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Malachi 3:8-11
Do Not Rob God 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. 11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” says the LORD of hosts; TITHES AND OFFERINGS The major method God uses today to pour out His blessings upon His people is the TITHE (one tenth, 1/10). Is it any wonder that this is the one area where Satan has hindered the majority of Christians from receiving God’s promised blessings? Almost every Christian, at some point in his life, has experienced the attack of the enemy against his finances. Why? Satan has a two-fold purpose to bind and destroy your finances. 1. He wants to stop you from getting your needs met. 2. He wants to hinder you from financing the works of God in the nations of the world. If the enemy can cause you to withhold in giving your tithe and offerings, he will succeed in binding your finances. The key to reaping God’s blessings upon your finances is in developing your relationship with Him, where you are walking in absolute obedience to the divine pattern He has established in His Word concerning giving and receiving. The question many Christians ask is, “Why is it important for me to give my tithes?” In God’s plan of supernatural provision, He intended for the TITHE to be the means whereby He not only blessed and prospered His people, but also whereby the needs of the House of God were supplied. Through this system of giving their tithes, He intended that there BE NO LACK IN THE HOUSE OF GOD. (Excerpt: God’s Victorious Army Bible)
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3 John 2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
God gave us the key to His abundance when He tied man’s life to the seed principle. He said in Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night shall not cease.” The seed principle touches ever area of your life. It is the core of God’s System. It ties you to the Lord. It links you with the Source of life – God Himself! Money is a seed. Sowing includes money, but it is far more than money. Every time you love, you plant a seed. Every time you give a word of encouragement, you plant a seed. Every time you pray for someone, you plant a seed. Every time you have a good thought toward someone, you plant a seed. Everything in life starts with a seed. So, expect harvest in every area of your life. THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The kingdom of God is like sowing a seed. Mark 4:14-15 The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. Words are like seeds. Mark 4:16-20 These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble. Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” We are reading all of that to show you that Jesus said your words are like seeds. For example, if you need healing, find the healing Scriptures. Get them in your heart and speak them out of your mouth. FILL YOUR HEART
You have to fill your heart first. Spend time in the Word of God. Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 1 Timothy 6:17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 MSG Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life. Speaking the Word of God is like planting a seed. Matthew 4:26-29 says, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” AVOID THE NEGATIVE
When we were growing up, no one ever told us about expecting anything but a negatve harvest. People would say, “one of these days you will reap what you sow.” And you will. The truth of the matter is, you can also reap in a positive way. Find out what the Word of God says, and believe it. When you begin to change the way you think, speak, and act.. You will begin to experience far better harvests than you ever have before. Train yourself to say what the Word of God says. Believe that Word. Act on that Word. Whatever it says to do, do it. Then expect a harvest. Galatians 6:8 says, he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. Two kinds of sowing: to the flesh or to the spirit (i.e. what you see in the Word of God). When you’re speaking, talking the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will watch over those words and see to it that they produce a harvest. What’s important is that you get the Word of God down in your heart in abundance. Because when the Word is in your hearts in abundance, that’s what is going to come out of your mouth. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). This is especially critical when you’re facing a crisis. You want the Word of God coming out of your mouth. The Greatest spiritual Law to learn is the Law of SEEDTIME AND HARVEST. It’s the law that God intended for man to operate in Genesis 1:1. God intended for man to be sustained by the seeds he sows. We are talking about Seedtime and Harvest, Sowing and Reaping and also, How to Call In Your Harvest.
Many of us are sowing, but what about reaping? God expects us to receive on every seed that we have sown. But, we are not receiving primarily because we are not aggressive enough. How do you effectively call in your harvest? Genesis 1:29 is foundational. Immediately after God finished creating man, He said to him, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. In other words, seed is for provision. Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. The Phillips Translation says, A man’s harvest in life will depend entirely on what he sows. Your life now is the sum total of the seeds you have sown. If you don’t like what you see, then start sowing different seed. Seeds are designed by God to produce harvests. If you sow negative seeds, then they produce negative harvests. Remember, your thoughts, words, and actions are all seeds. Paul says, when we give our finances, that is like sowing seeds and we can expect harvests. Look at Galatians 6:7 again. Be not deceived! Let that sink in. Don’t let anybody tell you that you are not to expect a harvest, from every seed that you sow. God’s Word says you are! SOWING IS A LIFESTYLE
Growing a few tomato plants in the back yard doesn’t make someone a farmer, nor does planting a vegetable garden. Any more than giving an offering on Sunday makes that individual a sower. A sower is a person who understands the power of the seed and the law of seedtime and harvest. From the very beginning, God intended that you and I be sowers. It is how He planned for our lives to be sustained. Through our sowing, we have the power to determine our own destiny. We see this principle in Genesis 1:28 when God told the first man and woman to have dominion. The Message translation says: Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!... God is saying that through the law of seedtime and harvest, we can actually take charge of our future. Sowing is what got you where you are today and it is how you are going to get to where God wants you to be. Sowing is not a part-time endeavor or a hobby. It is what you are and what you do. Most of us have no idea that the way our lives have turned out is a direct result of the seeds we’ve sown. Like most people, we wake up every morning wondering what will happen next, how will we pay the rent, will our families have enough to eat. It’s never occurred to us that we have the ability to take charge of our lives and destinies. Our lives are on a downward spiral because of the seeds we had sown and we’re still sowing. Thank God you finally hear the truth from God’s Word, and that truth sets you free. The parable of the sower, told by Jesus in Mark, has been called the granddaddy of all parables because it is the blueprint for how God’s kingdom works. Mark 4:3-8, 13: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. 5 Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. 7 And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” 13 And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? Once we understand what it means to be a sower and that our sowing activates the law of seedtime and harvest, the Bible takes on a whole new meaning. Suddenly you can’t get enough of the Word. You are on a quest. You want to understand how to apply the law of seedtime and harvest in a way that would change your life and destiny, as well as the destiny of your family. God will reveal to you that there are different types of seed available to you and how they can produce either good or bad harvests, depending on how you plant them. If I asked you, “what is the greatest Spiritual Law?”
What would your answer be? You might ask, what is a spiritual law? Simply stated, it is a rule or pattern that can be applied to everything in the universe. Now I ask you again, “what is the greatest Spiritual Law?” The greatest spiritual law is the law of SEEDTIME AND HARVEST. The first thing you need to understand about the law of seedtime and harvest is this: EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS ON PLANET EARTH REVOLVES AROUND THIS LAW - including the events in your life. Or to put it another way, the seeds you sow determine how far you go – especially in God’s plan for your life. In order to understand this law, we need to go back to the book of Genesis where everything began: Genesis 1:27-29 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Notice the last word of the scripture is food. It can also mean provision. God is saying, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for your provision.” It’s clear that God intended for us to make provision for our lives by sowing. The act of sowing not only makes provision for us and sustains us, it also represents what we are and what we do. We are sowers and we sow. You may work as a mechanic; you may be a teacher; perhaps you are a doctor. But from God’s perspective, although you may be gifted in your vocation (in other words, your job, or career), the work that you do is not how He intends for you to sustain your life or something you do to earn a living. God intends for our jobs to provide a means for us to earn a giving. Pastor has taught us that. Our jobs are nothing more than a means for us to have seed to sow. Don’t brush me off now! Stay with me! This is probably new to most of us. Notice I said us. We cannot limit ourselves to a paycheck because we were created to be sowers. Our income is determined by our sowing, not by what we get paid. You might say, I don’t have several avenues for additional income, or I’m on a fixed income. Although we don’t realize it, when we make statements like that, we are actually limiting ourselves by our confession. Well, if we’ll do what the Word of God says, we can change some things. And the first step is making the decision to become a sower. Remember when He rained angel’s food, manna. Supernatural food fell out of the sky. They still had to leave the tent to pick it up. They couldn’t stay in the tent and make confessions and wait on God or His angels to bring it to them. He gave them instructions on how to do it, how not to do it.
Why? Because the gathering is our job. The gathering, reaping, harvesting. He enables us to do it but we must do it and we should be diligent in doing it. People don’t get too excited about this. You mean I’m responsible for something else? Yes! Because it answers the question about some things, why it hasn’t happened or happened in a certain way.. We must beware of taking a Truth and making it THE TRUTH, The only truth. Think about what would have happened with Jesus during the temptation. If all He had known was a truth. Matthew 4:6 and (Satan) said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” And He thought that was the only truth. That when the enemy told Him to jump off. That this is true. What would He have had to counter it or modify it? There was another truth. Matthew 4:7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ” It made all the difference in the world how He responded. What He did. And the outcome of the situation.. It is true that you sow good seed in good ground. That’s how you get a multiplied harvest. It is true that you make good confessions over it. But, is that the only truth? Is that all there is? No, that’s not all there is to it. We’ve learned some things about sowing, about confessions. Do you suppose we could learn more things about harvesting, about reaping? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Could your faith get all stirred up and your faith begins to soar and learning how to lay hold of the harvest, learning how to be led by the Spirit. Learning how to show up at the right time and know the right thing to say and the right thing to do. And it will be like Dominoes. One effects the other and the next thing you know you got this great pile of money! Maybe God doesn’t want me to have it. That’s you not knowing Him. That’s the problem with most of the church world. We are talking about our responsibility to reap. There are people that go to church that believe it’s God’s responsibility to get people born again, get people saved. Can you see the subtlety of the enemy in trying to relegate everything to God? It’s up to Him! Whether I reap 100, or 60, or 30-fold or no fold. It’s up to Him. It’s up to Him whether I know anything about the gifts of the Spirit or speaking in tongues. It’s up to Him… It’s all up to Him! Is it now? Is it up to Him whether everybody on this planet is born again or not? Are the people that are lost really waiting on Him to be born again? To be saved? No they are not! But millions think, if there is a God, it’s out of our hands. No, it’s not all up to Him! He is Almighty. He does know the end from the beginning. He is all powerful and everywhere present. However, in His Wisdom and in His Power, He has ordained that some things be up to us. And you can’t leave up to Him what He has left up to you. You can’t tell Him, Lord it’s Your move, when He’s already told you it’s your move. How would a game of checkers ever be complete? That sounds silly, but millions on the earth are waiting for God to move and He’s waiting on them to move. SO NOTHING HAPPENS, NOTHING! People must come to understand that we have responsibilities. We must come and confess Him as Lord. He was ready before we did it. WE MUST receive our healing by faith and yield to the Spirit. WE MUST receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit and yield our tongues by faith. WE MUST sow seeds and we must reap by faith! DO YOU BELIEVE IT OR NOT? He gives we gather. Say, He gives I gather. The question is what kind of gather are you? Good? Diligent? Somebody say I’m a good gatherer.! I believe there must be a generation that excels in reaping because one is hooked to the other. Somebody might say what about the harvest? That’s what we are talking about. If you don’t know how to reap little stuff, you don’t know how to reap big stuff either. You don’t know how to reap natural stuff, nor do you know how to reap spiritual stuff. It’s the same principle. When you learn how to exercise faith in those principles, He will take you on to larger things that have eternal impact and show you how to use the same principle to believer for a harvest in a community, city, state, country. But, don’t kid yourself. You don’t know how to believe how to pay your electric bill. And yet you have all this faith to reap spiritual harvests. Don’t kid yourself! It is not true! Read Luke 16 carefully and you will see that principle repeated. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in sowing and reaping?
Is reaping automatic? No! Why would we think it is? It’s certainly not that way in the natural. Why would we presume it’s that way spiritually, when He gives us the natural example of sowing and reaping to teach us about spiritual sowing and reaping? In passage after passage He compares the two. Doesn’t He? Let’s get more established in the truth we are talking about. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you’ve thought wrong for a while, you don’t need to leave thinking this is my idea, something I came up with. You need to see this in the Word of God or else not accept it. We’ve already looked at scriptures that say very plainly that we can sleep through harvests. Looking at the wrong things and not reap your harvest. Jeremiah 5:24 They do not say in their heart, “Let us now fear the Lord our God, Who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season. He reserves for us the appointed weeks of the harvest.” The Young’s Literal Translation (YLT) says, And they have not said in their heart, `Let us fear, we pray you, Jehovah our God, who is giving rain, the sprinkling and the gathered, in its season, the appointed weeks of harvest He keepeth for us.' Sowing is for us to do! Harvest is for us to do! In Psalm 104:27, it talks about How God meets their needs. “These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season.” When are we able to reap? In due season. Not before due season. You can’t go out and reap tomatoes until they are on the vines. You can’t produce the tomatoes. That’s the part that is God’s responsibility. But you can pick the tomatoes. Say that. I can pick the tomatoes. Certainly you don’t expect God to pick them, do you? Everybody knows that we pick the tomatoes. But there would be no tomatoes except that God had created them. They never would have existed. We look at the creation and marvel. Tomatoes came out of God. Bananas, string beans, watermelons…. We take all these for granted because it has always been around before we got here. But, there was a time when none of this was here. This all came out of God. The reason we can still eat ice cold watermelon is because of those little black things (the seeds) we spit out. Because in those little things is the watermelon. It’s in there. Isn’t it amazing? It’s a miracle. Imagine this. We take this amazing thing that God has given us and we put it in the soil (which is amazing) which God created, and this seed does its thing. And the vines spread all over, and the watermelon grows and grows. It’s ripe now! We don’t sit at home and cry because God didn’t bring us the watermelon. Do we? He gave us the seed. He gave us the ground. Do we really expect Him to do everything for us? We know we can go out and get the watermelon. That’s something we can do. Actually, it’s a privilege. He has allowed us to do that. He’s allowed us the privilege and responsibility of sowing and the privilege and responsibility of reaping. Both are ours. Psalm 104:28 What You give them they gather in; You open Your hand, they are filled with good. HE GIVES WE GATHER. Say that aloud. He gives, we gather. He said, You open your hand and they are filled with good. The reason we have something to gather is because He opened His hand. He multiplied it. He increased our sowing but He doesn’t harvest it for us. He doesn’t reap it for us. He doesn’t gather it for us. Remember when He rained angel’s food, manna. Supernatural food fell out of the sky. They still had to leave the tent to pick it up. They couldn’t stay in the tent and make confessions and wait on God or His angels to bring it to them. He gave them instructions on how to do it, how not to do it. Why? |
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