“For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts.
Comment: Jewish people don’t make animal sacrifices these days, after the destruction of the temple and Christians believe that Jesus in dying as a propitiation for our sin has made such sacrifices no longer necessary. The Levites were given no land and were the priests and administrators of the Israelites. Some of the sacrifices were totally burnt but much of the meat and grain offerings were for the Levites to use as they had no land of their own. I do not know what sacrifices they are expected to give these days. Christians are expected to give their whole lives to serving God. Obviously without a legal order as to how to spend your talents and income it is a matter of personal honesty before God. Paul pleads with us in Romans to give ourselves as living sacrifices to God in response to what He has done for us in Christ.
A lot of what I said above doesn’t come out of this passage but in response to it. Stating His own faithfulness to the Nation, God accuses them of robbing Him, by reducing their tithes (tenth) due to the temple. This affected the social running of the system but much more seriously was an expression of their thinking about God. ‘Come on’, He says, ‘Get real and you will see unbelievable blessing!’
Prayer: Let me be honest in my dealings with You, my Father God.
As I read it! 