Power to Succeed P.12

Hope in God allows you to give like never before. God has already given us all things to enjoy, and He has given them to us in abundance. It’s there for you. No one is stopping you from receiving what God has already given you...but you.

Any challenge cannot affect your expectation, as long as your expectation comes from the God of hope and not man. With man it won’t work, but with God everything is possible (Psalm 146:5 NKJV). This hope in God allows you to give like never before. It is impossible to worship two masters. You choose which one you serve. You get to choose who you are bound to.
Money makes a poor God. It will never love you back. You can do things with it, but it will never do anything for you. God tells us to choose Him. Jesus sold all that He had to get you (Matthew 13:45-46). You can’t buy your way into the kingdom of heaven. Since Jesus sold all that He had to get you, how can you ever have a problem giving all that you have, at any given time, when He directs you? The calling card for God is giving. The calling card for Satan is taking.

The only attitude to have about giving is worship (or understanding). You must give from a heart of worship. A true giver will come to an attitude of worship, and will get past the attitudes of duty, obligation, pride and guilt. To be a true giver is to understand that God owns you and to understand all that you have is because of God. Jesus sold all to give you all. This means that all of your needs and desires are met. In addition to God owning us, He gives us everything.
Jesus is our example to follow (Mark 8:34). He gave all that He had to get you so that through His poverty, you could come up. He gave up His life for you alone. He wants you to give up your so-called rights to yourself. God owns all title and rights to you because you were bought with a price. God wants you to receive the abundant life He came to offer, so you have to stop holding tight to everything you have. You have to release it like Jesus did.

You need to have something in order to get something. However, you cannot hold on to what you have, otherwise you will lose it. You didn’t make yourself. You were made by God. In God’s system, you have to give in order to receive. If you don’t have something, you will never change until someone comes along and gives you something. Once you are given something, you cannot use it all yourself, you have to use some of it to plant a seed. The only way you can receive more from God is to give. As you pour out your life, you will be able to receive more of the Lord. This is an act of obedience, faith and trust that allows God to perform His Word towards you. You can never exhaust God. Once you begin to cooperate with God’s system, then God can make you into exactly who He wants you to be.

How do you have to learn to give? The first mode of giving is to give strategically. This means you give with a plan in mind. God has a system for giving (Malachi 3:7-12). You cannot give an offering until you tithe. The tithe is your opportunity to get closer to God. You prove the depth of your love with your offering. God will not forget your labor of love. To give strategically is to give according to God’s plan.

Giving opens up all grace to you (2 Corinthians 9:6). When you begin to tithe, things will open up for you. Opportunities will come and God will raise up people in order to use their power, talents and influence on your behalf. Your faith, obedience and active love toward God will obligate Him to show you grace. God loves a cheerful giver!

Power to Succeed Pt. 11

God guaranteed fulfillment of every one of His promises by cutting a covenant for you. If the covenant was with you, you would likely break it. Christ is the fulfillment of the promise. A promise with God is a guarantee, not a maybe or a might. Knowing this might cause you to fix your mind, change your mouth, talk a little differently! If you are so confident and sure that Christ died for you, how can you not also receive that we have been given all things?

God gives an abundance of all things for our enjoyment (Romans 8:28, 31, and 5:5; 1 Timothy 6:17; 1 Corinthians 3:21). Unless and until you allow God to straighten your perspective on money, you (rich or poor) will have money issues. If God gave you all things richly to enjoy, why would you ever be slow to give? God gave first! God wants you to learn to depend on Him above everything else. Can you name one thing not covered under “all”? God gave you His Word to protect you, because without it, you won’t make it! Drawing close to Him means you take everything He offers.

Psalm 146:5 – Concentrate on and walk by faith – don’t think about things that are coming to distract you from your faith –allow God to manifest all things in your life.

1. Hope in God allows you to give like never before. And not just money. Hope also gives you the power of endurance to make it [to the end]. You can’t be His offspring if you aren’t a giver. Our Heavenly Father gave us freely all things, and once born again, we are born after His nature.
By this statement, I know that you have given before. What the Spirit of God is talking about is how you do it, not the measure of what you do. Increase the power of what you do and add to it. Why lose when it’s not an option?

As long as the earth remains, there will be seed, time, and harvest. The enemy has tricked many into thinking giving doesn’t work because you can’t see it working. Everything you plant works in secret – for your benefit! Many get excited when a little bud starts to show. Let it grow! If you cut the blade off, you won’t reap the harvest. This isn’t delayed gratification, it is for harvest satisfaction. Don’t settle for temporary gain and forego future abundance.

A question for next week: Have we been good, faithful stewards over what God has given us?

Power to Succeed Pt.9

Today, we continue with the message “Power to Succeed in Hard Times.” To review, hope is an expectation based on what has already been accomplished. The hope of God is guaranteed to come to pass if we persevere. Without hope there is nothing for out faith to give substance to. God’s hope makes you able to see what cannot be seen. The things that we cannot see are more real than the things we can see. Hope in God will allow you to hear the Word like never before. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Hope in God will allow you to obey the Word like never before. Hope in God will allow you to pray like never before. You must believe in your own prayer. You ought to have confidence in your prayer above anyone else’s.

Hope in God allows you to sow (give) like never before (Psalm 146:5). Are we showing ourselves committed to what God has given us to handle? We were designed serve – that’s a blessing (Matthew 6:24). People think they don’t serve. Satan knows that we are going to serve. Service comes out of the heart. We get to choose who we will serve.

You cannot serve two masters. In Matthew 6:24, “mammon” is defined as a spirit or a demon – it is the god over everything money rules over. It is also the personified version of riches and wealth or the pursuit of riches and wealth, a.k.a. greed. Money makes a poor God. God says that we cannot serve Him and that that idol “mammon.” Whoever you serve is your master. Whoever your master is determines what you will receive. If you chase pleasure possessions and prestige, you will have nothing. If you serve God, all things are available to you.

God set up the system for giving. In order for us to increase, we have to give away. If we are left to ourselves, we will hoard what we have. The power to succeed in hard times is in our hands.

In the Bible, prosperity equals giving. When you give, you are more like God. You are never more like God than when you give. It is an awesome privilege and supremely powerful to give. If you want God in your life, you have to give. Once you give, it doesn’t stop there. By giving, you start things in motion that will not stop. Your giving cannot go back the way it came.