Nowadays, many pastors no longer want you to give to those suffering around you. They have made giving to the poor look like a waste, and giving to the church look like the only spiritual thing to do.
Instead, they try to make you feel that those suffering people around you will afflict you. They tell you that if you help them, you will carry their problems, their curses, and their bad luck. So out of fear, you close your heart to your own neighbour.
What they really want is for you to bring all your money to the church as tithes and seeds. Your neighbour can be hungry, your brother can be sick, your sister can be stranded, but they will still tell you to bring it to the altar first.
They tell you that this is the only means by which you can be blessed. They say if you do not pay your tithe and sow your seed, God will not bless you, God will not answer you, and the devil will attack you.
And you believe them. You believe because you trust them, you respect them, and you think they know God more than you do. So you give and give, even when you are the one suffering.
But you are forgetting one powerful truth: not only your pastor is a priest, we are all priests. The Bible says in 1 Peter 2:9 that we are a royal priesthood. You are not a second-class Christian, you are a priest before God just like your pastor.
We all have one High Priest, and His name is Jesus Christ. He is our Melchizedek High Priest, as Hebrews 7:17 says. He did not come to stand between you and God like the old priests did. He came to bring you directly to God.
The veil of the temple has been torn. Matthew 27:51 says the veil was torn from top to bottom when Jesus died. That means the barrier is gone. You no longer need a man to go to God for you. You can go boldly to the throne of grace yourself.
You do not need a pastor to tell you who you are in Christ. You do not need his permission to know that you are loved, forgiven, blessed, and accepted. The Holy Spirit inside you is enough to teach you who you are.
I am trying to make you understand your authority as a believer. You have authority to pray, to give, to help, to bless, and to stand before God without fear. Stop giving out of fear, start giving out of love, and remember: you are a priest, and Jesus is your High Priest.