Speaker: Roland Andrade (with his wife, Emma), church member (not Pastor Ryan Rench)
I am Roland Andrade, and this is my wife, Emma. In my youth I was against tithing. When I saw that my mom was tithing and giving offerings all the time, I complained: “Why are you giving money? We are short of money.” But later, when I started my family, I understood; I saw the blessings of tithing. I started tithing, but in the wrong way. I tithed only when I received a check, and I gave ten percent of what I received, and for me that was okay. Until, about thirty years ago, I was talking with a pastor, and he said, “I only want to ask you, where do you want the blessing? Do you want the blessing on the gross, or do you want the blessing on the net?” That is when I started saying, “Well, of course I want the blessing on the net and the gross.” So I started tithing on the gross. Also, I read for the first time this morning in Hebrews 7 that the priests had a commandment to take tithes of the people. To tithe is a blessing for me; it is not that I am losing. Several times I have read Malachi 3, the only place where the Lord says to put Him to the test: “Prove me,” and He will open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing. And not only that verse; if we continue reading, He protects: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts.” I can see that the Lord really keeps His promise all the time. Another verse that came to my attention was in 2 Corinthians, that the Lord loves a cheerful giver: “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
Blessing After Blessing
For the last twenty-five years I have been living by tithing, and I could maybe need the whole day to tell you all the blessings I have received since I started tithing. I needed hearing aids, which cost from $3,000 to $5,000, and the Lord put an angel in my path who gave me not one set but two sets of hearing aids for free. So all the time I see blessing and blessing and blessing. I struggled when I moved here to the States. I did not know how jobs work here. I was thinking that, as in Mexico, you have the union, so you are in a job for the rest of your life if you want. Here, no; you work at will. I came on contract with the American Red Cross, and after eleven months they let me go. They said they did not need my services anymore. I had already brought my family, I had bought a house, and I did not have a job. I said, “Okay, what do I have to do now?” And I started receiving blessings and seeing the hand of the Lord. A friend and co-worker brought us food, brought us milk, brought us a lot of things, saying, “Oh, I do not need this for my kids, and you need it.” There was a food truck in front of our neighborhood, and they started calling my wife and saying, “Oh, do you not want fruits and vegetables?” Every week they gave us a basket of good things, and the day I started working, one month later, that truck disappeared. It never showed up again. I have lost my job four times since I have been here in the States, and the last three times I lost a job, within two years, every time the Lord provided. All the time. I can never say there was one day we did not have food on the table. All the time we had at least three meals a day, gas for the car, and money to pay for the house. So I can tell you that in times of suffering, I do not see any suffering for us. He is so faithful, and He never fails. He never fails. And He uses anybody to bless you. You do not have to expect it from people you know are going to help you, because maybe they are not in a position to help you. The only One who can help you is the Lord, and you have to trust in Him. You have to believe by faith that unseen things can be real, and the Lord will open the way for you to triumph in His Word and in His promises. That is the way we can live by faith. Every day when you get up and put your feet on the ground, just call upon the Lord and ask for faith and for His grace. We have a loving God. We have a faithful God. And we have more than we need from Him.
The Whole Check
I saw it with one of my children. When he got his first job, at fifteen years old, he gave me his first paycheck, $325, and said, “I want you to give this to the church.” I said, “Okay, so you want me to change it and give the ten percent?” “No, the whole check.” I said, “The whole check?” He said, “Yes. The Bible says the firstfruits go to the Lord.” I almost started crying, because I did not do that when I was young and received my first payment. But my kids showed me that, yes, the Lord is faithful, and I gave it for them. I do not like the words “sacrificial giving,” because it is not a sacrifice. It is a blessing to give to the church or to people in need. If you see the need, you just give. Why? Because the Lord loves a cheerful giver, a cheerful heart, and He gives you more than you really need. I remember one of my trips to South America for a soul-winning conference. The first time I went with the students (they have an institute there), I saw these young men baking bread to support themselves. They paid $50 for the course, and when somebody said, “Oh, I cannot afford it,” I said, “Oh, I can pay for your whole college,” $50 in Argentina or something like that. They were sleeping on wooden benches or something like that, and I left my clothes for them, shirts and even my underwear. I said, “Really, you cannot use those?” They said, “Oh, we wash them. Do not worry.” So I said, “Why should the people of God, the young men preparing to minister for Him, need to use clothes from me?” So the next year I prepared and bought new T-shirts and new pants, and I arrived with them. I found that in Bolivia you can buy brand-new shirts for $3 or something like that, so I bought them for them. The Lord gives you more than you expect, more than you need, several times better than what you let go of. I only want to say two points about tithing. One is to tithe from the gross, not from the net. The other is that you need to decide whether to be a fountain or a drain with your tithing. I prefer to be a fountain and handle your blessings like a river: you receive it, and if you do not need it, let it go to somebody who needs it more. That is what I want to say.
