Do you have to pay tithes?

Hello Beloved,

We had a good teaching this morning in church. I wish I could give you all the details but
I can't remember all of them.... I would like to tell you about some of what I do remember..OK?
Then I will just ramble on and on and on ( OK you get the picture :) )

We talked about tithes. Now most people would be thinking , yeah, yeah, give em' moe money in their pockets. Well, in a real church here in the you can touch it realm. That is just not true..
Let me ask you this; Do you have lights on in your church building? What about heat in the winter and A/C in summer? Do you have carpet on the floors and windows in the walls, and TP in the bathroom? Where do you think all that comes from? It comes from tithes and offerings that are paid into the church. Do you not know that some preachers do not even get paid.
Some folks don't even think about thanking God for all they do have..... Do you know that we should be ( DO NOT have too) paying tithes on ALL of our first fruits? That is on EVERYTHING we have..... OK, you need a example here is one for you.
Let's say you are a farmer and you have cattle and crops.( rich is what you would be, eh?)
Now then, the cows have just had calves , lets say 10 calves have been born.... Now one of those calf's would be 10% correct ? Well that little calf would belong to God. You could lets say, give it to the church for the poor to eat.... Then 10% of your crops also would belong back to God, again you can give them to the church to help feed the poor. What about time? Yes, 10% of your time belongs to God too.... EVERYTHING you have 10% belongs back to God... I think it is a fair trade as 100% of it is already God's anyway ... So first fruits is anything that is new for you ... 10% back to God.. Makes sense to me...
Look at Genesis14:20, Abraham gave a 1/10 to God, Genesis 28:22 Jacob gave a 1/10 back to God.. Luke 18:12, Hebrews 7: 1-25 , please read these and see for yourself. Many places in
scripture talks about tithes.. So it MUST be important don't you think? I do. Do you have to pay them? No. Should you ? I think so... but the call is really yours. This is what some of our class was about this morning and so much more...
It is important to get ALL the Word in you.....
I have been thinking of so many things this past week.... These are just my rambling thoughts now.
Things like what is hope? what are expectations? What if you are walking alone in the dark?
What if you said I want to do this for you ( they did not ask) and you do it, do you make them
pay it back? Where is the blessing in that? What do you expect to happen on judgement day?
Is it hard to stand? How do you stand ?
These are some of the things I have been thinking on this past week. I also read a book called
" Messy Spirituality " I think that is the kind I have...
I hope you all have a great week and that you follow Jesus this week... I try to each day but some days I miss the mark... How bout you? Remember to Smile at someone today it is a free gift to you from God for you to share with everyone you meet.
God Bless with arms tenderly around you ..... your sister in Christ Jesus, vickie