He said: these things you ought to have done; but the weightier (or bigger) matter, and bigger issues of Justice and Mercy and Faith, you've forgotten about those altogether.
You got legalistic about tithing every carrot. One carrot in 10 goes to God. You've got into all that kind of legalism; and he said: what you've missed is the bigger issues of justice, treating people rightly, mercy, showing people kindness; and faith, trusting God. Those are the biggies. Those are the big issues.
So I need to make a decision then, what I'm going to do. I do not want to live under pressure, stress and bondage.
I must make a decision to bring my finances out of this place of pressure under the spirit world, and into a place of an open heaven with blessing; and God says that very clearly in Malachi.
He says: why don't you just check me out on this one? See that I want to open up the windows of heaven, bring what you have into the storehouse”.
So I want to encourage us in this. Go through the scriptures yourself, and then begin to ask yourself: I wonder what is happening in my financial world.
Remember, I'm required first to honour God with the first part, then I have to manage the rest; and we're not dealing with how to manage the rest at the moment.
We're just looking at bringing the whole financial area under God; and the first part of it, is to take my first portion, and give it to the Lord; to take my tenth, and to take it off the top, and give it into the house of God. That's where it goes.
Now people have got all kinds of ideas, and they do all sorts of things, but it's not what the Bible says. Listen: the tithe, or the first fruit, is the only part that's got the power to redeem the rest.
I need to make sure I treat it as a holy thing, and I need to put it where God says to put it. Then I can believe consistently for the best.
So I believe God wants to help us in this area, and I'm speaking this in order to bring just some clarity around our heart; so we actually see how to respond out of a good heart.
Now the world has criticised the church on this thing of tithing; but let me just finish you with this. I was watching a program on Oprah (I don't watch Oprah very often, but I watched this particular one), and I was absolutely astonished what I heard.
The special guest was a financial manager, who helped people who were in distress and debt, to get out of their distress and debt. So they had a few people of course, who had credit cards maxed up to the maximum height, everything like this, and they were totally in bondage.
They got this woman to come, and she spoke with her; and they got people to describe their problems; and she said: what would you advise them?
She said: it's really quite simple - they need to tithe. Now she was not a saved person; she's not a Christian person. She said: I've done a study of money and wealth, and people who have it and people who don't, and I've noticed something quite interesting, when I've observed all these different people.
She said: I've studied the people who've got it, people who haven't; and I've noticed that for some people, money is attracted into them. I've noticed with other people, money seems to be repelled away from them; and when it's repelled away from them, they seem to go from difficulty to difficulty to difficulty; but the others just seem to from blessing to blessing to blessing.
She said: so I've realised that there's a power involved; and she said: either you have power over money, or money has power over you.
She said: I've also learned, the only way that you can know whether you have power over money is if you can open your hand and give.
She said: consistently I have seen that some of the wealthiest people also give no less than ten percent. They just practice it, as a part of maintaining power over money.
Most people, money's got power of them, and they're in fear of it; so the moment it comes to giving anything to anyone, immediately there's conflict in the heart; and she's saying that actually, generosity or giving is the only way you can demonstrate and maintain your power over money.