Day 39: Prosperity through Generosity

In Psalm 1:1-3, we are given an absolutely general and all-inclusive promise of prosperity. Let’s now look at some other promises of blessing and prosperity which have one particular scriptural condition attached to them.

The first passage of Scripture that we will look at today is in Malachi 3:7-8. Malachi is the last prophet of the Old Testament. Approximately 1,200 years earlier, God, through Moses, had brought His people into the promised land and given them a way of life and promised them that if they would keep that way of life and obey His commandments, they would be blessed and would prosper as no other nation ever had known blessing and prosperity. God also warned them that if they did not keep His conditions and His commandments, then they would suffer the opposite; they would suffer loss and harm and defeat and poverty.

Now, in the book of Malachi, God sort of sums up 1,200 years of the history of Israel and, unfortunately, it's rather discouraging as a summary because He points out that, for the most part, His people had failed to meet His conditions and therefore to enjoy the blessings of the provision that He wanted to make available to them. In Malachi 3:7-8, He points out one particular way in which they failed to meet His conditions:

"'From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes, and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,' says the LORD of hosts. 'But you say, 'How shall we return?' [That's a specific question that's put in the mouth of Israel: What do you ask of us, God, to return to You? God is very specific in His answer.] Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed Thee?' [And the answer is clear!] In tithes and contributions.'" (NASB)

So, not to give God His due out of our finances is to rob Him. And, in specific terms, Israel had been robbing God by withholding their tithes and their contributions. The result: instead of a blessing, was a curse. And I want to point out to you that in most cases it's one or the other. It's either blessing or curse, there isn't much in between. Obedience brings blessing, disobedience brings curse.

In the New Testament, God never establishes a specific law, like that of the Old Testament, requiring Christians to set aside for Him a tenth of their total income. The covenant of grace does not operate through laws enforced from without, but through laws written by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers. One thing, however, is certain: The Holy Spirit will never cause a believer to be stingy. If God’s people under the law gave Him their tithes – and much more – how could Christians under grace possibly justify doing less?*

*This paragraph has been included from Derek Prince’s book, Blessing or Curse: You Can Choose, in which he elaborates on this subject more deeply.