Julie Elizabeth Mansell Ministries

07/09/2026

Been working on this the past few days

06/09/2026

DO CHRISTIANS REALLY HAVE TO TITHE?

This might upset a few sacred cows, but I think sometimes we have taken an Old Covenant system, brought it across into the New Covenant, and then wondered why it doesn’t quite fit.

I’ve heard Malachi preached plenty of times: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse” (Malachi 3:10), usually followed by the warning that if we don’t give 10% of our income to the church, we are robbing God. But when you actually go back and look at the Old Testament tithing system, it was much more complicated than that.

The tithe under the Law was primarily connected to the produce of the land and livestock (Leviticus 27:30–33). Part of the system supported the Levites, who had no normal territorial inheritance because they were serving around the tabernacle (Numbers 18:21–24). Deuteronomy 14:22–27 describes another aspect of the tithe that might surprise some people, because they actually took it before the Lord and ate it as part of their worship and celebration. Then every third year there was provision for the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that they could eat and be satisfied (Deuteronomy 14:28–29; 26:12–13).

So this wasn't simply a church funding system. It was part of the whole covenant life of Israel, providing for ministry, worship, celebration and the vulnerable within their community. Then, of course, somebody will say, “But Abraham tithed before the Law.”

Yes, he did. Abraham gave Melchizedek a tenth in Genesis 14:17–20, but Hebrews 7:4 tells us that this was a tenth of the spoils from battle. We aren't told that God commanded Abraham to do it, nor are we told that Abraham then gave 10% of his income every year for the rest of his life. Jacob also promised God a tenth in Genesis 28:20–22, but again this was Jacob making a vow, not God establishing a universal command for everyone who would follow Him.

Jesus also talked about tithing. In Matthew 23:23 He rebuked the Pharisees because they were meticulously tithing even their herbs while neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness. He actually told them they should have practised the latter without neglecting the former. But Jesus was talking to Jewish people living under the Mosaic covenant. The Temple was still standing, the Levitical system was still operating, and Jesus Himself told a healed man to present the offering Moses commanded (Matthew 8:4). We don't take that instruction and conclude that Christians today need to find a Levitical priest and present an offering to him.

Then we come through the Last Supper, where Jesus announces the New Covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20), through the cross and resurrection, and into Pentecost and the life of the New Covenant church. And this is where it gets really interesting, because the apostles talk quite a lot about money and giving, but they never command the church to give 10%.

Paul tells the Corinthians to regularly set something aside according to their prosperity or income (1 Corinthians 16:1–2). Then in 2 Corinthians 8 he tells us about the Macedonian believers who gave with extraordinary generosity even though they were experiencing severe poverty themselves. Yet right in the middle of talking about their generosity Paul says, “I am not commanding you” (2 Corinthians 8:8).

Then we get to the verse that I think really describes New Covenant giving: “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Now some people are probably thinking, “Excellent! I don't have to tithe. I can keep my money.” Well... I wouldn't get too excited just yet, because I actually think the New Covenant asks something much bigger of us than 10%.

The Old Covenant question can easily become, “How much do I owe God?” The New Covenant question is, “How much of me belongs to God?” And the answer is all of me.

Paul tells us, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20), and Romans 12:1 tells us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. When I gave my life to Jesus, I didn't give Him 10% of Julie and keep the other 90% for myself. I gave Him my life, and that includes my time, my abilities, my home, my possessions and, yes, my bank account.

I actually think 10% can be a very good place to start. It teaches us to intentionally make generosity part of our lives instead of giving God whatever happens to be left at the end. But I don't believe 10% should become either a New Covenant law or a ceiling on our generosity. Sometimes God might lead us to give much more. Sometimes there may be seasons when we genuinely have very little. The question isn't simply, “Have I paid my 10%?” It is, “Lord, what do You want me to do with what You've placed in my hands?”

And while we're talking about money, I think we also need to deal with another sacred cow, because there's another ditch we can fall into, and that's the old “blab it and grab it” mentality.

We've all heard versions of it. Sow your seed. Give $100 and believe God for $1,000. Sow into this ministry or this anointing and expect your financial harvest. Giving slowly becomes a transaction where I give something to God because I'm expecting Him to multiply it and give it back to me.

Yes, the Bible teaches sowing and reaping. Paul says, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously” (2 Corinthians 9:6). But keep reading. In verses 8–11, God provides abundantly so that we can abound in every good work and be generous on every occasion.

In other words, God's provision isn't simply about making me richer. God puts resources into my hands so that generosity can continue flowing through them.

And that makes me ask an uncomfortable question. If I put $1,000 into an offering because somebody has promised me that God will give me $10,000 back, am I actually giving Or am I investing? Because there is a difference.

Giving doesn't put God into our debt. I absolutely believe God provides for us, and Philippians 4:19 tells us that He will meet our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. But biblical generosity isn't a heavenly investment scheme where I work out how much I need to sow to get the return I want.

Money represents something quite significant to most of us because, in a very practical way, it represents part of our lives. I go to work, I give hours of my life, my energy, my knowledge and my abilities, and in exchange I receive money. So when I freely give some of that away for the Kingdom, to support ministry, help somebody in need, feed someone who is hungry or care for a widow, I am giving something that represents hours of my life.

David said, “I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (2 Samuel 24:24). There is something about genuine generosity that sometimes costs us.

The New Testament absolutely teaches supporting those who minister (1 Corinthians 9:7–14; Galatians 6:6; 1 Timothy 5:17–18), and it repeatedly teaches caring for people in need (Acts 4:32–35; Romans 15:25–27; Galatians 2:10; James 1:27). So grace is certainly not an excuse for stinginess.

I think we've managed to create two ditches. One says, “Give God 10% or you're robbing Him and He won't bless you.” The other says, “Give God your money and He'll make you rich.”

I don't think either captures the heart of New Covenant giving. Perhaps we've simply been asking the wrong question. The question isn't, “Do I have to give God 10%?” And it isn't, “How much do I need to give God so that He will give me more?”

Maybe the better question is, “Jesus, You are my King. Everything I have belongs to You, so what do You want me to do with what You've placed in my hands?” Ten percent might be a very good place to start. But when I gave my life to Jesus, I didn't give Him 10%.

I gave Him everything.

06/09/2026

The seasons come around predictably, This morning I was reading through some of my old journals, and I found myself back in 2020, right in the middle of lockdown when the whole world seemed to have stopped. For me, that strange season became an opportunity to go deeper with God. I was pursuing more of the mystical and supernatural things of God, having dreams and encounters, spending time listening to Him and writing down the conversations I felt we were having.

As I read through those pages this morning, I came across some of the things I believed God had spoken to me about what He was going to do in my life, and I was actually a little embarrassed to realise how much I had forgotten. At the time those things were promises, hopes and things I was reaching towards, but six years later I can look at my life and see that some of them are no longer things I am waiting for. They have become part of my life.

I think sometimes we forget our own journey because we don't have perfect recall. We remember certain moments, but other things fade, and even things God has spoken to us can become buried underneath work, family, responsibilities and just the everyday business of living. I still find myself saying, "God, I'm not doing enough for You. I should be doing more. I want my whole life to be a service and ministry to You." Yet reading those journals reminded me that perhaps I need to stop occasionally and recognise what God has already done.

In 2020 I couldn't go to Africa. In fact, it would be six years between my 2019 trip and getting back there again in 2025, and during some of those years it probably looked as though nothing much was happening. Yet God was still working. Books have been written, courses have been developed, ministry has grown, doors have opened, and perhaps most importantly, my own walk with God has continued to deepen and change.

Life looks very different now from those quiet lockdown days. There is work to do, a home to look after, family responsibilities and all the ordinary things that fill our days, so I don't have endless hours to disappear away with God. And yes, I still want more. I still want to know Him more deeply, hear Him more clearly and see the manifest presence of God operating through my life in a deeper and greater way. I don't think that hunger will ever leave me, and I don't particularly want it to.

But perhaps hunger for more shouldn't stop us being grateful for how far we have already come.

So if you're feeling as though you aren't doing enough for God, or wondering why things aren't moving as quickly as you thought they would, perhaps go back and look at where you were five or six years ago. Find an old journal, an old prayer, something you wrote down when you were seeking God, and remind yourself what you were asking Him for then. You may be surprised to discover that some of the things you are living today were once the very things you were praying for.

Sometimes God has been moving us forward so quietly that we don't recognise how far we have travelled until we turn around and look back.

04/09/2026

Join me as I read the Book, The God who Dwells amongst his people. This will be for sale on Amazon in the coming weeks

01/09/2026

One of my favorite scriptures is "those that wait on the Lord will renew their strength" but

WAITING ON GOD DOESN’T MEAN DOING NOTHING

I've been thinking about this whole idea of waiting on God, because sometimes we talk about waiting as though we're sitting around waiting for God to finally do the thing He told us He was going to do. But when I look back over my own life, and then look at some of the people in Scripture, I'm beginning to wonder whether we've misunderstood what some of that waiting is actually for.

I've known for probably thirty years that there was a call on my life to teach. There have been glimpses of it along the way, opportunities here and there, but even now I don't think I've seen the fullness of what I knew all those years ago. When you're living through that, thirty years feels like an awfully long time. You can begin to wonder whether you heard God correctly in the first place, or whether you've somehow missed your opportunity. But then I look at Scripture and realise that long periods between calling and fulfilment aren't particularly unusual.

Moses seems to have understood something of God's purpose for him when he was forty. Acts 7:23–25 tells us that he thought his fellow Israelites would understand that God was using him to rescue them, but they didn't. Moses tried to do something about the injustice he saw, it went horribly wrong, and he ended up in Midian looking after sheep. Forty years later God met him at the burning bush and sent him back to Egypt (Acts 7:30–34). Forty years. We read those few verses in a couple of minutes, but Moses had to live every single day of them.

Then there's Abraham. God promised him a son, but Abraham and Sarah waited years before Isaac arrived. David was anointed as king and then went back into a life that looked nothing like being king. Paul encountered Jesus dramatically on the Damascus road, but even his story has these periods that we can easily skip over. He tells us about going into Arabia and returning to Damascus, and later speaks of another journey to Jerusalem after fourteen years (Galatians 1:15–18; 2:1). Scripture often compresses decades into a few verses, and I think sometimes we forget that these people actually had to live through all those ordinary years.

Maybe part of the problem is that we think the promise is all about the destination, while God is also interested in preparing the vessel that is going to carry it.

A clay pot isn't much use just because the potter has formed it into the right shape. Before it can carry what it was made to carry, it has to be fired. Put an unfired clay vessel to use too soon and it won't withstand what you're asking it to hold. Perhaps there are things God wants to entrust to us that require us to become strong enough, mature enough and grounded enough to carry them without them destroying us.

When I look back over those thirty years in my own life, I can see things now that I couldn't see while I was going through them. There was theology to learn, but there was also life to live. There were mistakes to make, things I had to unlearn, character that needed developing, disappointments to walk through and experiences with God that couldn't have been learnt from a book. There were things I probably would have taught very confidently thirty years ago that I wouldn't teach now.

That makes me wonder whether some of what we call waiting is actually preparation.

Isaiah says, "Those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31). Waiting on God isn't necessarily sitting still doing nothing until He finally remembers the promise. Sometimes it's continuing to learn, serve, work, pray, love people, make mistakes, get back up and simply live the life that's in front of us while God prepares something in us that we can't yet see.

So perhaps when we're asking, "God, why hasn't this happened yet?" there is another question worth asking: "What are You doing in me while I wait?"

I don't think the thirty years have been wasted. Maybe the vessel has been in the kiln.

01/09/2026

What if the Bible isn’t really a collection of separate stories at all, but one unfolding story that we were always meant to read together?

That is what The Covenant Story series is about. Across four books I follow the thread from the Garden, through Abraham, Sinai, the wilderness, the kingdom, exile and restoration, right through to Jesus and the New Covenant. Along the way we explore the historical and cultural background, the supernatural worldview of Scripture, and some of those connections that are very easy to miss when we read the Bible one verse or one story at a time.

The journey begins with The God Who Dwells Among His People and ends with The God Who Dwells in His People. That movement is really the heartbeat of the whole story. God has always desired a people for Himself, and covenant is the thread that carries that purpose through Scripture until it finds its fulfilment in Christ.

If you have ever wondered how all those familiar Bible stories actually fit together, or felt there must be a bigger story behind what you are reading, The Covenant Story was written for you.

01/09/2026

I have been looking again at the word Abba, because for years many of us have been taught that it simply means “Daddy.” There is certainly intimacy in the word, and I don't want to lose that, but when we look at the different cultures of the Bible we find that they would have heard much more in this word than we tend to hear today.

For the Jewish people, calling God Father was connected with belonging. God called Israel His firstborn son (Exodus 4:22), and the Old Testament speaks of God as Israel's Father (Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16; Jeremiah 31:9). A father wasn't simply the man who cuddled his children and told them he loved them. He was responsible for the household, he protected and provided for his family, he gave them their family identity and eventually passed on the inheritance. Children could be close to their father, but they also respected his authority. So when Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9), the Jewish people already had a whole story behind that word: family, belonging, protection, provision, identity and obedience as well as love.

The Greeks lived in quite a different world. Their stories were full of gods who were called fathers and sons. Zeus could be spoken of as the father of gods and men, and their gods had family relationships and even produced children through relationships with humans. So when Christians began talking about God as Father and Jesus as the Son of God (Mark 1:1; John 20:31), Greek listeners were coming to those words with a very different background. The biblical story wasn't saying that God had produced a son in the way their gods did. Jesus' relationship with the Father came out of the completely different story of the God of Israel. John even goes out of his way to tell us that the Word was already with God and was God before becoming flesh (John 1:1–14).

Then there were the Romans, and this is where Paul's teaching becomes really interesting. The Roman father was the recognised head of his household and carried considerable authority and responsibility. Adoption was also much more than taking an unwanted baby into your home, which is often what we imagine today. Adoption could give someone a completely new family, a new name, a new position and an inheritance. So when Paul tells believers that we have received the Spirit of adoption and now cry “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15), and then immediately says that we are children and therefore heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16–17), his Roman readers would have understood the connection. You belonged to a new household now. Paul makes the same connection in Galatians: no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir (Galatians 4:4–7).

And then we come back to Jesus Himself. The one place where we actually hear Jesus say “Abba” is in Gethsemane: “Abba, Father… not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). That gives us perhaps the clearest picture of all. Jesus is completely secure in His Father's love and can speak openly about what He is facing, but intimacy doesn't remove trust, respect or obedience.

Our modern Western culture tends to hear “Daddy” and think mainly about affection, cuddles, safety and emotional closeness. Those things are beautiful, and there is certainly a closeness with God that we shouldn't lose. Scripture tells us that we haven't received a spirit that takes us back into fear (Romans 8:15). But if affection is all we mean when we say Abba, we have made the word much smaller than it was.

The Jewish world gives us belonging, covenant and identity (Exodus 4:22). The Greek world helps us see how radically different the biblical Father and Son were from the gods around them (John 1:1–14). The Roman world helps us hear household, adoption, sonship and inheritance when Paul says “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15–17; Galatians 4:4–7). And Jesus shows us intimacy, trust and surrender (Mark 14:36).

So perhaps Abba doesn't simply mean “Daddy.” It means something much bigger. This is my Father. I belong in His household. I carry His name. I live under His care. I can come to Him without fear. I can trust Him enough to surrender to Him, and because I am in Christ, I am part of His family and share in His inheritance.

Maybe the real wonder of “Abba, Father” isn't what name we are allowed to call God. Maybe it is what those words tell us about who we have become to Him.

01/09/2026

Enjoy this new explainer video

Does “Abba” really mean “Daddy”? It’s something many of us have hea...

30/08/2026

What if one of the greatest challenges facing the Church today isn't that we don't have enough information, but that we've never had so much information available to us?

For generations, most Christians received their understanding of the Bible from a relatively small number of voices. Their pastor, their denomination, a few favourite teachers and perhaps a Bible college shaped much of what they believed, and very often those beliefs were simply passed from one generation to another without anybody really stopping to ask where they came from or whether that was actually what the Scriptures were saying.

Then everything changed.

The internet gave us access to libraries we could never have visited, Google made enormous amounts of information searchable, YouTube brought teachers and theologians from around the world into our homes, social media gave everybody a platform, smartphones put all of that into our pockets, and now AI allows us to explore questions in minutes that once might have taken weeks of searching through books and commentaries.

But having access to more information doesn't necessarily mean we are getting closer to truth.

In fact, today I can probably find someone online who will agree with almost anything I already believe, and perhaps that makes Paul's warning about people being “always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7) more relevant than we might imagine.

So perhaps one of the most important things the Church needs to recover in this generation is not simply more teaching, but discernment.

Paul told the Thessalonians, “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). John similarly told believers not to believe every spirit, but to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). Scripture doesn't seem frightened of us asking questions, examining what we hear and testing what we have been taught.

The Bereans are a wonderful example of this because when Paul came and taught them, they didn't simply accept what he said because he was Paul. Acts tells us that they received the message eagerly, but then “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).

Think about that for a moment. If Paul's teaching could be examined against Scripture, surely the things we hear from our favourite preacher, denomination, YouTube teacher, Facebook post—or AI—can be examined too.

And perhaps we also need the humility of Apollos in Acts 18. He was knowledgeable, passionate and teaching accurately according to what he understood, but Priscilla and Aquila recognised that his understanding was incomplete and “explained to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:26). Apollos apparently didn't become defensive because somebody challenged what he already knew. He learned.

I think there is something enormously important in that for us.

Sometimes faithfulness to Scripture requires us to be willing to question our interpretation of Scripture. It means being willing to ask, Why do I believe this? Is this actually what the Bible says, or is it what I have always been told the Bible says? Have I looked at the context? Have I considered the whole biblical story? And am I humble enough to discover that something I have believed for thirty years might need another look?

Proverbs tells us that “the first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him” (Proverbs 18:17). That's wisdom we desperately need in an age when the first convincing video, post or preacher we encounter can become our truth before we've ever heard another perspective.

We have never had greater access to biblical information than we have right now, but information alone will never produce wisdom. James tells us that if we lack wisdom, we should ask God, who gives generously (James 1:5), and perhaps that needs to become one of the great prayers of the Church in this extraordinary information age.

Lord, don't simply help us to know more. Teach us how to discern what is true, give us the humility to examine what we believe, and give us the wisdom to know what is worth building our lives upon.

29/08/2026

I've been thinking about something that has challenged me quite deeply.

Many of us who became Christians during the years when Word of Faith teaching was prominent were taught to stand on God's promises, believe for healing, trust God for provision, understand our authority and know our inheritance in Christ.

There were excesses in that movement, and some of them rightly needed challenging. Faith sometimes became a formula, prosperity became transactional and people could be left feeling that if the healing or breakthrough didn't happen, somehow they hadn't believed enough.

But I wonder whether, in rejecting the excesses, we sometimes threw away some very real biblical truths as well.

I still believe God heals. I still believe prayer changes things. I still believe what Scripture says about our identity and inheritance in Christ. I still believe God provides for His people, and I don't want fear of being labelled "Word of Faith" to make us afraid of believing what Scripture actually says.

The question I've been wrestling with is why there can sometimes be such a large gap between what Scripture says is ours in Christ and what sincere, faithful Christians actually experience.

One possibility I hadn't considered enough is that perhaps we have individualised promises that were never intended to be understood only individually.

Take Philippians 4:19: "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

We often read that as a promise between God and one individual believer, but the context is a church participating together in giving and receiving. The Philippians have helped Paul, Paul has received their generosity, and he trusts God to continue supplying them. God's provision is moving through a community.

Even the prayer Jesus taught us is communal. It is "Our Father", "give us our daily bread", "forgive us", "lead us" and "deliver us". Christianity was never designed simply as Jesus and me trying to get my individual needs met.

We see the same thing after Pentecost. Acts 2 begins with the spectacular arrival of the Holy Spirit, tongues and supernatural manifestations, but it doesn't finish there. The same Spirit-filled believers begin sharing, caring for one another and making sure needs are met.

By Acts 4, Luke can say, "There was not a needy person among them."

That sounds remarkably similar to Deuteronomy 15, where God says there should be no poor among His covenant people. Interestingly, His solution wasn't a formula for individual prosperity. It involved generosity, debt release, responsibility and people refusing to close their hands to one another.

Then Acts 6 gives us an even more practical example. Some widows are being overlooked in the food distribution. The apostles don't accuse them of lacking faith and they don't simply hold another prayer meeting for supernatural provision. They recognise that the community's distribution system isn't working properly and they fix it.

The people appointed to do that very practical job had to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.

I love that because it reminds me that Holy Spirit ministry isn't restricted to prophecy, healing, tongues and miracles. Sometimes Holy Spirit ministry looks like wise administration, creating opportunity, sharing knowledge, helping somebody become sustainable, solving a practical problem or making sure vulnerable people aren't forgotten.

This is not about indiscriminately giving money to people who ask for it, nor is it suggesting that one Christian is personally responsible for meeting another person's financial needs. Scripture also teaches wisdom, stewardship, personal responsibility, work and discernment. Healthy generosity should strengthen people rather than create dependency, and genuine need should never become an opportunity for manipulation.

What interests me is the bigger theological principle.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says that the manifestation of the Spirit is given "for the common good". In other words, what God has placed in me may partly be His provision for somebody else, while what He has placed in somebody else may be part of His provision for me.

That doesn't only mean money.

It might be wisdom, encouragement, employment, training, connections, hospitality, prayer, spiritual gifts, practical skills, opportunity, mentoring or simply knowing how to solve a problem somebody else doesn't know how to solve.

Perhaps God deliberately distributes His provision throughout the Body because Christianity was never supposed to produce a collection of completely independent people who don't need one another.

Paul even applies this principle to material provision in 2 Corinthians 8, where one group's present abundance supplies another group's need. He quotes the story of the manna: the person who gathered much didn't have too much and the person who gathered little didn't have too little.

In Exodus, God's provision came as manna from heaven. In Paul's churches, sometimes God's provision came through people wisely sharing what God had already placed among them.

Both were God's provision.

That has made me reconsider what we mean when we talk about our "inheritance in Christ".

Perhaps I was never intended to experience the fullness of that inheritance independently.

Romans 8 says we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, but the same chapter says creation is still groaning, we are still groaning and we are waiting for the redemption of our bodies.

The Kingdom has come, but it is still coming. Christ has defeated death, yet Christians still die. God heals, yet we still await the resurrection of our bodies. We are heirs, yet we can still experience hardship.

Holding those things together isn't unbelief. It is part of the tension of the New Testament.

Perhaps this is where we can recover some of what was good in the Word of Faith movement without recovering the formula.

We can believe God heals without blaming someone who isn't healed.

We can believe God provides without turning giving into a transaction.

We can believe our words matter without pretending we create reality with them.

We can understand our authority in Christ without imagining ourselves independent of Christ.

We can expect supernatural intervention while also recognising that sometimes God's answer looks remarkably practical.

Maybe the question isn't always, "Why hasn't God done something?"

Sometimes a better question might be, "What has God already placed among us, and how does He intend us to use it?"

The early Church didn't choose between supernatural Christianity and practical Christianity. They expected both.

The Spirit fell, miracles happened, the sick were healed and the gospel spread, while at the same time people shared, served, organised, worked, gave and cared for one another.

Perhaps that is part of the supernatural Christianity we need to recover.