It All Comes From Above

When we make any increase monetarily, the Lord expects us to give 10% of it to Him. Many churches practice this law which is known as "tithing." There are three pertinent questions that are relevant to this law.

#1 What is the purpose of the law of tithing?

#2 Where does this money go after a member of the church pays it?

#3 What blessings can we receive if this law is followed?

The purpose of paying tithing is not because God needs money. He clearly does not. No, the law of tithing is a law of obedience. The Lord wants to know that we are going to obey His commandment to pay tithing even when it is very hard to do so. Money does make the world go 'round. Many people set their hearts on gaining more and more money. However, their love of money can be to their detriment and demise. They will want more and more but they will never fill satisfied. This law helps all of us never get to this point. It helps teach us how to part with some of our money (and really 10% is so little in comparison to what we keep for ourselves) and give it to the Lord. Especially in these hard economic times, tithing is a hard law to follow. Are we willing to pay our 10% to God before we pay anything else? The law of tithing requires a lot of faith in our Heavenly Father but if we love Him we will obey the law.

Every church differs in what they do with the tithing. However, in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints tithing is not used to pay people but to provide people with the things they need to continue to worship God. In other words, the money is not used to pay clergy. The money IS used to pay for such things as teaching manuals and the building and maintenance of church buildings.

The blessings we receive from obeying the law of tithing or innumerable. Most notably, if we pay our tithing we never want for anything. All our needs will be met. It is a large leap of faith to pay our tithing before buying groceries or paying a pressing bill or even buying that shiny new object in the store. However, if tithing is paid first then the Lord blesses us with all that we need and more. In Malachi 3:10 it states "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." If we simply demonstrate our obedience to the Lord and pay our tithing (10% of our gross income and any other monetary increases we may receive) then the blessings will go above and beyond that 10% in ways that we can't imagine. So much so in fact that there "...shall not be room enough to receive it."

A quick story here. An religious instructor of mine one time related his own story of the blessings of paying tithing. He said that he and his wife had committed to pay their tithing diligently and "prove" the Lord as to whether they truly would receive that 10% back and more. He said that not long after that someone was getting rid of their couches and so they took them into his home. Then someone else gave them a lawnmower that was broken which he was able to easily fix. Things went on like that and then around about one year after they made their commitment, he was in his garage and was trying to maneuver around all the stuff they had stored there and he indicated that they had so much stuff in their garage that he could barely move. I'm paraphrasing, of course, but the point is that in a very literal sense that scripture of not having room enough to store their blessings was very real and had come to pass for them.

Paying our tithing pays dividends spiritually and temporally in amounts that we cannot possibly comprehend until we live the law. We simply have to obey the law of tithing to receive them.