KevinPurcell.org

I was thinking this morning as I listened to all the talk about taxes yesterday.  April 15 is Tax Day in America, or as we call it around the Purcell house, Birthday — my older son was born on that day.

Some people have compared paying taxes to paying the tithe.  That is a fair comparison in once sense.  You are expected to pay it and it is money coming out of your pocket going into the coffers of an organization of which you are part and from which you derive some benefit.  Pay taxes and get roads.  Pay tithe and get Sunday school literature.  The government says pay taxes because it is the law.  God says pay tithe because it is his law.

But there is one similarity that is truly sad.  Many people run afoul of the law and fail to pay their taxes.  I saw on Fox News that O.J. Simpson owes the state of California 1.5 Million and doesn’t pay it because they have not recourse to collect since he no longer lives there and has no property there.  Other celebs have huge tax bills.

Also many church people do not tithe.  They are running afoul of God’s law.  He calls this "robbing God" in Malachi 3:8.  So what happens if you don’t pay your tithe v. not paying your taxes.  If you don’t pay Uncle Sam you could potentially go to jail, but since the IRS is so overtaxed (get the irony) and understaffed they don’t often push it.  But if you don’t pay your tithe, almost nothing will happen in this lifetime.  But we will have to stand before God one day and he is not struggling to keep up with his books.

God will reward you in this lifetime if you choose to pay the tithe.  He promises this and begs us to test him on it in Malachi 3:10.  Go ahead.  Pay your tithe for the next six months and see if you are not financially better off after that period.  But if you choose not to pay it, your pastor won’t show up with a sheriff to arrest you; the deacons won’t put a notice on your house or car to seize your assets.  But those treasures in heaven you sing about on Sunday will not be yours.