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Day 158 Hebrews 7:1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most-High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated “king of righteousness,” and then also king of Salem, meaning “king of peace,” 3 without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually. 4 Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. 5 Indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham; 6 but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7 Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better. 8 Here mortal men receive tithes, but there he receives them, of whom it is witnessed that he lives. 9 Even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, 10 for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. 11 Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. 13 For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar. 14 For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. 15 It is yet far more evident if, in the likeness of Melchizedek, there arises another priest 16 who has come, not according to the law of a fleshly commandment, but according to the power of an endless life. 17 For He testifies: “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” 18 For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment because of its weakness and unprofitableness, 19 for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God. 20 Inasmuch as He was not made priest without an oath 21 (for they have become priests without an oath, but He with an oath by Him who said to Him: “The LORD has sworn and will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek’”), 22 by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. 23 Also, there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. 24 He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. 25 Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. 26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people's, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever. The biggest complaint people have against the church is the amount of money people are required to pay to the church. They don’t consider that every nonprofit organization asks for donations. People give without thought to those organizations because they support their interests. The author of Hebrews spoke to the Jews about the tithe they paid, not to condemn them because they didn’t give, but to show how the blessing came to them through a high priest who met Abraham from the battle and blessed him. Abraham then gave a tenth of all the spoils of war to the high priest whose name means king of righteousness and Salem for whom he was high priest meant king of peace. He showed how Jesus and Melchizedek were united because Melchizedek didn’t have a lineage being without father or mother. Jesus was also their King of Righteousness and King of Peace. In so doing Melchizedek showed Jesus’ eternal nature having no beginning or end. Therefore, the blessing came apart from the law for whom Jesus gave a new covenant apart from the original law demanding sacrifices. He became their sacrifice once for all time because of His sinless nature, changing the law by making a new covenant. Many Christians don’t realize the blessing associated with tithing. They listen to the world and withhold the tithe and in so doing withhold God’s blessing from their lives. Satan controls the world and those people who condemn Christians for tithing. He doesn’t want God to bless His people. When you withhold the tithe, you withhold God’s blessing from your life. You have no problem about giving to organizations who support your ideals. However, when it comes to your blessing, your hand doesn’t reach for your wallet and your blessing remains with God. Satan puts a bug in your ear when you want to reach for your wallet. He tells you that you don’t have enough to pay your bills if you tithe. He reminds you that you have to pay for children’s activities, put food on the table, all those things that come first in your life leaving you without means to give anything to God so He can bless you. Tithing isn’t about giving. It’s about God blessing you. God told Moses the children of Israel were to give the first fruits of their harvest and livestock to God as their tithe to Him. When they did, God would bless them. Here is how God blessed their obedience to everything He commanded them including the tithe. Deuteronomy 28:1 “Now it will come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: 3 Blessed will you be in the city, and blessed will you be in the country. 4 Blessed will be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 5 Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 Blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed will you be when you go out. 7 The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they will come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. 9 The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. 10 Then all peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you. 11 The LORD will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. 13 The LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you will be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. 14 So you will not turn aside from any of the words I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.” If you allow Satan to keep your hand in your pocket and not give your tithe to God. This is what will happen: Deuteronomy 28:15 “But it will happen, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: 16 Cursed will you be in the city, and cursed will you be in the country. 17 Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 Cursed will be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 19 Cursed will you be when you come in, and cursed will you be when you go out. 20 The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. 21 The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they will pursue you until you perish. 23 Your heavens which are over your head will be bronze, and the earth which is under you will be iron. 24 The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed. 25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you will become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one will frighten them away. 27 The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. 29 "You will grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you will not prosper in your ways; you will be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one will save you. 30 You will betroth a wife, but another man will lie with her; you will build a house, but you will not dwell in it; you will plant a vineyard but will not gather its grapes. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey will be violently taken away from before you and will not be restored to you; your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to rescue them. 32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there will be no strength in your hand. 33 A nation whom you have not known will eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed continually. 34 So you will be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. 35 The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36 The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods—wood and stone. 37 You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you. 38 You will carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust will consume it. 39 You will plant vineyards and tend them, but you will neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you will not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives will drop off. 41 You will beget sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go into captivity. 42 Locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land. 43 The alien who is among you will rise higher and higher above you, and you will come down lower and lower. 44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the head, and you will be the tail. 45 Moreover, all these curses will come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 They will be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. 47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, 48 therefore, you will serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. 49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. 51 They will eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until they destroy you; they will not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. 52 They will besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they will besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. 53 You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy will distress you. 54 The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy will distress you at all your gates. 56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 57 her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy will distress you at all your gates. 58 If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, 59 then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 60 Moreover, He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed. 62 You will be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. 63 It will be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you will be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. 64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. 65 And among those nations you will find no rest, nor will the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will fear day and night and have no assurance of life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it was evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it was morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. 68 The LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You will never see it again.’ There you will be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.” If you know Israel’s history, they didn’t obey God and every curse He pronounced on them came about. This is what Satan wants for you. He wants to destroy you because you accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord. He doesn’t want God’s blessing on your life. When you determine to give God the first part of your income, God will bless you. Every blessing God gave His chosen people will be yours. You will prosper in ways you didn’t believe possible. Don’t let Satan destroy your life by keeping your hand in your pocket. Give and watch God bless you in every conceivable way and even in inconceivable ways. Jesus told the people what Satan’s plan was for them. John 10:10 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (NKJV) Do you want God’s abundant blessing on your life? Give your tithe and watch what God can do for you. Don’t let Satan destroy your blessing. Let’s pray: Father, bless me as I give to You good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Let me know Your abundant blessing on my life and not the curse You promised to those who disobeyed You. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. Copyright © 21 December 2023 by Valerie Routhieaux The image belongs to me.