“The windows of heaven,” referenced in Malachi 3:10 must be very large indeed. Our experience over the years has been without exception that temporal matters can be managed with much greater success when one’s tithes and offerings are attended to willingly and promptly. My wife and I rejoice every time we have the opportunity to pay our tithing. We have learned the principle of preparing the tithing check first because the satisfaction of doing our part to help build the kingdom of God is the most motivating and inspiring of themes. From the beginning the Lord has made known His respect for His children when we remember to sacrifice on behalf of our covenants: “And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering” (Genesis 4:4; Moses 5:20). It has always been so.
I can recall vividly when a young schoolteacher came into the bishop’s office to talk with me about the principle of tithing. Having just joined the Church with his family, he was accommodating himself to a new kind of spiritual life with some challenging obligations. He expressed a willingness to honor his covenants in every way but readily confessed that every penny of his earnings was already committed to the demands of family support. I referred him to the famous passage from Malachi about putting the Lord to the test with tithes and offerings to see if He will not open the windows of heaven “and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it,” then I asked if he would be willing to follow the Lord’s counsel. He paused for a moment of inner conviction and rejuvenation, then courageously went ahead and paid his tithing. One week later, he returned to my office with unconcealed excitement to report that an unexpected raise in pay that week had made up the entire difference. He was overjoyed and transported with gratitude to his Heavenly Father. Not many years later, he was called as bishop of that ward.
The principle of our paying to the Lord the firstfruits of our fields (see 2 Chronicles 31:5) and the firstlings of our flocks (see Mosiah 2:3; Moses 5:5) has symbolic significance for our spiritual vitality. Moroni explained it this way: “And the first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth remission of sins” (Moroni 8:25). With respect to the Lord’s agenda, first things must come first in the process of orderly progression toward ever higher levels of growth. Similarly, the Lord, when he gathers together His faithful, will remember first of all those who willingly honored their covenants of sacrifice and obedience and remembered their promises: “They are Christ’s, the first fruits, they who shall descend with him first, and they who are on the earth and in their graves, who are first caught up to meet him; and all this by the voice of the sounding of the trump of the angel of God” (D&C 88:98). What an infinite return on our sacrificial offerings when our widow’s mite yields a harvest of eternal glory as the first fruits of redemption. That is the essence of spiritual prosperity. (Richard J. Allen)