Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
Have you ever struggled wondering how to handle charitable requests, especially this time of the year? God has some good news! Today let’s consider some of God’s powerful, final words to the people of the Old Testament era, they may be very encouraging to us today!
2400 years ago, God challenged His people with words that might amaze you: “Test Me in this’, says God Almighty, ‘see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing you will not have room enough for it!” (Malachi 3:10) What? God invites us to test HIM. Often, we think of God testing OUR faith, our patience, our courage, our integrity, our relationships, our spirituality. But what do you think God is talking about here as GOD invites US to test HIM? What possible test of God could trigger such an outpouring of blessing that the storehouses would not be sufficient?
It amazes me that words God spoke 2400 years ago have such profound relevance to our world in December 2025, especially in these days before Christmas when spending money is at a fever pitch! The spending numbers I’ve heard recently, related to Black Friday and Christmas month, are outrageous. Of course, God understands the economic aspect of any nation and how employment and production and purchasing are all so essential to a country’s vitality.
But God also knows, even better than we do, the deep and driving emotions of our hearts; our attitudes toward money; our motives for Christmas spending; and our relationships with each other and with Him. In Malachi’s day, perhaps as in ours, people had lost their way. Their priorities were inverted. They gave little thought to God with their financial decisions. Thus, God’s challenge to TEST God financially. (Malachi 3:9)
While God had given His people a Covenant of laws which morally and spiritually defined their relationship with God and each other, (Exodus 20) God had also given His people a code of ethics and lifestyle which shaped their culture, to be unlike any other people in the world. (Ex. 21-23 etc.) God promised He would provide for and protect His people, blessing them beyond their expectations, as long as they kept their hearts pure and lived God honoring lives. (Deut. 28) But the power of greed, selfishness, self-reliance, self-promotion often turned the hearts of God’s people hard and things like generosity, compassion, empathy, and even justice, seemed so elusive. It’s no different for us today, is it my friends?
When God used the word “tithe” He was not thinking of ‘tax deductions’, rather God wanted humanity to remember that all our essentials for living come directly from God. Every one of them! The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, our heartbeat, our brain waves... all come from and depend upon God’s DAILY, hourly, moment by moment provision. Pause. How often do we thank God for providing the essentials for sustaining human life… our lives?
And when we don’t thank God, we PRESUME that of course He’ll continue to provide those things so we can focus on things we can do to generate the lifestyle we want to live… things like working and investing, spending and saving, maybe gambling or conniving or even stealing or lying. Oh my, how quickly things decline. Without our constant gratitude to God for EVERYTHING, we assume ownership and control. Then we think we don’t need God, do we? And we set our life targets, we scratch and claw, we maneuver and even malign in order to achieve.
But what if God cut back to providing only 90% or maybe 75% of what we need to exist. What if starting NOW, God only provides 75% of the air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat, the TIME you count on every day, the number of heartbeats of your heart? What if God provided what we needed in direct proportion to our obedience to His Covenant or our honoring Him with our lives? Oh my!
You see my friends, God was inviting His people to see the fallacy, the stupidity of wrestling control of our lives away from our Creator God, rather than living in daily celebration of His provision of everything; and in full alignment with His guidance of how to use His resources for our best life living, for maximum global impact, for making the difference God designed each of us to make during our brief lifetime.
Rather than thinking “I’ve heard 10% belongs to God I guess I’d better give it and gain some tax benefit”, may I invite you to live this radical God design: EVERYTHING belongs to God, ALL of it, and God will delight in guiding me how to use everything HE entrusts to me for HIS greatest glory and my greatest JOY! Now pause and think about that for a moment.
Have you yet discovered that it really is far more fulfilling to GIVE than to RECEIVE, especially when you know God is guiding you to give what HE has given to you? Have you learned to discern when God is guiding you to give, from what He has given you, TO what or whom He has chosen, and both HOW MUCH and WHEN to give it?
There are very few things more exciting than to know Almighty God is giving to you, personally; because God knows He can trust you to do with it what HE guides you to do… and then listening to discern God’s guidance and joyfully doing exactly what God has entrusted you to do, even if it’s outrageous generosity!
Have you discovered you cannot possibly outgive God? No matter the amount you give, if God has led you to give it, He has the abundance to multiply it many times over as He keeps pouring out His blessing upon you. Yes, even to the point you will not have room enough for it!! Can you imagine it?
That’s what God was saying to His selfish, penny pinching, greedy people who had lost their joy of receiving from God and giving as He directs. So, let’s not fall into their suffocating selfish pit, let’s clean and open our hearts, first to THANK God for EVERYTHING He provides us, then let’s be FULLY available to God for Him to GUIDE us so HE can trust us to receive from Him and use it/give it as He guides us. Then watch out… He may start pouring it out like you’ve never seen before!
“Lessons learned” notes are at the “Grand Narrative” link below and I found a wonderful worship song that will draw your heart into the throne room of God for thanking HIM! And I’ll be waiting here for you tomorrow…
Today’s Scripture: Malachi 3:9, 10.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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