"Honor the Lord by giving Him the first part of all your income, and He will fill your barns with wheat and barley and overflow your wine vats with the finest wines" (Proverbs 3:9,10).
"Yes, I tithe," said John D. Rockefeller, Sr., "and I would like to tell you how it all came about.
"I had to begin work as a small boy to help support my mother. My first wages amounted to $1.50 per week. The first week after I went to work I took the $1.50 home to my mother and she held the money in her lap and explained to me that she would be happy if I would give a tenth of it to the Lord.
"I did," Rockefeller said, "and from that week until this day I have tithed every dollar God has entrusted to me. And I want to say if I had not tithed the first dollar I made I would not have tithed the first million dollars I made.
"Tell your readers to train the children to tithe, and they will grow up to be faithful stewards of the Lord."
As R. G. Le Tourneau observed years ago, "We do not give to God because it pays, but it does pay to give to God and to serve Him faithful." Without any question, God honors faithful stewardship - of time, energy, money, all that we have and are.
The importance of tithing is one of the first lessons I learned as a new Christian. Now I realize that that is only the beginning, because everything that I enjoy has been entrusted to me by a gracious, loving Father, who expects me to maximize all that he has put into my hands; therefore, tithing must be followed by offerings, based on clear Word of God that as we sow we reap. The more we give back to God, the more He will entrust to us, but we are to give with a cheerful heart out of a deep sense of gratitude for all that God has given to us.
TODAY'S ACTION POINT: God will have the first fruits of my life, the first part of my money, my time, my talent, my energy.
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