Tithes

"Tithes can be the training wheels to launch us into the mind-set, skills, and habits of grace giving"

- The Treasure Principle, Randy Alcorn

This is certainly true of me. I struggled with tithing until the Lord asked me to give 12% and to commit to giving it first instead of waiting to see what was leftover. I thought He was crazy, but I was already broke, so what's the worse that could happen? The best things did. I learned to trust Him. A year later, He asked me to give 15%. I did so without a second thought. My tithe is now 10% , but my total giving is actually somewhere between 15% - 20%. Not only is it impossible to outgive Him, but it's all His money anyway and there is no other place that I'd rather invest it.  Laurie says that I should be more amazed at my simple life. I suppose, but I was given the gift of generousity long before I ever made any real money. I'm not sure I'd even know how to spend it all on myself. Now, that's a blessing! Some people think that Christians don't have to tithe. Even if that's true, I tithe because I want to. That 12% certainly did develop the habit and desire of grace giving.

A Christian Life

I don't want to just live a Christian life, a life similiar to those around me glossed over with Christian values no matter how geniune one's faith might be. I want to be a true discpile of Christ, living in this world, but not of it, focusing on Him and awaiting eternity. This is not to say that I won't continue to love others, as that is exactly what Christ would want me to do!

Titus 2:11-14

11For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Philippians 1:20-22

20I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!

The more I let go, the more hope I have, the less I worry about tomorrow or next year or the rest of my life. This day is my life, and I'm not to worry about tomorrow as the rest of the world does. Sure, if I live another 50 years, I would like to marry and have children at some point. I would like to live in Russia. But these things are not the point. The point is to live each day awaiting Christ, yearning for eternity more than grandchildren and your 50th wedding anniversary. There's a song with the line, "I've never been so homesick now".  May each trial and trouble simple make me yearn even more for the day of the Lord. May each blessing remind me of His love and may I view it as an opportunity to bless others. Sure, supporting Sarah and Stevo and the Aleevs' may seem like a stretch, a leap of faith, but the truth is, I have been blessed with more than enough. I refuse to let future temporal worries keep me from investing in eternity for others.  

Freefalling

Life with Christ can be like an acrobat falling from high above. You're not sure how far or how fast you will fall, but you can be certain that the net is there, that it will catch you eventually. Falling is not failing, it is letting go. My insecurities are fading. "That's not the point". If being in love is not the point of a covenant marriage, what other points have I been missing? While the Lord does love me and desires to give me an abudant life, possesions are not the point. Retirement is not the point. The balance of my savings account is not the point. The point is to be a fool for Christ. Every decision is a leap of faith, but every decision made with Him in mind, is a leap you can be sure of.

Philippians 1:20-22

20I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!

1 Corinthians 1:25

25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

A.M.D.E.R.

 

A.M.D.E.R.

Abraham, Moses, David, Exile, Return

God is faithful

 God made an everlasting covenant with Abraham. He also made covenants with Moses and David.  God always keeps his promises. He is faithful. And yet God made these covenants with imperfect, unfaithful humans (now there's an oxymoron). God not only keeps his part of these covenants, but has fulfilled our part as well.  

 Genesis 17: 3-8

³ Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ⁴ "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. ⁵ No longer will you be called Abram ; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶ I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. ⁷ I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸ The whole


land of

Canaan , where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."

Leviticus 26: 14 - 17

¹⁴ " 'But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, ¹⁵ and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, ¹⁶ then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. ¹⁷ I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

Hebrews 9:15

 ¹⁵For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

 Breaking a covenant with God has consequences, and yet in His mercy, He has rescued and redeemed us.

 In his sermon, Chris mentioned the covenant that Erin and Greg made with one another at their wedding. Society really does have it turned upside down. And so do I. For the longest time, I wanted to get married because I wanted to be in love. I bought into the fairy tale, into society's reasons for getting married. I thought that being a Christian meant that I had a deeper more profound reason for staying married, because we would both being making a promise before God to be together until "death do us part".

 Don't get me wrong, marriage is good for family and society, but as Gary Thomas says in his book "Sacred Marriage", what if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?

 Marriage is a covenant between a husband and wife, a reflection of God's covenant with us, an arena in which we intimately live out love, sin, and forgiveness much like how God deals with each of us in our own relationship with Him. That's why the Lord hates divorce so much. If marriage is reflection of His covenant, how dare we walk away and tarnish His image?!  God would never break his promise. And the thing is that God made this promise with us, imperfect and unfaithful us! The reason that we make this covenant of marriage before God is because keeping up our end of it is not conditional on the other person. When we are faithless, He is faithful.

 Ephesians 5:22 & 25

²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

 The above verse doesn't say "Wives, submit to your husbands as long as he love you" nor "Husbands, love your wives as long as she submits". Rather we are called to do these things as though we are loving and serving the Lord just as he loves and cares for us.

 Non-Christians get married every single day, but they don't enter such a covenant. And perhaps a lot of Christians don't comprehend this covenant either (I'm 25 and I didn't realize this until today!). It's not surprising that 50% of marriages end in divorce. What's surprising is that so many make it.  When I couldn't picture myself standing at the altar yesterday, it was because I'm not "in love", because I couldn't picture myself promising to love somebody forever. And that's because it's impossible. People give you plenty of reasons not to love them, not to be attracted to them, not to be head-over-heals in love.

 And no wonder He tells us not to marry non Christians! If you were going on a mission (and marriage is very much a ministry to the world around us and each other), would you want to bind yourself with someone who doesn't share the same view, the same goal? Of course not!  But that's not what society says. Society says that we can't help who we fall in love with, that we have to follow our heart, that marriage is the ultimate "next level" for such a feeling. I really don't need to hear about what the world has to say on this subject, because they've got it backwards.

 I'm no longer looking to get married because I want to be in love. That's like a buying a house because you like the paint on the walls. I'm asking the Lord to lead me to someone who I can enter this covenant with in order to honor and glorify Him. Like I've said before, I've got a love sick 13 year-old inside of me. Once the Lord makes it mutually clear who I might marry, I've no doubt that she will head over heals. 

What Do You Expect to Do? - OWC

The following entry was inspired by "My Utmost for His Highest" (Oswald Chambers, Jan 2nd)

Hebrews 11:8-10

⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

"One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, "What do you expect to do?" You don't know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. "

"Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do— He reveals to you who He is."

I can say that I'm going to Russia someday, and while that might actually happen, it won't happen just because I want it to. If it happens it will be because the Lord ordains it. I can't accurately speculate what my future will hold, nor should I.  2005 was quite eventful and full of the Lord's blessings and lessons and yet I didn't see any of it coming.

"Each morning as you wake, there is a new opportunity to "go out," building your confidence in God."

James 4:13-14

¹³Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." ¹⁴Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

It would be (and has been) so easy for me to live with tunnel vision concerning Russia, but the Lord wants me to take off the blinders and focus on what is directly in front of me instead of staring off into the horizon. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, or next month, or this year. All I can do is follow Him moment by moment.