The Analogy

While you can come into my house as a visitor, kick up your feet, access the food and beverages in my fridge, there is no way you can ever forget that all these are not yours even though you have sunk into my comfort. To all of a sudden forget whose house you are in is a can of worms we shouldn't open let alone talk about re-proportioning sizes of food or drink I'm entitled to.

I'm fully aware of whose house I'm in (thank God for grace), so I better know how to behave. You better know who is entitled to 10% and whose is 90% .And for provision of grace, I better know whose 0% is and whose 100% is.

The origin

So what's all the noise about 10%? Where did it come from? I BELIEVE It came as part of the rules given to a stiff neck people who couldn't comprehend the analogy of God owning all things as laid out in the first paragraph. This is similar to how His grace works today. Out of His everlasting love for man, he made the 10% a law to compensate for man's lack of understanding. We know people did God's will and walked with Him before the tithe's Law. The greatest friend of God as recorded in the bible, Abraham, existed before the tithing laws. Let’s consider this analogy: A father with 2 sons would love the one that does all it takes to please the father without being told, than the one who is constantly being told what to do or has a schedule drawn for him. Solomon became the wisest and richest because he thought out of the 10% box.

What About The 90%

So even if we are foolish enough to give God 10% and keep 90%, what do we use the 90% for? Have you thought of lending your car out because your ministry/work place is within the neighborhood and it would serve a better purpose to a brother whose his/hers is miles away? What about depriving yourself of that unnecessary expense just to put a smile on someone else? Yea that same smile people have been expecting God to come down from heaven and work on. When we start to ponder on these things, we would be surprised that, we can never out give God.

I do believe that many of the ugly events that exist and continues to unfold in our society today is due to the reckless way we spend our 90%.We’ve not chosen to acknowledge it as God's or believe it is accountable to Him, hence the reckless spending. We go about feeding our wants (which happens to be an endless race) instead of thanking Him for meeting our needs, and then proceed to meeting other’s needs.

So, unbelievers keep unbelieving and even believers starts developing cold feet when they witness awful events. Where's God in all this? Well, it's not that God can't make every pain go away, but like a wonderful Judge, these events would be evidences before Him, you and I why one shouldn’t be allowed in on that day.

Jesus's Stand

Jesus's coming and teachings, an illustration of how we are to live our lives, if carefully studied and emulated would destroy the 10% blindfold. His teachings can be summarized as seeking God's kingdom with all our time, property and might. That's why he never made mention of 10%.The responsibility of bringing Jesus into any society is equally on every Christian and our sole purpose of gathering, is to continually seek God's face for Christ-likeness to further His kingdom on earth ,and to assist each other get through difficulties, no more no less.

Some members of a church would never know how impactful they could be to the kingdom until the 10% blindfold is ripped off, some, even more impactful than their pastors. Our individual characters as Christians gives the world a second thought more than the 10%.Jesus never asked for those that could give 10%, rather he asked for those that would give 100% to follow him.

In fact ,it would be genuinely difficult for one to exhibit Christ-likeness if his/her mind is focused on giving 10%.Most times, such a giver believes God’s demands has been met and he/she is no longer responsible for the kingdom’s work.

Spend every kobo wisely and most importantly let everyone of it please God. And while it’s God's choice to say He would bless us back, if we truly understand the existence of man in its totality, we wouldn't be waiting on the business model of man before we give.

How to Give to God

Using the phrase "giving to God" from my understanding, is meaningless because if we think deep enough about the chain reactions of giving, we would agree that human beings are the sole beneficiaries of it, not God (The concluding part of this post http://www.tosinspot.com/a-few-words-for-nnamdi-k-kanu/ will give you more insight). But for God's everlasting love sake He coined it "giving to Him".

While you expect a list on how to give, I would rather give you the principles not laws. Pick up every challenge that bothers you in your community, love your neighbor as yourself and pray without ceasing (constantly meditate on giving). In beginning to do this, God will lead you on.

In addition, when we give, wisdom has to be applied to the process. Giving without caring or making sure it addresses the receiver’s needs is useless. Christianity should never compensate for mediocrity.

Whether it is time or money, there's no way we will understand the principle of giving and crave to give to Him, that He won't create a way for you and I to give. Giving to Him is a privilege. It is overwhelming. It is an opportunity to draw closer to Him (man's sole purpose) .It is the fastest way to kill our desire of wants which we regularly drown our thoughts in. The more we give, the faster the desire of wants fades away.

Pastor E.A Adeboye and the 1 Billion Naira

While many are shocked that a request like this could be made in a country where hunger and poverty excels exceedingly, but from my understanding of giving I am not surprised. Of course the message is for those that comprehend the analogy in the first paragraph. Those that didn't cut corners, but built their wealth gradually and legitimately. Those that gave 100% to God and testified to the blessings that came with it. While I'm not well informed on the project he's working on, I'm presuming it's for the growth of God's kingdom and I will be surprised if he can't find at least a giver in the country unless if these Billionaires have projects they 're pushing for God as well.

Just as his crave for giving has grown over the years, so as his faith. And by God's grace I will be here to witness his trillion naira project for God.

The question is, what are you doing with your 90%?We should be glad that these cases still exist, at least it gives you and I an opportunity to rethink and start giving all to God from today henceforth.

Note
I'm guilty of these words and my righteousness is as a filthy rag to say the least.

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