The reality is that tithing is not commanded for New Testament Saints. Now the argument can be made that, because Abraham tithed, tithing was before the law. However, what Abraham tithed on was what could be construed as either a bonus on his income, or “hitting the lotto” (Genesis 14:16-20).

It was never stated that Abraham tithed on his income, even though he was a man of great substance (Genesis 13:2).

That said, the New Testament, Kingdom model for giving is illustrated in Luke 6:38…

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

…Acts 2:44…

And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

…and 2 Corinthians 9:7.

Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

We need to give as our hearts purpose, not out of obligation. If we compel folks to tithe, we must compel them to uphold the law, thus nullifying the work of the cross and the grace of God. It should be noted, too, that the Lord Jesus did not compel any of His followers to tithe!

Now, if anyone chooses to tithe and does so with a cheerful heart, they will enjoy the blessing that comes along with New Testament Giving. However, if someone gives 80% and treats it like a monthly bill or other obligation, well, I doubt there would be a blessing attached to it.

As for me, I would like to emulate Pastors Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, or Francis Chan – individuals who practice “reverse tithing;” that is, they keep 10 percent of their income and give away 90 percent!

It’s all about love, not obligation; relationship, not religion!

© 2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

This is the season when many Americans celebrate what has come to be known as Thanksgiving. For the sake of brevity, I will not rehash what the history and symbolism of this “holiday” are, but it is commonly held that this is the day that we give thanks for our many blessings.

I, for one, do not think a single day is sufficient to express gratitude. Furthermore, I do not think it is enough to thank him for the things He has blessed us with.

King David rendered it thusly:

O give thanks unto the LORD: for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever (1 Chronicles 16:34).

In other words, we are to give thanks to God simply because He is good. The correct perspective for the Disciple of Christ is to focus on the Giver, not the gift! America, in contrast to much of the world, enjoys a higher standard of prosperity than any other nation. As a result, we have become spoiled – we want bigger and better, and we want it now. Because of our lusts for material things and creature comforts, an entire ministry segment has emerged that caters to the materialistic mentality. This segment proffers that if you simply exercise faith and worship God with your money, God will respond as if He were a “blessing genie,” and indulge you with all your material wants.

Don’t get me wrong, the Bible is crystal clear that material blessing is part of the believer’s benefits package:

Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the LORD be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant (Psalm 35:27).

But I digress. There are exactly 29 occurrences of the word “thanksgiving” in the King James Bible. And while the Bible clearly teaches us that “thanksgiving” is an act that believers perform to honor God, the Word teaches us that there is a higher, unsaid act that, I think, should be the hallmark of any Disciple of Christ:

Thanksliving.

Thanksliving is a paradigm shift from world or religious living to Kingdom or relationship living! I have long held, and teach relentlessly, that you cannot do something without first being something. My prime example of this is the passage of scripture, “…be ye holy for I am holy (1 Peter 1:16). You cannot do holy without being holy. And, frankly, you cannot do anything holy without first being in Christ – because Jesus is the source of both holiness and righteousness.

That said, we must be grateful in order to live a Christ-like life. We must have an attitude of gratitude! And our gratitude can no more be a once-a-year expression than our worship can be a once-a-week event.

The life of Thanksliving is a life of thanksgiving. You cannot truly live without loving and you cannot truly love without giving! Therefore, a grateful life is a giving life. I’m not talking about feigned or coerced giving, but giving as Jesus taught in Luke 6:38:

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

or how the Apostle Paul rendered it in 2 Corinthians 9:7:

Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

So we see that the concepts of Thanksliving and thanksgiving go hand-in-hand, joined by love and giving.  But there’s another component to the life of thanksgiving that cannot be ignored: joy.

Joy and happiness are similar but are not the same. Happiness is conditional, based on circumstances; the more favorable the circumstances, the happier a person generally is. Joy, on the other hand, is a choice. You must choose to have joy! Joy is that feeling of peace and confidence that abides in the heart of every true Disciple of Christ.

That peace and confidence that comprises joy persists in spite of circumstances! If you have a new car, you have joy. If your old car breaks down, you have joy. If you have a great career that allows you to work in your God-given purpose, you have joy. If your stuck in a dead-end job, you have joy! When you choose to have joy, you can focus on the source of your joy and not circumstances. When you have joy, you focus on the Giver, not the gift. When you choose joy, you love in spite of how you perceive how you’re treated. When joy abides in you, you give, not because you expect to receive anything, but because you want to reflect Jesus, who gave His life for you.

If you get this down in your spirit, you will experience Thanksliving daily and won’t have to wait for a “special” day to give thanks!

© 2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

The reason why many “churches” do not have the nature of The Church is because there is a widespread lack of understanding of what The Church really is.

First of all, The Church is not a building, a charter, or a gathering of folks. The Church is a living, spiritual and natural being comprised of many members that carry out vital functions.

Contrary to popular belief and contemporary manifestation, The Church is not a “country club” for the saints or the museum of the “frozen chosen.” When you become a member of The Church, you are not simply a number, you are grafted in, as a finger to a hand. You are part of a glorious body. This body nourishes each member and the Head, Jesus, gives each member instructions for the work to be performed.

While I’m here, let me hang my hat for a minute…Each member has a UNIQUE function. All of us are not called to preach, just like every cell in the body is not called to be the eye. Imagine a body full of eyes…that is a freak of nature! Speaking of the ministry, not everyone is called to preach the same message or even to preach in the same manner. Each of us are fearfully and wonderfully designed — individually and expressly — by the Hand of God with a unique purpose to carry out equally unique assignments.

The Greek word for “Church” in Matthew 16:18 is “ekklesia.” It is a word meaning “called out assembly.” More to the point, it is a GOVERNMENTAL, not a RELIGIOUS word! Many folks dont know this, but the Government of Rome at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry called their upper legislative assembly the Ekklesia. Furthermore, the ancient city-state of Athens called its legislative body Ekklesia.

Now put this in context…When Jesus said, “upon this rock (the truth spoken by Peter) I will build my Ekklesia; and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, He was saying that upon the truth that He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, He will establish His everlasting government. This is what was prophesied in Isaiah 9:6.

Jesus did not come to establish another religion; the world had (and has) enough of them. What He came to re-establish was the governmental order that was ordained from the foundation of time!

That said, The Church is not about religion. The Church is the point where God connects with man through Christ. It is God’s earthly government, duly deputized and empowered to have dominion over the earth!

Church should be an ER for the wounded, a kitchen for the hungry, and a sanctuary for the besieged. It should be the point where God’s Heavenly Government is dispensed on the earth. It should be the place where the lost can come to catch the revelation of a loving Father, who wants to reconcile them to Himself and loved them so much that He gave His very best in the Person of His Only Begotten Son!

I feel like preaching, but I’ll take my seat now…

© 2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

Jesus is THE way to relationship with Father God, THE way to everlasting life, and THE way to abundant life!

 
Jesus is not only real but all reality was created FOR Him and BY Him! Jesus is the most pivotal character in the annals of human history. The very years we chronicle are demarcated by His Birth.

 
Those who love Him will give up everything to follow Him; those who hate Him will stop at nothing to discredit Him and destroy His followers.

 
Jesus is love personified. No other figure was known to lay down His life, not only for those who LOVE Him but for those who HATE Him as well!

 
When compared to other “religions,” well, Krishna is dead, Buddha is dead, Muhammed is dead, Zoroaster is dead, Joseph Smith is dead, Charles Taze Russell is dead, and L.Ron Hubbard is dead. Jesus, on the other hand is alive at the right hand of the Father!

 
When I experience each breath, I experience Jesus’ Love for me. When I witness a sunrise or a sunset, I experience His majesty. When I held my sons for the first time, I experienced His meticulous creativity.

 
Indeed, Jesus is not only REAL, He is the REALEST thing I know!

©2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

Today, the United States commemorates the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks against New York City and Washington D.C. Truly this a solemn day to pay respect to the lives lost in the tragic events of that day, reflect upon the price of eternal vigilance, and to honor the heroism of those aboard flight 93, who thwarted an attack on the White House.

Unfortunately, many “prophecy hounds” decried this as the beginning of the end of days. Others of the “religious judgmentalist” faction cited these events as “God’s judgment against America.” Both assessments are as far from the truth as the east is from the west!

The simple truth is that we were victims of our own way of life. Liberty assumes a certain amount of  risk. And, even thought security is tighter in airports and seaports, we haven’t fallen into either martial law or a police state.

For the “prophecy hounds,” I submit to you that the events of September 11, 2001 have nothing to do with the end of days. Jesus, Himself, outlined the conditions surrounding the end of days in Matthew 24. More to the point, in verse 14 of this chapter, the Lord declares:

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

The true Gospel of the Kingdom has not been preached to all the world. If it had, we would see the power of God extended toward men in the form of the Greater Works Jesus said we’d do (John 14:12). Is healing by the laying of hands as commonplace as during the Lord’s earthly ministry or even during the time of the Book of Acts? Not even close. And let’s not talk about the raising of the dead…

Now, to address the folks who like to stand in judgment of others, I say, “pump your brakes, dawg!” ALL of God’s wrath and judgment toward man was heaped upon Jesus at the Cross at Calvary. Isaiah well prophesied of the price Jesus paid for the redemption of man:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

Notice the boldface! What, you ask, is the chastisement of our peace? It is the punishment that was intended for us! Man that is good Gospel news! Because God laid His wrath upon Jesus, IT DOES NOT COME UPON MAN — EITHER SAINT OR SINNER! Until the season of the Book of Revelation commences, God will not pour out wholesale wrath!

Jesus, Himself, put it best:

⁵⁴And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? ⁵⁵But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. ⁵⁶For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. (Luke 9:54-56)

Of course I must caution you, dear reader, not to get this twisted. There are laws in the earth that will judge you, i.e., if you step off the roof of a building, gravity will cause you to fall or, if you engage in fornication, the end result may be pregnancy or a sexually-transmitted disease. If you engage in any sin, the sin will judge you, not God!

So, in this era of the Blood of Jesus, there will be no more God-sourced floods. No more God-sourced Sodom or Gomorrah. No more God-sourced captivity. When these things do happen, they are because of the fallen world we live in, not because “God is kindling His wrath!”

This is the season where God is calling out to mankind, giving all an opportunity to receive the free gift that is Jesus!

© 2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

Have you ever given thought to that breath you just took? Or the next one you anticipate taking? Every breath you take is precious because it is that one breath that separates your existence from the temporal to the eternal. Each breath you take delivers vital oxygen to your cellular structure and removes carbon dioxide and other less-than-beneficial gasses from your body.

God showed me that, for most of my life, I had been breathing autonomously; even accidentally!

The Breath of life is illustrated in Genesis 2:7:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

When God breathed the breath of life into man, He imparted Ruach (Hebrew) — the spirit nature — into man. This Ruach was intended to be the part of the man that communicates with God’s Spirit, the Pneuma (Greek).

Now, theological scholars may rake me over the coals over my mixing of Hebrew and Greek, but stay with me…

God does EVERYTHING intentionally! There are no accidents; no “Plan B.” Moreover, He created us to live life purposefully and intentionally. God created us with a specific purpose in mind but we have to tap into His will, culture, and intent for that purpose to be fully revealed.

That said, if He was so deliberate with the breath of life, we, too, should be deliberate with our breathing.

Since this revelation, I make a conscious effort to breathe intentionally. I take time during each day to breathe deeply — drawing in as deep a breath as I can take, holding it briefly, and exhaling. This manifests two blessings: first, being aware of each breath teaches me to be a good steward of the breath God has given me and, second, the deep breathing invigorates and energized me and reminds me that God has paid for my healing by the stripes of Jesus (Isaiah 53:5, 1 Peter 2:24).

Don’t get it twisted, though! I’m not talking about some new-age foolishness; I’m talking about being conscious and aware of one of the most fundamental, essential gifts God has given us. I’m talking about Christ-centered spiritual and physical refreshing.

I pray this will help you in both your walk of faith and the quality of your natural life!

© 2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

Matthew 22:37-40…here Jesus outlined what the sum of the law is. In other words, He is the express manifestation of love and the fulfillment of the law. And if we are in Him, then the law is fulfilled in us and, therefore, we don’t have to uphold the law.

The problem with the mixing of law and grace is that folks want to uphold the law selectively or “a la carte.” I call these folks “cafeteria christians;” they take what they think is good and leave the rest behind. These folks will uphold those points of the law (earrings, etc.) that serve their agenda but exclude those things that do not (e.g., having bacon for breakfast). Cafeteria christianity is both legalistic and hypocritical.

The beauty of grace is that all we have to concern ourselves with is being in Him and having His Word abide in us, then the law is fulfilled!

WDJK – Who did Jesus kill? If Jesus is the express image of the father (Hebrews 1:3) and He only did what He saw the Father do (John 5:19), and the chastisement of the peace of mankind was upon Him (Isaiah 53:5), then you MUST conclude that God is not killing folks!

GOD IS NOT A MURDERER!

Stop saying that!

What we know as The Rapture will happen ONLY when THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM is preached FULLY throughout the nations (Matthew 24:14). The FULL Gospel has neither been preached in its entirety, nor is it FULLY preached throughout the world. We need to be diligent about RENEWING our minds, BUSYING our hands, and MOBILIZING our feet…We have a lot of work to do!

In Ephesians 5:27, The Apostle Paul writes Jesus is coming for a church without spot (backbiting, gossip, leadership failure), wrinkle (denominations, musical disagreements, day-of-worship), or blemish (racism, cultural divides). In other words, we have a lot of washing and ironing to do before the wedding!

Why are we looking for the way out? Jesus came to restore the DOMINION originally given by God (Genesis 1:26-28) and lost by man. He gave us durable power of attorney (John 14:13-14, John 15:16, John 16:23-24,26) to be AGENTS of His AUTHORITY in the earth. Instad of looking to leave (fear-based) we need to be invading and influencing the earth with God’s will, culture, and intent (faith-based) — in other words, WE NEED A TAKEOVER MENTALITY!

If you’re saved and all you’re doing is trying to discern the signs of the Lord’s return, you’re not fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). Get off your Blessed Assurance and go forth INTO THE WORLD, winning souls AND making disciples in the name of Jesus!

I’m tired of hearing preaching on the exit strategy when Jesus clearly laid out a takeover strategy!

© 2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)

One thing every believer can agree upon is that God is just. But, if all there is to salvation is getting your ticket to heaven punched, then as soon as we accept, believe upon, and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, we’d be raptured up immediately into heaven.

But we remain after the New Birth. What’s up with that?

The New Birth, contrary to popular belief, is not a religious experience, It is a change of citizenship into a new nation (Colossians 1:13), whose Government, Provision, and Protection CANNOT fail! You become a royal subject of the King of Kings, who delights in the prosperity of His servants (Psalm 35:27).

There are no illegal immigrants in the Kingdom of God. That’s why you have to be born (again) into it.

Along with your citizenship, you become an Ambassador of the Most High God (2 Corinthians 5:20), His Beloved Child (Romans 8:14, Ephesians 1:5), and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ (Romans 8:17). You are to have ALL sufficiency to ABOUND to EVERY good work (2 Corinthians 9:8).No earthly government dispatches ambassadors and emissaries into foreign lands without adequate provision. If you have forsaken all you know to obtain Kingdom citizenship, you have a promise of abundance in this lifetime AND eternal life in the world to come (Mark 10:29-30).

If you’re a citizen of the United States, it is in your best interest to have knowledge of the Constitution. If you’re a Citizen of the Kingdom of God, it behooves you to hide the Word of God in your heart (Psalm 119:1) and know your Covenant rights! As an Ambassador of the King of Kings, I know that when the enemy (satan) tries to oppress me, all I need to do is stand on the Word of God and declare DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY!

As a citizen of the Kingdom of God, you have certain inalienable rights endowed by your Father/Creator and ratified with the Blood of His Son, Jesus. However, without full knowledge of your rights and benefits, the devil is more than happy to try and usurp them. That same devil is on a mission to steal from you, kill you, or destroy your life. But Jesus came that you may have life and have it more abundantly — IN  THE HERE-AND-NOW (John 10:10).

I say all this to say that religion teaches you that, after salvation, you are to simply await the Lord’s return. Now, Jesus is, indeed, coming — and we need to be ready. However, until Jesus’ return or the end or our mortal lives (whichever comes first) we are to influence this earth realm with the will, culture, and intent of our King. We are to have dominion in the earth, not sit timidly and idly waiting for the Savior’s return!

The kind of teaching that implies you are powerless while you are here is utter religious foolishness and a yoke on the necks of God’s people! Salvation is more than a ticket to heaven, it is a connection to the Divine Power Source. Folks are quick to proclaim they “…are waiting on a move of God,” when all creation is waiting for a move of man (Romans 8:19)!

The Bible teaches us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17). But if all you’re getting is rote religion, God sent me here to tell you, He ain’t in your religion. If you can’t say “Amen, say “oh my!”

© 2011 – Derrick Day (www.derrickday.com)