The Battle

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

Matthew 6:21 (NLT)

The battle is real.

I felt it last Sunday as I stood in line to tithe electronically.

My mind ablaze with opposition, my thoughts tossing and turning like a raft following the icy cold torrents of the mountain river. Do I give? I’ve spent so much this month? On frivolous things. How dumb! Why? Stop it. You are tithing today. You need to. But, what about offering? Can I offer some of my tithe? It is God’s already. But, I want to give to the church in Pakistan? Can I give to that church? We are the church? Oh rats, I forgot to pay my bill to that credit card company!

The thoughts rattle onward until I am at the front of the line staring at the debit machine in my hand. What did I get paid again? Do I round up or down? I am doing this. Shut up brain. It’s happening…

Until I press the ‘accept’ button or until I pass the offering bucket on, I battle with the untiring, second-guessing, guilt-swelling thoughts towards tithe. So far is it from me to write about such a huge and often very controversial topic. I am a young woman in an overly privileged country who would say, “I will give so much more if I ever fall into money.” We know that ploy, that lie, and it was one fall morning during university that God kept me awake into the wee hours of the morning with this simple, but awakening revelation.

We’ve lost the original perspective on tithe. In the Old Testament, the Israelites gave it in the most honoring of ways at the tabernacle in Shiloh and in the Temple in Jerusalem. However, the spirit of selfishness like Achan in Joshua 7 and the spirit of lying and cheating like with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5 have taken hold. Interesting all these people died for what they did, but we do it today still.

Tithe and offering in their truest forms have been manipulated and distorted ever since they were asked by God, but maybe we’re not outright lying to our religious leaders, maybe we’re trying to build the biggest church (appearance), the highest steeple, the greatest choir, so that our influence may be greater and stronger in the community we find ourselves in. There is nothing wrong with David and Solomon’s desire to build a house for the Lord to dwell in. But, God has already responded to the invitation to dwell amongst men and women by sending His own Son to live within the ruins of the human heart. And now, taking up residence in the same place that Jesus Christ died to dwell in, a spirit of bitterness arises. I am not going to be light like whipped butter about this one. Hebrews 12 warns, “O be careful that bitterness does not spring up in your heart!” Bitterness is ever so sneaky! It’s not like – “I’m bitter. I hate everything.” Bitterness is not like that. Bitterness is cynical. Bitterness is a loss of zeal. It is skepticism, unbelief, and the inability to stir yourself up again because you’ve tried and done that and you haven’t seen the recognition or ‘payback’. Tithes and offerings are not payback! Nor should the thought be in your mind that you will get ‘payback’ by tithing… that was never the point. What tithe is is a declaration saying to ourselves and to those around us, “I love you God”, “I Trust You God”, “I will follow and obey You, God”, “I delight in You, God,” “God, You are my first option, my first priority, my only source and if anything doesn’t come from You God, I don’t want it.”

The woman with the two coins at the Temple in Luke 21 has been a poster child for sermons on tithing. However, let’s look at her in the Jewish tradition. A woman would be given a dowry, often comprised of coins, and she would wear the dowry on her forehead so that others could see that she was desirable, that she was taken care of and affluent. Luke writes that she was a widow. Being a widow in biblical times was such a lowly state – no one to look after you, no one to protect you, no one to love you. The other thing we see here is that she was a woman – women were not allowed to get close to the inner courts, never mind the holy place! She was allowed in as far as the temple treasury, but no further into the temple building.

What she did goes so much further than just a nobody coming to donate two copper coins – what she did was give of the last of her wealth – she had given everything financially to the temple that she wasn’t even allowed to enter fully into. She didn’t make a big show of it and she knew that she wasn’t getting any glory or accolades in return for her money.

Another thing she gave up her dignity – the coins she could wear on her forehead that provided her with cultural acceptance, the ability to go to the market, to visit with others and for them to see the ‘outside’ appearance. Now she had nothing to show for her former life. And she gave expecting nothing in return! She gave the LAST of what she had. Can that sink in a little? And we get all choked up for giving ten percent of our paycheck.

I don’t say these things lightly. I don’t write these revelations down to appease me at all. Remember, I am in the congregation being humbled by the understanding that we often worship God before we tithe; we get all buttered up by the good feels of Jesus’ presence. We get something so we give something. Not her – she came in to those huge temple courts, a little person in a crowded place. And the part that gets to me every time I read Luke’s account is this: Jesus saw her.

She gave up her security, her identity as a wife and her belonging in society, and temporal comfort. And, she gave up her doubt and fear. The Jews had charities for people like her, but at the end of the day, she must have known that to honor God, to respect His laws, and trusting in His veiled greatness (at this point the curtain was not torn to the Holy of Holies), she saw the eternal plan. Eternity was more real to her than the next shopping spree, buying new tires, travelling to Cancun, or splurging on donuts. You see, even though we often give out of our surplus, how much more do we need to give out of our poverty.

Tithe is not about giving so God can bless you, it’s giving because you desire so much to say, I love You God! With everything that will sustain my life on earth. I trust You God because I know that everything I have, You’ve blessed me with. You’ve blessed me with this life, with a roof over my head and the freedom to come to church and give freely!! Paul says to fix your eyes on the prize AT THE END of the race, not on delicious, sparkling prizes along the way – they will pass away – but run with endurance the race that has been set out before you. Endurance is not about dumping out everything at one point; it’s about this progression from point A to point B to point C, and knowing that God is still cheering you on at point G and M and Y...

... Yes, we live in a world where we need money to provide for our basic needs, but it is not the heart of the Father for it to be an idol to us, to replace our worship of God, to subdue faith with works. In this moment, standing in the kitchen with my hands resting on my friends’ shoulders, the heart of the Father was so loving as He held my gaze and reflected His glory as vividly demonstrated in Romans 11:33-36:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?” For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him to glory forever. Amen. (ESV)

In the first century, when Paul wrote to the Romans, he quotes Psalm 50:10 “For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills” (NIV). If you know how communities ran from prehistoric times up until this last century, then you know that ranching and farming was deeply important in sustaining and developing life. In “The Explicit Gospel” author Matt Chandler writes, “The one who owns the cows drives the farming community. You can’t plow up your land without them; you can’t fertilize without them. So, in agricultural societies, like those of every biblical period, to say, ‘A thousand hills and all the cattle on them belong to the Lord’ is a way to communicate the all-expansive riches of God”*.

It is so amazing to know that, as Abraham Kuyper said, “There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”**. God owns it all, but He’s not about the money, He’s about obedience. He’s about relationship and wants to see that you are about relationship with Him by declaring I want to love You with my money! I trust You, I want You before anything this world can give me or anything I can give this world.

I do want to make one thing clear in case a zealous complexion towards “believe for the money” versus “work for the money” has come across: we do need to be responsible and wise with money. It is important to the Kingdom to work and sew financially. We are in this world, but not of it. Please understand my heart behind these words, at the end of the day, I want to hear ‘well done’ in all areas of my life and if I have to choose riches or Christ, He shall be my every gain. Standing in line to give my tithe and pondering my current money situation, my thoughts are quieted with a rebuttal “You are doing it regardless”. Regardless. Without reluctance or compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7). No matter how much or how little.

It’s okay to be tormented by those thoughts that plague your mind as your hand digs into your wallet, because it will remind you that you are doing the right thing; that the evil one does not want you to honor the Lord with your money. So battle, wage war in the spirit, and press ‘accept’ on that banking machine. Tithing is not just a temporal perspective like what shall I eat, drink or wear, but it is an eternal perspective like I will trust, love, and obey.

*Chandler, M., The Explicit Gospel, Crossway: Wheaton, Ill., 2012, 23.

** Kuyper, A., “Sphere Sovereignty,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998, 488.