Hey, everybody, welcome to our weekly broadcast Business, Money and Christianity, a financial podcast from a faith perspective. I want to let you know what we're going to start doing here over the next few weeks. I've been teaching on money from a biblical perspective in a larger group setting in a church.
And so our podcast over the next few weeks is going to replicate that or take portions of video from that and put it into our podcast. So I want to continue to see you every week. And so stop back by each week.
And today we're going to to launch off in this. And so I hope you enjoy it. Remember to like, share, make comments or whatever. We will get back to you. We do monitor them, but gain something from what I'm going to be talking about over the next few weeks. I look forward to seeing you.
God bless you.
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So tonight—as I told you last month, or maybe it was last week, which was still last month—this month I’m going to focus on money. Actually, I’m titling this message “Manifestation of Divine Provision.”
Now, typically, in a church setting, when people talk about money, it’s taught mainly in terms of tithes and offerings. But that’s not the whole picture. In fact, I’ll probably mention it here and there, but I’m mostly going to talk about the other side of it.
It’s probably not the best thing for a pastor to say—because someone might stop giving—but, by the way, we met our budget. I was going to remind you of that also. So praise God, and thank you for the faithfulness of the people. We met our budget even with the Myers moving out.
But if giving were the only part—if tithes and offerings were the only part—then everyone would have testimonies like the one Ralph just shared. And yet, not everybody does. So why is that?
God says that He is no respecter of persons. So people give offerings—you just saw a number of people come up here and give whatever they were giving: tithes, offerings, missions, or something else. If that were the only factor, then everybody would experience the same type of testimony that Ralph shared, because he talked about several testimonies he has experienced.
But not everybody sees that. And the reason is that there’s another part to it.
Ralph actually said something this time—this is the first time I’ve heard him say it, though he may have said it before. But this time it stood out to me, maybe because of what I’m going to be teaching about. He said that he is looking for the blessing.
That’s part of the other side of this. Because if you give but you’re not looking for the blessing, you might walk right past it.
So I’m going to try—today is really my foundation. I’ve got about eight services planned, and I probably have more information than I can fit into all of them. But I’m going to try to slow down. I’m going to start very basic tonight, and I’ll begin with the title.
That’s pretty basic, isn’t it? Manifestation of Divine Provision.
How many of you realize that this is one of our visions for this year—that we walk in the manifestation of divine provision?
Now, the word manifestation, by definition—when you look it up in the dictionary (and I looked it up in the Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, where the words align more closely with King James English)—you get about fourteen definitions. So I picked the one that best fits what I’m talking about.
It means “an act of disclosing what is secret.”
As we study the Bible, there are many things described as mysteries—hidden things of God. So God wants us to display, to manifest, to disclose what He has created. Actually, this would apply to all realms, but tonight we’re talking about the realm of money.
If you really understand God and His nature, have you ever seen anything in the Bible where God appears broke? No.
Part of the nature of God is that He manifests abundance. So my title says manifestation of divine provision. The word divine means partaking of the nature of God. If I partake of God, then I cannot partake of Him in an environment of lack, because there is nothing about lack in God.
God wants us to take on His nature. And part of His nature is an abundant nature.
Now, many people—typically those who are broke or who live at a very low economic level—turn the wealth statements of Scripture into purely spiritual statements.
For example, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich.” They say, “Oh, I’m just so full of God. His presence is wonderful.” And everything they say may be true. But they’ve taken a statement about wealth and moved it into a purely spiritual category so that it matches their lifestyle.
If I’m going to manifest God, then one element of manifesting God is having more than enough.
Now when we get into the elements of Scripture—like the verse I just quoted, “The blessing of the Lord makes rich”—that Hebrew word is an asset word. It’s a word of abundance. It’s a financial term.
But what does “rich” mean for you and me? There’s really no fixed place. God didn’t say He was going to make everyone a millionaire. He didn’t say He was going to make everyone a billionaire.
From my understanding of the Word of God, everything He says in the realm of wealth points to more than enough. And “more than enough” is different for every one of us.
Some people are comfortable giving God five dollars. In today’s world, the church can’t do very much with five dollars—but they’re okay with it. And for them, “more than enough” might mean having five dollars available to give. Well, that is a level.
If I could illustrate it this way—because we’ve all traveled—there are different kinds of hotels. There’s Motel 6. You may have heard of it. They’ll leave the light on for you, but that’s about all you’re going to get. In a Motel 6, you’ve got a room with four walls. It probably has a window, a door, maybe a small heating and air unit. It’s got a sink, a toilet, a shower, and a little space to move around.
Then there’s a Holiday Inn. It has the same basic things: four walls, a bed, a window, a door, heating and air, a toilet, a shower, and a sink.
Then there’s a Marriott. It also provides those same basic things: four walls, a bed, a toilet, a shower, a sink, a window, a door, and some kind of heating and air unit.
But the difference between those three experiences is huge. And then you can just keep going higher from there.
So what it really comes down to is quality of life. Wherever you’re going, you can stop at a Motel 6. I don’t know what they charge now—it used to be six dollars, but now it’s probably closer to $150. Or you can go to a Holiday Inn. Or you can go to a Marriott.
The quality you experience simply depends on what you are willing to pay for your overnight stay.
So who controls the quality of life? All of us do.
I remember—this was back in the 1990s—there was a hotel in New York that had a penthouse suite at the top. It was huge: big windows, multiple rooms, more than one door, more than one bed. And it cost $15,000 a night back in the ’90s. It was the Waldorf Astoria.
I remember saying, “I would never pay that for a room.” Later, I heard a preacher talk about people who say, “I would never pay that.” And he said, “No, you never will—because you can’t wrap your mind around it.”
To be honest, even today I’m not sure I could wrap my mind around $15,000 a night for a room. I can think of a lot of other things I could do with $15,000.
But let’s bring it back to God.Does God struggle with $15,000 a night? Does He wince, bow His head, or try to avoid the conversation when He hears that number? No.
So if I’m going to manifest the provision of God—and if, from my understanding of Scripture, the blessing and manifestation of God means more than enough—then I am the one who sets the stage for what that looks like.
If you can believe, all things are possible to those who believe.
So it comes back to this: I determine how much of God will manifest through my life.
God has a system through which this works. But let me return to my title: Manifestation of Divine Provision.
Provision means things provided. So if what is provided comes from partaking in the nature of God and is revealed from a secret place, then I have to realize that it is probably more than what I can currently wrap my mind around—or at least the potential of it is far greater than what I can imagine.
God set things up so that you and I can live at whatever level we choose—whatever level of “more than enough” we are willing to believe for. And God will work with us at that level.
For example, I’ll mention Cambodia because that trip really blessed me. I didn’t know the hotel would be as nice as it was. Honestly, I would stay in that hotel anywhere in the world—it was that nice.
And it only cost $40 a night.
That trip, once I arrived and stayed there, became one of the most comfortable trips I’ve ever taken because the hotel was so nice. And I liked that.
Now, I’ve also been to places where we expected to sleep on the ground. One time the Seventh-day Adventists heard we were there. They came to talk with us and said, “We have a guest house you can stay in if you want—free of charge. We just want to bless you.”
We said, “Oh yes, that would be great. We don’t want to sleep on the ground and have rats walking over us.”
So we went in. And it had a wooden bed. Now don’t take that further than what I said—there was no mattress. It was just a wooden bed.
But it was off the ground, okay?
I’ve done the hard things. There wasn’t even a bathroom inside that place. There was just a hole somewhere outside.
So if we’re doing it for God, then we should manifest God. But you and I are limited by our thinking. We think in terms of budgets. We think, “How much money do I have right now? What can I afford?”
My point tonight—let me give you the endpoint, because we’ll talk about it more—is this:
My goal is to see the abundance of God revealed in our natural lives.
Or let me say it this way: God wants us to have more than enough.
Now when I say that, I say it from the standpoint of faith. You and I have to believe that God wants us to have more than enough.
And if we believe that, then we also have to believe that God has prepared a life where we can have more than enough.
So what does “more than enough” mean? Enough is what it takes to live. More than enough is what it takes to live and to give. If I don’t want to give, then all I need is enough.
So now the focus becomes clear: What am I focused on—living or giving?
Of course, the correct answer is giving. But the real question is: What is my focus?
Because each one of us can focus on something different.
There’s a couple I mentioned before—Peter and Betty Burnett. He’s Jamaican and she’s from New York, but they live in Jamaica. Pastor is getting ready to go there again in April. This will be the second or third conference they’ve held on “living to give.” They are trying to change the cultural mindset on an island where poverty has become normal. So they are teaching people to live with a different mindset.
And you know what? When Dr. Myers came here once and preached on living to give, some people actually left the church because of it.
There is often an internal resistance to putting God first—even among people who say they put God first.
Because when it comes to their money, suddenly God is nowhere in sight.
Or they may give—but they don’t deal with the other elements that I’m going to be talking about.
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