Determining the Course of Life

Malachi 3:8 (NLT)
“Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! “But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’ “You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me.”

When we were at our worst, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to save us, and we desperately needed to be saved. God showed us His exceedingly great mercy and grace, and through it, He also demonstrated to us how important the practice of giving is. Giving to God and to others is a spiritual discipline and practice. One of the reasons it’s so incredibly important is that it opens our hearts and lives to receive from Heavenly Father. Giving produces a spiritual outcome that nullifies plots and tricks of the enemy to steal our blessings. In Malachi 3:10(NLT), our Heavenly Father declared that if we tithe into His Kingdom, He will “open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in!” He then tells us to put Him to the test, and we’ll see that He will back His Word every time.

Proverbs 4:23(NLT) tells us, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” To guard our hearts is to be careful not to allow the wrong thing to rule them. We must be particularly cautious not to let money rule our hearts and keep us from obeying the Word of God. 1Timothy 6:10(NLT) warns, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.” When money rules our hearts, we allow our allegiance to it to dictate what, how, when, and if we give. Proverbs 4:23 informs us that our failure to honor God in our giving will determine the trajectory of our lives, and we will be doomed to sorrow, worry, disappointment, and darkness.

Money, and the lack of it, can change a person that is humble towards God into one that is arrogant towards God. When humans cling to their pocketbooks and wallets for dear life, they typically have more faith in money than they do God. This is not life in the Spirit, but life in the flesh. It’s one of the reasons that Jesus Christ said in Matthew 19:24(NLT), “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” It’s not a money or wealth issue, but a humility and faith issue. Our loving Savior said in Matthew 18:3 that unless we change and become humble like little children, we will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There are many that say they are followers of Christ yet deny the truth he spoke in Matthew 18:3.

Our attitude about money and our refusal to practice the discipline of giving and sowing as God commands keeps us separated from many of His blessings. Numerous believers refute this by saying, “Oh, that’s Old Testament law. It doesn’t apply to us.” Jesus Christ said in Luke 12:48(NLT), “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.” As New Testament believers, we have received greater revelation and blessings, because we have received the unfathomably generous gift of Jesus Christ and the salvation God made available through him. This means we have a greater responsibility to give and share. We are obligated to do more, not less.

We rob God when we take ourselves out of the cycle of giving and receiving that He has decreed for earth and its citizens. Our Heavenly Father said in Galatians 6:7-10(NLT), “Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. 8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone–especially to those in the family of faith.” As God’s children, we are obligated to give and be a blessing to Him and to the body of Christ. We should never want stinginess or unkindness towards God to determine the course of our lives. That’s a bad course for sure. We can avoid this, and we should.

God set up His spiritual economy to operate in such a way that blessings go where they are welcome, and they are certainly not made comfortable in the heart of a person that will not obey our Heavenly Father and give and sow generously. 2Corinthians 9:7 tells us that God loves a cheerful giver. When our hearts are motivated to give, 2Corinthians 9:10 says “he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.” God is the One that provides increase. He will multiply us when we change our hearts and tithe and give out of a heart that is bountiful with gratitude towards Him.

When we pray for blessings that appear to be delayed, there is always a reason for it. God isn’t withholding His blessings from us. Sometimes we withhold them from ourselves when we make excuses not to meet His requirements. When our hearts are open to God in a generous and humble way, our faith is activated to achieve wonderful results. We may need to consider the possibility that we’re blocking this from occurring in our lives. God invites us to put His Word to the test, because His Word never fails. We will always reap what we sow, and our giving towards God’s Kingdom will always yield a harvest that is pleasing to God and fulfilling to us as well. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Determining the Course of Your Life”, written for findchristianman.wordpress.com. Copyright©2025. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.