"Our Daily Bread" -2

I felt obligated to explain further why the giving of our tithes is the substance of our obedience to Jesus Christ. The primary reason has something to do with continuity, meaning that because He is our Daily Bread, which has come down from heaven, then we are to react to His provision with a sacrifice of trust; the giving of our tithes is the primary way that He has established for that to be done. Okay, so maybe your not convinced; but the way I see it, Abraham established giving a tithe when he gave ten percent of all that he had to Melchizedek, who brought to him wine and bread, and then blessed Abraham "of the most high God; possessor of heaven and earth" (Gen 14:19). This was done after Abraham delivered the people and all the wealth of Sodom back to the king of Sodom. The king of Sodom seeing that Abraham gave a tenth of all he had to Melchizedek, then offered Abraham all the goods of Sodom that he had recaptured; however, he did not accept the offer from the king, and said, "I have lifted up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. That I will not take a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shoudest say, I have made Abram rich" (Gen 14:21-24). It was after this that God makes an agreement with Abraham, showing him the magnitude of that he would be blessed in; all of which was brought on by the encounter that Abraham had with Melchizedek, who was a representation of Jesus Christ. Then, as we look to the Book of Hebrews, which has nine references to Melchizedek, we can gleam something about this giving of tithes in chapter seven; whereby the writer says in much explained fashion, that the tithe which Abraham had given, really was a forefront to that which he had received; and that there are common threads between our giving and our receiving. (This might take longer than I had originally thought.) Okay; so let's move ahead to Jesus and His statement about prayer; which given at face value, can mean enough in it's self; but taken to be a point by point presentation of our approach to God in prayer, it takes on a whole new way of understanding how things work. For example; one way to understand the continuity of our relationship with God, is to see the portion of the prayer which follows "give us this day our daily bread", which is, "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors". The way that Jesus puts this portion of the prayer, it is not a request for us to forgive, but a request that we will be forgiven because we have a heart of forgiveness. This same principle is associated with the asking for our daily bread, in that we are asking because we are trusting God to be our provision. It is in this framework that our giving of our tithes that is the venue that has been established for us to trust God for His provision of our daily needs; not giving of our excess, but actually giving the tenth of what we receive. There is a very sizable difference between us giving of our excess and giving of our tithes! Besides, Jesus, when speaking of tithes, did not say, if you give tithes, He said, when you give tithes!