Where is Your Heart When Returning Tithe?

A PURE HEART

What is the motive of our hearts when returning Tithe, and why does it matter? We are told, “God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor. 9:7) It is not the mere giving carelessly of the Tithe to whomever and whatever someone will. It is not to furnish as a poor fund. Nor is it to supply for the Tither’s personal ministry development fund (i.e. We cannot use our Tithe to benefit our own ministry with camera equipment, computer software, etc.). It is the Most High who examines “the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12, Prov. 17:3), whether they are holy and pure.
When God commands His people to give, it is for the purpose of rejoicing that they may aid in the work of the priesthood. When He asks for the tenth, it is an acknowledgement that He has provided, and if you are His, and all you have is His, He can do what He desires with His own. When Adam chose to disobey the requirements of God, it was through a love of Eve above God. When Eve chose to disobey the requirements of God, it was through unbelief in God’s goodness. Yet true tithing from the heart will work a remedy for either case, love of the gift above the Giver, or unbelief.
A widow whose husband had died had no man to provide for her. She knew her Provider must be the Great Lifegiver. Unlike Eve, who disobeyed because she was unbelieving despite the abundance of evidence that God was the Giver of every good and perfect gift, the widow had not the evidence of sense, but only the promises, “no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” “The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.” (Psalm 84:11, 34:10) This widow “of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.” (Mark 12:44) And Christ commended her example of faith in God.
The Word of God promises, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:33) Many who are in want, and every appearance seems forbidding to return the tithe, is a case more common in our generation than in past generations. Unlike the faithful example of the widow, many choose the course of Eve, believing God is a withholder of good things, and His word cannot be trusted. However, the Bible tells us it is “impossible for God to lie.” (Heb. 6:18) By the simple act of obedience to tithing, much may be revealed about an individual’s heart. Whether they are full of faith and believing. If they love God and His cause. If they are doubting unto disobedience. Or if they are covetously disobeying, loving the gift instead of the Giver of the gift.
When it came to the holy offerings, the declaration of Solomon ought to be laid to heart and repeated in every returning of tithes and offerings to the Lord:
“But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding. O LORD our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.”
(1 Chronicles 29:14-16)

What is Tithing and Where Does It Go?, go here.
To see the manner of tithing, go here.
“Where can I return my tithes?”, go here.