Tithing and Financial Problems Part 2

This is part 2. I had no intention of having a part 2 but there is really something that I need to share. To read the first post I'm referring to click here. That post said that I had nothing against tithing but I was so sick and tired of hearing preaching on the radio and tv saying, "your finances are cursed because you don't tithe." We tithe and have repeated financial problems. Someone commented on that post. Here is what it said:





russkellyphd said...
I think that it is wrong to pay tithes and let your family do without food, medicine and shelter. It violates 1st Timothy 5:8.For a completely different view of tithing I encourage you to visit my web site at www.shouldthechurchteachtithing.com. It began as a PHD dissertation.





I have to admit, I've seen stuff like this on the internet and didn't even bother to read it but dismissed it as false teaching because we were taught to tithe. However, when he quoted that verse, it got my attention big time because my husband has said a lot lately that he has been very convicted about that verse. My husband and I have spent the last 3 days searching this person's website and others, searching the Scriptures and praying for God to reveal His truth to us. We are becoming convinced that we shouldn't tithe.


I was actually afraid to write about this for fear of backlash about false teaching because so many of us have been taught to tithe. You must first hear me out and then search the Scriptures and pray. I don't claim to be a Bible teacher, I've just been sharing, on this blog, whatever is on my heart. My husband and I are born again Christians trusting in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We believe in giving and we take great joy in giving as the Spirit leads us to. We love the Lord and seek to glorify Him. We love our Pastor and our church family. With all that being said, I would like to share our testimony of tithing over the past 7 years.


We got saved at a youth group as teenagers but never fully gave our lives to the Lord. In June of 2000 we really felt led to start going to church. We started attending a Baptist church and it didn't take long to realize that we needed to get down on our knees, repent and fully give ourselves to the Lord. We did. We were baptized that August and joined the church. We went through a discipleship book with our pastor. In that book, it said that we should tithe(using Scripture to back it up). At that time, we had some debt. We had planned to be out of debt in a couple of years. We had a money market account which we put about $100 per week into to pay our property taxes, insurance, etc. This was not just a savings account but more of paying our bills into an account to draw back out of.


We began by giving and then at some point started to tithe. Tithing didn't fit into our budget and we couldn't pay all of our bills. When our property taxes came due, there was no money to pay them. Everybody told us, just tithe and the Lord will provide. Well, we had to take out a home equity line of credit to pay our property taxes, that then became the only way we could pay our taxes each year. We had not expected that the Lord would make us independently wealthy because we were tithing but that He would provide for our needs.


Year in and year out, we have lived in lack. We have lost a few hundred dollars a week in income over the past 7 years. My husband was out of work 3 times, twice for worker's comp. related surgeries and once on disability for 2 months because the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. Also, my husband and daughter developed medical problems. After all that was said and done we were thousands of dollars in debt with medical bills, at one point paying on 25 different medical bills a month. Add on top of that 200-300 per month in prescriptions for them. We went deeper into the hole each month. The first 12 years of our marriage, we had decent running cars that didn't die on us. We have gone through 3 vehicles in the last 7 years and have only had 1 vehicle for the past year when we previously always had 2. Everybody just kept saying the Lord will provide. And I will say, we have food, clothing and shelter.


Here's the thing that we could never quite figure out. We have felt cursed for years. No matter what we have done to make the situation better, it only continued to a downward spiral of being deeply in debt and always in lack. We kept looking at the Bible where it says to pay what you owe and that you are worse than an unbeliever if you don't provide for your family. The Bible says with God all things are possible. If our God loves us so deeply that He would crucify His son on a cross to rescue us from our sins why did we feel like we couldn't possibly please Him because no matter what we did we could not tithe, pay our bills, buy food and put gas in the car. It didn't matter how hard we worked, how much we trusted. We felt like we were under a curse and couldn't figure out why. We got stupidly meticulous about things because we felt that we were missing something. My husband would frequently say that we couldn't afford to tithe. I'm embarrassed to admit that I judged him as having no faith, not putting God first, etc.


We have been really seeking the Lord for the truth over the past few months because nothing made sense. Near the end of December, I was still reading a lot of Christian books(I have admitted to being a book-a-holic) and I noticed how different authors had different views on the same Scripture. I was so annoyed, I said to God, "I am so sick of this, I just want your truth." I must of said everyday for a week, "Lord I just want your truth." Suddenly one day, it was like He said, "You already have it, read your Bible." I was reading my Bible each morning but I have to admit, I spent more time reading books about the Bible then reading the Bible. So, I stopped reading the other books and have prayed that the Lord would just meet me there each morning and reveal His truth to me.


I was reading in Deuteronomy. I noticed that our life looked like the curses for disobedience listed in Deuteronomy, I even commented on this to my husband.


We concluded that we must be really disobedient for God to be putting these curses upon us. Now granted, we are not perfect people but we love the Lord and are growing more Christlike each day. Just how perfect do you have to be for God to bless you? I was praying about this and God showed me the verse that if righteousness came by the law, that Christ died in vain. He showed me that I felt that He didn't love me. I guess I felt that because of all we had been though that apparently we were not good enough for His favor or blessing. Why were we not seeing Him provide for all of our needs? We assumed that God was angry with us.


At this same time, we started studying Malachi in Wed. night bible study. I was looking at the famous tithing verses found there, I look down below to the study notes and there is a cross reference to a verse in Deuteronomy which I had written down when I was questioning the Lord about what I was reading.


Then, when I posted that post earlier this week and this man responded to me with the very verse that was so convicting my husband, I was blown away. I went to my husband and asked what he was most convicted about. Bring your tithes into the storehouse, not providing for your own household is worse than being an unbeliever or the wicked borrow and do not repay? He said providing for his household and repaying debts. Another thing, that really stuck out to me was reading that if you are trying to keep one part of the law, then you are responsible to keep it all. If you tie yourself to the law then you are tying yourself to the curse of law. That made my eyes fly wide open since we were just talking about it.


Since then, we have been researching all that we have been reading by searching the Scriptures to see if it is true. We have also prayed. The other morning after I prayed, the verse "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" came into my mind, followed by "whom the Son has set free, is free indeed." I apologize for not listing the reference for each verse but I'm limited with my time. Please do look them up!


We have had a peace in our hearts over the last few days since we've begun our research that I don't think we've ever had! I was thinking, this must be what the first converts felt like, I'M FREE!!!!!!! The law is no longer a noose around my neck! That tells me something. I have felt an overwhelming sense of God's love as well. I am realizing that He did love me all that time, but I was trying to keep the law and God does not lie, if you're trying to keep it then your are held to it. I wasn't experiencing the peace and grace of God and neither was my husband because you separate yourself from Christ when you try to keep the law. Do you know how many times, both of us on separate occasions have felt suicidal with a pile of debt mounting and no way out?


Believe me when I tell you, we love, love, love to give. We have the most joy when we are meeting other people needs. However, when you're broke, you can't do a lot of it! We saw God bless us and meet our needs when we gave to others with a joyful, generous heart by the leading of the Holy Spirit. We did not see that we were blessed by tithing. Don't get me wrong, He has brought us food, when we had none but never the money to pay bills when we took our bill money and tithed with it. I know that you hear testimonials about people tithing and God providing but I can't see God blessing people for stealing from their creditors to tithe. At this point, we have decided that we will follow the outline of New Testament giving: give as the Lord prospers us, what we purpose in our heart and cheerfully.


We took a good look this week at a lot of things. We have been sad, angry and then filled with God's peace. We are now $50,000 deeper in debt then when we began to tithe. And lest anybody tell us we are irresponsible, out of that $50,000(which was a home-equity line of credit that has now been refinanced into our original mortgage), between $20,000-25,000 is property taxes that were put on the home equity line because we couldn't pay them. I will guess that another $10,000-15,000 is medical bills. Have we ever gone into debt stupidly, why yes, we have? All but one of our 10 year old appliances also died in the last 7 years since, we could no longer put any money aside, we charged them. Maybe we should have waited on the Lord and if so then that's our problem to deal with.


We don't blame God for this, we don't blame our pastor for this, however, we are really praying about what to say to him because we feel that he is a humble man who seeks to teach the truth and would not mislead us.

I just have to tell you this! I took a break in the middle of this post to go check the mail. In the mail was an escrow statement saying that our mortgage payment is going down by $9.00 per month and their was a check for twice what our tithe check would have been. It was mailed on Thursday, the day my husband got paid and we decided that we would not tithe but instead buy food and pay our bills. The funny thing about this is that we just received an escrow statement in November that said our mortgage was going up $14.00 per month because they miscalculated the escrow for property taxes.

It has been a rare occasion when we have not tithed. You know, the first week of January, my husband said that we just could not tithe that week because we absolutely had to pay two bills or else. Well, 3 days later, we received a check for $100. Another time, when we had to get something paid and we chose not to tithe someone at church walked up to me and handed me cash for my husband to go to the men's retreat. When we didn't tithe, we felt like "duck and cover, we didn't tithe, the wrath of God is coming, something bad is going to happen." Those seem to be the times that we have witnessed His grace.

I sit hear just overwhelmed by the love of God. We feel like a yoke of bondage has been removed from us. Didn't Jesus say that His yoke was easy and His burden was light and that His commandments were not burdensome.

I have seen testimonies from tithers and that I cannot explain. I just really wonder if when we were taught about tithing and could have done it without stealing from our creditors if that would have been okay. Like for instance, someone hears about tithing and says I would like to give 10% of my income, let me see, if I cut back here and there I could do it, okay, then that's what I'll do. There is nothing evil about the figure of 10%. That person has thought, that sounds good and it fits my budget, I'll do it. I think the danger is believing that we are under the law. I've seen some people say, "If you can't pay your bills, don't tithe, wait until your bills are paid, then tithe." Where exactly does it say that in the Bible? God commands us to pay what we owe and if you believe in tithing then you believe that God commands you to do it so, either way you are disobeying if you don't do both.

We really wanted to do it and did it cheerfully trusting the Lord. But when 7 years pass and you feel more cursed then blessed, something is wrong. We are seeking the Lord as to the next step. Does He want us to give anything tomorrow? We are not sure because we are still a little behind on our bills. We feel at this point, that we will give as God impresses upon our heart. We look forward to being able to give more than we have ever given before while providing for our family and paying our bills.

I hope that you see my heart in this post and do not condemn me for speaking what we feel the Lord has spoken to us. My husband has walked around feeling like a failure for I can't tell you how long because he felt that he was a failure as a provider. For the first time, in I don't know when we have hope and the condemning voice in our head is gone. The only guilt either of us feel is the fact that our church just finally built a building 2 years ago and basically we need everything that is given to cover the expenses of the building and our pastor's salary. Then I had this thought: On judgement day, standing before the Lord what would He say. Well done thy good and faithful servant, you brought your tithe check to the church every week to pay for a building while you paid your bills late with a check that had a Bible verse on it, stood in the doctor's office confronted about your unpaid balance while in your hand you held a Christian book or maybe a Bible; what a testimony! And yes, you neglected the poor and needy, the widows and the orphans, you couldn't even afford to buy tracts at Christmas to hand out, there were times that you and your husband chose not to eat so that your children could eat the little there because you chose not to go grocery shopping so that you could tithe and pay bills. Maybe that's an exaggeration but I can not see Him condoning what has been happening. And by the way, when we see a need we will do whatever we can to meet it and it's those times when God moves on our behalf.
Our other thought sadly, was what will people think if for the next couple of weeks(until our bills are caught up) we put nothing in the offering plate. What will the church treasurer think when our check isn't there. That has made us wonder if we really just need to be putting cash in plate, doing our giving secretly. We have never given to be seen by men but this sure made me think. I have peace with God but I'm worried about what man will think.

Here are websites that we looked at, I suggest you look at them too. Dig into your Bible and pray for God to reveal the truth to you. He is faithful and He shows up and speaks when you seek Him with all of your heart.



Shouldthechurchteachtithing.com

Tithing, Giving, Sowing and Reaping

Letusreason.org

nomoretithing.org

Tithing: Low Realm, Obsolete and Defunct

SeekGod.ca

What Does the Bible say about the tithe?

The Curse of Tithing



AGAIN, PLEASE SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES TO SEE IF IT IS TRUE, DON'T TAKE MY WORD OR ANYBODY ELSE'S!