Test Me

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it." (Malachi 3:10)

God is interested in your money. Not because He needs your money…for He certainly does not!…but because YOU need it! Since you are important to God, your money is important to God.

God is interested in how you secure it/spend it/save it/share it. Immediately, some people say…don’t talk about money, preacher, talk about something spiritual. That kind of statement shows a lack of Biblical knowledge, and a lack of spiritual insight. For nothing is more spiritual than how you handle your money. It is the supreme test of where our heart is.

Matthew 6:21: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. "

Adrian Rogers: “a faith that hasn’t reached your wallet, probably hasn’t reached your heart.”

Money is something we use everyday, it’s our medium of exchange, our very survival depends on it. How can Jesus Christ be Lord, and not be Lord over our money? How can he care about us, and not care about that which is so intrinsically tied to our very survival?

“Don’t talk about money, preacher, talk about something spiritual…wait just a minute! The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil! If all the evil in this world is directly or indirectly traced back to a love of money, then that means there is nothing more spiritual that we can talk about today, than our attitude toward money.

“But, it’s uncomfortable…I don’t like it when the preacher talks about money.” If that’s true, you would not have liked the preaching of Jesus Christ. When He walked this earth, he gave 36 parables, and 16 of them had to do with our attitude toward money! 1 out of every 10 verses in the NT deals with our attitude toward money!

The people in Malachi 3:10–12 were struggling with some of the same issues you and I

struggle with when it comes to giving. They had some of the same factors working

against them. In verse 10 God says, "Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the

floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." It sounds like the people are scared that if they follow through on their living  commitments they're not going to make it.

These people were facing heavy taxation by the Persians. They had been taken into captivity years before by the Babylonians, and many of them were deported to what is

modern day Iraq. They lived there for 70 years, and then the Persians living in the area
of modern day Iran overthrew the Babylonians. The Persians said, “We've got all of
these prisoners of war; let's send them home and let them rebuild the nation and their
economy. We can make a fortune by taxing these people” So the people of Israel went
home, but they were paying heavy taxes to the Persians.

I'm sure some of these people thought, “Our budget is so tight, and if we give our tithes

and offerings we're not going to have enough money to pay our taxes. Or if we pay our taxes, we're not going to have enough money to eat.” These people were concerned
about pests destroying their crops and whether there would be enough rainfall and
enough sunshine so the crops would grow and have a good yield. God says to them: Trust me in this. If you do your part, I will bless you.

Today we have the same concerns, don't we? We worry about the local economy and the markets and the price of gasoline. But God said to these people and he says to us today: I challenge you to test me. Follow through on your commitment, and see whether or not I will bless you. Give and test my ability to bring blessing to your life.

Proverbs 11:24-25 -

One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

The Bible tells us that God blesses givers. That blessing is sometimes financial, sometimes not. Other times it comes in other forms. This proverb is not saying if you give your money away you'll get more. It's saying God likes to bless people who give of themselves.