Join Ashley and Carlie Terradez for God Wants You Rich Part 4. God wants to be your provider. He is able to give you all sufficiency for all things so that you can have an abundance for every good work. God’s plan for you to be rich is not for selfishness but so that you can do good things. Learn how to activate God’s promises for prosperity in your life in this powerful episode.
You can purchase this entire series in your favorite format:
The primary scriptures explored in God Wants You Rich Part 4 are 2 Corinthians 9:8 and Proverbs 13:4.
Transcription
Ashley:
Did you know the blessing of the Lord makes one rich and he adds no sorrow to it? In today’s program, we’re going to look at practical things you can do to activate the blessing of the Lord in your life.
Speaker 2:
Why live a normal life when you could be living the abundant life? Welcome to the Abundant Life Program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.
Ashley:
Hello and welcome to the Abundant Life Program. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today here in the lounge, praise God. We are looking at the blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and he adds no sorrow to it. This has been a fascinating subject. We’re in the middle of a series here. We’re talking about how the blessing of the Lord makes one rich. And we’ve gone through a lot of things. We’ve established a lot of things about being rich and about having an abundance and about how God is our supplier. God is our provider, praise God. And we’ve been looking at a number of things and about how that God wants to be Jehovah-jireh in our life.
Carlie:
Absolutely.
Ashley:
And he wants to be a provider-
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
And how the blessing of the Lord makes one rich. About how in second, we looked at second Corinthians nine and eight, where it says that “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance to every good work.” Meaning that it’s not just our needs that are met.
Carlie:
Right.
Ashley:
God wants to meet our needs, but also he wants us to have extra, to be able to be a blessing. The true purpose of prosperity is not just to have your needs met, but it’s to have extra, have abundance, so that you can help other people and be givers, praise God, and bless other people. It’s been God’s intention all along. Old Testament, New Testament. That’s the truth, amen. So when we’re talking about being rich, it’s not a selfish thing. It’s actually a selfless thing to believe for extra so that you can help more people. Amen.
Carlie:
Amen. Good stuff.
Ashley:
Amen. It’s good stuff, isn’t it? Well, today we’re looking at some things that… What can activate the blessings of the Lord? So we looked at the spiritual truth is, if you’re born again, you’re already prosperous in your spirit. God’s already positioned you as a prosperous person. I say there’s two types of Christians, right?
Ashley:
There’s those who are blessed and believe it. And there’s those who are blessed and don’t believe it. The fact is when you get born again, Jesus paid for your prosperity. Second Corinthians eight and nine, second Corinthians, chapter eight, verse nine. Again, a financial verse says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, yet though he was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor, so the us, you and me, through his poverty might be made rich.” So the spiritual truth of your position, if you’re born again is you’re already prosperous. You are rich in the Lord, praise God. You are rich in possessions. Even if you don’t see it in the natural.
Carlie:
Absolutely. You know, this reminds me of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. It said when Joseph was naked, stripped naked on the auction block, waiting to be sold, auctioned off as a slave, God looked upon him and saw that he was a prosperous man. How can God see somebody who’s about to be sold in slavery and call him a prosperous man? That’s because prosperity isn’t what we have, it’s who we are.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
We are prosperous the minute we accept Jesus as our Lord and savior. We become prosperous on the inside. It’s who we are. There are riches on the inside of us. They’ve been deposited in us. That’s part of our DNA now. It’s who we are. We set up to prosper. We have been designed in this life to succeed-
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
And succeed in every area.
Ashley:
Amen. That’s so good. So that’s your spiritual truth. That’s who you are in Christ, but you know what? We have to get it from the spirit out into the natural, right? From the supernatural to the natural, we have to get it from our spirit to our soul. Because you know, at the end of the day, when you go into a store or you go into a car dealership or you go anywhere… You go into a travel agent, go to an airline and you want to buy something, they’re not going to listen. If you just say, “Well, I’m spiritually prosperous. Don’t worry about it. I’m spiritually prosperous-”
Carlie:
Let me pay with a hug.
Ashley:
No, they want to see-
Carlie:
They want to see your money.
Ashley:
They want to see prosperity manifest. They want to see some money. You know when me and Carlie first got married, we had no money. I tell people we were so poor, we couldn’t pay attention. That will hit you later. I remember going to the store one time and I didn’t even have enough money to buy coffee or cereal.
Carlie:
That was a bad day.
Ashley:
And I had to make a decision. I mean, that was a bad day. And there’s been times in our life where we’ve had lack and we haven’t been able to do what we’ve wanted to do. Hadn’t been able to buy the things we’ve wanted to buy. But you know what? God’s… That doesn’t change who you are on the inside. But the fact is that the prosperity starts on the inside. You have to see yourself prosperous. You have to see yourself as God sees you. And then once you start seeing that, you can do some things practically to see it manifest.
Carlie:
Absolutely.
Ashley:
So really this is the balance between grace and faith. You know, everything we receive from God is through Jesus. Amen. Jesus paid the price for everything for you to live a life of godliness, praise God. Everything you need. Whether it’s healing, righteousness, provision, peace, Jesus paid the price for that. I like to say that Jesus really is grace personified. When Jesus came down, that was the supernatural ability of God. That was God’s provision to us. That’s the grace part. But our part by faith is to receive that. Is to receive those promises. In all the promises of God are yes and amen. God said, “Yes, I want to give it to you.” Now it’s up to us to say, “Amen. I receive it.” And your part is by faith. Now here’s the thing. We’re not doing something. We’re not acting in faith to make God do something. God’s already done it.
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley:
I remember in the old days, I used to believe that if I have faith, I can move the arm of God.
Carlie:
You can convince him into it.
Ashley:
You can convince God into it. Let me tell you, God’s arm already moved 2000 years ago in the form of Jesus. God’s already done everything he’s going to do, praise God in your life. He’s done it already. Now what your faith does really is move you. It moves your heart to position yourself to receive what God’s already done for you.
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley:
Your faith is going to release the promises of God in your life. So there are things we have to do. If you go too far into grace, you’d just be like, “Well, que sera sera. God said I’m going to be rich. God said I’m going to be righteous. God said I’m going to have peace. It’s just going to happen.”
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley:
And you go off in that ditch. But if you get to far into faith and get into works and go, “I’ve got to do these things, do these things, to make it happen.” Now, the fact is, its already happened in your life. Your faith is going to activate it. And that’s what we’re going to look at today, when its talking about in Proverbs 10:22, one of our key scriptures for this series in Proverbs 10:22, it says, “The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and he adds no sorrow to it.” So we know that God has moved to make us prosperous. He’s already provided for us.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
He’s already given us that. Now what do we do in response? What’s our faith response to that? And there’s two things that really struck me in Proverbs that really helps explain what our part is by faith.
Ashley:
And these two verses are… The first one is the… This is Proverbs 11:25. So Proverbs 11:25 if you got your Bibles. Proverbs 11 verse 25 says, “The generous soul will be made rich. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself.” So there’s something there we can do to activate that blessing, the riches that God’s promised us, and that’s generosity. That’s generosity. When we give… The verse before that, Proverbs 11:24 said, “There’s one who scatters, yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, and it leads to poverty.” You might say, “Ashley, I haven’t got enough to give as it is.” Well, the reason why you might not have enough is because you haven’t been sowing seed. You haven’t been actually scattering what you do have. See, we’re meant to scatter some seed and that seed is going to reproduce. It’s going to increase.
Ashley:
Second Corinthians nine and 10 says that the Lord provides seed to the sower and increases the seed that you sow. So if you’re withholding, you’re not sowing seed, it’s going to lead to poverty. That’s the first thing is the generous soul. We may look at that in another program because the generous soul, there’s so much in that. God is a generous spirit. Psalm 51. God’s spirit is generosity. He is the author of generosity. .hat’s part of his nature. His nature is generosity. His nature is to give, praise God. So, that’s Proverbs 11:24. The second thing that I believe activates the riches of the Lord, that activates that blessing, is in Proverbs 13:4. So Proverbs 13:4 puts it this way. It says, “The soul of the lazy man desires, and has nothing; But the soul of the diligent man shall be made rich.”
Ashley:
Let me say that again. Proverbs 13:4. “The soul of the diligent man shall be made rich.” So we know it comes from the Lord. The blessing of the Lord makes one rich and he adds no sorrow to it. Proverbs 10:22. But the soul of the diligent man shall be made rich.
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley:
So our part in this is diligence and generosity. God provides and then we activate it by our diligence and our generosity.
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley:
And today I really want to look at the diligence, the diligent hand, the diligence soul that makes rich. And what it means to have a diligent hand. What it means to actually activate this in the natural.
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Ashley:
Because we talked about this in a previous program. When we moved up to Bible school, we left a business and we ended up moving to the other end of the country. And I figured, ‘You know what, I’m going to Bible school.” This was in 2006. “I’m going to be a full-time minister. I can just pray and money will appear.”
Carlie:
Sounds good. [crosstalk 00:08:32].
Ashley:
Amen. I mean, in fact it worked one time. When I was younger I was a youth pastor, and I remember praying to God very earnestly. And it’s amazing we think that if we pray really earnestly, God’s going to hear us.
Carlie:
Like when we really mean it?
Ashley:
Like the more earnest you pray, the more he’s going to hear us and understand us. Like he was hard of hearing or something. And the more… You know what? God’s not into us begging him. God’s into us coming to him in confidence and saying, ” Lord, I know what your word says. I know what you’ve promised me. And I receive that.”
Ashley:
But at the time I was begging God. I was like, “God, I just need this 10…” At the time, it was 10 pounds. 10 English pounds, which is about $15. And I was like, “God, I need this 10 pounds.” I was begging God, “I need this 10 pounds. You can just rain money out of Heaven.” And this is literally my prayer. And I laid in my bed and I picked up a book, I think it was a CS Lewis book, and I opened this book and out floated 10 pounds. Hit me right in the face.
Carlie:
Wow.
Ashley:
Thought the Lord has answered my prayers. He’s rained money from heaven.
Carlie:
That’s probably a present from your grandma.
Ashley:
That’s what happened. Someone put that 10 pounds. They put that bank note in that book as a blessing and just so happened, as I prayed it, I opened the book and it hit me. Hey, I received it. I received it as a miracle. The timing and everything else. That was awesome. But that’s not normally how God provides for us. Normally God will provide through the work of our hands, through our diligence. I tell people, “Give God something to work with.” You know, a hundred fold of nothing is nothing. You have to give God-
Carlie:
That’s basic math.
Ashley:
Amen. You have to give God something to work with. And every time there’s a supernatural… Every time there’s an example of supernatural provision in the word of God, whether it’s Old Testament or New Testament, people are asked to put their hand to something.
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley:
The widow woman, second Kings four, she had to pour out that oil. She had to get the empty oil jars… This is second Kings, chapter four. She got the oil empty vessels, she got the oil jars, she poured it out, she followed the instructions, the oil supernaturally increased, filled those jars up. Then she went and sold that oil, and she lived off the profits. Maybe the axe head, when they were building a bible school, the guy had this fancy ax and he’s like, “Yeah, look at my fancy axe.” And he swung it and then the axe head fell off into the river and he’s like, “Oh no, it was borrowed.” Imagine someone having a car on finance. “Look at my fancy ride.”
Carlie:
Oh no, it’s borrowed!
Ashley:
It was financed, yeah! “My axe is financed. Oh, now I’m in trouble.” And guess what happened? The prophet came along, got a stick, said “Where was it dropped in? Over there? Okay.” Threw the stick in [inaudible 00:10:43] axes don’t float, but they had to do something in the natural. They took that stick and threw that stick in.
Carlie:
God takes your own natural efforts and he puts his supernatural to it.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
And often too, we need to respond. And our faith works the same for anything. We’re talking about using our faith here in the area of finances, and in the area of diligence. Nobody just wakes up one day and finds themselves saved. No one just wakes up one day and finds himself healed, okay? There needs to be a response to what God has already done. And what we’re talking about here is diligence is a response of faith. It’s a response of faith to the promise, the blessing that God has already spoken over us and spoken into us. I remember one time we were going… We were at Bible college, actually. We were going through… Many of our hardship stories were when we were at Bible college, funny enough. But we were at Bible college, and Ashley was working part-time to pay expenses and different things.
Carlie:
And all of our money, all of our cash, was tied up in vehicles because Ashley was buying and selling cars.
Ashley:
That’s right.
Carlie:
I remember I knew things were pretty tight when you’d say to me, “Don’t go shopping this week.” “Go easy on the groceries.” I knew that things were pretty tight. It was kind of feast or famine, right? And so we had money, but it was all tied up in cars. Our outside of our house… We lived in a farmhouse and there’s a big courtyard and there’s about 10 cars sitting out there. So all of our money was tied up in vehicles. Which was great, but you can’t take one of the cars to Walmart and pay for your groceries. They won’t accept that. They want the money for it. So we had these cars for sale, but they weren’t selling were they?
Ashley:
Right. Nope.
Carlie:
And it was getting… I was just getting frustrated. I was in the kitchen, washing the dishes, just moaning to the Lord about the situation. Like, “What is the problem here?” A little bit like when the Israelites were brought out of the promise… Brought out of Egypt, going into the Promised Land. Like, “Have you brought us out here to die?” I was really… I wasn’t being very diligent. I really had a bit of an attitude about it. And I was washing the dishes hastily. You know when you do that, there’s lots of clanging and banging of dishes. And I’m just moaning to the Lord like, “If you brought us out here to starve, we’ve got to take care of these kids and it’s just not looking like we’re going to make it.” Like, “What is the problem, Lord? I know the blessing that you’ve spoken over us, but what on earth is stopping this financial blessing from being released in our family?”
Carlie:
And he said to me something that I’ll never forget. He said, “You’ve forgotten that you’re blessed. You’ve forgotten that you’re blessed. You’ve got to put your hand to something. You’ve forgotten that you’re blessed.” And it just hit me. If I was really expecting to receive that abundance, I needed to be prepared for it. When you really believe something, you get ready for it don’t you? [crosstalk 00:13:22]
Ashley:
James two says that faith without works or faith without corresponding actions is dead. So really, if you really believe something, you’re going to act on it, you’re going to do something to show that you believe.
Carlie:
Yeah, and diligence has action to it.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
And I’m like, “What is that?” And I just felt like… We had a farmhouse kitchen and in our farmhouse kitchen, that’s where, whenever we actually sold a car, someone would come in and they’d sit down at the dining table and fill out the paperwork wouldn’t they? And it was… I looked at this table and it was stacked up with coloring books, and kids’ homework, and lunchboxes, and glue, and glitter, and leftover… It was like chaos central all over that table. And I’m like, “You’re right, Lord!” And so I just felt really impressed. I need to clear off this table, and clean the kitchen, and prepare for Ashley to walk through the door with a buyer for the car to fill out the paperwork on that table.
Ashley:
Right.
Carlie:
So that my act of diligence, my act of faith in that moment might have seemed pretty insignificant. But I’ll tell you, by cleaning off that table and setting my hand to something, it was my act of preparing for rain.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
And it was powerful. And it wasn’t a long time after that, that the phone started ringing and people started showing up and we’d sold like three cars in that one day. But it began with simply taking God at his word and performing an act of diligence and faith in order to prepare for that blessing to manifest.
Ashley:
Amen. There really is… There’s a blessing in diligence. There’s a blessing in putting your hands to something and being diligent. We’ve got so much more to share on this and about practical things you can do to see the blessings of the Lord manifest in your life. To see that riches that God’s promised us. The blessing of the Lord makes one rich. Well, there’s practical things we can do to see those riches manifest, praise God. So I want to share some things about Terradez ministries with you now, and you’re going to be really blessed by these and are they going to empower you. So let’s watch these together.
Speaker 4:
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Ashley:
We’re looking at the fact that the blessing of the Lord makes one rich and he adds no sorrow to it. And, praise God, we’re talking about the work of our hands. We’re talking about diligence and about some practical things you can do to see those riches, to see that prosperity manifest in your life, praise God. But before we do that, we have a testimony. We have a viewer that’s written in. If you want to write to us at our address, there it is on the screen. It’s Terradezministries.com, or you can call that number. And we’d love to hear from you. We’d love to pray for you, and we’d love to receive your testimony. So, we’ve got a testimony here, Carlie?
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
Who’s it from?
Carlie:
So this is from Amy in Portland, Oregon. And she said she attended a healing conference that we had there over a year ago now. She says that she was unable to move her right arm and was facing her fourth neck surgery, so pretty serious, to repair a previous fracture. “As soon as Carlie said, ‘Someone with a major neck injury is being healed right now’, my arm began to beat like a heart. I could feel it move. I felt the touch of God. It’s been almost a year now and God has healed me in so many different areas. I had a CT scan following up on my neck last Friday, and the results showed that there was no fracture, no [inaudible 00:16:40]. It was better than it was before. I’m strong now. I can even do pushups on my knuckles, which I never could do before.”
Ashley:
Wow. Amen. I remember that actually.
Carlie:
She’s better than she was before the injury.
Ashley:
I remember that conference. We did a live event. We do live events all around the world. Literally you can go to our website, Terradez Ministries, to see when we’re going to be near you. But I remember that event in Portland, Oregon. I remember after Carlie ministered on healing-
Carlie:
We had a testimony line didn’t we?
Ashley:
We had a testimony line. And I was on the stage with a microphone and the people coming through testifying one by one, and I was holding the microphone. And the way I was positioned, I grabbed this lady’s like shoulder-
Carlie:
On her shoulder, I remember.
Ashley:
Pretty sternly too because I was all excited. There’s been this testimony, so I grabbed her [crosstalk 00:17:20]
Carlie:
Then she’s like, “I have a fractured neck.”
Ashley:
I was like, “Tell me how the Lord has healed you!” She said, “Well, I’m due for neck surgery. I’ve got really bad, weak neck.” and all this. I’m like, “Oh, I guess it’s healed now then.” Praise the Lord, it was healed.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
She wasn’t in pain. But that was a powerful testimony. So let us know. If you’ve received from the Lord, let us know. We’d love to hear your testimonies, Praise God. God is still in the miracle business. He’s still healing people. It’s still his will for you to be well, amen. So if you’ve got a testimony, even if it’s not on healing, maybe it’s financial, relationship, restoration, whatever it is. We’d love to hear your testimonies and read them out here online. [crosstalk 00:17:55] We’re looking at the diligent soul, makes rich praise God. The soul of the diligent should be made rich. And we’ve got some practical things. You know, work, whatever you put your hand to, is a blessing. God’s going to bless the works of your hands.
Ashley:
And there’s so many scriptures we could read about how God’s going to bless the works of your hands, but sometimes we don’t put our hands to anything so God’s not able to bless it. I was mentioning a few times in the Old Testament where they put their hands to something and there’s a supernatural blessing. We could go into the New Testament, the water into wine. They filled the water pots up, John two. In John, chapter two. And it turned into wine. They had to do something in the natural. And then God’s super came along. The feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000. They had loaves and fish. They did something in the natural. Jesus sat the people down in ranks. He blessed the loaves and fish, distributed it, and it increased. There was a natural action before the supernatural increase.
Carlie:
It’s fascinating to me-
Ashley:
Peter went and caught fish. Fishing rod.
Carlie:
In all of these examples-
Ashley:
Paid the taxes. Coin.
Carlie:
He did. All of these examples-
Ashley:
Natural. Supernatural.
Carlie:
God starts with something that they have.
Ashley:
Amen. Yep.
Carlie:
He doesn’t ask them to go and do something completely unrelated.
Ashley:
Right. It’s usually [crosstalk 00:00:18:58] Yeah. Yeah.
Carlie:
It usually starts with what you have.
Ashley:
It usually starts with what you have in your house or what you have in your hand. And there’s the work of your hands. And let me show you a few things, because people say, “Well, now we’re blessed. We’re under grace and anything else. We don’t need to work anymore.” And when I’m talking about work, it could be employment, it could be a small business, it could be… If you’re a full time student, are you diligent in what you’re doing? If you’re a full-time parent, are you diligent in that? Whatever you’re doing, day to day, whatever it is your work, where is the work of your hands? Are you diligent? Are you being faithful in that? And I want to show you a few things here. First of all, in Genesis 2:15, you don’t have to try and keep up with me. We’ll put the scriptures on the screen.
Ashley:
But in Genesis 2:15, “The Lord took man and put him in the garden to tend and to work it.” So God’s original plan for man was to work. It was to actually be creative, actually work, put his hands to something. That was before the fall. That was before Adam and Eve disobeyed God. In the perfect world. And when God created Adam, he put him in the garden, Genesis 2:15, and he said, “Now work this garden [crosstalk 00:19:54] tend and keep it.”
Carlie:
He also had a job before he had a wife.
Ashley:
That’s a good tip right there.
Carlie:
Now preach.
Ashley:
Adam had a job before he had a wife. So basically, if you want to date my daughter, you better have a job. [inaudible 00:20:03] so praise God.
Carlie:
If you’re believing for a wife, get a job.
Ashley:
Amen. In fact, I have a pastor friend and he tells people… When he marries these young people, he says, “Okay, you got to be out of consumer debt and you’ve got to have a savings account.” And I think it’s $10,000 he asks them to save up.
Carlie:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s a lot of money.
Ashley:
And these 19, 20 year olds all of a sudden get out of consumer debt-
Carlie:
They have motivation.
Ashley:
Get out of consumer debt, I know! And save that $10,000 in a heartbeat. I’ve seen it happen two or three times because they can’t get married. He won’t marry them in his church until they do that.
Carlie:
It’s wisdom though because [crosstalk 00:20:29] financial stress is one of the number one causes for a marriage breakdown.
Ashley:
That’s right.
Carlie:
So if you can be prepared in that area [crosstalk 00:20:38] Takes the pressure off.
Ashley:
So what happened then… What happened in Genesis three… Genesis three, after the fall, Adam and Eve disobeyed God, that’s another whole story. They disobeyed God. And in Genesis 3:17, God speaks to Adam and he says, “Cursed is the ground for your sake.” Now notice, God didn’t curse the grounds. It wasn’t, “God cursed the ground. God cursed Adam.” No, because Adam disobeyed God, the ground became cursed. So God says to Adam, “Cursed is the ground for your sake; and all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread.”
Ashley:
What happened was after the fall, after Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the ground became cursed. And now, instead of just having fruit and just having vegetables and things growing out of the ground, there was thorns and thistles. For the first time, there was thorns in the ground.
Carlie:
So work was hard now.
Ashley:
Yeah. And some of these thorns, these big, long thorns… So now Adam was going about doing his work, but work became hard. Work became painful. Work could become frustrating. It was actually, Adam was doing the same amount of effort, but it was getting less results. [crosstalk 00:21:35] It was getting painful.
Carlie:
Before that time, work wasn’t any of those things.
Ashley:
No.
Carlie:
It was just a blessing.
Ashley:
It was a blessing.
Carlie:
It was easy. It wasn’t that difficult.
Ashley:
Working was a blessing. Work was joyous. Work was productive.
Carlie:
Fruitful.
Ashley:
Now work became stressful. It became painful. Sometimes frustrating. There’s some great verses on this. Haggai 1:6 says it’s like earning wages that you put in a bag and the bag has holes in it.
Carlie:
Goes straight through the other side.
Ashley:
Maybe you have that experience. Maybe your month is longer than your paycheck. Maybe your business is never quite getting ahead. Maybe whatever you’re doing, it doesn’t seem to quite produce enough. I love this in Proverbs… Well, I don’t like it, but he’s a good example. Proverbs 23:5 says, “Riches can grow themselves wings and fly away.” Maybe you’ve experienced that. You are bringing home the bacon, if you like-
Carlie:
Money just goes. [crosstalk 00:22:17].
Ashley:
And the money is just gone. Okay. So this can be the curse of the work of your hand. Because after the fall, Adam and Eve disobeyed and now a work became frustrating and work became hard. And it was almost a curse. Then, how many of you know that Galatians 3:13… We’ve already read this verse in previous programs. Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law.
Carlie:
And that’s good news.
Ashley:
So we’ve already been redeemed from this. And everything Jesus did redeemed us back to our original intention. Back to our original state, praise God. You may remember in Matthew 27, they made a crown of thorns and they actually set it on Jesus’ head. This is Matthew 27:29. They said they made a crown of thorns and forced it onto Jesus’ head so that blood ran down his brow.
Ashley:
So what they did was they took those thorns out of the ground. The guards thought they were just mocking Jesus as a king. But everything that happened was redemptive. And they took those [crosstalk 00:23:07] thorns out of the ground, twist it into a crown, put it on Jesus’ head and not just the sweat of his brow, but actually blood poured down in his brow right there. And right at that moment, Jesus redeemed you from the curse, the work of your hands.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
Right at that moment. He said, “Now, whatever you put your hand to is blessed. Now whatever you do as unto the Lord is going to be blessed and it’s going to prosper.” And there’s literally a dozen verses I could read you right now about how the works of your hands are blessed. Everything he does prospers.
Carlie:
So it’s supposed to be fruitful.
Ashley:
Amen!
Carlie:
Our work is supposed to be fruitful. It’s not like before the fall and after the fall because Jesus changed everything.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
He changed everything. So things that were challenging and difficult before and unfruitful, now there’s a blessing that has been enacted over us.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
And we can place a demand on that blessing.
Ashley:
Amen. We really can. So now you need to believe that. Now you need to realize, “You know what, whatever I put my hand to is blessed.” So make sure you’re speaking words of life over your workplace, over your business, over whatever you put your hand to. Say, “Lord, I thank you. All the works of my hands are blessed. Thank you.”
Ashley:
Deuteronomy 28. You say you command a blessing on the works of my hand. “Thank you Lord for Proverbs one. Thank you Lord for Psalm one. Whatever I do prospers.” You start speaking those things out and start actually believing that the works of, your hands are blessed and you’re going to see your words are going to change things. Don’t speak out, “Well, I never get ahead. I always get overlooked for promotion. Oh, whatever I do doesn’t seem to work out. I’ve tried doing a small business, it didn’t work. I’ve tried doing this buying and selling, it didn’t work. I tried this once, it didn’t work. It just seems the money goes. I never really… Whatever I do it never seems to work out.: That’s not a good confession.
Carlie:
What you’re saying right there, is potentially life-changing for people.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
Let’s not breeze on past this because I can tell you the words of your… Life and death are in the power of your tongue.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
There are many of us that are living way below the standard that Jesus had designed for us, that paid for us to live in, simply because we are cursing the fruit of our hands, the fruit of our labors with our own lips. It’s not even other people being the enemy.
Ashley:
Right.
Carlie:
It’s not even the devil. Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy. What we’re actually saying here is so powerful because it’s simply… I mean, Jesus gave us this example, didn’t he?
Ashley:
Right.
Carlie:
When took the loaves and the fishes. And you can see several accounts in gospels, as Jesus took the loaves and the fishes when he was feeding the 5,000 and it was seemingly not enough. And one of the things that came out of the mouth is what are so few amongst so many. How many times do people say that sort of thing? But Jesus did something different in that moment.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
He took those same loaves and those same fishes, but his response was different.
Ashley:
Yep, he blessed them.
Carlie:
He blessed it.
Ashley:
And distributed them. And that’s what you do when you start blessing the works of your hands, you start speaking a blessing over the works of our hands. I’m telling you, the way you believe is going to change everything. So I want you to believe today. I want you to see the truth. The truth is God’s redeemed you from the curse, the work of your hands. God’s redeemed you from this. Now, Jesus paid the price for everything you do to be blessed. And I’ve got a few scriptures here to read. This is in a Deuteronomy 28:8. It says, “The Lord will command the blessing in your store houses.” That means your savings accounts. “And all to which you set your hand.” God blesses all to which you set your hand. Deuteronomy 39 says “The Lord your God will make you abound in all the work of your hand.”
Ashley:
In Proverbs one it says whatever he does… Proverbs 1:3. It says whatever he does will prosper. So I want you to start believing this. I want you to start to get this on the inside of you. We looked at the scripture in Proverbs 13:4. That’s where we started. “The soul of the diligent will be made rich.” And I’m telling you when you’re diligent, when you start putting your hands to something, maybe you’ve [inaudible 00:26:33] of giving up on things, don’t give up. Do it as unto the Lord. You know, Colossians, I believe it’s Colossians 3:17 says, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do it as unto the Lord, giving thanks.” Start up again. Say, “I’m going to do this as unto the Lord. I’m going to be a blessing. I’m going to bless my boss. I’m going to bless my workplace. I’m going to start thanking God for the for the opportunities. I’m going to start thanking God for my business. I’m going to start thanking God for whatever I’m doing day to day. I’m going to start seeing it as a blessing instead of a curse. I’m going to start blessing it and thanking God for it.”
Ashley:
Even if it looks not enough in the natural, I’m going to say, “Lord, thank you. In your hands, this is more than enough.”
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
You can actually make the diligent soul rich, praise God. And I can see that come through in my life, amen.
Carlie:
Amen. That’s powerful.
Ashley:
So that’s something practical we can do. Start speaking over the works of your hands and you’ll see the results, amen. I want to pray for you before we end today. Father God, I thank you for everyone watching today. I thank you that all the works of their hands are blessed. I thank you for the generous soul, the diligent soul. I thank you for the blessing of the Lord makes one rich.
Ashley:
And I thank you that people are diligent and a people are generous. They’re going to see that blessing in their life manifest. I thank you for people’s businesses increasing. I thank you for people being promoted. I thank you for the people having new opportunities. I thank you nothing else will change except for their attitude except for their believing. And yet everything’s going to change. In Jesus’ name, promotions are coming. New businesses, new ideas, new clients, new prospects. I thank you for everyone listening and watching today. Lord, I thank you that they are being blessed and there’s no sorrow with it, in Jesus name.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
Amen. Praise God. Hey, thanks for joining us today in the lounge. We’ll be back real soon and until next time, remember Jesus paid for you to live the abundant life. We’ll see you soon.