Beware of developing a sense of entitlement where you think your money is something you earned all by yourself. Anytime you struggle to give God what is rightfully His according to Scripture, it’s because you have become more attached to the gift than the giver. If you have never tried tithing, read this: ‘Bring all the tithes into the storehouse…If you do…I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!’ (v. 10 NLT).

A pastor received this letter from a couple in his church: ‘We were behind with our rent and car payments. We were forty thousand dollars [about £30,000] in debt, we’d no food in the fridge, and we’d just started a construction business. So when you challenged us to tithe as part of our Christian commitment, we thought, “How can we give what we don’t have?” Nevertheless, we decided to go ahead and honour God by giving Him the first tenth of our income. The very first week we met a contractor who asked us to build a house, with more to follow. Now we no longer questioned how we’d fulfil our commitment to God; in fact, we increased our giving! And if the story ended there, it would still be a good one. But you can’t outgive God. Through a series of divinely orchestrated events, we went from being renters to being homeowners. Today, we’re enjoying financial blessing. And even though this story is all about trusting God, on reflection we’re still trying to answer one question: “What exactly was it we sacrificed?”’