At the start of the year, I wrote an entry about the Principle of First. The Principle of First is about giving God your firstfruit, as God Himself gave his firstfruit (His own Son, Jesus Christ) for all of us.
I began giving a clean 10% tithe of my income to God around February. Whatever amount that got into my account, be it be salary from work, an amount from something we sold or money given to us as gifts. I had it in my heart to bring back to God what He deserve, what He owns. My tithe started small because I was only earning small but I held on to God’s promise in Malachi 3:10 which says: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”
A few months ago, I also wrote about how big my expenses would be due to the fact that I am giving birth (and I am the only one earning now because my husband went back to school) – hospital bills, things needed by the new baby plus my eldest’s tuition fee, other debts, bills and so on. I even computed that I need to have at least 100,000php in order to keep up with all the expenses. This sounds impossible but I chose to believe that I have a God that is able.
I made an account today of our savings for the hospital expenses, baby needs expenses plus all the other things we were able to pay/buy since I started tithing. At the end of my computation, it amazed me that God went beyond just giving us the exact amount we need. Let me enumerate some of the wonderful blessings we have received:
– The full amount we needed for the hospital (65,000php)
– The full balance on our eldest daughter’s tuition (30,000php)
– Baby things (around 30,000php)
– Other debts (around 29,000php)
*These were the necessities but on top of those, we were also able to buy a new TV, renovate our room, had several vacations and always eat out and even sponsor a child to go to school.
When God promises something, He really keeps it. I would never had been blessed if i chose not to follow his words and surrendered all my needs Him. I can never imagine how in the world did I earn this big but the simple answer would be: I have a BIG God!
Surely, God has poured down His blessings to me and my family. I would never not want not to give back my firstfruit to God, by His grace. I continue to pray that as God would bless us more, we would be able to bless others eventually too.
Keeping Up the Faith 