Sunday, October 23, 2011

Part 2 of " What Did You Say About Tithing?"

A few days ago, I began a testimony about tithing, and promised the rest of the story this weekend. I asked you to tell me what you would have done, but only one friend responded, but that's okay. Back to the story:
As you know, David and I were in the truck and on our way to church, with me still wondering what we were going to do. Now where the first part of the story ended was  with me looking at David and telling him, "we can use the tithe money. God will understand. We have no choice."
As soon as I told David this, he replied, "NO! We are not going to use the tithe money! That is God's money! We are just going to have to trust God."  I just looked at him and finally said okay. We went on to church, not saying much, wheels turning in my head....When we got to sunday school, all during the lesson, I was sitting there praying, wondering what we were going to do. After sunday school, I went on to the choir, sang in the choir, and came back to my seat by David when we were finished singing.  The pastor began to preach and my mind was a million miles away. I just kept praying, asking God to help us, wondering what we were going to do after church, knowing we didn't have the gas money to get home. After church, I looked at David and said, "Well, what do we do now?"  He looked at me and said, "Oh, after sunday school, a couple of people from the church were asking me how it was going, and I told them not too good. We were kind of struggling. They told me God would provide. So right before I came into the sanctuary, one of the men called me over to the side and told me God told him and another man to give this to me, and the man handed me some money."      When he told me this,  I looked at him and said, "Why didn't you tell me? I worried all through church service  about this!"  He said he was sorry he didn't tell me.  Before we left, a friend of ours came up to me and said, as he was crying, that God told him to tell me that if we didn't go through what we were going through, we wouldn't be able to help other people when they faced it.
When we got in the car, David handed the money to me. We thought maybe it would be about twenty dollars and that would be great for gas.  When I looked at it, I began to count it and it was DOUBLE the tithes money we had put in the offering plate that morning!!!!!  We were blown away!!!!!!!  God had provided not only gas money to go to the homeless shelter that night, but He provided enough for David to have gas money the next week AND we could get some groceries!!!  We were praising God all the way home!  But God wasn't through yet......
We went to the shelter that evening, took the food I had cooked, and enjoyed spending time and talking with the people. Before we left, another friend came over and gave us a CD and told us he wanted us to listen to it when we got home. We told him we would. He told us to pray before we opened it and talk to God about our needs. We said okay... Finally, we headed home. When we arrived at home, we were so happy that we had got to be a part of the fellowship and feeding those people that needed help. We sat down on the back porch and was drinking a cup of coffee and decided to go in and listen to the CD, but first we remembered that he told us to pray over it, so we did.  When we went in and opened the CD, there was more money in it!!  God had TRIPLED back the amount of tithes we had given!!!!!   We cried and prayed and thanked God for His blessings!!!!  Because we trusted Him and kept our faith in Him, He provided for our needs! Never again will I ever suggest taking the tithes money for any reason! My trust is in God!!
Now  alot of people don't believe in tithing. They say, "I'm not paying to go to that church!  It's my money!"  Well first of all, you're not PAYING to go to church. You're giving back to God what is His.  And yes, you may work for your money, but God provided you with the job whether you want to admit it or not. If you didn't have a job, you wouldn't have money to pay tithes. I think I'd rather pay my tithes.
God is good! We can never outgive Him!  David and I have learned that, especially over the past year and a half.  So tithing?  Yep, I believe we will give our tithes, trust God to provide, and never doubt Him on that.  Giving tithes is not about what you can get back......it's about being faithful to God......                            Have a great Sunday and go to church somewhere!!!!

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