I sit, listen and focus on the unforgettable song Falling Slowly on the original soundtrack to the movie Once. Just in the opening notes, I can feel the tips of the fingers pushing across the strings of the guitar. Then you have Glen Hansard’s voice start effortlessly with just a tiny hint of throatiness come through the recording mic. Then Markéta Irglová’s angelic voice mixes in several lines later as though she should have been singing from the start. This entire verse serves as an mere introduction to something far more powerful as the song crescendos into the chorus that pushes beautiful heartfelt emotions into your ears.

This is what that song means to me. It is an experience every single time I hear it. Best of all, when I close my eyes, I can see the scene from the movie where they perform this song together for the first time. That scene, due to too many reasons to list here, is perhaps one of the most romantic scenes from a movie I have seen in a while.

The entire album is so well paced and each song is so moving and engaging. Yes, even listening to Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye because I think it is a song written about me and what I have been going through in the last two years.

While Markéta pairs with Glen through half the album, we are given gold in her vocal solos in the incredible songs If You Want Me and The Hill. I just love her voice since it delivers so much while it seems she doesn’t have to do too much.

Other standouts is the very cool Fallen From The Sky where the track instrumental is courtesy of a tiny toy keyboard that has the really cheesy preprogrammed drum beats as Markéta plays the chords on the tiny keys.

Every song, Glen doesn’t mind leaving his voice and emotions all in the songs and we are well rewarded for it.

While I recommended this album on it’s own merits, it would behoove you to see the movie first. This movie is technically a musical. If you love musicals, then you are in for a treat. If you can’t stand musicals, then this is for you. You will be treated to associate each of the songs with scenes from the movie to create experiences every time your music player goes to the next song.

For the guys: this is a romantic film but the ending doesn’t suck. The ending is one of the best endings to a romantic movie ever. I promise you.

There is so much I wanted to post about this week: Pornography, Marriage, Forgiveness, Love, Calvinism, attending multiple churches (or how not to succumb to peer pressure), Seeker Churches versus Believer Churches, Dispensationalism, The television show on BET called “Meet The Faith”, etc..

However, as I am writing this at 1:00AM Monday morning, all that I can focusing on is the following verse:

Philippians 4:4-7 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

All I can do is simply praise His name, give thanks and pray.

I went to my standard 5:45PM Saturday evening service which turned out to be Communion Service. After Communion ended, one of the Pastors (who is a Rabbi, who has accepted Yeshua as his personal Lord and Saviour) invited everybody that needed healing to come forward. Just them by themselves. I immediately stretched forth my hands and began to pray for those who needed healing. Not just those who were able to come forward but for all. The worship team lead into two of my favorite songs and I began praising Him, thanking Him and kept praying for healing for everybody.

I felt that I had to come back on Sunday morning and pray again for those needed healing.

I noticed that when I think about other people, I never worry about my future holds. Lately, I am trying not to be anxious but I would be lying if I don’t think about it a little. I keep coming up with what I need to do, how can I approach my next job in this time of transition and can I serve in ministry? My faith is still absolute but I have to pray harder and harder every single time. I pray just for myself but I tend to simply pray for others with all the prayer requests that I have received.

When I think about others, joy and peace overwhelm me. One could argue that thinking of others gets your worries off of your mind. In a way, that is true. When I do pray for others, I reminded on how incredible and awesome our God really is.

Thank you all for those who took the time to pray for me. Can I pray for you?

I am going to be short and sweet on this.

I cannot remember the last time I paid tithes.

No longer can I blame the excuses of “I don’t belong to a church” or “I am separated and have to pay child support.”

The truth of the matter is that I never ever thank God for providing for me.

So how did I come upon my folly?

My tithes should be X amount of dollars per paycheck. How much money do I waste per paycheck? Two times X.

Every single time.

For those on serious budgets, try to imagine that.

I am now waiting for my check to be deposited. As soon as that does, I am making an electronic transfer to my church before I do anything else.

I just want to thank God for taking care of me and allowing me to provide for my family. I will start to thank Him this morning.

One of the things I was reminded by a friend when it comes to Tithing and Giving is that Tithes and Offerings are two completely different things.

Tithes are payments to the Lord. He has blessed you and you pay Him a tenth first. The rest is yours.

I have much more time to spend study and praying in order to separate tithing and giving. In tomorrow’s final installment in this series, I will share with you how not tithing catches up with you.

This session, however, I just wanted to touch on giving.

Of all the verses I could use in example of giving, this one particular is the foundation for why I give:

2 Corinthians 8:5 (NIV) And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.

When you have given all of your will to the Lord and kept none of your will for yourself, then giving according to your heart has no pain within you whether you give of your money, your talents, your time or your effort.I am not saying that I am going to always put the Lord first 100% of the time in the time I have left on this Earth. There is no way I can promise to be perfect. I am just as human as you. But when you get to the place in your walk where it pains you to give or you totally ignore needs around you, evaluate your walk with the Lord. Is your will your own or does your will belong to the Lord?

That is how I have to keep myself in check.

I think most of us would love to give more than what we have. I see needs all the time and just think, “Man, if I had the money, I would surely erase that need in one fell swoop in the writing of a check.” But take what you have in your heart and just give what you can. In my life experience, when I gave with a willing heart, He not only provided your needs but He will give you more. I always assume it was so that I can give more and more.

I did want to make this a multi-part post but I also didn’t want to create the longest homepage in existence. Therefore, you are going to get multiple parts. (Judging by the average length of my articles, it might be a good idea anyways. Let us see how it works out.)

I know that a few of you are familiar with my pastor, Robert Morris, and his book on tithing and giving called “The Blessed Life” (Amazon.com) and it should be obvious that I would steal mucho content from that book. It is a good source on the subject matter.

To tell you the truth, I haven’t read the book yet.

So why even write about tithing and giving? I wanted to write from my perspective and give my personal testimony. I hope when I have made this transformation, I will read the book and it will put words to the experience that I have been through.

So without further adieu…

I began my research into this message by doing a thorough visit to good old BibleGateway.com. Messing around with some search terms, I came up with the following combination:

Searching BibleGateway.com for any of the following terms ‘tenth tithing tithing’

When I did this before, I made a beeline for the New Testament passages. (I will address this in a minute.) I noticed that nowhere in the New Testament where Jesus commanded for us to pay tithes.

In fact, the word ‘tithe/tithing’ or ‘tenth’ appears in the the New Testament when Jesus chastised the Pharisees (Matt 23:23, Luke 11:42), when he gave the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:12). This along with numerous passages in Hebrews as to reference in tithing with Abraham giving a tenth of his plunders to the Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:2-5) and references to the descendants of Levi who were priests who collected the ten percent (Hebrews 7:6-7).

Heck, I believe I was home free and in the clear. I didn’t have to pay no stinking tithes. I thought, in my puny little human head, that in some way I have outsmarted “the system”. Yippee indeed.

(If you are waiting for my way of thinking is going to bite me in the butt, wait for Part 3. I promise you, your patience will be rewarded.)

Beyond the most glaring mistake of thinking I have outsmarted church, I made another mistake of totally ignoring the Old Testament passages. I am reminded of a Robert Morris sermon on the Commandment of Rest. We do not dismiss the Ten Commandments simply because they are in the Old Testament. We certainly do not dismiss the Sabbath by not “Honour(ing) the Sabbath and keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8) because it doesn’t fit into our hectic, 180-mph, lifestyles.

So why would tithing be any different?

Tomorrow I will write about the heart behind giving.