And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” He gave him a tenth of all. Genesis 14:20 NASB

This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You. Genesis 28:22  NASB

And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’  This is the great and foremost commandment.  Matthew 22:37-38 (Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27) NASB

When it comes to tithing we are told to give a tenth of all we have to God. When we come to the understanding that anything we have is because God allowed us to receive it or gave it to us, then we understand that we are just giving a tenth back to Him. Now we should also understand that our tithe is what we pay to the church which should be ten percent. Offerings are any extra that we choose to give either to specific church sponsored events or to Christian organizations. In Malachi 3:10 we are told that we are robbing God if we do not bring a full tithe into the store house, but we are also promised that we will be blessed beyond measure by tithing. So why would anyone not want to tithe?

But I am actually not focusing on tithing today, I am talking about percentages as the title suggests. You see we tend to look at things in percentages. We are evaluated in school based on our percentage of correct answers. Papers are graded with percentage points. When we enter the workforce we are often evaluated periodically using percentage points. When we make a loan we usually agree to a certain interest rate which is a percentage of the total amount borrowed.

If you are a perfectionist then a 99 percent is upsetting to you. You want to achieve 100 percent on all that you do. You give 100 percent in all that you do. If you are lazy, 50 percent may be fine by you. Those of us that fall somewhere in the middle are happy with 80 or 90 percent. But you get where I’m going here, right? Percentages are an important part of our daily life.

I have an absolutely precious young lady that attends church with me. I love to go shopping with her because she is a human calculator. If the sale rack has a certain percentage off she can look at the price and immediately tell me what I will pay.  I generally require a calculator for such things.

When it comes to our money and our possessions, God only asks for ten percent. Not much when you think about the fact that we get to keep 90 percent for ourselves. But when it comes to our heart, soul, and mind, God asks that we love Him with all we have.

We use percentages to calculate many things in our society. Financial advisors will tell you that as a general rule you should never spend more than 200 percent of your annual salary on a home. You should never spend more than 50 percent of your annual salary on a car. An engagement ring should be 200 percent of your monthly income. They say that if you stick to these percentages you won’t overextend yourself.

But how much should we give God? If you are giving God ten percent of your income then that is wonderful, you are off to a good start. Perhaps you are wondering if you should tithe ten percent of your net or your gross. I wondered that myself and our pastor explains it this way, consider whether you want to be blessed according to your net or your gross. That seems like a simple enough explanation. But if you are giving God one tenth of your heart, soul, and mind, know that this will never be enough.

You see when we choose to give God a small percentage of our income, He will take that small percentage and bless it beyond measure. But when we choose to give God a small percentage of our heart, soul, and mind, that means the rest is going to the devil or our flesh. With the devil receiving a much larger portion it makes it easy for him to slip in and take over completely. Before you know it you won’t even be giving God a tenth of anything, the devil will have full control.

When you consider how much you can afford to give, you must consider how much you can afford to lose. By that I mean if you give to God you know that He will bless you in return. You will never miss what you have given, because quite simply, we can’t out give God. But if you are stingy with God, then you run the risk of losing everything to the devil.

I hope that as you run the numbers and consider the percentages, you will consider giving God one hundred percent of your heart, 100 percent of your soul, and 100 percent of your mind. When we do this, he gives us hearts filled with compassion, souls filled with peace and minds filled with joy. When we give him ten percent of our earnings, He blesses that and makes sure that we have all that we need.

When you understand how God works and you run the numbers, giving our all to Him is a no brainer.

Have a great day!