Dams

On May 12, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Proverb 3: 9 – 10

Honor the Lord from your wealth, and from the first of all your produce, so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.

Sometimes humans are the dullest form of intelligent life. This verse couldn’t get much simpler, and yet there is tremendous resistance within the church to giving. God has told us how to have abundance. He wants us to experience overflow. Overflow is when you have more than enough. That is a typical God plan. He never stops at just filling a cup. He runs it over. So, if we are not experiencing overflow, what is damming the flow?

It turns out that we use our intelligence quotient to construct dams in our lives. We are blocking our own flow, in other words. The principle pointed to in today’s proverb is no different than what Jesus taught. It is the principle of sowing and reaping. God is a multiplier. He multiplies what we give Him and gives it back to us. In the old days they taught us that a hundred times zero was not a good yield. A hundred times one is better but if I understand God and His ways, I can use the kingdom principles He put in place thousands of years ago and receive whatever yield I need or want.

So how do we honor the Lord from our wealth and the first of our produce? One of the obstacles some people face is that they are happy to bless the Lord but they don’t like giving to person in order to accomplish that goal. Well, as I have said before, if you cannot trust your minister with your money then you probably want to look for another church home. Secondly, I find it hard to believe we can’t find one minister in all the world who we believe will use God’s money in the way He directs them. Third, pray over your giving. God will honor and multiply your gift without regard to what the person you give it to does with the money. Your part is just to give. When you let go of it, then the rest is up to God.

So, what I want to say to you is, “Don’t worry about it.” I want you in overflow. I want no financial stress on you whatsoever. Therefore, I encourage you to pour out your gifts to the Lord, even if they go through a person, so that God can overflow your cup. Tear down the dams in your life and let God bless you.

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Economic Reality

On May 26, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Philippians 4: 19


And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
This verse is just two verses after yesterday’s verse about the gifts of the Philippians accruing to their own account. Here Paul delivers the punch line. Because they, the Philippians, met the needs of the ministry, God was obligated to meet all of their needs. We really need to learn that God moves resources all over the world according to this principle. He multiplies seed sown. This is the principle we all need to adopt in our finances. This is the way God set up the earth to work. We have turned it on its head and operated our economy according to all we can get. That is just the opposite of the economic principles God established in the earth in the beginning. One can see the righteousness in God’s way and the greed in the other way. It is no wonder our economy has collapsed around our ears. It was never meant to work that way. God is your source and your provider and he wants to see you well cared for. He does that by multiplying your seed so for goodness sake, sow some good seed today.
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The Gift that Gives Back

On May 25, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Philippians 4: 17

Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account.

The Apostle Paul, in this passage and its accompanying scriptures, taught the Philippians about giving into the Lord’s work. But he was not only teaching them to give into the support of the ministry. He also taught them the principle of sowing and reaping. He told them in this excerpt that their gifts accrue to their own account. You see, God works according to multiplication. He takes what you have to sow and from that creates a harvest. So the Philippians’ gifts to Paul not only supported his ministry but they were also the means God had to get more substance into their hands. I heard Minister Jesse Duplantis say one time, “God isn’t trying to get something from you. He is trying to get something to you.” I think that is Paul’s message in this scripture. As God continues to multiply the harvest back to the sowers, they have their needs met and more besides to support more ministries, to send ministers into every need.

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Multiplication

On November 11, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Mark 4: 8

Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

In this passage and its accompanying verses, Jesus explains how the Kingdom of God works. It turns out that God multiplies. Why is this important for you and me to know? Consider the story of the widow in 2 Kings 4. This widow went to Elisha complaining of her financial need and telling Elisha that the creditor had come to her door to take her two sons so that they might be his slaves in order to satisfy the debt. This woman was broke. She had no funds to give to the creditor in order to save her sons. And yet Elisha’s response to her was, “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” I bet she wanted to say, “I don’t have anything you old fool. That is why I am here.” But she didn’t. Instead she answered; I have nothing “except a jar of oil.” So, Elisha said, “Ok, go get every kind of jar, pot and vessel that you can borrow and don’t get just a few.” So she went to her neighbors and borrowed every kind of container she could. When she had obeyed that command, Elisha had her pour out her little bit of oil into the first container. Behold, after the first container was filled, there remained oil in her jar so she poured out into the second container. The oil remained until every vessel was full. The miracle was only limited by her obedience to collect many pots. Fortunately she did obey and she ended up with enough oil to pay off the creditor and live on the proceeds after that. 

The widow in 1 Kings 17: 12 had a little bit of flour and a little bit of oil. She was gathering sticks to make a fire. Then she was going to make a pancake for her and one for her son and then they were going to lie down and die. She was really destitute. She didn’t know about the law of multiplication. She didn’t know it but she was wealthier in seed than Elisha’s widow because she had some flour and some oil. The prophet Elijah told her; make me a little bread before you carry out your plan. See God often has a different plan than ours. She did as Elijah required and God multiplied her bowl and her jar so that from then on she ran out of neither flour nor oil. 

Maybe you need a breakthrough in some area of your life. Well, you need some seed. Maybe God is requiring you to sow some seed. Like Elisha said to the widow, “What do you have?” Maybe you need to give into someone else’s life so that God can multiply your seed thirty, sixty or a hundredfold. Maybe you don’t have much. Maybe you are like one of the women in these stories but understand that God gets your miracle to you by multiplying the seed that you sow. You’ve got to give him something to work with. Then he will make your miracle.

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Abundant Supply

On September 25, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Corinthians 8: 14

At this present time your abundance being a supply for their want, that their abundance also may become a supply for your want, that there may be equality.

This is God’s idea of provision. My idea used to be that I would hoard all of my provision for my needs and wants and you would stockpile all of your earnings and take care of your needs. Wow! How wrong was that? Dad’s idea is that I take care of you and you take care of me. So, how am I doing? 

Paul had a global perspective on this economic system. He could see how it operated across all the new churches and the whole of the territory. Lack in one area need not end in lack for those inhabitants because other regions were not only experiencing abundance but they also shared their abundance. Therefore, there was no lack.

Of course this is exactly what Jesus taught us about how the Kingdom of God operates. He said that if we wanted to understand the Kingdom then we must understand the parable of the seed (Mark 4: 13). We begin with seeds. Now you know that a seed produces far more fruit than one could ever guess from such a small beginning. That is the point though. We sow a few small seeds into the lives of others and then the harvest into their lives and then to ours turns out to be an entire crop. However, if I keep my seed and you keep your seed, guess what; there will be no harvest for either of us. We end up eating our seed and there is no growth in our portfolios.

Man, this is the simplest of all parables and it is the one by which Jesus said we would understand all parables. None the less, it is one that seems to elude modern Christians. We need to get a revelation. When we all plant our seeds, then there is a bountiful harvest which we all get to participate in. Why do we not use Dad’s economic model? I think we fail because of fear. Yes, there are perhaps some people who are just stingy but I believe the bigger reason is that people are just afraid. They think they won’t reap even if they sow. Therefore, they hang on to their little seed with a tight fist. Maybe they think that others won’t do their part, so that the sowing will be all one sided. My answer to that is that at the very least if we do our part we will be in obedience. Secondly, perhaps, just maybe, Dad will come through for us. He is the one who makes seed grow. He is the master of the harvest. Verse 15 says, “He who gathered little had no lack.” God’s system works. That is why both Paul and Jesus taught it. I don’t think either of them was trying to lead us astray.

Here is the bottom line – everything in God’s Kingdom functions through the operation of seed. Until we grasp this most basic of concepts we are going to struggle. Eventually we have to understand that Dad is in the business of providing but that He does so through multiplying seed. When you truly get a hold of that idea, you will begin to see how to operate all of the machinery in the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately the converse is true too. You will never operate in Kingdom principles if you don’t grasp the first law.

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IT WORKS!

On January 19, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Luke 6: 38

Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.

If you have been reading this devotional for any period of time you know that I believe in this principle. I very much believe in the principle of seed, time and harvest but it is so easy to lose our conviction as we await our harvest. I shared the story of my overseeding my lawn this year and how I was beginning to wonder if anything was ever going to happen. All of a sudden, grass sprung up all over my yard. So the message there is, “Don’t give up on your seed.”

Recently I saw the truth of give and it will be given to you in striking reality and I want you to know that it really does work. Someone I know gave a significant contribution to a ministry. There were no strings attached. She is just a cheerful giver. The next thing she knew was that she received a gift of greater value than the donation she made. The gift was completely unexpected. It fairly came out of the blue.

Later she called me with her testimony. She realized that God led her to give. You see, God had in mind all along the blessing He wanted to get to her so He had her sow a seed which He then multiplied into something larger. God is so good and that is the way He works. And, it works all of the time. Even when you don’t see it working, those little seeds are in the ground sending out roots and growing. Before you know it you have a crop. Yahoo for harvest! 

So this isn’t theory, it isn’t empty theology. The Bible is a “How To” manual and it tells us how to reap a harvest … plant a seed. If you give, God will take that little seed and turn it into a full harvest. Just think how many tomatoes one tomato plant yields. That is God’s economy at work. Whatever you give to Him, He multiplies back to you many times over. So, if you have a financial need, give. It is the most counter-intuitive thing in the world but it works gang. Give and it shall be given unto you. Don’t believe me? Run your own experiment. See what God will do when you become a giver. I’m telling you, you will never have to worry about finances again.

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