Commenting on tithing and why we should pay such, Stephen L. Richards wrote the following:
Sovereignty of God: We do not rob God by withholding our gift in the sense that we deprive him of the substance of earth. He always has that substance, never relinquishing it. But we rob him of the satisfaction and the joy that he must feel when his children respond to his mandates and open their hearts in giving and in worship. Someone has said, “God never gives a quitclaim deed; he only grants a leasehold estate; and he who receives the lease must ever return the rental.” (Where is Wisdom? Addresses of President Stephen L. Richards [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1955], 290, emphasis in bold added)
In the above text, the section I put in bold stood out to me, as Richards correctly attributes (true) emotions to God, such as joy. Furthermore, such change in God’s emotions is contingent upon the free-will actions of mankind (in this context, whether they faithfully pay tithing or not). Such only makes sense if God exists in some form of time and is not “outside of time”/lives in “divine timelessness” as it requires, not just a moment-by-moment interaction with mankind, but also that God is affected on a moment-by-moment basis, too.
