Of Blessings, Breakthroughs and Divine Favour! October 14, 2010
Posted by Henry in Matters of the Faith.Tags: blessings, breakthroughs, church giving, divine favour, financing the gospel, giving to God, gospel, Kingdom of Heaven, offerings, reaping, seed time and harvest, sowing, tithes
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Are you frustrated that the Lord has not answered your prayers for the breakthroughs and divine favour which you seek?
Have you faithfully tithe but find that the “windows of heaven blessings” continue to elude you?
Have you diligently sown your seeds into “good soil” and confessed daily but you are still not receiving a harvest?
Do you “give to God” faithfully but feel like the Lord has abandoned you as you are not receiving anything in return?
If any of these questions apply to you then I have good news for you. The reason why you are feeling frustrated and disappointed is because you have been fed a false gospel. God is not man that He should lie so do not be disappointed in God. God did not make the above promises to you – the man in the pulpit did. The man in the pulpit who presents himself as God’s mouthpiece is the lier and I will demonstrate as I examine those questions one by one.
Firstly, the Lord did not promise you “breakthroughs” or divine favour, man did. The Lord gave you divine favour when He sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for you and I so that we may obtain mercy – this is Grace, which is divine favour. Man however changed the meaning of divine favour to mean that you can receive “supernatural abundance” in earthly things and sup with kings, which the Lord did not promise you. To obtain true divine favour therefore all you need to do is seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all else shall be added unto you. This does not mean that you will receive all the material desires of your heart but the Lord promises to meet your needs. You should also remember that before you ask, the Lord already knows what you need. In much the same way a parent takes care of a young child without the child needing to ask the parent for anything so too the Father will take care of His children. What “breakthroughs” do you seek therefore?
Paying your tithes and expecting the “windows of heaven blessings” is foolhardy to say the least and no amount of “confessing” will bring those benefits to you. Under the New Covenant a Christian is NOT required to tithe and the Lord will not honour your tithe according to Mal 3:10 because that scripture was not spoken to the church but to Israel under the Old Covenant. Under the Covenant Israel were required to give a tithe not because this would ensure God’s blessings but they were required to give it because the Lord had blessed them. In this sense the tithe was like a tax that the Lord required to sustain the Levites, who had no inheritance in the Promise Land. As such you do not pay taxes to ensure future income but rather you pay it because you already have an income and because it is required by Law. If you are therefore paying the tithe because you think that this will compel the Lord to do something extra for you then you are already giving it with the wrong motives. The Lord is not a debtor to any man – so if you pay the tithe thinking that the Lord owes you something then you have been deceived. In the first place the tithing practice today is a violation of God’s Law – it is therefore the man that collected the tithe from you that owes you, not God.
Some preachers within the Word of Faith movement will tell you that the Kingdom of God operates on the “principle” of sowing and reaping. I contend however that this is not the case. Indeed the analogy of sowing and reaping is often used to describe the Kingdom of God or certain aspects of it but the Kingdom of God is not reactive. It doesn’t depend on us doing something but it is rather all about the sovereign Will of the Father. The Kingdom of God is about salvation which comes by Grace. Grace is God’s sovereign will to lay down the life of His Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins (John 3:16). It was because God first loved us and not that we did something to appease God in order to earn His love, why He gave us this FREE gift. The Lord does not need you to “sow” therefore in order for you to receive a “harvest” from Him. Did Christ not say, “Does the rain not fall upon the just and the unjust?” What did the unjust do to deserve rain from God? Absolutely nothing! Yet even his harvest is being multiplied because of the rain. The following verses which Jesus spake should also be considered:
26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Since the Lord did not ask you to sow therefore He does not need to honour your sowing with a harvest. You have therefore sown in vain because you were deceived – you have given your money to a man who lied to you instead of exercising due diligence and being a good steward of what the Lord had already given you.
Lastly, this idea of “giving to God” is perhaps one of the biggest misnomers in the church. How does giving some money to the offering plate or bucket constitute giving to God? Indeed when you give money to church you are contributing to financing the activities of the church but the Lord is not getting a single penny of that money. Man it is that collects the money and man it is that disburses these monies according to how they see fit. The Lord does not need your money, moreover, this idea that money is needed to finance the gospel is simply not true. The Lord Himself was the first pastor and minister of the Gospel yet He did not collect tithes and offerings and other monies to finance the Gospel He came to establish. He did not build a church and set up an administrative structure to which money would flow into. Yet today we are being told that the Gospel cannot go forth without money. This is somewhat ironic when we consider that Jesus called the Twelve and sent them out and specifically told them not to take money or food with them. On their return the Lord asked them if they lacked anything when they went out to deliver the gospel to the Lost Sheep and their response was no. Indeed money is needed to sustain people but we have subscribed to the Roman church model in creating the cash machines we call church today, and financing these cash machines are seen as tantamount to financing the Gospel. The reason why you might not be receiving the blessing therefore is that you mistakenly think that by giving to church you are giving to God and as such the Lord owes you something. You would be more blessed however if you gave to the poor and needy as shown in the following scriptures (noting that it is more blessed to give than to receive, Acts 20:35):
17He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.( Prov 19)
27He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. (Prov 28)
Spirit of Discernment 
Good read Henry
Henry,
One thing I wish Christians would get in their head is this, the Law although testifying to the righteousness from God, it is no longer the Law we obey. Just as Jesus is a new priest and with the changing of the priesthood there is a changing of the Law, so this teaching of tithing is as invalid as the teaching of kinsman redeemer or of sacrifice or of ceremonially being clean etc.
The issue some people have about Tithing is not whether it applies to Christians today, but that it is being misused by the Church. Tithing has been associated with the so called “Prosperity Gospel” and “word faith movement”, to the extent that the idea of tithing has become an abomination to some Christians. However does Jesus Abhor Tithing ? in Matthew 23:23 where Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for “ paying tithes on ——— but rejecting the weightier matters of the Law”, Jesus condemns the hypocrisy but does not condemn tithing in fact he indicates that tithing should continue. In Hebrews 7 , the author describes the priesthood of Melchizedek as a Metaphor of Jesus Christ’s Priesthood. Here Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth of his spoils of war. We can conclude from this that now the tenth (tithe) now belongs to Jesus.
Tithing is not expressly opposed or condemned in the New Testament. In Melchizedek’s case tithing predates the law. Even Jesus said he has “not come to abolish the law of the prophets but to fulfill it”
I conclude that since Tithing is not opposed in the New Testament is therefore still valid. So if the Tithes belong to Jesus, who do we pay the Tithes to now?
The answer to this can be gleaned from Matthew 25 vs 37-40 37″Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40″The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
So if your Preachers use the Tithes inappropriately, Take your tithes and give it directly to the Poor, Sick and Hungry. God Bless.
Marcab,
Welcome and thanks for visiting. I do appreciate that some Christians today are not bothered about whether tithing is Biblical under the New Covenant but this issue is worthy of attention. We are deceiving ourselves if we believe that the New Testament church is “required” to tithe. By saying that the church is “required” or “should” tithe what we are doing is putting the church back under legalism. It is interesting that you should offer Matt 23:23 yet somehow you missed the emphasis of the verse. Lets look at it again:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the LAW, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. [Emphasis added]
Jesus spoke to the scribes and Pharisees in direct reference to the LAW, which was still in place until the time of the crucifixion. So to ask the question whether Jesus abhorred tithing or not is neither here nor there. The other part of the verse which many people ignore was what was actually given as tithes. It was herbs, NOT MONEY! Did the scribes and Pharisees have money at the time? Of course they did, but they never were required to give a tithe of money. Tithing from it’s inception in the Law related to farm produce and money was in existence at the time too (see Deut 14). Money was therefore never used as a substitute for the tithe.
The argument that Jesus’ priesthood is after the order of Melchizedek cannot be used to support the tithe either. Abraham gave Melchizedek a tithe of the SPOILS of war, which he recovered when he went to recover Lot who had been captured (See Gen 14). Abraham reclaimed the goods which were taken from the kings of Sodom et al. On the way back from the fighting, Abraham met Melchizedek and gave him a tenth of the spoils only. At that time Abraham was a very rich man (see Gen 12) but no where does it tell us in scripture that he gave a tithe of anything he owned or that he gave a perpetual tithe. He gave a tithe of the spoils which he himself refused to take when the kings of Sodom et al offered it to him. How can that be used to justify the tithe in today’s church? The key thing to note is that Abraham was NOT required to give Melchizedek a tithe unlike the demands in today’s churches. Abraham gave this one time gift freely. Indeed Jesus is our High Priest and the first and Chief of pastors yet when Jesus set about to establish His church He Himself did not demand the tithe! How is it then that other pastors who claim to represent this Chief Pastor demand the tithe?
When Christ came to fulfill the Law He effectively set it aside and instituted a new law. Otherwise we would still be required to observe all the law today, including the keeping of the Sabbath, the burnt offerings etc.
My friend your reasoning is faulty. You argue that if the tithe is not opposed in the New Testament then it should be valid. But we can equally argue that though it is not opposed it is NOT supported anywhere in the New Testament. Jesus taught much about giving and equally the disciples and apostles and no where in any of these teachings do we see tithing being taught. You used Matt 25:37-40 to justify the tithe but this scripture no where supports a tithe giving. Indeed the type of giving here do relate somewhat to the principle of the tithe but here there is no benchmark on the level at which you should give. To demonstrate lets look at another example which Jesus gave in Matt 19:16-22. Here a rich young man came to Jesus asking what he should do to inherit eternal life. To cut the story Jesus told him to go and sell all he had and give it to the poor and come and follow Him. Note there was ample opportunity here for Jesus to tell this man to give a tithe to the temple or give a tithe to the disciple’s or indeed to Jesus Himself, but no we do not see any of this. Jesus said he should give ALL to the poor. So if Jesus required a tithe it is not the 10% tithe but the 100% tithe (noting that a tithe means a tenth of course). But the point here is that Matt 25 cannot be used to support the tithe.
The simply truth is that the believer is NOT under any compulsion to give a tenth of their earnings to the church, not as far as scripture is concerned. They may be required to do so as a condition of membership to their assemblies but NOT a requirement of scripture. Should we give to the church or to the poor and the needy? Yes! But how much? According to what you purpose in your heart. Am I saying that people should not continue to give their 10%? No! Everyone has freedom in Christ to give what they choose.