DOES GOD TITHE HIS BLESSINGS?

Why should God do this for a sinner like me who does not pay tithes?

Asked if he pays the temple tax, Jesus said the son of a king does not pay tax to the king (Matthew 17:24-26).  Therefore, as a son of God, I don’t pay tithes to God.  God does not give his Spirit by measure (John 3:34).  Indeed, believers are those who have received of the fullness of the Lord (John 1:16).  Therefore, everything I have (and not just a tenth) belongs to the Lord.  I even have to get his permission to buy a pair of shoes.  Since tithe-collecting pastors insist I won’t be blessed because I don’t pay tithes, I need a “tither” to explain this testimony to me.

Stolen possession

In 1994, I rented a flat in Victoria Island, Lagos.  Three years later, God told me he had given me the entire building.  I understood this as Christians schooled in the sacrificial system do.  Since the building rightfully belonged to my landlord, I concluded that God would sacrifice his interests for my sake.

It made no difference to me if God were to kill him in order to give me the building.  Or, he might make him go into debt, and then his property would be forfeited to me.  I could not care less how God would do it, as long as he did it.  After all, the bible says the riches of the Gentiles shall be converted unto me (Isaiah 60:5).  The landlord was a Canaanite, an Amorite and a Hittite, rolled into one.  He was occupying my Promised Land and would have to be sacrificed. 

I got a prayer group to surround the building and quickly claimed it in the name of Jesus.  I applied the Old Testament principles of Joshua: wherever the soles of my feet tread, I take possession (Joshua 1:3).  So I marched energetically round the building and took it over by the power of loud covetous prayers.  I “named it and claimed it,” much in line with the vaunted traditions of such “word of faith preachers” as Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland. 

I don’t know if someone quickly alerted Olisa Metuh, the landlord, that he was in danger of losing his building to a determined prayer-warrior.  Or perhaps he received a warning about me in a vision or a dream.  But shortly after I embarked on these ungodly prayer sessions, he gave me a summary quit notice and I had to move out. 

Gift of God

When I started looking for alternative accommodation, my estate agent took me to a dilapidated building in the same Victoria Island.  I did not like it and rejected it out of hand.  But later that evening, the Lord told me the building I despised was the one he had given me.  Therefore I went back there the next day to take a second look.  Then I saw all kinds of possibilities I had failed to see earlier. 

I moved into the building in 1997 and spent a small fortune renovating it, confident that it belonged to me.  In 1999, at the expiration of my lease, the landlady offered to sell the building to me, even though I never asked to buy it.  I later discovered she had never even seen it before.  It had been willed to her by her late father.  But she lives in Chicago with her American husband and has no desire to return to Nigeria.

The realtor she hired to value the building turned out to be a good friend of mine.  He came first to ask me how much I could afford.  We finally agreed on a price that was ridiculously low.  Moreover, I was allowed to pay unconventionally; in installments over four years.  When I could not keep up with even this liberal payment schedule, the Lord appeared to me in a dream.  He promised to send me the money “from Canada.”  Within eight days, I received miraculously a number of unsolicited gifts totaling over ten million naira which completed the payment for the building, while still leaving me with a generous balance of 2.7 million.

God gave me the building without dispossessing the owner.  I did not offer any sacrifices and nobody was sacrificed.  My heavenly Father proved to be also the Father of the landlady.  She got what she wanted; the money to supplement her purchase of another house in Chicago.  I got what I wanted; a ridiculously low-priced building in Victoria Island, a choice area of Lagos.  Today, the value of my building is now over fifteen times the purchase price. 

Someone who pays tithes needs to explain to me why God did this for a sinner like me who does not pay tithes.