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Good day fellow steemians and steemchurch members. I know this isn’t Sunday but I am so motivated to post this even though I am on my construction site.
I am posting this because I believe this might get to help a lot of other people who were like me, change and start paying their tithes.
I am one person who hardly go to church (God forgive me). This is something I am not proud of but it happens that way because I am naturally not a person who goes out and even visiting friends or going to parties is a big problem for me. Call me a mega introvert and you will not be mistaking.
I was on my bed that beautiful Saturday when I friend I have not seen for a while now called me to say he was in town for a concert which his church was organising. It was a youth concert and of course, everyone loves to be around people his age, and so he invited me to come celebrate with them the next day which was a Sunday.
I reluctantly accepted his invitation for two reasons. One, was the fact that it was a youth program so I concluded it would be a lively one and the second reason was the fact that I hadn’t seen him for a while and would love to hook up with him before he travels back to his base.
Sunday came and the church service was slated for 8:00am. I hurriedly took my bath, as I didn’t want to disappoint him, and set out for church.
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Got to church a few minutes past 8am and the church service had already begun. I was ushered to my sit and not long afterwards, the preacher mounted the stage and that was when he dropped the word that changed my tithing behaviour.
He was giving a teaching on GIVING , as it is with most Nigerian churches when they want to organise a harvest or a fund raising.
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You know, I have heard so many teachings on tithing and it has also been a thing of controversy here in Nigeria when a certain man decided to call out all the pastors who still collects tithes in their various churches and called them all thieves for robbing the poor congregation. It became a thing of controversy and debate, and caused a lot of stir on social media platforms.
Before then, I hadn’t started paying my tithes and so gladly accepted the teaching of the man as I saw sense in his logical explanations. But on this very Sunday, my life changed.
The Message that changed my life…
The preacher suddenly started talking about tithe paying and how we have been robbing God and I was in my sit like ‘’what else have I not heard about tithing’’.
The man asked us to open to the book Malachi 3:8. This wasn’t the first time I was reading this passage of the bible and so I didn’t bother opening my bible. Was just interested in knowing what he had to say that I hadn’t heard before.
After the passage was shown on the church projector, he asked us to read it aloud and we all did.
After reading, he asked for the dictionary meaning of the word STEAL and ROB. Well, I am sure you must have checked it out yourself as it was also shown on the screen for us to see.
He further explained the difference between the word STEAL and ROB and started by saying that God is a master of grammar. He said that there was a reason God used the word ‘’ROB’’ in that very verse and not the word STEAL.
He said that stealing is used when you take something from someone without his/her consent. For instance, when you take meat from your mum’s pot, that becomes stealing. When you take money from a friend’s purse without his permission, that becomes stealing.
But the word ‘’ROB’’ is used when stealing is forcefully don’t in the presence of the individual. For instance, if you forcefully take money from your friend, that’s robbery. When a person is stolen from, at gun or knife point (under threat), that is robbery.
To be honest, I had never bothered to read up the difference between those words, so that very day it took me by surprise. God is an all seeing and all-knowing God, reason why he is called omni-present and omni-potent. He knows and sees all things and so when I don’t get to pay my tithe, I rob God and forcefully take what belongs to him while he is watching me.
Owk you might get to ask me why I said the tithe belongs to God. The preacher made a statement about this. He asked us to open to the same Malachi chapter 3 but this time, he instructed us to read verse 10 which started by saying ‘’ BRING all the tithes into the storehouse…***. He asked us to stop at this point and asked us this question, ‘’when does a person use the word BRING?, isn’t is when something belongs to him?’’. When he asked this question, we were all speechless.
In the actual sense, God didn’t ask us to give him the tithe, he didn’t ask us to pay him the tithe, he wasn’t soft about the request hence we conclude that he is pleading with us to bring the tithe to him. He expressly instructed us to bring all the tithe to him… simply because they all belong to him and so when you don’t get to take it to him as instructed, you ROB him.
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On hearing these words, I was dumbfounded and that was how my perception about paying tithes changed.
I don’t know who might be reading this today. I don’t even know what opinion you might have held about tithe paying for a long time now but I think this should be a game changer for you as it was for me.
I pray that you have a change of heart and do the right thing.