What does the Bible teach about giving? About money? These are serious questions for believers because every true Christian wants to know the will of God. He wants to do the will of God in everything.

The third chapter of Malachi gives us some amazing and significant insights into God's attitude toward our use of the money and possessions He shares with us.

And when the Judge comes, God will bless His people as in the days of old. But why does God delay? Why does He withhold His blessings of salvation? Malachi answers that the reason for the delay is not to be found in God but in the people. They have not received the blessings of God because they have transgressed His commandments (see v.7).

Israel, of course, is amazed that God should make such an accusation. When God issues a gracious invitation, "Return to Me, and I will return to you," the people answer, "How are we to return?" (v.7). Their point seems to be somewhat like, "Who me? I didn't do anything!" They were blind to the reality of their continued disobediences.

Then God says that the people have tried to rob Him. They had not paid tithes or brought offerings to the house of the Lord. The tithe here can be translated the tenth, which is a tenth of one's gross income.

The Hebrew word for offering here is literally a heave offering, and refers to that portion of the income that is heaved off or lifted off the rest of the income we give to God. God requires the tithe, a tenth of our income, and He expects offerings over and above that tenth.

The rhetorical question, "Will a man rob God? Expects a negative answer, "Of course not!" No one would rob Hod. But the people have and God explains that they have done so "in tithes and offerings" (v.8).

God orders the tenth of our income to be given to Him to support the priest and the worship of the temple, and to care for the poor. And that tenth is a reminder to us that ultimately everything we have belongs to God. He owns it all. He can order us to use our possessions and our money according to His will because it all belongs to Him.

The tithe is a reminder that whatever we receive, we receive from God. Everything, then, is sacred. It all belongs to God. It is devoted to Him. The food we eat is God's food; the drink we drink is God's drink; the money we spend is God's money. The tithe and the offerings belong to God.

When we give the tithe and bring our offerings, we are acknowledging that all of life is God's and we are thanking Him that He has invited us to participate in the life of His world and to partake of the bounty of this land with Him.

Obviously we should use the tithe and all our money to glorify Him. To use the tithes for anything other than the glory of God is to rob Him. Israel was guilty of holding Almighty God in contempt by withholding from Him that which was rightly His.

But why are they impoverished? Why are they destitute? Because they are not bringing their tithes and offerings to the Lord. We find an important biblical principle here. The people of Israel could have protested that because they were impoverished and destitute, they could not tithe. But God says the very opposite-if they would tithe, the times would not be so bad; their condition is a direct result of their failure to live by faith.

Malachi is teaching us that no matter what our circumstances might be we have no excuse not to tithe. God knows our circumstances, and they have been ordained for our good (see Romans 8:28). But we need to live by that promise. We need to realize that even our hard times have been ordained by Him for our good. And He never allows our circumstances to get so bad that we are unable to tithe.

We find the same truth in God's promise through Paul: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).

This statement tells us that there is never any excuse to sin. God never allows anything to come into our lives that is so bad that we have to sin in order to escape it.

If all our circumstances have been designed by God for our good, even in time of recession and impoverishment, and if God says that He never allows our circumstances to be such that we have to sin to escape them, we obviously cannot justify our failure to tithe.

God requires the tithe and offerings over and above the tithe. If one is not tithing, then He is sinning. We cannot afford not to tithe, for we have no excuses left. We se no circumstances that will let us off the hook of God's clear command.

Our passage continues and God gives a wonderful promise. He challenges His people to deal faithfully with Him, then says that if they do so He will provide for them.

God commands, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse" (v.10). This means that the whole tithe was to be aid to the Lord for the support of His servants. The tithe and the offerings were to be brought into the sanctuary where they were stored in rooms that had been set aside for that purpose.

They were brought there so "that there may be food in My house" (v.10). When these tithes and offerings were brought to the Lord, He, in a figure, sat with His people and shared with them that which had been brought.

The Bible teaches that God "sits" with His people in His "House," which in New Testament language is the church. David said, "I rejoiced with those who said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD'" (Psalm 122:1). The house here is where God meets with His people, where He lives, where worship if offered to Him. In David's day, that was the tabernacle, later the temple. The 'House' today is the church.

Note how Paul advised Timothy how he should behave in the "house of God," which is "the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth." (1Timothy 3:15).

When Malachi recorded the necessity of bringing the tithes and offerings to the storehouse of God, he referred to the church. When we compare Scripture with Scripture, we find that the primary purpose for the tithe was to support the ministry of the church. The church is God's instrument for gathering and perfecting His saints, and the tithes and offerings are His appointed means of financing the worldwide enterprise of the gospel.

"Test Me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it" (v.10).

We need to note that the windows are "heavenly" windows. The blessings, therefore, are spiritual blessings. Many tithers are poor as far as this world's standards are concerned. Many tithers have known trial, tribulation, trouble, and testing. But all tithers are rejoicing Christians. God has promised to pour out on them spiritual blessings so abundant that they could not contain them, and He has done so. The tither's blessings are limited only by his capacity to receive.

Note the irony here. The person who does not tithe is demonstrating that he cannot receive much. The storehouse of his soul is so small and shriveled that God withholds blessings from him. The fact that the people of Israel in Malachi's day were in poverty was not God's fault; it was theirs. God said if they would just believe Him and prove Him, He would open the windows of heaven and pour out blessings such as they had never before seen.

The great truth that Malachi is teaching is that God needs nothing and asks nothing from you that belongs to you. God doesn't seek a reward; He seeks reverence. He simply wants you to believe Him, to trust Him, to give yourself to Him.

A father was going to teach his little daughter about tithing. He arranged a row of ten stacks of coins on His desk. He caller her in and said, "Do you see these coins?" "Yes, I see them," she replied.

"Well," the father said, pointing to one stack, "this stack of coins belongs to God." And with a flourish he pushed the other nine stack of coins aside.

His daughter looked at him in horror and cried out, "Daddy! Are we going to keep all of that for ourselves and give just that little bit to God?"

How great is the grace of God, for all He requires is that "little bit." What if He should require the nine-tenths and share with us only the one-tenth? Our Almighty God feeds us; He promises to supply all our needs according to His glorious riches by Christ Jesus; He gives us ample rewards. Then He claims only a tenth, a tithe for Himself, and gives us all the rest. "Prove Me," He says.

Would you be willing to do that? If you are not a tither, would you be willing to begin this week? And to continue tithing for the rest of your life? Some people have suggested that we begin with four or five percent and let our giving grow. But God says to bring the whole tithe to Him - ten percent of your gross income. So start this week. Prove Him! You will never be disappointed.