Why Give?

Dad worked six months out of the year for the DNR and it was the summer months, Spring to Fall. It was exactly wrong for farming because these were the months to plant and harvest crops, to put up the hay, to pasture the cows, and a multitude of things that a farmer must do. Because he was working full-time for the DNR and trying to maximize the growing season on the farm at the same time, he seemed to be “dashing around” all summer. Dad used the expression “dashing” a lot. In his own words he was always “dashing here” or “dashing there.”

From time to time, we would have to work up a field that hadn’t been producing much and replant it. Dad would usually put in oats and grass seed. The first harvest would be the oats, then the grass seed would kick in and in the following year there would be a hay crop. At least, that’s the way it was supposed to work.

Dad had this tall sack of Timothy seed, the preferred grass for a hay crop at the time. He had salvaged the bag from threshing a Timothy crop one year, and this bag was very valuable to him. It sat tall and straight in the corner of the milk house. Timothy seed is a very tiny seed and a tall bag of it will seed a lot of acres.

So we got the field ready, and we seeded oats and Timothy. Dad’s fields at the time were not large fields. Sometimes they were four acres, or ten acres. His farm was chopped up with drainage ditches everywhere, because in our neck of the woods in Minnesota, it was pretty wet. We seeded the field and the oat crop was pretty good, but after the oats was cut, we looked for the Timothy to take over, and it didn’t. There was just a sparse representation of grass stocks springing up here and there, but the field was pretty barren.

“Well, what do you suppose happened?” Dad puzzled, as he removed his greasy cap and scratched his head.

“Maybe the seed isn’t any good,” my brother offered.

“No, that seed should be good,” Dad insisted.

The next year, we again went through the same exercise with another small field and the same thing happened . . . no Timothy crop. Finally, Dad had to give up on that sack of seed, concluding it just wasn’t any good. It had been sitting there for several years, and for whatever reason, it just wouldn’t yield a crop.

In later years, Dad had to give in to the idea of buying his seed. We switched over to Red Clover for our hay crops. It was harder to dry when cut, but it always came up heavy and gave us a good crop of hay.

The Bible teaches that if we expect to have a crop in the kingdom of God, we must plant. The more we plant, the more we will harvest. 2 Corinthians 9:6 is talking specifically about money.

He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Many people are stingy with God in this area, and it shows in their life. They struggle financially. God’s laws for sowing and reaping money are the same as the laws that governed my father on the farm. Some people don’t give to God, actually the majority of church goers, and yet they expect their financial substance to prosper. Research shows that only six percent of the American church tithes. Ninety four percent do not. A book has been written on the subject, the author I don’t remember at the moment, but he says that if the church of America tithed, all of the church mortgages would be paid and there would be lots of money for missions.

In Matthew 6:21 (NKJV), Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The scripture really says that if you are stingy with your money when it comes to God’s things, then your heart is not in touch with the yearnings of His great heart, which is the salvation of all people (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

Again, the statistics bear this out. Well over 90 percent of church people don’t share their faith, roughly the same percentage of church people who don’t tithe. If their heart was in tune with God’s, sharing their faith would be a priority.

Bear with me as I go back to the farm, where I will invent a visual scenario. It is early morning and I go out to the long field behind the barn where my Father is standing on the edge of the field looking at the black upturned soil as if he is trying to find something.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

“I’m looking for the plants to come up.”

“There is no green in the field at all, I don’t see anything.” I comment.

“No, I’ve been coming out here every morning for 10 days and still there is nothing coming up,” he says.

“When did you plant it?” I ask.

“Oh, I didn’t plant it,” he replies.

“You didn’t plant it?”

“No, you don’t have to plant it. It should just come up by itself.”

“You didn’t plant any seeds in the ground, but you expect a crop?” I ask.

“Yeah, why should you have to plant, It should just come up.” He says.

Well, at this point, anyone following this story would conclude that my Dad has lost his mind. He is just plumb crazy!

You see how ridiculous this story is? Don’t plant, but expect a crop anyway.

Don’t give anything to God, but expect Him to bless you. Are you not crazy? Well, this is the picture of over 90 percent of the American church.

I rest my case.

Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring a tenth into the store house . . . “

My own experience spells out the reality of how giving to God works. You can’t out give God. If you don’t give to God, but you say you love Him . . . I’m sorry folks, that’s just an oxymoron.

There is an area of northern Minnesota where the poverty spirit seems to prevail. People there are often heard complaining about how hard life is, and they “don’t have any money!” A large ministry held a meeting there and took an offering for their work. I was told that 30 businessmen were present in the the meeting and the offering was $30.

You see, “God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (Galatians 6:7).”

At one point in my life, I was having a hard time with finances. I determined I was going to give to whomever God said to give to, whenever He told me to give to them. I did that for an entire year, and I didn’t keep track of what I was giving.

At the end of a year’s time, a friend in downtown Minneapolis called me in and said he wanted to hire me . . . at a salary that was 40% more than I had ever made before! When I did my taxes that year, I was surprised to discover that I had given 20 percent of my income.

You can’t out give God!

Another time, I was in a car accident. When the settlement check came in, it was just under $20,000. I gave to a church, considerably over the 10 percent tithe amount. In a few months, the board of that large church made a decision to support me monthly at a rate equal to the highest level of support to any missionary on their giving list.

You can’t out give God!

If you don’t plant any financial seed in the kingdom of God, but expect a harvest anyway, you can see how foolish that is.

“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”

Malachi 3:10

Planting is part of healthy and productive living

for the Christian.

And that’s how you stay one step ahead in your Christian life.

Note: I was once asked, “How can Malachi 3:10 be talking about tithing?” In that time, the Israelites brought a 10th of their crop, their grain, into the storehouse. The storehouse was a three-story building on the side of the temple. The grain was to supply the many priests and Levites who served in the temple. At that time the tithe, which literally means 10th, was given in the form of grain. Today we pay our tithes in money. The principle in Malachi 3:10 is the same principal for us today. Give a 10th of what you earn to God and see if He will not pour out a blessing upon you that you cannot contain.