30th Mar 26 | 13:54
Studies by Book
Luke 14 12-14 Friend of the poor 05 Understanding the use of the tithe
📖 Luke 14:12-14
03Dec19 - *Understanding the use of the tithe* - _Luke 14:12-14_ - Bible reading: _Deuteronomy 26:12-13_
_Luke 14:13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind._
The Lord was teaching the ruler of the Pharisees, to be a friend of the poor and not the rich. The reason being that it is the poor, who teach us the lesson of faith in God. Our God is calling us to be friends of the poor.
When we look at the list of the people, whom Jesus spoke about, let us not see them only with physical ailments. Poverty is complex. People are caught in various bondages and these bondages in which people are caught in, mesh with each other. Poverty is a powerful entanglement, from which it is not easy for people to be set free.
The bondages that people are caught in are cultural, social, spiritual, personal, physical and economical. These bondages are connected with each other, making it a complex web.
This is where people are and people in poverty are all around us. We need to see people with eyes of Jesus in order to relate and release the poor from the web of poverty. We must pray for the Lord to give us His eyes that we may see the harvest. The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few, meaning that there are very few, who see people in their true condition. We must ask for the filling and the baptism of the Holy Spirit for it is only then that we will see people the way Jesus saw people and respond. This is the work of the church.
Responding to the need of the poor is not about funding as unfortunately some of have made it out to be. We feel that only if we have sufficient funds, we can respond to the bondages of the poor. The Lord is calling each of us and the church to respond. How is this to be done?
The Lord is showing us the use of the tithe. _Deuteronomy 14:28-29 “At the end of every third year you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. (29) And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied, that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do._
_Deuteronomy 26:12-13 "When you have finished laying aside all the tithe of your increase in the third year—the year of tithing—and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your gates and be filled, (13) then you shall say before the LORD your God: 'I have removed the holy tithe from my house, and also have given them to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me; I have not transgressed Your commandments, nor have I forgotten them._
The Lord is calling us, both personally as well as, as the church, to respond to the poor with our tithe. If only, we the church, will take up the cause of the poor, in our own neighbourhoods, with the tithe, we will see a mighty wave of the Holy Spirit in our time.
*Thought to ponder*
```We have hindered the work of Holy Spirit in our times, by not using the tithe.```