A litmus test measures the ph of a solution. You dip a paper strip into the solution and depending on the color the strip turns you know how acidic or alkaline the solution is. 

There are two instructions in scripture that I think act as a “litmus test” for how you’re doing on Rule 1. (Remember Rule 1, Love the Lord your God with all you’ve got?)  The first “litmus test” is the tithe.

With the idea of the tithe, you take 10 percent of everything you’ve earned and give it to the Lord. Scripture says you cannot serve God and mammon. The ability to hold your possessions loosely and offer a portion of them to God shows the degree to which your heart is God’s and not overly infatuated with the things of this world. If you keep Rule 1 and love God with all your being, then you will not love stuff and the trappings of stuff. This test helps you keep other loves out of your heart and mind. So it is free to love God.

There is also this principle in scripture of daily-ness. The Israelites in the wilderness gathered manna each day, only enough for that day. Jesus taught the disciples to pray: “give us this day our daily bread.” He also taught “do not worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” There is also, “His mercies are new every morning.” Daily-ness. God is with us today. Or probably more accurately, we have been granted permission to be with God today. We are temporal creatures, and today is all that we have currently been given.

Tithing was probably not done daily, but annually at the harvest, but the lesson learned through the daily exercises (gathering manna/praying for daily bread) is that God is our Provider. He is our Shepherd. All our possessions come from Him, and we can give Him back some, because He is always, daily, pouring more back into our hands. If we see Him care for us each day, and we trust Him to be with us each day, then the tithe is easy.

By tithing we not only test our loyalty to God, our love for Him above other loves, but we also turn our focus to what He is giving us and off of our own pursuit of security. We stop worrying that we will have “enough” for a future we can’t even see. Without this open hand, loving God with our material possessions, we become consumed with the need to provide for our lives and we lose the lens to see God’s goodness for us. Rule 1 is about teaching us to see and hear God loving us. “Let those who have eyes to see, see.”

The other “litmus test” is the hour of prayer. The night Jesus was going to be arrested He went with His disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He went a little away from them to pray to the Father and when He returned He found them sleeping. At which point He asked them, “Could you not watch and pray for one hour?”

I remember when I was a new Christian and an hour seemed a long time to pray. What do you say or ask for for that long? Prayer kind of felt like a chore.

But Jesus often prayed for most of the night. When you love someone, you want to know what they think, what they’ve been doing. You talk about everything, and nothing. Sometimes it’s enough to just sit together in silence.

If the tithe shows us how we’re doing at keeping the love of the world out of our hearts, this test shows us how well we are doing at getting more of God into our hearts.

More to come. Peace.