If You Don't Tithe, Does That Mean You're Robbing God?

We've all heard the sermon on tithing.

Pretty simple.

Give God your ten percent, and He opens the blessings of heaven and pours them into your life. Hold it back, and you're robbing God, sitting under a curse.

Some of us straight up emptied our wallets out of fear.

Others got so put off by the whole message that we quit giving altogether, and plenty of us even walked away from that church.

Let's exegete what God actually said, and who He was saying it to, in context.

Malachi opens with a question. Will a man rob God?

That question is basically rhetorical, because God already owns everything that exists. You know it, and He knows it.

Every penny you've ever received was His before it was ever yours.

How do you even rob a God who already owns the whole world and everything in it?

You can't take a thing from Him. That's the clue that this robbery is about something other than money.

Go back a couple chapters in Malachi and you'll see what these people were actually doing.

They were bringing God their blind and lame animals, their leftovers, the stuff they couldn't sell anyway, and calling it worship.

The robbery was never about money. The real problem was their heart posture.

They were handing God their scraps.

God was never after your ten percent. He was after the heart behind it.

Read the whole promise before anybody twists it.

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

Malachi 3:10 (KJV)

God's speaking to the nation of Israel, under a specific covenant, farming a specific land He promised to bless with rain and harvest.

The storehouse was how God fed the poor and kept His house running.

When they withheld from it, they were really saying they'd stopped trusting God to provide.

That's the actual meaning of the passage.

The windows of heaven already flew open, and what came pouring through them was His own Son, not a paycheck.

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"

Romans 8:32 (KJV)

Sit in that contrast a second.

You held back your tithe. God didn't hold back His Son.

He gave Him the whole way, into human flesh, onto a cross, and up out of the grave, so that you could be brought close to God.

Once you actually see that, giving changes completely.

You give now because those windows are already wide open, and you give cheerfully, straight out of gratitude.

This was never about ten percent. The real question is what percent of your heart is grateful for what God already gave you.

Don't give to get something back. You give because you already received everything.

The robbery that should actually keep you up at night has nothing to do with money.

A cold, ungrateful heart toward the God who handed you everything, that's the real theft.

Here's how to give like a free person today:

1. Check your heart posture.

The question was never how much money lands in the plate. Ask where you keep handing God your leftovers, your scraps of time, the parts of your life you're really holding back.

Even bringing that honestly to Him in prayer is more real than a performative "look how much I give" heart.

2. Count what God's already given you.

Make an actual list, because it's the one thing that stops you from treating God like a vending machine.

Start with this: you woke up this morning. God gave you that, and the fact that you can get up and walk and see at all, when so many people can't.

3. Remember the money was never yours.

None of this was ever about the money, and the money was never really yours to begin with. Every bit of it came from Him.

He lets you earn it, and you can be thankful for that. Give back however much you purpose to, as a thank-You, never as an I-owe-You.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, I've had giving twisted up for years, tangled in guilt and suspicion from the way I heard this passage preached.

Thank You that You never sold me a transaction. The windows of heaven already flew open, and Your own Son came pouring through them.

I held back my little tithe, and You didn't hold back Your Son.

You already own every dollar I've got, so I was never handing You anything but what was already Yours.

Search out the leftovers I keep offering You, my scraps of time and a half-grateful heart, and grow real gratitude in me instead.

Let me give like a free man, cheerful and thankful, never trying to buy something You already gave.

In Jesus' mighty name. Amen.