yes. i have given away truck loads of old items & antiques to a church in which they auctioned it iff at their annual auction in October. also, i've given away money to many organizations over the decades, have given my time to churches & individual people & have volunteered for the elderly & handicapped for 37 years. if someone doesn't have money to tithe, you can give another way.
Reminds me of another story.
My friend and Brother in Christ had, high overhead and his mortgage was high also. Work was slow for him. He only had two weeks to get in the mortgage payment and if he was late they were relentless with late fees and stuff. So he prayed and prayed.
He was self employed too so in a slow season, things do get mighty tight. And he got a big profitable job out of nowhere and completed the job. The invoice collected would allow him to make his mortgage payment and dodge late fees. Praise the Lord!
Then 2 days later, the Lord speaks to him and told him, so and so needs your help. Give that money to him. All of it...and his jaw hit the floor! Well, it is God nevertheless so he had to do it and when he set his wife down and told her about what God had said, she said absolutely not! We can't handle any late fees! (You know how wives are).
He still had about 10 days before the payment was due, but that big job was a fluke in his slow season. But aht was God told him to do it. So he either had to obey his wife and keep the peace, or obey God above his Wife. So he called the man up and told him, I'm going to help you with the money you need. Let's meet somewhere where my wife wont see and I'll give you the money. So he did...
And...his wife caught on real fast and knew the money was gone. She confronted him when he got home and he was like, Uh-Oh. How can I keep the peace here with my wife? So he says, yes honeyI took the money to help a man that God told me to help, and she hit the roof! So he says, can I pray about this for awhile and we'll talk later about it? Ok you better go pray, you'll need it!
So he goes and prays, Lord I am trying to obey you, but how is it that I have no peace in my home? What can I do?
And his cell phone rang, a call from a good friend of his that he hasn't seen in awhile, so he took the call and stopped praying. It seems his friend was moving out of state for some business reason and could not take all of his things with him. He said he would like to give my friend a warehouse full of machinery and equipment. No charge just go get it. Because he had to leave tomorrow or something. about one week left before payments came due and late charges and stuff, so he had enough time to sell it off and make money on it. SO He had the answer now for his wife!
As soon as he walked out, his wife was like, who called? So he told her he was praying and the call interrupted his prayer. He told her his friend had bequeathed a lot of equipment to him that they could sell!
The Wife was happy again!
He told me he got like, 4-5 times more back than he helped his friend with. They showed a big profit!
God was testing him! So the moral of the story is, Obey God First.
