Why Should/Shouldn’t My Church Embrace Change? Part XXXIV
As believers in Jesus, there is a treasure stored deep within us if we are just willing to just dig deeper.
“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
If the Holy Spirit “abides with you and in you,” then all we must do is dig deeper within ourselves and release what the Lord has stored in his temple. God has a record of building storehouses, a principle we need to tap into.
The foundation for storehousing is founded in Genesis 41, the story of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery, but he rises to power, second only to the pharaoh of Egypt to build storehouses to prevent an upcoming famine. The power of these storehouses brought everyone to be indebted to Egypt, enslaved the children of Israel for the next 500 years, and built an empire!
The prophet Malachi writes, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” (Malachi 3:10)
I have heard this passage quoted over and over again to justify financial tithing to local churches to meet their budgets and Christian speakers to finance their organizations. This passage has nothing to do with monetary wealth, but is a significant principle for the Priesthood of Believers who are to ”bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.” We are only God’s stewards. Egypt demanded bringing 1/5th, the church 1/10th, but God demands “the whole tithe,” everything! “’Test Me now in this,’ says the Lord of hosts! I will open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” The storehouses will overflow because everything that is in it, God has put there, not you! He fills His storehouses to overflowing when we give Him our all! Test Him!
The tragedy of Ananias and Sapphira during the first century lay not only in them not ”bringing the whole tithe into the storehouse,” but lying to the Holy Spirit about it. (Acts 5:1-22) You don’t mess with the principle of storehousing or with the power of the Holy Spirit; they are powerful! Because of Ananias and Sapphira’s actions, a ”great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things.”
Can you not see the potential of this storehouse, this temple of the Holy Spirit that is within you and the many giftings it holds: the gift of salvation, the gift of eternal life, the gifts of the spirit, the fruits of the spirit, patience, kindness, meekness, mildness, love, wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing spirits, tongues, interpretations, evangelists, shepherds, prophets, apostles, and teachers, etc., etc. “But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (I Corinthians 12:7) There are more gifts than our personal storehouses can contain.
Churches today should be ashamed of themselves for not tapping into this valuable resource instead of enabling their laity into passivity and inactivity. The five fold is for the equipping, the building up, and the releasing of the saints for service from their storehouses! Like Williamsport, once rich, then poor, but now alive because of what lies beneath them, the church needs to tap into the storehouses that already lay beneath their laity, the Priesthood of Believers.