A TESTIMONY OF TITHING
by Brandon Simmons, ©2013, blogging at PPSimmons News
(Aug. 1, 2013) — PRAYER: That this article would be a blessing, confirmation, and deliverance to some dear soul who reads it. In Jesus Name – Amen.
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)
Nothing written here is meant to, in any way, glorify myself. The following is only a real life testimony of how God rewards a cheerful and obedient giver.
THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL:
By the end of 2009 I had hit the proverbial rock bottom. Due to some poor decisions, both business and personal, and a terrible economy, I had to close a once growing and successful business. I had gone from having the ability to have all the “toys” and “pleasures” of the world to wondering how I would keep the lights on and put food on the table.
I had heard it taught and preached that God often allows us to be humbled to bring us back in a right relationship with him. Boy, did I learn this the hard way. It was during these toughest of times that God began working in my family’s life and brought us back to the basics of HIS word.
After some serious soul-searching it became clear that one reason we had fallen under God’s discipline was that we had, for quite some time, been neglecting our tithe. I would often give to certain community efforts and even helped out with concentrated needs at our church, but we had totally neglected the regular “tithe” that we are commanded to give. So here is how God started an amazing transformation in my family through tithing:
THE JOURNEY BEGINS:
My wife and I decided that we would start giving 10% of everything we earned. Keep in mind we were struggling daily to put food on the table at this time. This made absolutely no sense, financially, but … here we go! We were faithful in our giving and always made sure that money was set aside before any other obligations were met. Though I will admit times stayed tough for a while, it was amazing that we always had exactly what we needed in order to make it. About twelve months into this commitment things started to turn a little bit more positive, but we still had no idea what each following day would bring. That is when we decided to do something really crazy, we increased our giving to 12%! Again this did not make sense in the strictly human realm.
We stayed committed to our increased giving no matter how tough things were – and boy were they tough sometimes! About twelve months after committing to this increase … BAM, an amazing job opportunity literally fell into my lap. The circumstances were nothing short of a miracle. After about six months into my new job we again decided to increase our giving to 13.5%! Although things were definitely getting better every day at this point, it still was not sound financial wisdom (in the human sense) to give even more.
GOD DELIGHTS IN SURPRISES!
Within weeks of making this decision, I received a very unexpected phone call from my boss. He wanted to discuss the possibility of using my contractor’s license to qualify his company to work in the state in which I lived. If this happened it would represent the possibility of significant financial gain for both myself and my employer. After everything was approved and the licensing was finalized my wife and I committed to give 50% of all license fees we received to a specific ministry in which we had become involved. My home state jobs started coming in … and we started giving the promised amount to the work of the Lord.
After eleven months in my new job I was promoted and was given an increase in salary of … wait for it … 13.5%! God is amazing when we are just faithful to Him! We have now committed to give 15% of my new salary at this point in our journey with the Lord.
DOWN THE ROAD:
So here we are, two years into my job and four years into our commitment to be faithful and cheerful givers, and God continues to bless us beyond anything we can describe. We have recently had an opportunity to reduce our monthly financial obligations by about 65%, and guess what – we have already committed to give a portion of that, on top of what we are currently giving, to the work of the Lord.
All of this is being said only to share a testimony: All God wants is for us to show our trust in Him. One major way of doing that is giving financially to a point that doesn’t make sense, humanly speaking, and trusting Him to do the rest.
Let me say in closing that over this time our entire family has grown closer to God on so many levels. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this amazing personal growth came because of our willingness to turn over the area of tithing and personal finances to Him. This is what started the amazing journey. I cant wait to see what happens next!
If you have not already done so – I pray that you also find the same joy, surprises, and blessings in giving the whole tithe like we have found. May the Lord bless you along the way!
Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7 KJV)
OFFER: To any of our PPSIMMONS readers who may have similar testimonies of your journey with Christ and/or the hand of God’s grace over your life – drop us a line with your story to ppsimmons@live.com. You might just see your testimony in print here at PPSIMMONS! Perhaps your testimony could be a blessing to many others.