Living Hope Fellowship Church

GIVE

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

GIVE

Preface

(money and goods)

Would you like to get out of debt?  Do you want to know how to break the cycle of poverty?  Pay your tithes, and then start giving offerings.  These are not options.  If you want to go to heaven, you have to obey God!  Luke 6:38, “Give, and it shall be given unto you. . . .”

Malachi 3:8 says, “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.” 

Proverbs 13:18 says, “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction. . . .”  So, if you refuse instruction about tithes and offerings, you can be poor!

Deuteronomy 28:2 says, “And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.”  Blessings will run you down! 

God’s Word is true, and if you will obey it honestly and humbly, He will bless you! 

GIVE

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

The Word of God says in Luke 6:38, “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” 

Some people do pay their tithes, and they give offerings here and there.  However, if you eat at one restaurant and go down to the next one to pay the bill, then McDonald’s is not paid!  That is like you getting blessed in your local church, but paying your tithes elsewhere!  Where you eat is where you need to give! 

Tithes belong to God.  The tithes belong to the Levites, those who minister, and that is how you give to the Lord!  The Lord doesn’t need money in heaven, but His ministers need money to bring a little heaven down here! 

Your first fruits belong to God.  They don’t belong to you.  Malachi 3:8 says, “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.” 

Tithes alone are not good enough.  God wants your offerings also.  If you make $100, then the first $10 belongs to God: tithes are one tenth of what you make.  Tithes are holy unto the Lord. 

Anything that you pay above tithes is an offering unto the Lord.  You can give tithes and an offering to someone who is in a ministry, but maintenance of the church and expansion of church facilities is supposed to be strictly by offerings. 

Would you like to get out of debt?  Do you want to know how to break the cycle of poverty?  Some people do well, then all of a sudden something happens, and they go into poverty.  Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuses instruction!  You can get poor by refusing to obey the Word of God! 

Proverbs 4:13 says, “Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life.”  Proverbs 13:18 says, “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction. . . .”  So, if you refuse this instruction about tithes and offerings, you can be poor!  God’s Word is true, and if you will obey it honestly and humbly, He will bless you. 

Romans 13:1 says, “. . . For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”  The devil has power that God gave him in the beginning, but he refused the holiness that went with it.  He rejected God, and now he uses his power for wickedness. 

Thieves and robbers don’t go to heaven.  God sends you to hell if you rob a man, so what if you rob God?  Some people are robbing God, because even if you give all of your tithes, you rob when you don’t give offerings!  If you refuse His Word, then you are refusing God. 

The Pharisees would even tithe on mustard seeds.  I think some people today would even get down and count those little seeds to make sure they didn’t over give to God!  I just dare you to try to out give God!  You can’t do it.

Malachi 3:9 says, “Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.”  People who rob God are cursed, and even a whole nation can rob God. Look at the United States of America. 

Seventeen percent of the farmers in the United States feed the rest of the country and one third of the rest of the world!  However, the devourer is at work, and millions of dollars are spent in sin, disobeying God’s Word.  The devil can lie to you, and you can believe it, and damnation comes on you.  (See 2 Thessalonians 2:11.)

James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  If you don’t submit yourself first to God, you have no authority or ability to resist the devil!  You may think, I’m not serving God right now, but I’m not serving the devil either.  Wrong!  You are going to serve one or the other! 

Do you wonder why you can’t get ahead at home?  Is it because you are cursed?  Have you been angry at God?  Are you are always oppressed, and vexed, and troubled?  Most marriages fail, not because of immorality, but because of finances!  Your children can be in rebellion, because they can feel the rebellion in you when you won’t give to God! 

Luke 16:10 says, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”

Disobeying God in tithes and offerings is enough to keep you out of heaven, enough to keep you from being healed, enough to keep the kids from getting saved, and enough to keep people in your family from being interested.  You are cursed by God!  Are you fighting God in your giving to Him? 

Proverbs 11:25 says, “The liberal soul shall be made fat. . . .”  This is talking about your soul, not a weight problem.  It will be a joyous situation. 

Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” 

Do you believe in now faith?  Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Here is a case where you can prove Him now!  You say, Well, I wish there was something in the natural that I could do to move Him in the Spirit.  Give, but get down and pray first.  I’m talking about vowing and paying even when you don’t have anything.

God’s Word says that more than a tenth of what I make is God’s.  Everything that you make is God’s.  You are bought with a price.  The blood of Jesus applied to us for salvation is worth everything! 

To obey is better than sacrifice.  (See 1 Samuel 15:22.)

God wants you to overcome the thing that so easily besets you.  He is trying to get rid of your unbelief.  God would like to pour out a blessing for you, but you won’t make the move for Him to be able to do it!  God won’t bless you in spite of your sin!

Thank God for His grace, but He wants us to get in His will and walk like Jesus did.  God said to prove him, and He will open the windows of heaven, and there would not be room enough to receive it! 

Some people would be convinced that God has called them to preach if they just knew that God would supply their needs.  Some pastors would quit their secular jobs if there was no doubt in their hearts about that.  If God said, Alright, here is your living, so go to it, wouldn’t you have liberty!  However, where is your faith?  Your obedience to God’s Word is tied to your faith in God.

People in some churches have become like the money changers that bought and sold in the temple of God.  It gets to be a house of merchandise instead of a house of prayer, so we have to do things God’s way.

When you give money to God’s storehouse (the church) some of it goes to maintain the church and pay church bills. 

2 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.”  I know I am burdening you now, but it is a good burden.  This is according to the Word. 

Deuteronomy 28:1 says, “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:” 

Hebrews 11:6 says, “. . . he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”  God is going to bless you when you obey Him.  Deuteronomy 28:2 says, “And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.” 

These blessings will run you down!  You can’t outrun them!  You can log in at 100 miles an hour, and your blessing will still come up and jump right on you!  God tells you how to get that blessing started.

Deuteronomy 28:3-4 says, “Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.  Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.”

Deuteronomy 28:5 says, “Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.”

Many arguments in your house are over money, and it pulls your faith, hurts you, and sidelines you from the deep spiritual things of God.  Obey God’s Word in your giving, and you will be blessed. 

Deuteronomy 28:6 says, “Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.”  It doesn’t matter if you are coming or going!  Some people don’t know if they are going to make it until tomorrow!  They don’t see how God can bless them! 

Look at verse 7:  “The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.” 

God will cause the devourer, breakdowns, trouble, accusations, sickness, and other things that come against you to be smitten and flee from you!  This is the same God that “. . . forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;” in Psalm 103:3.

Deuteronomy 28:8 says, “The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”  This is talking about your bank account, your barns, your overhead, your business, your personal possessions and such. 

Verse 9 says, “The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways.”  God will do something for you in the natural if you will obey Him in the spirit. 

Proverbs 13:22 says, “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.”  Wicked people are out there working and slaving, not knowing that they are just storing it up for you and me to get! 

It is not presumptuous to work by faith in God!  God wants a people that will out give what the devil oppresses!  

Deuteronomy 8:18 says, “But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant. . . .”

Revival has already been paid for by Calvary, but Jesus didn’t do away with giving.

If you want to get out of debt, pay your tithes.  Then start giving offerings.  These are not options.  If you want to go to heaven, you have to obey God!  God will deal with you about how much offering to give. 

What about the last days when everything is going to collapse?  God knows how to take care of us.  The Word of God still works for us today.  Praise the Lord!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.