How important is it to be covered?

We are so excited to be a part of this group and are humbled to hear so much vulnerability so quickly. We had a blast reconnecting with old friends and building new relationships with others. All in all, the Lord was present and was glorified!! Amen for that!!

Re-Read Malachi 3:6-12

Question for today: If you are not regularly tithing, are you removing the covering of the Holy Spirit over your life?

Here is my two sense about this topic and would love to hear other opinions about this question. At the core of this topic, I think its an ownership issue. Do we work every day to make a wage and choose to give the Lord a percentage back to me and call it a "tithe" or is everything, and I mean everything, owned by God? If everything is owned by God, then that means we aren't choosing to give God 10%, he is allowing us to keep 90%!!!!

I think that is what God meant when he said during the text, we are "Robbing Him". If we have an ownership stuggle in our heart with God, he plays hard ball with us. Not to punish us, but to let us know that he is a jealour God and does not like other things to come between us. In this case, money! If we allow money to take ownership of our heart above God, he will remove the covering of the Holy Spirit in our life for a season until we surrender that issue back to him. When we do that, his covering and protection of the Holy Spirit will come back.

God was so serious about this issue, he TESTS us. The only spot in the Bible when God allows us to challenge him and see if he would bless us. If we test him and choose to tithe (meaning 10 percent), he will open up the flood gates and allow his blessing to flow on our life. Now that doesn't guarantee financial blessings, though it may, but it does guarantee a "covering" and a "blessing".

I strongly recommend that we have a paradeigm shift in terms of our thinking. God owns everything in our life and that includes our finances. It may not be easy to write that check and/or put that money in the offering basket, but I know God is excited to shower us with his covering. I pray that as you tithe this week, you will sense the moving of God in your life.