Hold On Brother!!!

2 Corinthians 9: 6 – 8

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully. Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

Guys, we’ve got to pause the Healing Words of the Day because God has something to say. God, your Father, wants to get money to you. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Word of the Lord is saying. God wants to talk about money, so get ready to shout. If you have a problem with money and church, repent quick, before you get to the next paragraph because Father God wants to speak to you and bless you. Please do not reject the Blessing of the Lord.

Now hear this!!!! I got back from my sabbatical Saturday. I had a GREAT time with the Lord, and He ministered many things. Interestingly enough, a bunch of it was about finances. It was a definite surprise but a welcome one. I got home in time to go see Jesse Duplantis at Agape Faith Church in Clemmons, NC on Sunday. Whoa! It was good. It was anointed and brother, you would have to be dead not to have felt the anointing in there as Jesse spoke. Glory to God! What do you suppose he spoke on? Finances. God kept right on with the theme of the whole week.

Jesse Duplantis has an anointing of increase on him. People have talked about it for years. He gives away so much, but God just keeps blessing him. This man tries to out give God. Well, guess who’s winning. But I have not gotten to the good part yet. Hold on!!

Now I’ve already told you that Jesse is a giver. He told us he was going to give the offering back to the host church. He wasn’t going to take the gift offering back with him. Nice. However, before he let us give our offering, he wanted to pray over it and bless that ministry and its leaders. What happened next is important to you!

Jesse asked us all to raise our offering envelopes. Then he walked up to me and asked me if he could borrow my offering. He just wanted a point of contact to pray over that offering. Of course, I said, “Yes,” and extended my envelope towards him. He reached out, but he didn’t take my envelope. He took my hand and laid the envelope in my hand. I scooted forward in my chair a little and he said, “Yeah, stand up.” So, I stood up! He took my hand with the envelope in it and covered it with his own hand and started ministering to me. He started praying about the hundredfold return (Matthew 13: 8), bless God!

But wait. I had a problem right there. I had just returned from the mountains and had burned through most of my cash. I forgot to get more money, so when I opened my wallet to get out my offering I just groaned. “Well,” I thought to myself, “I will just give all I have.” I didn’t think of it then, but God has brought it my attention since that in giving all I had, I was like the widow with the widow’s mite (Mark 12: 41) and she blessed Jesus with her giving.

But, back to the story, when Jesse started ministering the hundredfold return my insides roiled and I thought about that measly amount of money in the envelope. Aargghh! In that split second, I was intensely remorseful that there wasn’t a big bill in that envelope and mad at myself for not thinking ahead. You know what? No sooner did I think, “Oh darn” than Jesse, looking right at me said, “I didn’t say a hundred times. I said a hundredfold! This isn’t math. It just keeps folding and folding and folding.” WHOA! Father totally heard my thought and my regret and answered it immediately!

Here’s what I want you to know, Jesse wasn’t just praying over my offering. If you had been there, you would have seen that. It was clear that something was happening. Jesse was praying over my money and ministry. Now, here is the part that is important to you. His anointing of increase got shared to me and this ministry. Let that sink in. God has anointed this ministry for increase. That isn’t just about increasing the ministry. Read the passage above. This is about increasing you. I am to share this increase. That is why the anointing was shared with me. This is how God is going to get blessing to you, through Ivey Ministries. Now isn’t that exciting?!

Read today’s passage again. It is powerful. In fact, it is what Jesse spoke on Sunday. It went off in me then and I hope it is going off in you now. And, I understand how this works. So, you better believe that I sent off a big check to Jesse today! I am getting in on the increase. I want to reap bountifully so I am giving bountifully.

I have never asked any of you for money, but I am going to say today, “Give, so it can be given back to you.” Don’t give grudgingly. If you can’t be happy in it, don’t send money. I want cheerful givers just the same as God, but, if this ministry is ministering to you, sow into it. When we receive your donation, we will pray over it with this anointing present on us for the increase back to you. Maybe you don’t need money, but maybe you have an unsaved family member. Maybe you need healing in your body. Whatever your need is, or your want, let us know and we will lay hands on your offering and petition the Lord, our God, for the hundredfold increase.

God wants to bless you. Listen to me. This is how God is getting the blessing to you. Believe and receive. Let the Lord do all He wants to do. Cooperate with Him. One other thing. Do not delay. Do it now!

Magic & Seeds

Matthew 14: 19 – 20

He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds, and they all ate and were satisfied.

God has done some pretty incredible things. I am thinking about creation for one. From nothing He made everything, or did He? Hebrews 11: 3 tells us that God made the universe and all that is seen from that which is unseen, or invisible. Well, that makes sense. Even our own bodies are made of molecules too small to be seen. We are not, however, made from nothing. God isn’t a magician making rabbits or flowers appear out of thin air. He is a sower. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Once sown, that seed becomes the largest plant in the garden.

Why am I telling you this? When you understand how God approaches things, it will help you understand the Bible and help you to tackle things in your own realm. You will be able to operate the same way God does and you won’t even need magic to do it.

In the story from today’s verse, Jesus fed about 20,000 people from two fish and five loaves of bread. How does one do that? It is called multiplication, but God multiplies in exponential numbers. He works by taking what you have and expanding it. He isn’t making something from nothing. He takes the little we have and makes a surplus, over and above all we can think or ask. After everyone was satisfied, the disciples went around and picked up the leftovers ending up with twelve baskets full.

So, imagine creation. Yahweh didn’t pull humans, zebra, giraffes, or crickets out of a magic hat. He created by sowing seed. It’s what He does. We didn’t just “pop” into existence. He had a plan and He instituted it and la voila, here we are. Think about that. He has a plan for you too. Jeremiah 29: 11 tells us that He has good plans for us, plans to give us hope and a good future. Yahoo! How will He do that? He is planting seeds all of the time.

Now, do you want to know a secret? He made you in His image and He expects you to move in the earth in the same manner as He. That is to say, He wants to teach you to plan and plant seeds too. What do you want? Plant a seed. Think about this and get excited. If you plant one tomato seed and it germinates and grows into a plant, how many seeds will that one plant generate? One source says the average tomato has between 150 and 300 seeds, though sometimes even more. Okay, so don’t eat all of the tomatoes. Even if you only plant the seeds from one tomato from your first plant that is 150 seeds minimum. If only half of them germinate and produce a plant, then you’ve got 75 fruit yielding plants in addition to the one you began with. Okay, what if you plant just one tomato from each of these plants. Now you have 150 X 76 which equals 11,400 seeds. Are you kidding me here? You are going to have a lot of tomatoes!

So what if it isn’t tomatoes that you need? Well, of course that was an example so let’s get real, but first I have to ask you a question. Do you believe Jesus and everything he said? Jesus taught this same principle. Matthew 13: 8 reads, “And others fell on the good soil and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” These are red letter words. Jesus starts with a hundredfold return, then adds, sixty and thirty percent returns. So, let’s just rely on a thirty percent return. Are your current investments returning 30%? If so, call me.

What if you take one dollar and sow it into the good soil of God’s Kingdom? The worst you can do is a thirty-dollar return. Take out your one dollar seed and you’ve made twenty-nine dollars. Now what do you do? Don’t go out and buy a thirty-dollar shirt. That is what most of us do. We consume our seed. Instead, sow more seed. What if you sowed all thirty dollars? That would then yield 30 X 30, right? Now you have nine hundred dollars. What if you sowed all nine hundred dollars? Now you have twenty-seven thousand dollars. Just imagine if you got the sixty or hundredfold return.

So here in my point. God is not a magician, He is a multiplier. He takes what He has and makes universes and humans and trees and animals with it. He takes what you give Him and He expands it. When you understand that this is the way God operates it will change your life. For one, you are going to understand Him and the Bible unlike ever before. Second, it will set you free. Sow into Him. Let Him be your investment counselor. I only showed you this truth through the examples of money and tomatoes, but it works for everything. Again I ask, what do you need? What do you want? Put on your overalls and start farming. For goodness sake, get out there and start sowing some seeds.