In our last lesson, we talked about a listening ear and an obedient heart. We saw that to be able to hear God clearly, we must be prepared to obey Him when He speaks to us. We must be faithful to obey Him when He directs. If you are not faithful in the small things, you will not be faithful in the big things and God's not going to give you bigger things until you learn to be faithful with the small ones.
Your obedience will open the door to further understanding. In other words, when you are faithful with what you have, then God will give you more. In the parable of the talents, Jesus says this: "The master answered, "You did well. You are good servants. You can be trusted. You did well with small things so I will let you care for much greater things. Come and share my happiness with me. When you're faithful with small things, I will put you in charge of more things."
And so many of us ask God to give us the big picture or the road map, or we ask Him to give us the blueprint. But God does not do it that way, He doesn't usually give it to us all at once. He gives it to us as we are obedient with what He's already given us. Are you faithful with the little bit He has given you? God wants your obedience and He wants your obedience first. He doesn't always want your understanding, He just wants your obedience.
Look at what God did with Abraham? All He said was, "Go. Leave where you are and go." He gave no other direction, just Go and Leave. All Abraham knew was that he couldn't stay there. God did not tell him precisely where to go. God didn't say north or east. He said, "Leave". That's all the direction they had. Abraham could have said, "God, could You please be a little bit more specific? Could you give just a few more details here? Then I'll go." On that condition he never would have left. He had to be obedient to what God had already told him to do before he was going to get anymore.
God's looking for a willing heart and it doesn't have to know the end result. That your just satisfied with the direction and you'll obey that. That is what God is looking for. God doesn't show you the whole thing. He only shows you a little bit at a time. It's progressive in revelation. As you're faithful with what God has already shown you to do, He will give you more. And one reason you may not have more is because you may not be faithful to what He has already told you to do. Are you faithful? Have you completed what He has already spoken to you? Some of us need to quit badgering God and start being obedient. Some of us say to God, "Lord, show me more and then I'll obey". But God says, "Obey, then I'll show you more."
We can see this principle in Abraham's life. Look at Genesis 12:1 -- "Then the Lord told Abraham, 'Leave your country, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you.'" There is no direction. It's just "Leave. Leave where you are and go." But then God adds, "I'm going to bless you." Abraham didn't have any descendants at this time, He had no children. Yet God told him, in verse 2, that he was going to become a father of great nations." This is all he had, and it was very vague.
Look at verses 6 and 7: "Traveling through Canaan they came to a place near Sichem and set up camp beside the oak of Moreh. At that time the area was inhabited by Canaanites and the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, 'I'm going to give this land to your offspring.' And Abraham built an altar there to commemorate the Lord's visit."
Suddenly, a bit more becomes clear. Now Abraham knew which land God was giving to him. He didn't know before because God had said the "land I will show you." After Abraham walked in obedience and he had already left his home and came to the land, then God gave him a bit more revelation. God told him which land He will give to his descendants. As they went further on, God gave further clarification. Yet this is still a part of this which must have been very confusing to Abraham. God told him he would be a father of great nations, but Abraham had no children. He probably wondered how to carry this out, and wondered who his hier would be. And he was probably going through all the stuff in his brain trying to figure out how to fulfill this calling that God has on his life because God hasn't given him the full story of how to fulfill it.
We get all the way to Genesis chapter 15 before God gave him a clearer revelation. Abraham and God ended up in a dialogue addressing this issue. Abraham suggested he make his servant Eleazar of Damascus his hier. Then God gave him further clarification. God told him that the heir would not be adopted, but he would have a son from his own body. As he was obedient, the revelation became clearer to him.
God will give you what you need to carry for the moment. God will give you what you need to get you to the next step. If it's not all laid out, that's okay, God will get you there. He will give you just enough to obey and He will usually send you in a direction. And He may not lay it out very clear, but as you walk in that direction that God has laid out before you then it will become clearer and clearer.
Now there are bound to be some obstacles along the way. God wants us to activate our faith to push past the obstacles and obey Him. And we must often learn to be patient. Many of us still have to overcome our lack of patience. If we don't have patience, we will run ahead of God. So, like Abraham, we have to learn how to wait on the Lord. And we've got to resist the temptation to "help God out."
Let me tell you about waiting on the Lord. I challenge you to do this sometime. Go through the book of Psalms and underline and circle the word, "Wait." You'll find that the King David spent a lot of his time waiting. He wasn't crowned king immediately as soon as he was set aside as king. It took another 25 years or so. It took a long time. He spent some time waiting in caves. He spent some time serving King Saul. He spent a lot of time before he became king. In fact the whole united kingdom didn't even come under him until he was close to 40 years old. He became king in his early thirties. He understood a lot about waiting. We also need to understand about waiting. We must not get ahead of God.. because we will end up trying to help God out. Abraham got in trouble trying to do that. He and Sarah were wondering how to have children since Sarah was barren. So they tried Hagar, and she produced Ishmael. Ishmael was not the chosen one. Ishmael was simply man's intent to manipulate the circumstances to fulfill God's will. Ishmael is man trying to rush the will of God. And Ishmael has been a thorn in the flesh to the descendants of Isaac ever since. Even today the Ishmaels and the Issacs are still fighting. That conflict is still going on there today. Why? Because they got ahead of God. And oftentimes we will do this. Ishmael is simply something we produce in the flesh. It can even be based on the promises of God. They did it with the right attitude, wanting to fulfill the promises of God. But it was still the ingenuity of man trying to fulfill the vision of God by human power and human efforts.
And I want to tell you from personal experience, I've produced a lot of Ishmaels in my life. I've done a lot of things in ministry that I thought God had called me to. I began to push those things ahead of God's timing and they felt flat on their face because it wasn't God. It was man. It was me. It was flesh. It was the call of God. I was operating on the vision that God had given me but it was out of God's timing. Those are hard lessons to learn. God will let you make those mistakes to teach you. You've got to be patient.
In addition to learning patience, we also have to endure God's testing. Abraham was always tested. He never got to a place where he wasn't tested. even leaving for the first time was a test. When God said "Get up and leave," that was a test. Did he pass the test? Yes he passed. Then God tested whether or not Abraham trusted Him. Do you trust God? God put him in a couple of situations that made him wonder if was God going to protect him to fulfill the promise. Abraham failed a couple of those tests. He said that his wife was his sister because he was afraid that he would be murdered if people knew she was his wife. He didn't just do that once, he did it a couple of times. And he messed up. But he began to get these things right. And eventually he passed the test and then God gave him the promise. He gave him the son, Isaac. Then God told him to take Isaac and sacrifice him. Isaac was the fulfillment of the promise. Yet God asked him to take him up and sacrifice him. That tells me this: if God gives you a vision, God may require to have you sacrifice that vision for him. Let me assure you that God will test you. You will always experience a testing of God. There will be seasons where you seem to move from crisis to crisis, because God is seeing if you will hang in there with the vision He has given you.
God tests us for three reasons:
- God wants to affirm your calling. When you pass the test it confirms the calling in your heart and it brings affirmation that you are on the right track.
- God wants to burn that calling way down deep into your spirit. Sometimes the only way we learn is a "branding iron." God burns it down into our spirit. It becomes a part of us and that testing burns it and makes it cohesive with us through fire.
- God wants to reveal your heart. God tests you to see does your heart really belong to Him. Abraham passed this test. Scripture says he took his son and laid him on the altar. And God did not let him kill that son. He spared him because he had a plan for that son. But Abraham had to be willing to sacrifice the vision and the fulfillment of the vision. ultimately, God just wants your heart. And that's what God is after.
God has a call on your life. God has a plan for you. And the way you're going to understand that plan is first of all you have to have a listening ear. Today, do you have a heart that says, "God I want to hear your voice. Today, God, I want to hear what you have to say. Today, Lord I want to hear You." Do you really want to? Do you have an obedient heart? Is it a willing heart or do you have a conditional heart? A conditional heart says, "Lord I'll obey you once you explain this to me and lay out the terms." A wiling heart says, "Lord whatever you want."
Let me ask you this. Have you been obedient to everything that God has already told you? Have you been doing everything that you already know to do? If you have, you can expect God to give you more. If you haven't, He may not give you anything else until you are obedient to what He has already given you. Do you have an obedient heart? A willing heart?
Maybe God's been bringing you through some situations to help you develop that wiling heart. If so, you may feel like you're in the belly of the whale. Maybe you are in a place of darkness and it's all crowded in there and you're not able to look out. Don't panic. God is just bring you to a place of just breaking your spirit so you'll say, "Yes, Lord, whatever You want I will do it." Maybe God is getting you ready. I believe the Lord is not going to let you go. Whatever it takes for you to fulfill His plan, He's going to be very tenacious in hanging on to you to create that willing heart. Maybe today is the day that you'll give up and surrender to His will.
Some of you that are on God's path have to be careful that you don't give in to these preconceptions of what it should be like. When God made you, He made you unique. He made you individual. He made you just like your finger print. Different to anybody else. Don't look at somebody else and look at their path. God has one uniquely designed for you. Don't give in to preconceptions.
But also, don't give in to hurrying. God will work it in you. Be patient. Cooperate with the Spirit and be faithful to the Lord, regardless of how many tests He puts you through God has a plan. He desires to give you a vision for that plan.
In Matthew 25:21 (the parable of the talents), the master says: "you did well, you are a good servant and you can be trusted. You did well with small things so I will let you care for much greater things." That verse emphasizes a spiritual principal: God doesn't put us in charge of the big things until we have demonstrated faithfulness in the small things. Many of us ask the Lord to give us the big things. We ask Him to give us greater levels of prophetic revelation and to increase our anointing. God wants to do this for us, and he will. But first, you have to be faithful with what He has already given you to do. Then He will increase it and He will give you more. But until you have been faithful over the small things, God puts things "on hold." He waits for you to get faithful in what He's already tasked you with before He gives you more responsibility or greater anointing.
So let's look at where to begin, how to become faithful in the small things? What are the things we need to be doing to demonstrate that we are faithful? Where do we begin? Let's start with some very basic, simple and essential elements of the faith. For some of you, these will be very obvious things. But a lot of us have a hard time doing these simple basic things. And we must master them before we can move on to "greater things."
Let's look at the early church. When they were first established, they did certain things, then God blessed them and they were able to expand. Look at Acts Chapter 2. It describes the activities of those first Christians...
Acts 2:42-47, "They joined with other believers and devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and to fellowship, sharing in the Lord's supper and prayer, a deep sense of awe came over them all and the Apostles performed many miracles, signs and wonders and all of the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had, the sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need. They worshiped together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's supper and shared their meals with great joy and generosity and all the while praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people and each day the Lord added to their numbers those who were being saved."
From this, we find five things that I call a "Checklist for Obedience." There are five very basic, simple things that these guys did. I put them to you in the form of a question:
- Are you committed to the word of God?
- Are you fellowshiping with other believers?
- Are you a worshiper?
- Do you have a life style of prayer?
- Are you a generous giver?
Are you faithful in these things? Let's look at them in more detail. There is too much to cover in one lesson, so I will split this into two lessons.
ARE YOU COMMITTED TO THE WORD OF GOD?
From the very beginning, they were devoted to the Apostles' teaching. That teaching is what became our of New Testament scripture. At that time, all they had was the Old Testament, so the Apostles taught them about the life of Jesus. Those teachings were eventually written down and we have them in the word. The early believers devoted themselves to spending some time under authority, under teaching, hearing the word. They were committed and they were devoted to the word. And God wants us to be committed to His word -- you can't get any more simple than that.
What does His word do? Let's look at a couple of passages.
Psalms 119:105 says, "thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" what does God's word do, shines the way.
II Timothy 3: 15-17, "you have been taught the Holy Scriptures from childhood and they have given you the wisdom to receive salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It's God's way preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do."
Scripture does several things. It gives us direction, it shows us where to go. Scripture gives us wisdom. It teaches us how to relate, we know how to treat people and we know what to say. Scripture teaches me what is truth and what is not truth. I can know what truth is because it's found right here in the word; it teaches me what is right and what is wrong. God's word corrects me when I mess up or when I make a mistake. A person might try to correct me and I may not receive it. But I cannot argue with the word of God. It has authority as it corrects. And it prepars me and it equips me to do what God says. We cannot get any more simple than that. If you want to know what God wants you to do, He has given it to us in black and white in His word.
Have you made a real commitment to the word of God? Let me explain how to do that... Be a person who takes in the word, be a receiver of the word. Be someone who listens to the word. Put yourself in a position to hear it, to read it, to study it, to meditate on it. Are you doing this? Good, but it is not enough. We don't just take in the word of God, we also live it, and obey it. If we just listen and then ignore what it says, that does not do us any good. The Bible has a lot of verses that talks about that. James 1:22 says, "do what God's teaching says. When you only listen and do nothing you are fooling yourselves. It has no value if you are not going to do it." You need to be a doer of the word.
If you want to know God's plan for your life, the best place to begin is right there in the instruction manual that He has given you.
ARE YOU FELLOWSHIPING WITH OTHER BELIEVERS?
Acts 2:42 uses the word "fellowship." That is very clear and simple, but if you read on you will see this, "they met constantly together, they worshiped together, they met in each others homes and they shared meals together". These guys had fellowship and they understood fellowship.
In other words, we cannot forsake getting together and having relationship with other people, with the other members of the body of Christ. Hebrews 10:25 says, "you should not stay away from church meetings (as some are doing), you should meet together and encourage each other. Do this even more as you see the day coming." You should hang around other believers, it is important that you do.
Ask yourself these set of questions: Who is your home base of emotional and spiritual support for you to become a reproducing disciple? Who is speaking into your life to do that? Where can you go and who can you go to in order too have some weekly support? Who is speaking into your life? Can you tell me the people who pray for you everyday? Can you tell me those whom you have a relationship with who are praying for you? Who are the people that are encouraging you? Where is your spiritual covering, your spiritual authority? Do you have a relationship with anybody?
Let me warn you about a strategy of the enemy. The bible says that "we are not to be ignorant of his schemes." There is a particular strategy that He works to attempt to take out the believer; it is isolation! He employs this strategy to take you out. When God designed you He didn't make you perfect. In fact, He made you incomplete. He made you to be interdependent upon other members of the body of Christ. If you read I Corinthians chapter 12, you will realize that there is the body of Christ and that you are part of it. The eyes don't work well unless they are attached to the body. Likewise, the legs don't work well without eyes. The body needs to work together. You have a very important part, the body needs you and you need the body. God made you that way -- interdependent upon other believers. That is the way He designed you.
A pastor of a large church in Southern California said, "I was reading the word and I found 30 acts of obedience that you can't even do if you are not connected with the body. You can't encourage, your can't love, I mean there are a lot of things that you cannot do if you are not connected or related to anybody." You can't even obey God, if you are not connected. These are limitations. You need to be related to other people in the body of Christ. If you are not connected and if you are not related, then you will not be a success in the Kingdom of God. You limit your possibilities and you jeopardize your life and you put yourself at risk for failure if other people are not involved with your life and committed to you to build you up.
Let me describe how isolation works. The enemy sets you out here and all of a sudden your relationships get cut off and pretty soon you are by yourself. Then that roaring lion who is seeking someone to devour has real easy prey. Nobody is praying, nobody is protecting, nobody is covering, they are by themselves. We will just cut them off a little bit, get them out there a little bit further, so when they cry for help nobody will hear it. That is how isolation works.
Now, I know for some of you fellowship with other people is not a very natural thing. There are several reasons that this can be difficult. It could be that you have been hurt, you've been wounded. Your ability to relate is very hindered because of the way that you have been hurt in the past. Some of you are just out right introverts, and you are not comfortable with people. Some of you don't take the effort, you kind of let people come to you instead of going out to other people. But fellowshiping with other believers is a discipline that we have to commit ourselves too. It is for your survival, your safety and your protection. You can't be sitting around waiting for everybody to come knocking at your door and say "come join my home fellowship", "come and lets have sweet fellowship together", "lets be buddies". If you are going to wait for that it may never happen.
Fellowshiping is a discipline that we have to commit ourselves too. You have to be in relationship with other people, just to pray for you, to encourage you, to lift you up. Because what happens, after a while, while you are out there your voice is not being heard. And we cannot say that it is the responsibility of everybody else to deal with you. You are going to have to take some responsibility. Take some initiative, its for your safety.
(We will cover the remaining three points on our checklist in our next lesson.)
In the last lesson, we began to explore a spiritual principle, learning that God requires us to be faithful in little before He gives us greater things, such as a stronger prophetic gifting or a greater anointing. (Matt 25:21). We began examining the early church and looked at the "little things" that they were faithful in; the things the did that resulted in being given power and anointing to grow and multiply. We saw in Acts 2:42-47 that there were five basic areas. I have posed these to you in the form of questions:
- Are you committed to the word of God?
- Are you fellowshiping with other believers?
- Are you a worshiper?
- Do you have a life style of prayer?
- Are you a generous giver?
We examined the first two in the last lesson. So let us continue by looking at the remaining ones...
ARE YOU A WORSHIPER?
The passage says that "they gathered together daily for worship". The worshiped the Lord daily at the temple. It says in the very last verse that "they were praising God." There is that one activity that is mentioned a couple of times that is known as the Lord's Supper. That is when Jesus was betrayed on that night and before He died, He gave us this thing to remember what He did -- the Lord's Supper. The bread represents the body and the cup represents the blood that was shed and He says: "as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you are doing it in remembrance of me" and so the act of the Lord's Supper is focusing upon Jesus and what He had done, we call that Worship. When you focus upon the Lord and your attention is upon Him, that is what worship is. And we see these people were very active worshipers. If you search the Bible, you will see just how much worship is in the word of God. In the Old Testament there are around 14 different words that are used for "worship". There are hundreds and hundreds of verses that describe worship in the Old Testament. Coming into the New Testament the word for worship is used about 80 times, 3 different words are used. One of the words for worship is used about 70 times in the New Testament, so it was a priority.
Worship is very, very important and they gave a lot of time and attention to it. When God made you he made you to give glory to your Creator; it is because God reveals His glory to us and then we worship Him. When you give Him glory, basically, you are getting next to God and you get all that happens when the glory comes upon you. You get Him.
When you worship, worship is your key to victory. Worship is your entrance into the presence of God. Worship taps into the power of God. Worship releases great sustaining faith that moves mountains. Worship will bring you great joy and will heal your soul. So when you go through reading the word of God, you will find all of these passages about worship.
Apostle Paul has a lot to say about worship in Colossians 1:12-22. I recommend that you go read this. This passage describes some of the reasons why we worship God. If you are a worshiper and your heart is a heart of a worshiper, as you read this your spirit was crying out, "Yes!" You started thinking about what God did for you by sending His son, you think about the sacrifice on the cross and you think about what He did for you. You start to think about all of that and all of a sudden thankfulness and gratitude begins to rise up in your spirit and praise and you start thinking about how He is above everything. He is the name above every name, he is the image of the invisible God. Praise begins to well up within your spirit and pretty soon you can't hardly contain yourself. You think, "God calls me friend!", I'm His friend! And if you are a worshiper all of this stuff begins to rise up in you.
Now, if you are not a worshiper you would say, "nice passage". That is a nice verse of scripture. See the difference?
Worship is an attitude of the heart. It is an attitude that says that I want to come before God. While you are singing songs, what is going on? You try to figure out the words or you are trying to figure out the tune and all of a sudden your spirit is crying out and you are crying out to God and you are worshiping God or do you just look around and say, "I think that seat looks a little more comfortable than the one that I am in", you know what I mean. What is going on with you during that time? Worshiping, that is what is going on with the worshiper. And what happens when you are a worshiper and you are reading the word, then all of a sudden BANG you get stuck. You are reading through I Timothy Chapter 1 and all of a sudden you get to verse 17 and BANG it says, "now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory for ever and ever. AMEN"
All of a sudden you get to the end and all of a sudden you just stop and say, "Thank you Lord" and all of a sudden this thing arises up within you-that is a worshiper. You can't help it because you are so in love with God and you want to give Him the glory, it is a part of your being and, I tell you what, God is wanting you to become a worshiper. Let me ask you something, "Who is the one who has the plan for you?" It is God. Who is the one who enables you to fulfill that plan? Who is going to give you the power to do it? Who is the one who is going to be protecting you? You is going to be the one who is equipping you? My goodness, do you think that He deserves a little praise and worship! I tell you, worship will keep you plugged into God. If you want to know what God has for you, you are going to have to rub up next to Him a little bit and worship is the way to do it.
Are you a worshiper? You know, worshiping may mean just singing a few songs, but I tell you it is an attitude of the heart, rises up out of the spirit, looks and gazes upon God.
DO YOU HAVE A LIFE STYLE OF PRAYER?
Well that is an obvious one, isn't it? There is only 100 times where "prayer" is used in the New Testament. "Prayer" is used quite a bit. Jesus talked about prayer, always there was this teaching on prayer. The disciples had an emphasis upon prayer. In fact when things got tight and they couldn't hardly pray (these apostles) they organized themselves in such a way that they could pray and spend some time in the word. It was a very important priority for them in their lives and you have to understand, prayer, is the place where you come to God, it is going to be a battlefield, you are going to take territory, you are going to gain things back, you are going to conquer a lot in prayer. A lot of things that will not be conquered any other way, will be conquered in prayer. So you have to have a lifestyle of prayer and Jesus had to teach the disciples over and over again.
In Luke 18:1 it says that one day Jesus told his disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up. He had to resort to telling them stories about it. He had to communicate to them to constantly prayer, never give up, don't stop, always pray. Paul the Apostle said in I Thessalonians 5:17 "never stop praying". You just can't quit.
Reflect back on your last week. How many days were you committed to prayer? O.K. that is enough guilt. (smile) This is one area that the devil is really going to work at to keep you from doing it. He just wants to zap your power supply and therefore he is going to keep you from praying as much as possible. I find that even though I am a person who prays, this is an area that I really have to struggle with. I struggle with it all of the time. It is a discipline that you have to put into your life.
ARE YOU A GENEROUS GIVER?
Are you a generous giver? We see that these guys were great, great givers. It says that "they were sharing things that they had, they were even selling some possessions and meeting needs of people who were in need." It says that "they shared meals and" it says "with great joy and generosity." These guys were generous people. Are you a giver?
Did you know that Jesus talked about giving more than He talked about prayer? He talked about giving more than He talked about being in the word. He talked about giving more than fellowship and He talked about it more than He talked about worship. He spent more time talking about this area, and the reason is because this is an area that people struggle with a lot.
Not only did Jesus talk about it but so did everybody else in the New Testament, not even getting to the Old Testament stuff. The Apostle Paul said this in I Corinthians 16:2, "that on the first day of every week, set aside some of what you earn and give it as an offering." The amount depends on how much the Lord has helped you earn. In the Old Testament it says this, "honor the Lord with your wealth and the first fruits from your crops. Then your barrels will be full and your wine barrels will overflow with new wine." It says to give God the first fruits and not the last fruits, not the leftovers. Don't say, "If I got anything leftover, God, you can have that." That is not what the bible says. It says, give God the first fruits.
When someone tells me, "I don't understand why my barns aren't full. I don't know why my barrels aren't flowing over," The first thing I ask them is: Is He getting the first fruits?
These guys understood real treasures. Matthew 6:19-21 says, "don't store up treasurers here on earth, for the could be eaten by moths, get rusty, were thieves can break in and steal. Store your treasurers in heaven, where they will never become moth eaten or rusty and were they will safe from thieves, for wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be." You can't take it with you but you can send it ahead. That is what this passage is saying. Where is your treasure? Where is your heart?
The question is, "have you been faithful in your finances?" Have you been robbing God? Have you been hanging on what belongs to God? Have you kept back, for yourself, what God has required from you in obedience? And, I really believe that this area is a very important area.
Luke 16:10-11 is one of those passages where Jesus is talking about finances, and He says this, "unless you are faithful in small matters, you won't be faithful in large ones. If you cheat, even a little, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities; and if you are untrustworthy about worldly worth who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?" Here is the bottom line: if you are not faithful with your finances you are limiting how God will use you. You are putting a lid on it. If you are stealing from God, if you are robbing Him, if you are not giving Him the tithe, then you limit how God is going to use you. This is because He can't trust you. God says, "if I can't trust you with the things you can see, how can I trust you with those things you can't see?" And, if you can't be faithful with these things that you can look at and observe how can you be faithful with these other things that you can't? If you think God is going to trust you with the true riches of the kingdom of God when you can't be faithful with your finances, then you are wrong." That is the bottom line.
Some of you say that you cannot afford to tithe. Well you can't afford not to! Who is in charge of your finances? Is God in charge of your finances or is the devourer in charge of your finances? It is one or the other. What happens is that if you rob God, then God will turn you over to the devourer. He simply says, "I would like to protect you but you are not letting me do it. I would like to cover you, but you are not letting me do this. I would like to keep the devour away, but you are not giving me a chance to do this because you are not trusting Me."
Everything we have on this earth will burn up. Your car will break down. Your plumbing will fail. It will all happen. There is nothing on this earth that will not burn up. And yet we are so consumed about making sure that we have this and we have that. Then we hear that God expects us to be faithful in our finances, and we wonder why God would ask that? He asks it because it is an act of trust. Do you trust God? If you do trust God, you will see how God protects, how God stretches, how God meets and you will see God come through. He will do it. And not only that, but you also need to be faithful in this area so God can trust you with the true riches of His kingdom. If you don't obey God in this area of the physical things then you will put a lid on Him. Sure God can use you, and sure God will use you, but you are simply limited. Your disobedience in finances puts a limitation on Him. And that verse explains the truth about why God does it. It is not that He doesn't want to trust you. He really wants too.
When you are obedient in the small things, God will put you in charge of the bigger things. And if you aren't, then He can't. Are you faithful with what God has already given you? Are you faithful with His word? Are you reading it? Are you in it? Are you doing it? Are you faithful in fellowship? Do you have relationship? Are you committed? Are you involved? Are there people speaking into your life? Are you involved with worship? Are you a worshiper? Do you exalt the Lord? Are you a person involved in prayer? Are you faithful in coming to God and just talking to Him? Are you faithful in your finances?
Do you put yourself in a position where God can trust you with greater things? Are you faithful with what you already know? I'm telling you, these are the five simple ones. They are the basics and they are the simple ones. God has a lot more for us, but we have to be faithful with what we already know what to do and God will give you more.
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