Bring the full tithe into the storehouse,
so that there may be food in my house.
Test me in this,
says the LORD of hosts;
see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you
and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.

[Malachi 3 .10]

Before beginning his earthly ministry, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted. At one point [recorded in Matthew 4 .5-7 & Luke 4 .9-12] the devil stood Jesus on the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem and tempted him to throw himself off, the logic being that if Jesus was indeed the Son of God his heavenly Father would send angels to catch him. Jesus beat off this temptation by quoting the first part of Deuteronomy 6 .16: “Do not test the LORD your God.”

I have no-doubt that, like Jesus, the Old Testament prophet Malachi knew Deuteronomy 6 .16 very well indeed. As a man of God he will have been very sensitive to this. He knew that God is GOD and NOT to be tested! From his mother’s knee he will have had it drummed into him that we are to worship, obey and pray to God, but under no circumstances must we test God. From his earliest days he had heard the story of how the Israelites, on their journey from the slavery of Egypt to the promised land, had been made to wander in the wilderness for 40 years because they had been foolish enough to test the LORD their God. 

And yet in the midst of communicating God’s message to God’s people Malachi discovers that there is one very important exception to this rule against testing God. Indeed, there is one particular aspect of our walk of faith where God positively urges us: “Test me in this”! And that one exception, that one aspect, that single area where we are urged by God to test him has to do with our personal material contribution to the work of God. 

We are, of course, living through a time of economic recession during which most of us are feeling the financial pinch. Quite rightly, each of us has to tighten our money-belts and be very careful with our expenditure. This is, therefore, the right time for God’s people to prayerfully consider where their own financial priorities lie. Jesus once said that “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” [Matthew 6 .21], and through Malachi God challenges us to test him by making His kingdom our number one priority, to invest the first of our treasure into His great work, to joyfully give of our best to enable the church of God to fulfil its mission. 

I have already shared with many of you that my own family have already begun to test God in this way. We so long to see God open the windows of heaven and pour His blessings down upon His work in Thornton, that we have begun to put our money where our mouth is! We are now consciously making sacrifices elsewhere so that we can maximize our monthly offering to the work of God at Thornton Methodist Church. 

Of course, what you choose to give to the work of God is entirely between you and God; no-one is going to chase you down the road with the offertory plate. But I do ask – regardless of whether you are a Rockefeller, a state pensioner, or somewhere in-between – that you prayerfully consider whether there are sacrifices you could make elsewhere in order to maximize your giving to Thornton Methodist Church at this critical time in the development of our work. Please join me and my family as we test God in this.

                                         Every blessing