Four Steps to Forgiving Others

Ephe 4:31-32, Rom 12:17-21

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you”  (Ephesians 4:31-32 NIV).  Too many of us don’t really understand what forgiveness is. We struggle through all kinds of misconceptions about what it means to forgive others. I mentioned a few of these specific misconceptions in yesterday’s devotional. I’m convinced that if more people knew what real forgiveness looked like, they’d be much more willing to forgive instead of holding on to past hurts at an unhealthy level. The Bible clearly calls us to forgive others. Galatians 6:1 says, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently” (NIV). So if God expects us to forgive others, what does healthy, biblical forgiveness look like? Here’s a four-part process that we should walk through as we’re dealing with pain brought upon by others. Recognize no one is perfect. When we hate somebody, we tend to lose our perspective about that person. When we’re filled with resentment and bitterness and hurt, we tend to dehumanize the offender. We treat that person like an animal. But we’re all in the same boat. The Bible says, “Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20 NLT). We’re all imperfect. Even Jesus, the son of God had enemies while he was ministering on earth. No matter where Paul and the other apostles traveled, there were enemies who opposed their work. Unfortunately, some believers have enemies because they lack love and patience, and not because they are faithful in their witness. There is a differende between sharing in “the offense of the crosss” (Gal. 6:12-15) and being an offensive Christian! 13Asinain ka u le ka nau tla, nannih cu miluat si dingah kawhmi nan si. Sikhalsehla cuih luatnak cu nan taksa diriamternak ah canter hlah uh. Cuhnakin duhdawtnak thawn pakhat le pakhat rian aw in bawm aw ton uh. 14Ziangah tile Daan hmuahhmuah cu, “Nangmah na duh awk vekin na innhnen na duhdaw pei,” * timi thukham pakhat sungah hin a kim ṭheh a si. 15Asinain hramlak ramsa bangin nan nung ih pakhat le pakhat nan keeu nan deh aw a si ahcun ralring uh, nan cemral leh ding a si! Relinquish your right to get even. This is the heart of forgiveness. The Bible says, “Never avenge yourselves. Leave that to God, for he has said that he will repay those who deserve it” (Romans 12:19 TLB). You deserve to retaliate, but you must commit not to do so. It’s not fair, but it’s healthy. This isn’t a one-time decision but a daily one that may even require moment-by-moment decisions. Our natural inclination is to fight back to the people who hurt us. Therefore, in order not to avenge yourself, it requires love (obeying the command of Christ: love others as he loves us John 13:34) and faith, believing that God can work and accomplish His will in our lives and in the lives of those who hurt us.  Respond to evil with good. This is how you know you’ve fully released someone from the wrong that has been committed against you. Humanly speaking, it’s nearly impossible to respond to evil with good. You’ll need God’s help. You’ll need the love of Jesus to fill you up. Why? God’s love doesn’t keep track of wrongs (see 1 Corinthians 13). Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot be overcome by darkness. Hate    cannot be overcome by hate but only love.” Rom. 12:20 No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” The “burning coals” means the feeling of shame our enemies will experience when we return good for evil.   Refocus on God’s plan for your life. You stop focusing on the hurt and the person who hurt you. Instead, you refocus on God’s purpose for your life, which is greater than any problem or pain you might be currently facing. As long as you continue to focus on the person who has hurt you, that person controls you. In fact, you can take it a step further. If you don’t release your offender, you will begin to resemble your offender. Phil. 3:13 Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, Phil. 3:14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. 13Ka u le ka nau pawl, cumicu ka co ngah zo, tiin ka ruat hrimhrim lo. Ka tuahmi cu pakhat lawng a si: ka dunglamih a luan ciami thil kha hngilhsan tahratin ka hmailamih a ummi kha ban dingah ka dawh aw rero a si. 14Curuangah hmuitinmi lamah zuam man ngah dingin dingtein ka tlan. Cuih zuam man cu Pathian in Khrih Jesuh sung ihsin kumkhua nung dingah in run kawhnak kha a si. Conclusion:  In order to have a healthy forgiveness to others:  1. Recognize that no one is perfect.  2. Don’t take revenge.  3. Respond evil with good.  4. Refocus on God’s plan for your life.

Ref: Rick Warren, Daily Hope(July 5, 2015) and Warren W. Wiersbe, Bible Commentary

_____________________

September 30, 2018 (Sunday)

FBCMD 

To Get More Passionate, Get Closer to God

By Rick Warren — Aug 28, 2017

“Look, I’m standing at the door and knocking. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I’ll come in and we’ll eat together” (Revelation 3:20 GW). God gave you a heart, and he has placed in you passions, desires, and dreams. But unless they are under his control, they will be misused, they will be abused, they will be misapplied, they will be misdirected, and they will be wasted in your life. All around the world, there are millions of passionate people with interests and dreams and ambitions that are being misused and abused. And it breaks God’s heart. That’s why, in spite of their talent and their passion, those people are unhappy. Because when your passions are misused, it makes you miserable. Some of you might be thinking, “I’m not really passionate about anything right now.” You know what that means, don’t you? It means you are disconnected from God. You cannot be connected to God and dispassionate. When you are plugged in to God, it’s like plugging in to 220 volts. You get passionate! God is a passionate God. The only reason you have emotions is because you’re made in his image. God is emotional. God gets jealous when he sees you ignoring him for something else. God has loved you with an everlasting love. No matter what you’ve done, he will always love you. That’s passion! When you spend time with God on a daily basis and you get plugged in, you can’t help but be passionate. You start to develop God’s heart for the world. You start to feel the way he does. Who you hang out with really does make a difference. I can prove that with any teenager. Put a teenage kid with a group of dispassionate kids who are apathetic about everything, and that kid will become apathetic within a matter of weeks. Why? Who you hang out with makes a difference. Would you like to have more energy in life? More enthusiasm? More get up and go? Let me tell you where to get it. The word “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek words “en theos” — “en” meaning “in” and “theos” meaning “God.” When you get “en theos,” you’re going to be enthusiastic. The closer you get to God, the more energy, vitality, and passion you will have in life. The further away you get, the more bored and apathetic you become with life. You’ve got to open your heart to Jesus. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Look, I’m standing at the door and knocking. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I’ll come in and we’ll eat together” (GW). Jesus Christ has been standing and knocking at the door of your life for a long time. But he’s a gentleman. He’s not going to bust the door down. You’ve got to open it up. Talk It Over How do the people you spend time with and the things you spend your time doing make you more or less passionate about God? What are you passionate about? How can it bring glory to God? What changes in your schedule might help you prioritize a quiet time with God every day?

How Big Is Your Vision? 3 Determining Factors

December 26, 2016

 

By Pastor Rick Warren

Over the years, I’ve learned that – contrary to popular opinion – the bigger the vision, the easier it is to reach that vision, and, ultimately, the size of your vision should be determined by the size of God.

How big do you think God is? The issue is not who you think you are, but who you think God is. In your dreams for your ministry, don’t limit yourself by saying, “What can I do?” Instead ask, “What can God do in this place?”

How many people could be reached here?

When determining the size of your vision, you need to keep three factors in mind. The first factor is the ultimate population of your ministry area. Obviously, if a church planter is going to start a new church, he doesn’t plan a church of 2,000 in a town that only has 500 people in it. Be pragmatic.

I tell people: Go get a map of your community, draw a circle that would include approximately 15 minutes’ driving distance to your church, and find out how many people are in that area. Then you say, “Ultimately, we want to try to reach everybody. We know we can’t reach everybody. But we assume the responsibility for reaching everybody. We pray that other churches will reach people, but we want to assume responsibility for that.”

How long are you willing to stay?

The second factor is a question only you can answer: How long do you intend to stay there? There’s an old saying: “Inch by inch, anything is a cinch.”

Most of us overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in 10 years or 20 years. The trouble with most goal setting is we set our goals too low and try to accomplish them too soon.

Instead, we need to set big goals, huge goals, enormous goals, but plan on plenty of time in getting there. I tell everyone who comes on staff with us, “We don’t expect a miracle overnight. Let’s build.” We’re not interested in building a mushroom. We’re interested in building an oak tree. A mushroom takes 12 hours to grow; an oak tree takes 60 years. But an oak tree is going to last.

To reach big goals, you have to plan for the long haul in ministry. There are lots of flash-in-the-pan churches. There are churches that have grown larger than our church in a shorter amount of time. There was a church once near Saddleback Church that started with 1,200 people within the first month, but a year later the church was dead. It didn’t build the structure. It didn’t build the roots. It didn’t build all the other factors. Everything rises or falls on leadership.

So how long will you stay there? If you don’t plan on staying someplace for the long haul, don’t go there. You must plan for time. Persistence is the key in reaching a large goal. Conversely, the size of your goal will be determined by how much of your life you plan to spend in reaching it.

How has God gifted you?

The third factor for determining the size of your vision is a frank appraisal of your own gifts. The Bible clearly teaches that there are one-talent people and five-talent people and 10-talent people.

Some pastors will never have more than 150 in their church because they insist on doing everything themselves. They do all the prayers, all the visitation, all the counseling, all the marrying and burying. They want to know everybody by name. This shepherd-type of pastor loves the personal contact of getting involved with people in that area.

There’s nothing wrong with having a shepherd’s heart. God loves people with shepherd’s hearts. That’s why he made so many of them. There are about 400,000 churches in America and maybe 95 percent of them run less than 300 on a weekend.

Most of those are led by pastors who have a shepherd’s heart. But if your church is going to grow, you must be willing to raise up other leaders and other shepherds, too — it’s one of the prices of growth.

In other words, you’ll have people who do not come to you, personally, for counseling. They won’t come to you for weddings. They won’t come to you for funerals.

The same thing is going to be true of your area. If you have a vision to grow a large church that reaches people from across the spectrum, you’ll have to change the way you think. That’s why you have to do an honest assessment of your gifts.

So how many people are reachable where God has called you to serve? How long are you willing to stay? And how has God gifted you?

Ref: http://pastors.com/how-big-is-your-vision-3-determining-factors/?utm_source=Resources&utm_campaign=448d2d2748-PCOM+Newsletter+11%2F23%2F16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3a3ff6b713-448d2d2748-45798729&mc_cid=448d2d2748&mc_eid=ca7de61100#

When Evil Tries to Invade Us, What Should We Do?

A Special Note from Pastor Rick...

Last week our nation faced the tragedy of another senseless, hate-filled shooting. As you know, a 21 year old gunman shot and killed nine people who had gathered for a Wednesday night Bible study at the Emmanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina.

How do we respond to such evil? The answer is that we must do the exact opposite of what the gunman wanted to accomplish. That way he doesn’t win.

The gunman’s intention was to divide people,
so we must unite in our grief.
His intention was to show hatred,
so we must show love.
His intention was to kill,
so we must protect life – all of it. Every life matters.
His intention was to do evil,
so we must respond by doing good
His intention was to start a race war.
We must be peacemakers.
His intention was to further segregation,
so we must model integration in our churches,
His intention was to do an injustice,
so we must stand for justice.
And his intention was to do harm,
so we must be agents of healing.

When we do the opposite of what the gunman wanted to see happen, evil ultimately loses and goodness wins. Even many of the family members of those murdered have modeled this response, offering forgiveness to the man who took the lives of their loved one, even while feeling gut-wrenching grief and anger. Romans 12:21 says “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Today, hatred is strong in our culture. But love is even stronger, and it is the only thing than can overpower evil.

There Are No Shortcuts to Spiritual Maturity

By Rick Warren — Jun 24, 2015 “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6 NLT, second edition) It takes years for us to grow to adulthood, and it takes a full season for fruit to mature and ripen. The same is true for the fruit of the Spirit. The development of Christ-like character cannot be rushed. Spiritual growth, like physical growth, takes time. Billy Graham associate Lane Adams once compared the process of spiritual growth to the strategy the Allies used in World War II to liberate islands in the South Pacific. First they would “soften up” an island, weakening the resistance by shelling the enemy strongholds with bombs from offshore ships. Next, a small group of Marines would invade the island and establish a “beachhead”—a tiny fragment of the island that they could control. Once the beachhead was secured, they would begin the long process of liberating the rest of the island, one bit of territory at a time. Eventually the entire island would be brought under control, but not without some costly battles. Adams drew this parallel: Before Christ invades our lives at conversion, he sometimes has to “soften us up” by allowing problems we can’t handle. While some open their lives to Christ the first time he knocks on the door, most of us are resistant and defensive. Our pre-conversion experience is Jesus saying, “Behold! I stand at the door and bomb!” The moment you open yourself to Christ, God gets a “beachhead” in your life. You may think you have surrendered all your life to him, but the truth is, there’s a lot to your life that you aren’t even aware of. You can only give God as much of you as you understand at that moment. That’s okay. Once Christ is given a beachhead, he begins the campaign to take over more and more territory until all of your life is completely his. There will be struggles and battles, but the outcome will never be in doubt. God has promised that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”(Philippians 1:6 NIV).

Your Choices Control Your Calendar

CURRENT TEACHING SERIES Life's Healing Choices

By Rick Warren — Jun 23, 2015 “We are each responsible for our own conduct.” (Galatians 6:5 NLT, second edition) Your choices are far more powerful than your circumstances. You may not like how complicated your life has become. But with few exceptions, no one is forcing you to keep your life complicated. You have the power to simplify your life. In fact, God expects us to assume responsibility for our lives and to carefully choose how we spend our time. You have just enough time to do God's will while you’re here on Earth. You’ve been given just enough time to fulfill your purpose. When you try to do more than God planned for you, it’s only natural that you will find yourself constantly out of time or stressed over your schedule. My prayer for you is that you will find relief from stress and a new sense of satisfaction as you do only the things God created you to do. PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick >> Talk It Over Make a list of the activities and responsibilities that are causing you stress. Ask God to help you determine the things on your schedule that he never intended for you to do. Where do you believe God wants you to focus your time and energy? What choices do you need to make that will help you focus more on what God has planned for you?

How to Face Your Fears and Indecision

By Rick Warren — Apr 18, 2015 “Trust the LORD with all your heart, and don’t depend on your own understanding. Remember the LORD in all you do, and he will give you success.” (Proverbs 3:5-6 NCV) The root of all indecision is fear. We all have different kinds of fears. We’re afraid we’ll make mistakes and embarrass ourselves. We’re afraid that we won’t be able to finish what we’ve started. We’re afraid we’re not good enough. One of the fears that keeps us from making decisions is the fear of disapproval. Proverbs 29:25 says, “Fear of man is a dangerous trap, but to trust in God means safety” (TLB). The moment you start worrying about what other people think, it’s over, because fear of disapproval is always worse than disapproval. So how do you get rid of a fear? There’s only one way: Face it, and move against it. You do the thing you fear the most! At some point you’ve got to stop aiming and pull the trigger. The only antidote to fear is faith. You have to step out in faith. You’ve got to trust God and start moving.  In every major decision we’ve had to make at Saddleback Church, I was scared. But I did it anyway. Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is moving ahead in spite of your fear. If you’re not afraid, you don’t need courage. Courage comes because you’re scared to death but you also believe it’s what God wants you to do, so you do it anyway. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust the LORD with all your heart, and don’t depend on your own understanding. Remember the LORD in all you do, and he will give you success”(NCV). God supports those who move in faith. So here’s the question you need to ask: Where do you need to trust God? You haven’t really trusted him until you’ve attempted something you can’t do on your own power. I don’t know what decision you need to make, but you need to prepare for it and then step out in faith. Why? Because your choices determine your character and your destiny. Commit yourself to the Lord, and he will give you the wisdom and courage to make the decision that will bring you closer to who he made you to be. Click here to play today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick. Talk It Over How have your fears kept you from moving forward in life? It there a decision you need to make that requires you to trust God? What step of faith do you believe he is telling you to take? What do you think it means to commit your decisions to the Lord?

Church Growth Is Okay, but Church Health Is What Matters

February 20, 2015

 

By Rick Warren

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The New Testament says a lot about the health of the church. Consider just a few verses:

“As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthyand growing…” – Eph. 4:16b (NLT)

“The focus of my letter wasn’t on punishing the offender but on getting you to take responsibility for the health of the church.” – 2 Cor. 2:9 (Message)

“You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other…” – James 3:18 (Message)

Church health is the key to church growth. All living things grow if they’re healthy. You don’t have to makethem grow – it’s just natural for living organisms. As a parent, I didn’t have to force my three children to grow. They naturally grew up. As long as I removed the hindrances, such as poor nutrition or an unsafe environment, their growth was automatic.

If my children had not grown up, something would have been terribly wrong. I would have done whatever it took to discover the disease and correct it. I wouldn’t have remained passive, spouting clichés about faithfulness, or wanting “quality not quantity” in my children.

The same principle is true for the church. Since the church is a living organism, it’s natural for it to grow if it’s healthy. The church is a Body, not a business – an organism, not an organization. It’s alive. If a church is not growing, it is dying.

What then is the secret of church health?

In a word, it’s balance!

Your body has nine different systems (circulatory, respiratory, digestive, skeletal, etc.). When these systems are all in balance, it produces health. But when your body gets out of balance, we call that “disease.” Likewise when the Body of Christ becomes unbalanced, disease occurs. Health and growth can only occur when everything is brought into balance.

The Importance of Balance

Our entire world is based on this principle of balance. Our planet was perfectly balanced by God, at just the right angle on its axis to support life. It rotates at a speed that minimizes vibration. If this planet were just a little closer to the sun, we’d burn up and, if it were just a few miles further away from the sun, we’d freeze to death.

Nature is a collection of ecosystems that live in balance with each other. We now know that even the tiniest variation in the ecosystem creates a chain reaction. God has set up a food chain with plants and animals in balance.

In architecture, structures must be balanced. If the stress isn’t balanced, a building will collapse or a bridge will fall through. There must be equilibrium. If your life is not balanced, you might collapse, and if your congregation is not balanced, it might collapse. As pastors and counselors we must realize that healing is the recovery of balance to the body, soul, and congregation.

Healthy, lasting church growth is multi-dimensional. I’ve written extensively on the fact that church health has five facets: Every church needs to grow…

• warmer through fellowship
• deeper through discipleship
• stronger through worship
• broader through ministry
• larger through evangelism

These five purposes of the church are commanded by Jesus in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission, explained by Paul in Ephesians 4, described in Jesus’ prayer for the church in John 17, and modeled by the first church in Jerusalem.

In Acts 2:42-47 these five facets of health are mentioned: They fellowshipped, edified each other, worshipped, ministered, and evangelized. As a result, verse 47 says, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Church growth is the natural result of church health. But church health can only occur when our message is biblical and our mission is balanced. Each of the five New Testament purposes of the church must be in equilibrium with the others for health to occur.

Now this is important: Because we are imperfect beings, balance in a church does not occur naturally: In fact, we must continually correct imbalance! It’s human nature to overemphasize the aspect or purpose of the church we feel most passionate about.

Most evangelical churches already do the five purposes of the church -sort of.

But they don’t do them all equally well. One church may be strong in fellowship, yet weak in evangelism. Another may be strong in worship, yet weak in discipleship. Still another may be strong in evangelism, yet weak in ministry.

Why is this? It’s the natural tendency of leaders to emphasize what they feel strongly about and neglect whatever they feel less passionate about. Around the world you can find churches that have become the extension of their pastor’s giftedness. They focus only on what he cares about most.

Unless you set up a system and structure to intentionally balance the five purposes, your church will tend to overemphasize the purpose that best expresses the gifts and passion of its pastor.

Healthy churches are built on purpose! By focusing equally on all five of the New Testament purposes of the church, your church will develop the healthy balance that makes lasting growth possible.

Financial Blessing Requires Careful Planning

By Rick Warren — Feb 19, 2015 “Plan carefully and you will have plenty.” (Proverbs 21:5a TEV) If you want to be financially strong, you need to start writing down what you spend until you know where it’s all going. This is the principle of accounting. You’ve got to keep track of your finances! Proverbs 21:5 says, “Plan carefully and you will have plenty” (TEV). If you don’t have plenty, you’re not planning carefully. You don’t have anybody to blame but yourself. You may say, “But I had this emergency!” Everybody has emergencies. Everybody gets laid off or has unexpected expenses. The difference between the people who make it through and those who don’t is how they planned for those emergencies. If you don’t expect them, of course you’re going to be devastated by them. Have you ever made it to the end of the month and wondered, “Where did all my money go?” Ignorance of your financial condition plus easy credit equals disaster. You’ve heard that phrase, “Money talks.” It does not. It just walks away quietly, and it doesn’t tell you where it’s going. So you have to keep good records so you know where your money is going. Here are four things you need to keep good records of: what you own, what you owe, what you earn, and where it’s going. There are several ways to budget, and you need to figure out which one is best for you. You need to get online, get into your bank, get to your accountant’s office, get into your books — whatever it takes to get on track and understand your money so that it works for you and not against you. Proverbs 23:5 says, “Your money can be gone in a flash, as if it had grown wings and flown away like an eagle” (TEV). That’s a pretty descriptive picture. If you don’t know where your money is going, it’s just going to fly away like an eagle. Fortunately, the U.S. government is kind enough to remind us by putting an eagle on every dollar bill. So every time you look at that bill, let it be a reminder that it’s going to fly away unless you tell it where to go. PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick >> Talk It Over Are you on the same page as your spouse when it comes to your finances and how much you both know about them? Why is it important that your finances are a joint effort? What steps do you need to take today to be able to better track and allocate your money? How do you want God to bless you financially? How are you being faithful to him with your finances?

The Promise, Purpose, Place, and Day for Tithing

By Rick Warren — Feb 18, 2015

“The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives.”(Deuteronomy 14:23b TLB) Whatever you want God to bless, you have to put him first in. So if you want God to bless your finances, you have to put him first in your money. This is the principle of tithing: You give the first 10 percent of your income back to God. There are four verses that explain the promise, the purpose, the place, and the day for tithing.  First, Proverbs 3:9-10 gives the promise about tithing: “Honor the Lord by giving him the first part of all your income, and he will fill your barns with wheat and barley and overflow your wine vats with the finest wines” (TLB). God says that if you honor him with the first part of your income, he will bless you financially. Kay and I decided 36 years ago that if we’re going to be in debt to anybody, we’re not going to be in debt to God. God gets paid first, right off the top. If I make 10 bucks, the first dollar goes back to him. If I make a hundred bucks, the first 10 bucks goes back to him. It all comes from God in the first place, and I want his blessing on the rest of it.  Why does God tell us to tithe? Deuteronomy 14:23 says, “The purpose of tithing is to teach you always to put God first in your lives.” God doesn’t need your money, but he wants what it represents — your heart. He wants you to trust him. Where should you tithe? Do you tithe to United Way? Or do you tithe to your brother who’s been out of work for three years? No. That’s charity. Tithing is an act of worship. It goes to God. Malachi 3:10 says, “‘Bring to the storehouse a full tenth of what you earn .... Test me in this,’ says the LORD All-Powerful. ‘I will open the windows of heaven for you and pour out all the blessings you need’” (NCV). The storehouse is the temple or the place where you worship God. When are you supposed to tithe? You do it on the day you worship. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 16:2, “On every Lord’s Day each of you should put aside something from what you have earned during the week, and use it for this offering. The amount depends on how much the Lord has helped you earn” (TLB). When you give to God on the first day of the week, the first part of your day, and the first part of your money, then you say to him, “You’re really number one in my life.” Notice that the verse says “put aside.” You’ve got to plan this! Tithing should not be an impulsive thing. You’ve got to plan for it so that you are honoring God’s plan and purpose for tithing. Then, you can watch how God blesses and uses you and honors his promise in your life. PLAY today’s audio teaching from Pastor Rick >> Talk It Over What does it mean to you practically to give God the first part of your income? Why do you think God wants you to tithe to your church and not another cause? How do you need to plan today so that you can be faithful in tithing?