 2 Corinthians?

Yeah, mostly in chapters 8 and 9, speaks of regularly giving, giving in proportion to your income, giving generously and sacrificially, and giving out of an abundance of love for God and for others.

Yeah. So there's the understanding that, yeah, we should be giving, but there's not necessarily a command that this is what you have to do. And what I think is interesting is that when we think that we tithe, we think that's being generous, right? It's like, well, that's part of generosity. And like, no, that's not. That's just like being obedient, number one. Generosity should come above and beyond that, right? Whether that's 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, whatever. I mean, I know, I'm sure some radical people that give 90% of their income, they consider themselves like reverse tithers. They live on the 10%, right? That's a goal for me at some point in my life, like to be able to just truly, to be able to create enough wealth to use to advance the kingdom of heaven here, and all I need is that 10%. Like I think that should be a goal for many of us, right? Wouldn't that be radical? That'd be freaking, Sweet, man. But that comes back to, again, acknowledging God owns it all and I'm just stewarding it. And, uh, if I have the ability to create enough to live on the 10%, that's again back to just all of these principles are— one doesn't necessarily— isn't more important than the other. But I do believe that most of this, of walking within the kingdom, starts with this obedience factor of honoring God with the tithe, with our first fruits above and beyond anything else that we do.

Yeah, I like that. A.W. Tozer had a quote about worship. He said, like, the best form of worship is any active attempt to close the gap between the heart and the object in which the heart adores. So that's worship in its truest essence. And if you think about that, our hearts should adore Jesus above and beyond anything or anybody else on planet Earth. And the act of sacrifice that I think all worship involves, right? 'Cause even if you worship the Lord, just, you know, listening to worship music and you're standing there with arms lifted and crying your eyes out, there's an act of surrender. There's an act of sacrifice as far as I'm taking up my cross, I'm letting it all go, I'm following you. You know, I'm just pouring it all out onto your altar. That's sacrifice, right? That's where the sacrifice was. He brought things to the altar. To the altar and you sacrificed it. Abraham built an altar to sacrifice Isaac on. So you sacrifice at the altar, that meeting place with God. And one of the best ways— God knows that there is this struggle for us to part with money above and beyond anything else on this earth. So what better way to sacrifice to the Lord is to sacrifice the thing that has a grip on so many human beings on planet Earth. Sacrifice that thing. And I believe you should, if 10% is a good starting point, but I believe we should give every week, or every time we get paid until it's a sacrifice where it's like, "Ooh, that, it hurts." It's like, "I'm not sure how God's gonna come through." But who did God reveal himself to Abraham? "I'm Jehovah-Jireh." The Lord will provide.

Yes.

Right? Give him an opportunity to show who he is as our provider when we're at a place where we need provision.

Right. Absolutely. And I mean, you may have even put yourself in a position because of stupid mistakes. I've done this many times in my life of, it's like, I can't afford to tithe. Right. Right? And it's like, that's, if you're in that position right now, gonna challenge you on this in that if you don't think you can afford to tithe, the reality is you can't afford not to tithe. Because, and again, we can't do anything about the mistakes we may have put ourselves in doing, you know, whether that's credit card debt or bad, just debt in general. But what we can do is make the decision to move forward from that. And the first decision that we should make is, a non-negotiable is this act of tithing and committing to God because he can get you out of any pit, any debt that you've put yourself in because he is Jehovah Jireh. He wants to provide for you. But if you're self-reliant and you're relying on only ways that you think you can make that happen, probably isn't going to end well. There's going to be a lot of struggles, there's going to be a lot of stress, there's going to be a lot of toil. And it's not that there won't necessarily be that with God, but there will be a peace that you have when you're walking that out, knowing that he is the one that will actually provide for you. I go back to, so I'd given my life to Christ at the age of 16. And as you just go to church and you read the word and you're starting to understand this more and more, and I had no money at that age. But it really wasn't until I was 24 years of age when I actually committed to the tithe. It was always kind of like, "I'll give," you know, if they, back then the churches still kind of passed the plate and you'd throw some money in or something like that. But it wasn't really truly, I didn't commit to it and set it up as like a recurring thing that was just gonna happen. It was leaving the bank account.. And that was just like a non-negotiable for me. And up until that point, now we've actually heard many stories of this now in doing our kind of workshops, our CEO of Your Life events, of, of just getting feedback when we challenge people on this concept of like, just, just test God in this. You ain't testing me. And again, none of this stuff, we're not sitting here saying like, you have to do this, 'cause you don't have to. You don't have to do anything. But you get to if you want to walk in the, the full freedom of the kingdom operating in your life. And When I did that, I mean, I had never made 7 figures up until that point. It was like low 6 figures. I had success, quote unquote, like in my different sales positions and things like that. But when I actually committed to that, my life radically, radically changed. And again, we've heard many, we've gotten many testimonials, DMs from people that have said the same thing. It's like they didn't, they weren't committed to it, but once they did, it's like, man, the open, the floodgates, the windows of heaven had opened up on their lives. Yeah. And again, this isn't just like a, if you do this, life's just gonna be easy for you. No, that's not the point of this at all. But this is a concept that God, while God is all-powerful and he can literally do everything and anything, he operates in the earth realm here. He operates through man. And to be in these principles, they're principles, no different than gravity is a principle. This is how things work. And he wants to work in our lives and do the miraculous in our lives, but we have to do our part as well. And this concept of the tithe is something that radically changed my life, and I believe for those listening to this will radically change your life as well if you actually truly commit to this and make that— this is a non-negotiable. I'm going to actually commit that if I— even if I'm in debt and I can't get— I have no way, I either have to choose. I mean, I had— I remember at one point when I had some credit card debt. And the, the question was, well, if I tithe, I can't pay this credit card payment. And I even questioned, like, wouldn't better stewardship be paying off this debt so that I can tithe, actually commit to tithing? And the reality is, no, better stewardship is obeying God first and foremost, right? And so while you may think that might make sense A lot of these kingdom concepts don't make sense to us. And then it's like, ah, it just, I got bills. And it's like, well, commit to tithing and God will take care of those bills. But you have to commit to this practice first.

Yeah, we walk in such fear of, oh, my credit score is gonna go down. Oh, I'll have bill collectors calling me. But I've never heard a story, and if there was one out there, you would hear it because this is the day of social media. And if anybody has an attempt to bash God, they will. Sure. Those who are opposed to God. And I've never heard somebody tell a story where I started tithing and my life life got worse. Yep.

Never, right?

And if there was a story like that out there, they'd be preaching that from the mountaintops all day long, trying to tell people why God ain't real.

Yes, absolutely. We read Malachi 3:10, and I think it's important because that's a verse that gets quoted a lot, but it's important for us to go back and really understand what's happening in this situation here. So I want to read verses 6 through 9 as well. That kind of leads up to this. So picking up in verse 6, it says, "For I am the Lord, I do not change." Boom. "I do not change." That's Old Testament, New Testament. God doesn't change. [Speaker] Right. [Speaker] "This is why you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts." 'But you say, "How shall we return?" Will a man rob or defraud God? Yet you rob or defraud me. But you say, "In what way do we rob or defraud you?" You have withheld your tithes and offerings. You are cursed with the curse, for you are robbing me, even this whole nation.'" This is good. It says, "From the days of your fathers, I gave you my word, but instead of obeying my commandments, you turn aside from them." "You stopped doing, you stopped essentially being doers of my word, right? So return to me and I will return to you." I mean, he's speaking to an entire people group here, just calling them out. Like, "You're robbing from me." And first and foremost, we're not giving God money, right? It's like God doesn't need our money, but this is just the act of, again, obedience that God is first. God, he requires our first fruits above and beyond even just money, but our time and everything else. We need to be acknowledging that he is truly the owner of everything. And if we're not tithing, the reality is we're robbing him.

Yeah. Yeah. God says, test me in this. But in reality, it's the biggest test we'll ever face.

Yes.

Right. It's really a test for us. Testing God is the biggest test for us. Yeah.

Yes. I mean, there's so much to unpack from this.

And not only will God bless you when you do, But when you don't put God first, when you don't tithe, when you're not generous, think of Haggai, right? When the exiles came back from Babylon and they started to rebuild the temple, they got discouraged and just sat there and they're like, "All right, we're going to just work on our own houses. We're going to put God's business on the back burner. We're going to work on our own stuff." And they were sowing plenty, but they weren't reaping a lot. They were earning wages, but it was like it was disappearing. It was like they were putting it in bags with holes in it. It. So isn't that funny how that works? You, you know, you could get paid the same amount every week, every two weeks, and when you're putting God first, all of a sudden at the end of the pay period when like that money's running out, it's like, oh, the money— there's still money here. I don't know how. I, I paid my tithes, I, I paid the bills, we, we went out to eat, and there's still money in the account. But then all of a sudden when you stop tithing, the same thing happens. It's like, all right, I paid my bills, Uh, all— we didn't even go out to eat this week. Where's the money, right? Where'd it go? And God will just find a way. It's like supernaturally he finds a way to increase or decrease, like, right under your own nose. Yeah. And it said that there was a drought in the land, and God actually revealed, oh, I, I'm the reason for that drought because you decided to put me on the back burner and focus on your own things. Yeah. And that's what God will do if we don't put him first. Why would he put us first? And in God doing that, some people think, oh, why would a good loving God How could God do that to people? Well, God is after our heart. Whatever it takes for us to drop to our knees and surrender to him, that's what he's gonna do. And we see it time and time again throughout the Old Testament. And I fear that we're gonna see that in this nation soon, that we've so rebelled against God, we've so turned our back against God, that there's gonna be a judgment that really gets our attention. And what's gonna happen? Same thing, nothing new is under the sun. There will be a revival amongst the people. We will be brought to our knees. If we don't humble ourselves, God will humble us.

Like, absolutely.

It's commonplace throughout scripture. And we're living in this day where I really fear this nation is getting to that point where we're, we're going to experience the wrath of God because we've so turned our back on them. I mean, you think about it, the, the DNC, Democratic National Convention, and I know it'll be a little bit in the past once this airs, but they had setting up trailers for free abortions.

Evil, man. Just completely evil. Yeah, it's disgusting. I can't, I can't even wrap my head. It's not like a food truck. Like, it's not like a come get your DNC shirt. It's like come get your abortion, right?

And what— and it's a convention. It's a rally, right? Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, when you have a convention like this, it's celebratory, right? Yeah, it's a rally. So you're coming to, to celebrate the, the candidate of your choice by Oh, I'm gonna sacrifice my baby. Yes, it's absolutely evil.

It is, it really is, man. Um, yeah, I can't even— that's— when I saw that, I was just flabbergasted. Like, you got to be freaking kidding me. So, so gnarly. So gnarly.

Yeah. And what God's going to do is bring us to our knees to a point where we have no other options but to cry out to him. Yes. And like the good God that he is, like we just read, he never changes. He will always welcome us back. Yes. But sometimes he has to be the one that brings us to our knees in order to surrender again to him.

Yep. Yes, absolutely. And I think since what you're even saying, just what I'm thinking of in these verses specifically, it's like the nation of Israel, you know, they brought that curse upon themselves because they were robbing God. And I wanna be clear, like, God doesn't put curses on people, but our actions cause the curses to be put on us, right? It's like, it's back to our actions of what we do. It's not what we say or maybe think is a good idea, but it's what we do that is ultimately causing that curse. And I think why the Christian community nowadays is struggling so much financially, 'cause you can see this, I mean, there's definitely wealthy Christians out there, But I would say there's far and few from those that are truly wealthy that are truly serving the Lord with their life, right? They may call themself a Christian, but are they truly? And I think we would've mentioned this, I don't know if, I think it was on a recent podcast, maybe it was on one of our coaching calls, but Satan makes the claim to the wealth of the earth today, right? If you go into when he, Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, he makes that claim, like, "Bow down to me and I will give you all of these things," right? And what did Jesus do is he responded with scripture, right? With complete truth of not what the enemy was telling him, but just speaking truth to him. That's how we, it's an example of how we need to combat the enemy in our lives and the thoughts just the junk coming out against us, that we need to understand scripture and we need to memorize it and we need to speak it, right? Because that will ultimately give us the strength to be able to continue to walk this life out here on this earth. But where I was going with this was this concept of like the curse and why we're struggling financially is that this is, these again are principles, these are, call them even like spiritual laws, right? We know that what we sow, we reap. That's like a spiritual law that takes place here. And, you know, with Israel, they essentially fell under this curse of poverty because of the consequences that they were doing. They were robbing God. And so consider it almost like being spiritually in jail, right? It's like if we could get this first act right here of committing to God with our money, because that's what's pulling us from him most of the time in our lives, if we could get that thing right. And just think of like what that would do for the kingdom economy, right? I mean, you don't even have to— you don't have to be a mathematician for this to actually work if we actually just stimulated the kingdom economy with the tithes and then ultimately again sowing into other believers. But, you know, at the time we're recording this, hopefully we'll make this change, but less than 5% of churchgoers actually tithe? Less than 5%. And what if—

sometimes I think less than 5% of churchgoers are Spirit-filled. Sure. Yeah, maybe not 5%, but, uh, I, I, I mean, don't want to make a joke about this, but I 100% think there's going to be less people in heaven than we expect.

Yeah, that's a sad reality, but yeah, I would completely agree.

Yeah. And I don't want to come off as sounding like super self-righteous in that, right? But like John says in 1 John, you know, I write these things so you could have confidence in your salvation. Yeah. Like there's things that are listed in scripture, like it— you know that you're saved if, if you check off these boxes, right? And I know that I know that I know that I'm saved. Just my testimony alone from the day I surrendered, I got filled with the Holy Spirit, got delivered radically from a 14-year drug addiction. That's supernatural. Right. Like, only the Holy Spirit can do that. Right. So that's evidence enough for me. But also, how do I live my life? How do I love God? How do I love others? How do I show God my love through my obedience? Because that's how God says we actually show him that we love him, is through our obedience to his commands. And am I perfect? No, by no means. None of us are. That's why Jesus had to die on the cross for us. But I'm 100% confident I'm going to heaven. And I think a lot of people are in a dangerous place where they will say they're 100% positive they're going to heaven and they're far from it. They're going to be in that group where Jesus says, depart from me, I never knew you, you doer of iniquity.

Yeah.

And but that's the enemy. Does we, we give him his props for being very good at what he does as deceiver. And he's a father of lies and he has deceived a whole, seems like, generation of people. I mean, I could only speak for this generation that I'm a part of, but it seems like so many Christians believe they're heaven-bound, but there's absolutely no fruit in their life that they actually have the Holy Spirit living inside of them. And we can't come at these people with a pitchfork, and we can't just crucify them and condemn those people. But it is our job as believers to hold them accountable and to really get them to examine themselves to see, where they're at with the Lord. Because if we don't, if we know somebody's hell-bound and we don't say something to them, if we don't help them to acknowledge the fact that you're actually far from your Savior, you actually don't have the Holy Spirit living within you, then who are we? It's on us. Yeah, the blood's on our hands.

Yes, yes, which is wild and can be kind of a scary thought to really think about.

Yeah, there's a passage in Ezekiel that speaks on that. When you see those who are sinning, and it says something similar in James in the last chapter, one of the last verses in the last chapter, that if you see somebody who's sinning, that you helping and turning that brother from their sin could actually spare them from death, right? But in Ezekiel, it literally says that the blood's on your hands if you don't do that thing.

Yeah, blood's on your hands, right? Yikes, yikes, man. So coming back to this, if 5% of the church— only 5% of the church, um, community— and this is again in America here, um, that means that the other 95% essentially are under this curse, right? If we really think about that, it's like, oh, that's a curse because we're neglecting to actually tithe and honor God with our first fruits. But what I love is that God doesn't just tell us that we're under a curse. He actually tells us how to get out of it. It's not that hard, right? Verse 10 of Malachi there,— it literally tells us how to release it. "Bring all the tithes, the whole tenth of your increase, into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And prove to me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour out a blessing that there will— there shall not be room enough to receive it." Right?

And that ain't just a spiritual blessing, because there's not gonna be enough physical room to actually facilitate this overflow of blessings that you receive.

Yes, absolutely. And it isn't just a tenth of, of our income, right? This is, this is the first tenth of everything that we do, right? So we're to set that aside. Uh, Proverbs 3:9 says, uh, honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all of your increase. I just, I listened to a message a while back where the guy was I was— it was an old one, but it was like he was taking this literal. And like, man, when you go to buy a sack of oranges, like, go give the first 10 of those oranges away. Like, and I was just like, man, how would I practically walk that out? Yeah, I don't know. But wouldn't that be cool if we actually did that? It's like everything that we got, if I even was taking Ellie to the store, it's like, yeah, we can go get these I don't know, Lego set, but we're gonna go, we're gonna give the first tenth to somebody else. Yeah.

Or it's just whenever you see somebody in need, even if you don't have the money to pay for that thing that they need, sell something of your own. That's what the early church did in Acts 2. Everybody got saved and was so on fire for the Lord, they all sold everything they had. So those who were poor and needy, the widows, orphans, they could be provided for. I don't remember seeing anything in Acts chapter 2 where God demanded that they do that to be a part of the kingdom. They desired to do it. When you really know God and have a true appreciation for what he did in dying on the cross for our sins, for saving our souls, rescuing us from sin and death, redeeming us, restoring us, when we actually walk in that, acknowledge it and, uh, really show true gratitude, to be generous is— it shouldn't be a hard thing. That, that's, that's a natural overflow. Greatest act of love this world will ever see is when Jesus died on the cross for us, right? Where the— we're the recipients of that. And to, to say, okay, now I, I gotta hold on to my own stuff because I earned it, it's mine, that person didn't work for it, I mean, who the heck are we to have that heart's posture towards that thing, right? It's sickening, really. But when you see how greedy people are, you know, even quote unquote Christians, where they live for money, they're so unwilling to part with the dollar that's in their hand, they're tight-fisted. Well, guess what? When your fist is open, money, and money's flowing out of it, you have an open hand, money will flow back in. But if it's tight-fisted, all right, you may not let it go, but no more is going to be replenished there.

Yep.

God gives seed to the sower, and the law of sowing and reaping, I mean, it, it's a law.

Yes, it's a principle, baby.

Like, like gravity.

Yep.

If you go to the top of a building and step off, you're going to hit the ground. Absolutely. If you continue to sow you're going to reap what you sow. Yes. So if you sow, sow good words. If you don't have a pot to piss in, like materialistically, right? So love and compassion and empathy and pray for others. Yep. So that, and you'll get it back. Yep. If you're discouraged, sow encouragement in somebody else. Yeah. So you could— so that could be, uh, sown back into you. You could reap the encouragement from others. God finds a way to do that. Yeah, it's a hard thing to do when you're discouraged, to encourage somebody else.

But this— but isn't it fascinating too that the encouragers, those people in your life, you could probably think of them right now, it's like they're always the most joyful people. It's like because they're dishing out encouragement, right? Right. Yeah, reaping it, baby. Yeah, that's so good. Sometimes I've had this question pop up too for people. It's like, well, do I tithe on the gross or the net, right? And I've— I had like an immediate response to it, but, you know, I've kind of noodled on it for a while. And it's like, even if— I mean, we are to give to Caesar what is Caesar's, right? And give to God what is God's. Um, and Caesar at that time in scripture would be like our— the government, right? It would be like the tax. My short answer for this is it's the gross. It's the, the 10th of the increase first and foremost, right? You give to God first, and so, and then you, then you pay your taxes, but you have to give to God first. So that's my, my thought on that. But even if we got to heaven one day and it was like, and God's like, you know, that was really great, you did tithe, but you actually only needed to tithe on the net, um, are you gonna be like, oh man, you mean I gave you an extra 2%, right? Like, is that really gonna be the thought process?

This?

It's like, I don't think so, baby. No, because you're sowing those seeds. And it's, again, it all comes back to just your heart's disposition towards it. So you're never going to regret— I, I gotta believe you could regret tithing on the net, but I don't think you're ever going to regret tithing on the gross.

Yeah, I can understand a little bit for a W-2 worker where like you're, you're seeing the net, you know. Sure, it's not like W-9 where you're paying taxes at the end of the year. So if you X amount of dollars per week, you have it. Sure. So I could understand the idea that it's a little easier to just take the 10% right off the top there. But guess what? If you're a W-2 worker, you're gonna get taxes back at the, you're gonna get money back at the end of the year, right? Right. So just hold onto it if you want to.

You're ready.

You tithe on that, right? Well, no, you already went above and beyond.

You tithe on the gross. Yes, exactly.

Yes. Yeah. But if you haven't, you should tithe on what you get back in taxes. Sure. But I've been over finances at a couple different churches, and in my experience, every single person who's ever, ever raised that question, do I tithe on the gross or the net, they ain't coming close to tithing on either the gross or the net. Okay, right. So it's kind of a moot point.

Yes, absolutely. And one— this may be a little bit minor, but I do also think that it's interesting that it says bring the whole tithe to the storehouse. And for some of us, especially in today's age, uh, they don't attend church. Right? And it's like they're getting their content from online, their biblical teachings from online. And I think there is just a principle to this of go to church, right? Hebrews tells us that we shouldn't forsake the assembling of believers. Right. And so I think there is just even just more so the understanding of when we do assemble, and not if, but when you do, that's when you bring the tithe to the storehouse. It's that sacrificial act that you're actually doing. It isn't just, going online and hitting submit. Sure. Right? And I think if we took that more seriously, we may, it may just mean something different in our lives where it's not something that I have to do, but I get to actually do this. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we give online, but there's always a time in church, you know, where it's like, hey, we're gonna do tithes and offerings. And it's like, it's an acknowledgement of like, we have given this to you, Lord, given back to you what you've already given. And for those that are like, "Well, I don't tithe because they don't need to go buy another building," or something like that, I want to just stop your thought process right there because that's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is obedience. And what they do with it, you don't have any control over, nor should you dictate what somebody else does with it. Because what you're doing is you're giving it to God and then he's going to take care of the rest.

Yeah. Yes. And if you have a pastor who's just buying cars, uh, left and right, maybe find a different church. Yeah, maybe find a different church and you don't have to worry about your—

your time. They can't have money and— right, they should, right? They should be well taken care of, really.

But if you know church leadership is abusing the finances, then don't let that be your church.

Yes, absolutely.

Um, following up in Malachi here too, again, hold on, before you even get into that, I do want to make the point that that in the Old Testament, you know, they, they were paying tithes to establish the house of the Lord and for the priests to get paid, right? So don't think that every pastor should be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Definitely not. I mean, you— do you want a pastor that's going to come out and pour out his heart every week in the pulpit and really pastor the, the flock well? Do you want him to be worried about his bills and what his family is going No, like, why can't— I mean, if it could be a church of 10 people, you trying to tell me that 10 people can't come together and tithe and that pastor can't, like, work full-time in ministry? Yep. I mean, he should be able to. Absolutely. I mean, I have the utmost respect for bi-vocational pastors who have to work a 9-to-5 job in addition to pastoring. Pastoring is 100— it's more than a full-time job.

Right.

That's a job with lots of overtime. You're never off the clock. Never. You had a call with pastor at your church yesterday and he said, hold on, I got to take this emergency call.

Yeah, right. It's like, oh, that's pastor, right?

Yeah, yeah, that happens a lot when you pastor. Absolutely. If anybody, if anybody wants to sign up to be a pastor, do it for 3 months and give me a call. Yeah. And see how much you like it. Yeah. If you're not called to do it, don't think about, you know, you may like to be on stage and the attention be on you, but if you're into the coaching business then, right? Yeah, we know Caleb Spiller, he coaches people in, uh, coaching or speaking. Yes, absolutely. Well, we'll give them your number. But no, pastoring is— I mean, think about it, that just the responsibility and how pastors and leaders of the church, they're going to be judged more strictly. Yeah.

Come Judgment Day. Yep, absolutely, absolutely. Good, I'm glad you said that. So continuing in Malachi, because I think this is again a portion of this, um, chapter that maybe gets overlooked a little bit, but continuing where we left off really. It's like not only does God open the window of blessing on us, but he also adds— there's added benefits to this as well. Specifically, as we can continue into verse 11, it says, "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field." And this is like what you were saying before. It's like, there's just never seems to be enough. Um, and it's like, no, this says specifically— if you think about what the devourer comes to do, the enemy comes for one thing and one thing only, that is to steal, to kill, and destroy. Right? The good things— that's true. We skate to one song and one song only. Um, so the enemy comes for three things. Things. But to steal, it's to devour. Yeah, right. How about that? He comes to devour, right? Whether he's stealing from us, he's trying to kill us or destroy us. But I, I take solace in that, and like, it means that if he's coming, there's something to steal. Yeah, there's something to kill, there's something to destroy. So the enemy's coming at you, take joy in that. And that's going to be very hard to do at times, but that means there's a reason why. Because there are times in my life where I'm like, things seem to be going pretty good. Am I actually good, Lord? Yeah, am I all right here? Yeah, just an interesting thing. But, but what I, what I love about this is, and I will rebuke the devourer. It's like the act of the tithe— the devourer could be those credit card interest fees, right? The devourer could be the, the mistakes that you had made prior, and now you, you've changed your, your stewardship, uh, and, and the act of tithing is, is the ability for him to actually rebuke the devourer in your life. Right? And so there's more to it than just more, because I think that's where a lot of people can get off of this. It's like, well, I want the blessings of God, so I'm going to tithe. I don't, I don't necessarily know that that's wrong, but again, it comes back to our heart's disposition, is that we're obedient to this, um, so that he will actually rebuke the devourer for us as well. Yeah, right. And this could be in your business as entrepreneurs listening to this right now. I mean, there's devourers out there coming for our businesses, and if you don't set of the parameters. Think of the— this is how I've come to think of this. Like the tithe is like me setting the fence line around my business and my family and my life. And if I don't tithe, I've left a gaping hole in my fence, right? Where this is God's protection. And if you don't have a business, what is it that— and this is why I think it's so important for us to have an opportunity, even if you're a W-2 employee, to have a side business, a side hustle in which God can bless you above and beyond your earthly master, meaning your boss in this, because God wants to pour out those blessings on you. He wants to prevent the devourer from coming. But if you haven't positioned yourself, put yourself in a position to actually receive those blessings, then how's God gonna do it? Is he just gonna like let you win Publisher's Clearinghouse? I don't even know if that's a thing anymore. I don't know. But we have to, there's a responsibility on our part that we have to take. As entrepreneurs of putting ourselves in a position to actually receive these things as well. So that's Malachi, like, you know, chapter 3, verses 6 through 11 that we really went through. And there's so much more that we could dive into on this, man.

But we're going to do that next week.

Pushing the clock. Let's do— yeah, we have a ton more to really unpack for you guys next week, even just where this concept of the tithe came from, because yes, it is Old Testament. It was a part of the law. But what's so radical to me, when I first understood that the tithe was actually— the concept of sacrifice and giving was well before the law was actually established. Why it was established was, I believe, again, back to God wants to bless us. And, and he put that—

those—

the law— we have the Ten Commandments, and then there's the law that Moses put in place, and it was so he could bless us in the earth realm that we live in. Um, and we're going to unpack that for you guys more on next week's episode. So, so I hope this was a good start foundationally here, that the tithe itself is this concept, the kingdom money principle of worship, and it really is obedience and sacrifice. Um, but giving back to God what is already his— we know it's not just the 10%, it is the, the entire 100%. And that's where ownership, stewardship, and worship come into play here. And we'll come back next week with one more episode on worship before we dive into the final principle of kingship here. That being said, we'll see you guys all on next week's episode.

Peace.