Testing
Mark 4: 24
And He was saying to them,. . . “By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.”
Last week’s Word of the Day was about our God meeting our needs. God does meet our needs. However, the passage for the Word of the Day was taken from Philippians where Paul taught that needs are met through the fulfillment of our own giving. Paul told the church that his God would meet their needs because they had met his. This is such a powerful lesson, but few grasp it. In fact, since last week I have wondered how many of you really believe me and the lessons I send. Therefore, I thought I would tell you a small story this week about the time I put God, and these scriptures, to the test.
Some years ago, I sowed one dollar into Ivey Ministries. It is the only dollar I have ever given to my own ministry. I believed God for a return. Shortly thereafter, I received a check for $50. I was pretty excited; not because I got fifty dollars, but because it appeared God’s Word worked. My tithe on that would have been $5, but I decided that if I was going to put God to the test, I had to press on, so, I decided to sow the entire fifty dollars.
I wish you to understand that at this point things became a bit more challenging for me. It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but it was hard to let go of the full fifty dollars when my obligation was for five, but I believed Yahweh was continuing to lead me in this area. So, believing for a hundred-fold return, I sowed the entire amount into a ministry. Then came the really hard part, the waiting.
Here is where we often fail. There was not $500 in my mailbox that week nor even that month. Time dragged on and on with no visible return on my seed. I prayed about it, I journaled with God about it, but no resolution came to my mailbox or my heart. Often, I forgot about the seed as if I had never given God that fifty dollars. It sometimes became lost seed to me. But, I have read a few things in the Bible so I would pick myself up and dust off my faith. Believe me, this was an ongoing challenge. I would stand, full of faith and believe for my harvest. Before long, though, my strength and resolve would ebb. Finally, I became convinced in my heart that God is not a man that He can lie (Numbers 23: 19). With a firmer resolution in my spirit, I began to believe in my seed and my harvest.
Now this may sound crazy to some of you, but I want you to understand how far this goes. As my faith grew, I began to realize that the seed had to produce. It is a spiritual law. The seed doesn’t get to choose whether or not it will obey the law of the Spirit. That is when things changed. I no longer whined to God about my harvest. Nope, I confronted Him. What? Yes, confronted! When I prayed, I said, “Father, you owe me money.” Not only once did I approach Him with my demand but rather, it became the way we spoke about that seed. And, guess what. Yahweh was not intimidated by my demand. In fact, He acknowledged it. Once He told me that one way He was going make up part of the return was in my new car. Inside I was like Sarah who laughed at God’s promise because I knew I couldn’t afford a new car, at least not the one I wanted. Well, time went on and I returned to talk with Him about this money. I was no longer falling back into doubt. I no longer failed to remember I had good seed in good soil. That had been, it turns out, doubt. I forgot about my seed because I had stopped believing in the return. In truth, I had lost my belief in the principal of sowing and reaping. However, my faith began to grow and my resolve stiffened. I started out testing God on this principal of sowing and reaping with one dollar and I was not giving up now.
I have taught about giving many, many times. I teach it and try to encourage everyone to give because I want you to be blessed. I thought I believed God’s Word, but I found out that when I set out to test God’s Word, it was really I who was tested. I stumbled and fell many times. I learned, though, that when you fall, when you fail, God doesn’t consider it final. He did not burn my seed in the ground when I failed in my belief. Instead, and this is amazing to me, He preserved that precious seed until such a time as He could get me to be as determined as that little seed. He is an amazing, generous and kind Father. He loves us and wants us to be blessed and He has taught us the way. He told us that if we would give, it would be given back to us multiplied (Luke 6: 38). Those are words on a page though. Does it really work? Is that actually a lesson from God?
Sometimes I pray to God for the thousand-fold return. You won’t find it in the Bible, per se, but when I look at the Bible in its fullness, I see it all over the place, and more beyond. Abraham received way more than a thousand-fold. Jesus received a greater than thousand-fold return. It is my way of speaking with God about His willingness and ability to do, “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,” (Ephesians 3: 20). He is not limited to the hundred-fold or even my thousand-fold. He is super-abundant, beyond my ability to comprehend, and that is the moral of this story.
I did receive a new car and it is a blessing. I also received a gift that will mean more than $90,000 over my lifetime. These are part of the glory of Christ. I am beyond grateful. However, I have a new challenge. Is this the fullness of God’s blessing? Is He done? Shall I cut Him off here? It is certainly much more than I expected when I began. The hundred-fold return on my $50 seed would have given me $5000 and that is what I believed for. Yahweh went far beyond, but who is to say He is done? Only my faith limits Him. He is waiting to see if I will allow Him to do more. My answer is, “Do all that is in your heart Father,” because what I know is that the financial blessing is wonderful and amazing but the best part of it is that He has brought us closer together. I live in a new space of gratefulness. I see His heart more clearly and I am completely overwhelmed by the knowledge He has imparted to me through this experience. When I say, “Our God is good!” I have the weight of a mountain behind it. Those few words have more love and meaning in them than can be contained in this one universe because His goodness is so vast.
God challenged us to test Him, “put Me to the test now in this,” says the Lord of armies, “if I do not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” (Malachi 3: 10). He told me to test Him. I wasn’t impudent. I was obedient. Now for you few with brave hearts, I have given you the link for Malachi 3:10 so that you can easily see for yourself how God’s statement began for as you can see, I only included the end of His statement. Simply click on the verse citation above and you will be transported to the full scripture.
Maybe you too should test Him. He welcomes it and I encourage it because in the end, you are going to be very blessed.
