Notes from Tithing Lesson

Today Alice Beckstrom taught a beautiful lesson on the blessings of tithing. It was a wonderful class. Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

I asked Alice if she'd share some notes and resources. Thanks Alice!

Tithing Lesson – “Not Room Enough to Receive It”
Elder Robert D. Hales, “Tithing: A Test of Faith with Eternal Blessings,” Ensign, Nov 2002; Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “‘Like a Watered Garden’,” Ensign, Nov 2001; President James E. Faust, “Opening the Windows of Heaven,” Ensign, Nov 1998; “Not Room Enough to Receive It,”Ensign, Dec 2003;

[Elder RDHales] Tithing is a test of faith with eternal blessings.

(Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. (1939), 225–26.) Tithing has been established in these latter days as an essential law for members of the Lord’s restored Church. It is one of the basic ways we witness our faith in Him and our obedience to His laws and commandments. Tithing is one of the commandments that qualifies us, by our faith, to enter the temple—the house of the Lord.
To get a better understanding of the sacred nature and responsibility of paying tithing, President John Taylor, then of the Quorum of the Twelve, said the following: “A man who has not paid his tithing is unfit to be baptized for his dead. … If a man has not faith enough to attend to these little things, he has not faith enough to save himself and his friends.” (History of the Church, 7:292–93.)

[President JEFaust] Tithing is a principle that is fundamental to the personal happiness and well-being of the Church members worldwide, both rich and poor. Tithing is a principle of sacrifice and a key to the opening of the windows of heaven.
Mal 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

[Pres. JEFaust] The law of tithing is simple: we pay one-tenth of our individual increase annually. Increase has been interpreted by the First Presidency to mean income. What amounts to 10 percent of our individual income is between each of us and our Maker. There are no legalistic rules. As a convert in Korea once said: “With tithing, it doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor. You pay 10 percent, and you don’t have to be ashamed if you haven’t earned very much. If you make lots of money, you pay 10 percent. If you make very little, you still pay 10 percent. Heavenly Father will love you for it. You can hold your head up proud.”

[Pres. JEFaust, con't] Why should members worldwide, many of whom may not have enough for their daily needs, be encouraged to keep the Lord’s law of tithing? As President Hinckley said in Cebu in the Philippine Islands, if members “even living in poverty and misery … will accept the gospel and live it, pay their tithes and offerings, even though those be meager, … they will have rice in their bowls and clothing on their backs and shelter over their heads. I do not see any other solution.”

In Elder Jeffrey Holland's talk, he says,[Elder JRHolland] May I then suggest five reasons why all of us, rich or poor, longtime member or newest convert, should faithfully pay our tithes and offerings. First, do so for the sake of your children and grandchildren, the rising generation, who could now, if we are not careful, grow up in the Church with absolutely no understanding as to how their temples, chapels, seminaries, and socials are provided. Teach your children that many of the blessings of the Church are available to them because you and they give tithes and offerings to the Church. Teach them that those blessings could come virtually no other way.

Elder RDHales] The Lord desires that all His children have the blessings of tithing. Too often we as parents do not teach and encourage our children to live this law because their contribution only amounts to a few cents. But without a testimony of tithing, they are vulnerable. In their teenage years, they become attracted to clothes, entertainment, and expensive possessions and risk losing the special protection that tithing provides.
[Elder JRHolland] Second, pay your tithing to rightfully claim the blessings promised those who do so. “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
[Ensign, Dec 2003, 47 Josefa Margarida dos Santos Fontes, Brazil] When I was baptized in 2001, I began paying tithing every month. Then just eight months later, my husband passed away. I became a widow with two small children at home and one son on a mission. Although my financial problems were serious, I never stopped paying tithing. I have been blessed with more and more work, which has enabled me to earn more money. But even more important, because I pay my tithing I always feel at peace with the Lord.
Today my small house seems big and comfortable. I feel calm with my two little children. I will never stop paying tithing because I know the Lord has blessed me not only with physical and spiritual health but also with wisdom and peace.
[Pres. JEFaust] President Heber J. Grant put it in context when he said: “Prosperity comes to those who observe the law of tithing. When I say prosperity I am not thinking of it in terms of dollars and cents alone. … What I count as real prosperity … is the growth in a knowledge of God, and in a testimony, and in the power to live the gospel and to inspire our families to do the same. That is prosperity of the truest kind.”
[Elder JRHolland] Third, pay your tithing as a declaration that possession of material goods and the accumulation of worldly wealth are not the uppermost goals of your existence. As one young husband and father, living on a student budget, recently told me, “Perhaps our most pivotal moments as Latter-day Saints come when we have to swim directly against the current of the culture in which we live. Tithing provides just such a moment. Living in a world that emphasizes material acquisition and cultivates distrust for anyone or anything that has designs on our money, we shed that self-absorption to give freely, trustingly, and generously. By this act, we say—indeed—we are different, that we are God’s peculiar people. In a society that tells us money is our most important asset, we declare emphatically it is not.”
[Pres. JEFaust quotes Sister Yaeko Seki] “My family and I were spending a day at the Japan Alps National Park . … I was pregnant with our fourth child and was feeling rather tired, so I lay down under the trees. … I began thinking about our financial problems. My heart became overwhelmed, and I burst into tears. ‘Lord, we are full-tithe payers. We have sacrificed so much. When will the windows of heaven open unto us and our burdens be lightened?’
“I prayed with all my heart. Then I turned to watch my husband and children playing and laughing together. … Suddenly, the Spirit testified to me that my blessings were abundant and that my family was the greatest blessing Heavenly Father could give me.”
[Elder JRHolland] Fourth, pay your tithes and offerings out of honesty and integrity because they are God’s rightful due. Surely one of the most piercing lines in all of scripture is Jehovah’s thundering inquiry, “Will a man rob God?” And we ask, “Wherein have we robbed thee?” He answers, “In tithes and offerings.”(Mal 3:8)
[Elder RDHales] When a friend of President George Albert Smith asked him what he thought of his friend’s personal plan to take what would have been tithing and donate his tenth in charitable donations of his own choice, President Smith’s counsel was:
“I think you are a very generous man with someone else’s property... You have told me what you have done with the Lord’s money but you have not told me that you have given anyone a penny of your own. He is the best partner you have in the world. He gives you everything you have, even the air you breathe. He has said you should take one-tenth of what comes to you and give it to the Church as directed by the Lord. You haven’t done that; you have taken your best partner’s money, and have given it away.”
[Elder JRHolland] Paying tithing is not a token gift we are somehow charitably bestowing upon God. Paying tithing is discharging a debt.
[Elder JRHolland] This leads to a fifth reason to pay our tithes and offerings. We should pay them as a personal expression of love to a generous and merciful Father in Heaven.
[Elder JRHolland] Through His grace God has dealt bread to the hungry and clothing to the poor. At various times in our lives that will include all of us, either temporally or spiritually speaking. For every one of us the gospel has broken forth as the light of the morning, driving back the darkness of ignorance and sorrow, fear and despair. In nation after nation His children have called and the Lord has answered. Through the movement of His gospel across the world, God is relieving the burdens of the weary and setting free those that are oppressed. His loving goodness has made our lives, rich or poor, near or far, “like a watered garden, … [from] a spring of water … [that faileth] not.” (Isa. 58:11; see also Isa. 58:6–10.)
Now we know many of the reasons why we should be paying our tithing... what do we do if and when it seems financially impossible to do so?
[President JEFaust] Some may feel that they cannot afford to pay tithing, but the Lord has promised that He would prepare a way for us to keep all of His commandments. To pay tithing takes a leap of faith in the beginning, but as Jesus said, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.”(John 7:17.) We learn about tithing by paying it. Indeed, I believe it is possible to break out of poverty by having the faith to give back to the Lord part of what little we have.
Elder Hales beautifully explains how to recommit to paying our tithes.
[Elder RDHales] ...each of us will have the sacred opportunity to sit once again with our bishop and settle our tithing with the Lord. Your bishop will be gentle and kind. He will understand the challenges you face. If you cannot pay back what you missed paying in the past, go forward. Begin today. Share with your bishop your commitment to pay a full tithe in the future, and work out a plan to return to the temple as soon as possible. As soon as you have demonstrated your faith in paying tithing over a period of time and kept the other necessary commandments, you will be able to enjoy the eternal blessings of the temple. I plead with you, do not let this opportunity pass by. Do not procrastinate...
Would any of us intentionally reject an outpouring of blessings from the Lord? Sadly, this is what we do when we fail to pay our tithing. We say no to the very blessings we are seeking and praying to receive. If you are one who has doubted the blessings of tithing, I encourage you to accept the Lord’s invitation to “prove [Him] now herewith.” Pay your tithing. Unlock the windows of heaven. You will be abundantly blessed for your obedience and faithfulness to the Lord’s laws and commandments.
And he closes, saying:
[RDHales] My beloved brothers and sisters, the eternal blessings of tithing are real. I have experienced them in my life and in the life of my family. The test of our faith is whether we will live the law of tithing by our obedience and sacrifice. For, in the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith, “a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.”
I testify that the Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed His life to bring this salvation to each of us. As His special witness, I testify that He lives. And on His behalf, I express gratitude to you, the children, the widows, the youth, the families—the faithful—for your sacred tithes. “These deeds shall thy memorial be; Fear not, thou didst them unto me.” In the holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.