If you want God involved in your finances, you'll have to be a tither, giving the first 10 percent of your increase to the Lord. You have to honor God in your life not just with your words, but also with your actions and with your money.
Ken and I never made any progress financially until we started tithing. We only began to increase after we made a quality decision to tithe, whether or not we ate or paid our bills. We made the wise decision not to be a God-robber (Mal. 3:8).
We had begun to tithe earlier, but we didn't last very long at it. We decided that we needed the money more than God did. So we fell by the wayside, going deeper and deeper in debt.
But five years after we were born again, we began to learn the Word of God concerning the tithe. We made the decision to tithe faithfully. Everything is easier if you know something about what you're doing! When we began to honor God in our finances, He began to help us increase financially.
God does know how to prosper. He really lives well. If you'll listen to Him financially, He will give you His wisdom concerning prosperity. He believes in prosperity. The Bible is full of teaching on God's will for increase.
You see, you must make sure you are honoring God in whatever area of life that you need help from Him. For instance, if it's healing you need, honor Him in the area of healing. Find scriptures that promise healing, and plant them firmly in your heart. Meditate on His Word. Believe it. Say it. When you do, you honor God.
And if it's money that you need, honor God in your finances by faithfully tithing and giving. Be sure that prosperity words from God are abiding in your heart in abundance. How will you know? When they are there in abundance they will talk to you and you'll talk them out your mouth (Matt. 12:34-35).
It's very important to your well-being that you tithe. I am convinced that tithing is the very foundation of financial prosperity.
You may say, "Well, I just can't afford to tithe." But you can't afford not to! If you don't make a quality decision to honor God with your money, this time next year you'll still be in the same - or worse - financial position than you're in today.
But as you honor God with the 10 percent that belongs to Him, He'll get involved with the rest. The other 90 percent will go further than ever before because you have gotten the supernatural power of God involved with your finances. You have invited Him into your financial life.
Besides giving the Lord the first fruits of your income, you are to honor Him with your capital and sufficiency (Prov. 3:9). That's talking about giving into God's kingdom out of the financial resources you already have.
Let's say you have been a tither. You have given God the first fruits of your income. Now your capital is building up. So what's next? Give and spend according to what honors God. You honor Him with what you have - not just with your tithes, but with your capital and sufficiency.
That's what you do if you want to increase, because it's only after you honor God with your money that the following promise goes into effect: "So shall your storage places be filled with plenty, and your vats shall be overflowing with new wine" (Prov. 3:10).
Your "storage place" is probably your bank account. But whatever you consider as your storage place, God says it will be filled with plenty! The Word says "storage places," so expect big!
It's very important to have plenty in this life - plenty to feed your family, plenty to pay your bills and plenty for the work of God. It's difficult to live in peace when you can't buy groceries. God understands that, so He has planned for His people to prosper. He wants them to not only have enough for themselves, but enough to help other people too. For instance, He planned for Israel to be so financially blessed that they could loan money to other nations (Deut. 28:12).
God knows what you need. He wants you to have more than enough to meet those needs with plenty left over to help others. But if you don't honor Him first with your money, He isn't going to get involved in your finances.
So if you want to increase in the financial realm, learn to be faithful in tithing. Do it first - absolutely first. If you have to go without food in order to give God His part, go without food.
Of course, you have never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging for bread. This is the way to never go without. Instead, you'll watch your storage places fill up with plenty until they overflow with good things!
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries
For the last 50 years Kenneth and Gloria Copeland have been passionately teaching Christians all over the world how to apply the principles of faith found in God's WORD to their lives.
