Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. ~Genesis 14:18-20
One day a family decided to go to their church for worship as this was their custom. After the worship service had ended, the family decided to go and eat lunch at one of the local restaurants. As the father, mother, son, daughter, and paternal grandfather sat at the table awaiting their various food courses for their meal, the father began to spark up a conversation and asked everyone at the table, “What did you all think about pastor’s sermon today?” Well, the mother began to chime in and said, “From week to week pastor normally has me engaged in the sermon; however, today he just did not do it for me. It seemed like he was talking all around the Scripture but never honed in on a main idea or topic. I was very disappointed to say the least.”
After the mother’s commentary, the son began to place his conclusions into the conversation. He said, “Dad, I have to agree with mom. Pastor was so boring that he had me thinking about everything else except his sermon. He preached for 45 minutes and took us nowhere. That sermon was definitely not par for the course for the pastor today.”
After the son was done speaking, the daughter felt like she needed to say something. She said, “Dad, nothing in the service really touched my soul today. The choir was off key. The Minister of Music and the choir could never get synchronized and harmonized. The deacons prayed entirely too long during the offering, and the Word of God just didn’t reach me. The entire service seemed too regimented, too structured, and definitely too long.”
Even the grandfather added his commentary to the conversation. He said, “All I could think about during the entire service was getting to the place we are now and eating lunch. After about 10 minutes of the sermon I was just ready to get to this restaurant and eat to my heart’s content.”
Well, after everyone had spoken, the father began speaking and said the following: “You all should be ashamed of yourselves! You’ve criticized the pastor, criticized the worship experience, and in a nutshell have criticized the entire church for the experience with God that you did not have today. I have heard you all criticize everything about the service today, but none of you have made mention of the critical commentary that you should have given yourselves.
During the giving of tithes and offerings, I watched each of you give before the plate was passed to me. When the plate finally got to me I counted $5.75. You four in total gave a whopping $5.75! What did you expect to get from out of the service today for $5.75?” I find it amazing that we can expect so much from God; however, when he asks us for 10% of what he has blessed us with, we find every excuse to come up short of that. Abram blessed Melchizedek with a tenth of what he had when Melchizedek blessed him with both food and a blessing.
Ponder on this question: What if God decided to come up short with his blessings toward us? What if he came up short when you needed the funds to finish your college degree? What if God came up short when you needed him to heal your body of a particular disease? What if God came up short when you lost your job and did not provide you with the resources to sustain your household before the next job came? What if God decided to come up short on a regular basis? We would be in a world of hurt if that happened.
The question for us is does our gratuity in what we give to the Lord in tithes and offerings actually show our gratitude for what he continues to do? Please think about that before you decide to give $5.75 for your tithes and offerings next Sunday.
Peace and blessings.
~ Rev. E. Shon Hagwood, M.Div.
