The God Who Says, “Test Me”

When the priests let the world and its idols capture their hearts, they lost their fear of God, and the people withheld their tithes. The Levites were driven back to their fields simply to survive, while the people divorced, married foreign wives, turned to divination, and wronged the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger.

What God sought was not money but true faith and a life set on living by his Word. If tithes are brought while justice, mercy, and faithfulness are neglected, the gift is no more than a means of prospering in the world, and not a righteous offering that God will accept.

God told his people to bring the whole tithe and then put him to the test. To those who obey, he promised to open the windows of heaven and pour out blessing until there is no room to hold it, and to guard them from the locust and from failed harvests. A life of honest giving, which helps the poor and enables the church to do its work, is itself the holy and living sacrifice God desires.