This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Faithful in Stewardship.
Your life is an irreplaceable treasure, and God has called you for His purposes. The gift of life—and a fresh new day to invest it in—arrives unstained each morning with the opportunity to bring your Creator glory.
Having been given this gift of life from God, we have a responsibility to steward it faithfully, and to be fruitful with it.
But we cannot be faithful stewards without wisdom from God.
The wisdom you need—God’s wisdom—is revealed in God’s Word, by His Spirit, and through prayer. Your assignment is to find, follow, and finish the plan.
This extends to every area of your life.
God requires faithful stewardship from us in every area of our lives. It is good to periodically review what that looks like regarding your finances—and to plan how to obtain financial freedom through good, faithful stewardship.
Stewardship includes how we obtain money, how we save money, how we invest money, how we spend money, and how we give money.
God is clearly interested in how you handle your money. Of the 38 parables that Jesus taught, 16 deal with stewardship. Your stewardship is one of the great tests of how much you love God and believe His Word.
But there is someone else who is also interested in your stewardship: Satan.
If Satan can defeat you here, and keep you under a curse of financial disobedience and bondage, he has you right where he wants you.
“Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. “But you said, ‘In what way shall we return?’ Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation (Malachi 3:7b-9).
Why are so many people in financial bondage, away from God? Because they have tried to put “things” first and God second.
Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:31-33).
Would you like to have a financial curse lifted off of you? Pay attention.
Repentance that does not reach the pocketbook has really not reached the heart.
“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).
That is a command and a promise. God has thrown a challenge in our laps.
Jesus said, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21b). Every year on April 15, Caesar will say, “Fill out this form. How much did you make?” Most of you will be very careful to render to Caesar what is due.
Are you more careful with Caesar than you are with God?
Financial freedom for the Christian begins with tithing. There is no getting past it.
Tithing is God’s way to bless us. There is always a blessing when we give it, and always a curse when we steal it.
The tithe is a defined proportion. The word literally means “tenth.”
Tithing is not just an Old Testament law, nor is it legalism. Tithing began long before the Mosaic Law.
The Bible says that Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek, who was a type, a picture, of Christ. Abraham came centuries before Moses saw the light of day. Jacob, a descendant of Abraham, made a covenant with God to tithe. (See Genesis 28:22.)
In the New Testament, Jesus said to the scribes and the Pharisees:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone” (Matthew 23:23).
Abraham commenced it, Jacob continued it, Moses commanded it, Jesus commended it. Who are we to cancel it?
God tells us: “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house” (Malachi 3:10a). When this verse was written, the storehouse was a place in the temple. This was where they kept the necessities to make the sacrifices.
Some say, “We don’t have a temple today.” Wrong.
On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come (1 Corinthians 16:2).
God’s people should bring God’s tithe to God’s house on God’s day, that God’s work will be done in God’s way.
You can give offerings to other good projects and missions. But you should bring your tithe to your own local church every Sunday.
“And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” says the LORD of hosts; “and all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the LORD of hosts (Malachi 3:11-12).
Here is the three-fold blessing that comes from faithful Christian stewardship.
Do you want faith?
“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” (Luke 16:10-11).
What are the true riches? Not money, but faith, love, spiritual power, knowledge. If God cannot trust you with ten cents out of a dollar, what makes you think He will trust you with the Holy Spirit’s power?
We all have foes. In the context of Malachi 3:11, the people were farmers, so God told them, “Your crops will not wither in the field.” You may not be a farmer, but you have foes: hospital bills, car repairs, job loss, recession, depression, etc. God will rebuke them.
Does this mean that if you are a good steward, you will get rich? Not at all. It may not be God’s plan for you to be rich. But this it does mean: you will do more with nine tenths and God than you could ever do with ten tenths by yourself. God will make you fruitful.
Even a little widow on a pension ought to tithe—because if anybody needs God’s blessing, it is her. God wants to bless you. Offerings are seed. Sow bountifully, and you will reap bountifully.
Malachi 3:7-12; Matthew 6:31-33, 22:21, 23:23; Genesis 28:22; 1 Corinthians 16:2; Luke 16:10-11
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail (Isaiah 58:11).
So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7).
