Thoughts from Rosemary: 6:20am Monday February 9, 1986

I’ve been feelings strongly for a couple weeks to have a lesson on tithing or at least sheets to pass out for you to read. This morning as I sat down for devotions the thought keeps coming to prepare some papers to pass out. I feel as though I should start with some thoughts from Haggai before verses on tithing.

Memories come flooding back to the first time I was led to Haggai and I have it noted in my Bible, September 24th 1970. I can remember asking the Lord that morning, “What should I read this morning?”, and the thought kept coming back to me, “Read Haggai”. Read Haggai? I don’t know anything about Haggai and wondered, “Why Haggai?” But thought… “ok, ok, I’ll read Haggai”. At the time I didn’t know exactly what the Lord was trying to tell me through Haggai, but this is what I did notice and it made a deep impression on me. In Haggai 1:15 it says, “on the 24th day of the month”.

• 2:10 says “consider from this day onward, from the 24th day of the 9th month”
• 2:18 says “consider from this day onward, from the 24th day of the 9th month”
• 2:20 says “The word  of the Lord came a second time to Haggai on the 24th day of the month”

As I read, I had to go look at the calendar, yes, this was the 24th day of the 9th month, September 24th, 1970. I was excited and knew the Lord has something in this little book He wanted to bring to my attention to, but I was not sure what it was. There was so much there regarding putting the Lord first, in all areas, but especially in our finances. Through the years I know I have forgotten these lessons at times, but the Lord will again bring them to mind, as he has been doing lately. So now I want to share with you thoughts to bless you and your family from the little book of Haggai and other verses related to tithing.

Haggai 1:5 “Now therefore, thus says the Lord of Hosts. Consider how you have fared. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat but you never have enough. You drink but you never have your fill. You clothes yourselves but no one is warm. And he who earned wages, earns wages to put them into a bag with holes. (Do you ever get that feeling?)

Do you every feel that when the check comes in and you pay the bills nothing is left? As if it has run through your fingers, or been put into a bag with holes in it?

WHY? verse 1:9 gives the answer: “You have looked for much and lo it came to little and when you brought it home, I blew it away, Why? says the Lord of Hosts. Because of my house that lies in the ruins, while you busy yourselves each with his own house.”

The House of God can mean much more than just our own church facility. What about God’s house and work on the mission field, in our community, and in our nation?

Some other verses on tithing:

• Lev: 27:32- The tenth shall be holy unto the Lord
• Malachi 3:8- Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me. But you will say, how have we robbed you, in your tithes and offerings
• Genesis 28:22- of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee
• Luke 18:12- I gives tithes of all that I possess
• Malachi 3:10- Bring the full titles of the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to the test says the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the devourer for you so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear says the Lord of Hosts

Put God to the test…TITHE… and see if He is not faithful to His word, AS WE ARE FAITHFUL UNTO HIM.