January 10.
Take Your Spiritual Temperature

Malachi 3:7

Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?

We have strayed from God. We must recognize our failure. I don’t care how much you shout and how holy you look, your tithing is the thermometer that measures your commitment. Now you can know the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, from cover to cover, but when you fail to tithe you’re saying something about your spiritual status. Even if you’re flat broke, when God blesses you with something you will make sure God gets his when you are in his will. But when you’re out of his will you find every reason not to give. In verse seven He says, “Return unto me what is my part and I will return unto you.” This means that when I fail to tithe God turns away from me. Can you handle God turning His back on you? There’s a big difference between existing and living. A lot of folk are just existing. When you ask a person how they are doing, the one that is just existing will say, “Come here, let me show you what I’m driving. Come let me show you where I stay. Come look at my rags.” But when you’re living, you don’t have to show a person your possessions because the possessions come and go. When you’re living you don’t have to focus on being happy because you have joy. And you heard me say happiness is based on what’s happening. But joy is never based upon your surroundings. It’s based up on the person that’s living in you. And when the person in you is happy then you’re happy. You may be in rags and tags, but you have joy on the inside of you.

And life is too short to be miserable and on top of being miserable knowing that you are not pleasing God. Have you looked at your spiritual thermometer lately?