Join Ashley and Carlie Terradez for God Wants You Rich Part 6. If you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are a prosperous person. In this series conclusion, learn how to receive what God has already provided and activate prosperity in your life.
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The primary scriptures explored in God Wants You Rich Part 6 are Proverbs 10:22, 2 Corinthians 8:9, and Isaiah 1:19.
Transcription
Ashley:
Did you know, the generous soul shall be made rich. That’s right. Your generosity will activate the riches of God in your life and you’ll start seeing that prosperity manifest. Let’s look at this today together.
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 Abundant Life. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today here in the lounge. Praise God. We’ve got an exciting program.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
In fact, we’re at the end of our series, we’re talking about the blessings of the Lord making one rich, that’s from Proverbs 10:22. Also looking at second Corinthians 8:9, about how you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet though, he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through his poverty might be made rich. That’s right. We’re talking about the prosperity of the Lord. We’re talking about being rich in the Lord. Amen.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
And today, we’re looking at the complimentary verse to this, which is Proverbs 11:25. In fact, the lesson before we looked at Proverbs 13:4, Proverbs 13:4 says the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. So here’s the deal, in Proverbs 10:22, it says the blessing of the Lord makes one rich. We know that that God provides our prosperity. He’s already provided it for us. Jesus did it on the cross. Second Corinthians 8:9, he’s provided prosperity for us. So if you’re born again today, then you’re already prosperous on the inside.
Carlie:
Prosperous is who you are.
Ashley:
So you are. It’s your identity. Your identity is you’re a prosperous person. Just like you’re a healed person. Just like you’re righteous. Just like you’re at peace, all those things. But we have to do something to activate that by faith. That’s the faith part, if you like.
Carlie:
It’s the response.
Ashley:
Grace has provided it and faith is the response.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
So they’re not automatic. If it was automatic, then everybody would be healed all the time.
Carlie:
Everyone would be saved.
Ashley:
Everyone would be saved, and it’s God’s will for everyone to be saved because he’s not willing that any should perish.
Carlie:
God’s will it doesn’t automatically come to pass.
Ashley:
That’s right. We have our part to play. That’s another whole teaching there. Though that’s true, God has given us free will. And people say, “Well, God’s sovereign.” Yeah, I believe he’s sovereign, but not like you think he’s sovereign. I believe he’s sovereign, he’s all powerful, but he’s not all controlling. He’s given free will to mankind.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
And we have authority here on the earth. So we have decisions to make. And you know what? It’s not automatic. God’s promises do not come about automatically. We have our part to play. So what it means is his grace has provided it. This is the good news. Grace has provided everything we need.
Carlie:
Jesus has done the hard part.
Ashley:
Jesus has done the heavy lifting, he’s done the hard part.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
All we have to do is receive what Jesus has already done.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
We don’t have to add to it. We don’t have to make it happen. We just have to receive what he’s already done. And that’s our faith response to what grace has already provided for us.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
So our faith response is receiving what God’s already provided. And our faith response here is two verses, Proverbs 13:4 really sums it up really well. Proverbs 13:4 says, the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. That means putting your hand to something. That means … God says he will bless the works of our hands.
Carlie:
There’s an action in there.
Ashley:
Amen. Deuteronomy 28, the works of your hands shall be blessed. So there’s an action. We put our hands to something. We work, we work a business, whatever we do, we put our hands to something. We give God something to work with and he’s able to bless and multiply that. And then Proverbs 11:25, it says, the generous could will be made rich. The generous soul will be made rich. These are the things that activate the blessings of God. So even though God’s already blessed us and made us rich, these are the things we do, our faith response to activate those things.
Carlie:
Diligence and generosity.
Ashley:
Diligence and generosity. In fact, Isaiah 1:19 puts it nicely here. It says, if you are willing and obedient, you’ll eat the fat of the land. In some translations, you’ll eat the good, the prosperity of the land. So if you’re willing and obedient, you’ll eat the good of the land. And you know, that means if you’re willing, means you’ve got to … are you going to believe it? Are you really willing to believe that it’s God’s will for you to prosper?
Carlie:
Right.
Ashley:
And then the obedience part is, are you going to do what the word says?
Carlie:
Are you going to follow through?
Ashley:
Amen. You know, James 1 says, don’t be deceived. Don’t don’t be … Here is the word only, deceiving yourself, but be doers of the word.
Carlie:
Right.
Ashley:
And you know, James 2 says, if faith without works or faith without corresponding actions is dead.
Carlie:
When we really believe something, it comes out in our actions. It changes how we speak, how we act, how we carry ourselves, the decisions that we make.
Ashley:
Amen. It really does. And what the word says is that if you want to prosper God’s way, you know what? It’s the generous soul that’s going to be made rich. If you want to prosper God’s way, you’re going to have to give. And people say, “This makes no sense.”
Carlie:
Well.
Ashley:
Proverbs 11:24. Proverbs 11:24. The verse right before this says, there’s one who scatters. Some translation says, one who gives. It’s the same thing. One who gives yet increases more. Yet there’s one that withholds more than his right and it leads to poverty. So if you experiencing lack, if you experience poverty, if you haven’t got enough, then according to the word it’s because you’re not giving enough. Tilt, that doesn’t make sense. Here’s the thing. Most things in the kingdom of God, most biblical truths in the kingdom of God do not make sense to your natural thinking.
Carlie:
It’s true.
Ashley:
They don’t make sense to our natural thinking because you know what? Here’s the deal. When you got born again, Colossians 1:13 says when you got born again, you got translated from the kingdom of darkness and put into the kingdom of the son of his love. That means spiritually speaking, the day you gave your life to Jesus, you changed address.
Carlie:
Right.
Ashley:
Your address changed. You went from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. You went from being dead to alive, spiritually speaking. So now you have a different address. You’re now one spirit of the Lord. You’re now seated with him in heavenly places. You’re ambassadors here for Christ. So really your true address is heaven now.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
Your true address is the kingdom. It’s not this world. And what happens is, is we carry on living in this world like we still belong to this world, and we don’t. When you got born again, everything changed spiritually speaking.
Carlie:
Yah.
Ashley:
Many years ago, over a decade ago now, we moved from England to America. So we changed kingdom. We changed address. We moved from the kingdom of Great Britain to now the kingdom of America, if you like. And when we moved, we found out there was different ways of doing things. I remember I found out pretty quickly when I went driving right?
Carlie:
On the wrong side of the road.
Ashley:
You know, in England, they drive on the left. Here in America, they drive on the right. And I know this program is going out, literally around the world to many continents. So I know some countries they drive on the left, some countries they drive on the right. And whatever you’re used to, that’s the way you’re used to doing it. So in my home country, in England, I was used to driving on the left. I moved over here to America and I pulled out of, I believe it was a gas station. I pulled out and I drove on the wrong side of the road. And I’m driving along. It was a divided highway. I looked up and there was three cars coming straight on, head-on towards me.
Carlie:
Well, they all waved at you didn’t they?
Ashley:
I thought, “What are these three idiots doing on the wrong side of the road?” I did a quick U-turn. They did wave to me.
Carlie:
They said you were the number one.
Ashley:
They said I was number one.
Carlie:
They gave you that one finger waving.
Ashley:
They were all pretty mad at me. But here’s the thing. I was so used to driving on the left, once I changed address, I didn’t realize here they drove on the other side. And I was more comfortable driving on the left. That was what I was used to, but I had to change the way I did things because I changed address. I’m telling you, when you changed address, everything changed spiritually speaking. And we know this because we already can see this in other areas. Like if you want to get back at your enemy, the world would say vengeance. But no, the word of God says love your enemy.
Carlie:
Love them.
Ashley:
Someone wrongs you. The word of God says, forgive them. If someone takes from you, someone steals your tunic. I’m not sure what a tunic is, but they steal it.
Carlie:
Some sort of vest, robe thing.
Ashley:
Give me your jacket also. Someone asks you to go a mile, go two miles. If you want to be first, you’ve got to be last. If you want to be the greatest leader, you got to be the greatest servant. These things are opposite to our natural way of thinking. The opposite to the world’s way of thinking.
Carlie:
The kingdom of God doesn’t operate the same way as the world does.
Ashley:
It really doesn’t. It’s got different principles, different ways of doing things. And it’s the same with our finances, with prosperity. If you want to get ahead financially in the kingdom of God, you’ve got to give. And that’s opposite to the world’s way of doing things. You think, “I can’t afford to give.” The world will say, if you’re short of money, you can’t afford to give. Kingdom of God says, you can’t afford not to give.
Carlie:
I remember when we both stepped out full-time in ministry, and we actually left management positions working for a larger ministry, [inaudible 00:07:43] Ministries. And this was a real step of faith for us because we had a word from God and then that was it really. We didn’t have huge resources or anything. We know we’d been managing according to the budget that we had before, but when we both stepped out in ministry full time, we didn’t have money coming in. Suddenly, we didn’t have a salary.
Ashley:
Right.
Carlie:
We didn’t have a salary. And as we were praying about what to do with our giving, you know, we love giving. We like to set a giving budget before we set out the rest of our budget every year. And we have giving goals and it just didn’t feel right. As we prayed about it together, it just didn’t feel right. Even though our circumstances had changed, to cut back on our giving. It didn’t feel right. And as we prayed about it, the Lord actually spoke to us about increasing our giving.
Ashley:
Significantly increasing our giving.
Carlie:
Now that did not make sense according to the world’s way of doing things, did it?
Ashley:
No. It got my attention. So the kingdom of God says, you’re short, you need extra finances, you better give more. And that is the opposite way of thinking compared to the world.
Carlie:
But there’s a testimony in there, right?
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
That even though we know actually what God told us to do with was quadruple our giving. Oh my goodness. I mean, with nothing coming in. But within a really short space of time, God not only met that income, but he surpassed it.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
And I think when we give, it is an act of faith.
Ashley:
Amen. It really is. It takes faith to give.
Carlie:
It does.
Ashley:
Because if there’s no God, it doesn’t make any sense. But here’s the thing. It’s the power of God. It’s access in the kingdom of God. You can either do things the world’s way, your way, or you can do things God’s way, the kingdom way. And God’s way, the kingdom way is abundance, is increase, is excess, it’s more than enough. Praise God. Your way is going to be not enough. You’re going to be short. You’re never going to quite get by. And I’m just telling you, when you do things God’s way, God wants to increase you. Praise God. He’s not trying to take from you. He’s trying to get more to you.
Carlie:
He wants to enlarge the place of our tent.
Ashley:
Amen.
Carlie:
This scripture just came to me real quickly. This is in Isaiah 54, verse two. And it says, enlarge the place of your tent and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations. That’s the place where you live by the way. Spare not, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes for you shall spread out to the right hand and to the left, and your descendants shall inherit the nations and make desolate cities to be inhabited.
Carlie:
You know, when we give there’s a stretching, and we talk about this in church, in the Christian-ese. It’s like stretching out our tent pegs and I started to think about it. But when we give and we’re trusting God, we’re stretching ourselves in the area of faith. When you stretch out the tent pegs on a tent and fasten and the stakes down, you’re enlarging the capacity of that tent to receive.
Ashley:
Right.
Carlie:
So it might feel like, some of you feel like in the area of giving, you’re being stretched, that’s a stretch of faith. That’s a stretch of our budget. It doesn’t look like it’s going to make sense. It doesn’t look like it’s going to work. But in that stretching, you’re actually enlarging the capacity of your heart to receive the blessing of God.
Ashley:
Amen. You really are. And you know what? It’s going to take faith to do this because if there’s no God … So it takes faith to give. And when you do that, you’re stretching your faith and you’re creating an atmosphere for you to receive more. See God is the greatest giver. A lot of the times, the reasons why we don’t give, one of the main reasons we don’t give, we don’t understand it. It makes no logical sense. We say, “Well, when we have extra, we’ll give. When I have extra, then I’ll give.” No, you’ll never have extra if that’s your attitude. And if you don’t give now of what you have, even when you have extra, you still won’t give.
Carlie:
So where should giving be in our priorities?
Ashley:
Number one, seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33, giving should be our number one priority.
Carlie:
So when we’re setting our budget, where should it be?
Ashley:
First fruits. Give from the first fruits of our budget. Number one item should be giving. Giving should be our top priority. And when we put giving as our top priority … I tell people when you make giving … when you get serious about your giving, God can get serious about your getting. He supplies seed to the sower. In fact, let’s look at this together. This is in Second Corinthians. We’re going to look at … I love chapters eight and nine of Second Corinthians. The apostle Paul here is talking about giving and receiving, about finances and about increase. Second Corinthians, we’re going to jump around a little bit here.
Ashley:
But Second Corinthians, chapter nine, verse 10. Again, a financial verse is right in the middle of financial teaching. It says here, now may he who supplies seed to the sower. So God supplies seed to us. God is so good. He doesn’t just ask us to give. He gives us the seed to give.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
And a lot of the time people say, “Well, actually I haven’t got any seed to give. I haven’t got enough. I can’t afford to give.” No, you do, you have seed somewhere. God gives seed to the giver. When you determine your heart to be a giver, God will give you seed. If you literally haven’t got anything to give, it’s because you’re not willing to give. If you was willing to give God would give you something to give.
Carlie:
You can believe God for seed.
Ashley:
You can believe God for saying to give. If you want to give, God’s going to give you something to give. You might say, “It’s only a dollar or it’s only something very small.” It doesn’t matter. This is the beauty of it. We’re going to show you. I’m going to show you how you can be a generous giver no matter what financial state you’re in. You could be in any … You could be in debt. You can be in terrible financial state today and you can still be a generous giver.
Ashley:
So right here, God gives seed to the sower. So he gives us the seed. Then he also gives bread to the eater. So that means he gives us bread for food so we can actually have bread to eat and seed to give. So what I pick up on this verse, one of the things I pick up in these verse is God gives us income. How do we get our income? However, money comes to you. A portion of that money is seed and a portion of that money is bread for you to eat. A portion of that money is for you to sustain yourself and a portion of that money is to be sewn.
Carlie:
Unless you’re one of those people that eat seeds.
Ashley:
Eats seeds. Like a health freak.
Carlie:
That’s just weird. I’m sorry. They’re miserable.
Ashley:
Eating seeds.
Carlie:
That’s a miserable diet.
Ashley:
You eat seeds, you’re going to be hungry again. You’re meant to eat bread and sow seed.
Carlie:
Right? Exactly.
Ashley:
And what happens is, often we’ll end up eating our seed instead of sewing it. And a good example of this is in the feeding of the 5,000. The boy brought his loaves and fish to Jesus, and we don’t know if he volunteered or whether the 12 disciples said, “Hey boy, we need your lunch.” And what’s he going to say? So anyway, he gave his loaves and fish to Jesus …
Carlie:
They picked on a small boy to give his lunch.
Ashley:
Yeah, we’ve got these loaves and fish here. Now what happened with those loaves and fish, those loaves and fish were seed. That was seed being supplied. And the disciples and Jesus were hungry too. They could have taken those loaves and fish and eaten them themselves and they wouldn’t have seen the increase. But no, they realized. Jesus realized, this is seed. This is not the harvest. This is seed.
Ashley:
I want to change you today. If what you have isn’t enough it’s because you’re looking at your seed. You’re not looking at your harvest. And that seed is meant to be sown. Now it’s going to take faith to do that. You’re hungry? Jesus and the disciples were hungry all day. Imagine you’re hungry and all of a sudden you get these loaves and fish, very tempting to eat that loaves and fish when a little bit of money comes to, very tempting to consume that money. Very tempting to use it.
Ashley:
But you know what? This was seed. This was meant to be sown. So Jesus gave thanks for that seed. He blessed it. He gave thanks to it, and he sowed that seed by breaking it and distributing it amongst the people. And that seed fed 5,000 people, 5,000 men, besides women and children. So that seed was increased. So right here in this verse, Second Corinthians 9:10, he supplies seed to the sower, bread for food. He supplies and multiplies the seed that you sow. See when you sow seed, it’s going to multiply. It’s going to increase. And we have a natural example of this with literal seeds. Literal seeds are sown and they increase.
Carlie:
That’s part of the nature of the seed is it’s designed to multiply.
Ashley:
That’s the idea of a seed. A seed goes in and it multiplies.
Carlie:
It is. Yeah. I think some people get hung up because they look at what they have and they think, “I don’t have enough. I can’t give. I don’t have enough.” Not realizing that what they’re looking at isn’t their bread in the first place, it’s their seed.
Ashley:
It’s the seed that’s meant to be sown.
Carlie:
So if you don’t have enough to give, then sow it. Let it be your seed and watch your seed multiply and make more bread.
Ashley:
Yeah. It’s like an apple. If I had an apple and I ate the whole apple and I eat the seeds as well, that’d be it. I’d just be … That’d one thing, one meal.
Carlie:
One meal.
Ashley:
That’s it. But if I took a portion of the apple out, the seed part, planted it, them seeds are going to produce trees which are going to produce more apples, which are going to produce more meals, more seeds, can plant them. It’s exponential growth. That’s what the hundred fold return is. It just keeps on. It’s exponential increase. But if we eat the whole apple and eat the seeds as well, it’s not going to work. They say you can count how many seeds in an apple, but you can never count how many apples in one seed. That’s the power of the seed.
Ashley:
When you sow seed, I’m telling you, it’s going to increase, praise God and God’s going to keep giving you seed to give and food to eat, praise God. Bread to eat and seed to give. So I’ll tell you, we’re going to carry on with this. We’ve got so much more to share with you about this, but right now, I want to show you some exciting things that are happening in Terradez Ministries. These things are going to empower you in the promises of God.
Speaker 4:
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Ashley:
I told you I’d show you how you can be a generous giver. Let’s look at this. This is in Second Corinthians, chapter nine, verse six. Again, these are financial verses and this is the apostle Paul speaking here. He says, “But this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” Now let me stop right there. He’s saying who determines the size of our harvest? Who determines our return? Us. We can sow sparingly or sow bountifully. And if we sow sparingly, we’re going to reap sparingly. If we sow bountifully, we’re going to, we’re going to reap bountifully.
Ashley:
And you might say, “Ashley, how do I know if I’m sowing bountifully? I’m not, I’m not rich. I can’t sow bountifully.” Well, there’s a beautiful example of this in Mark 12. In Mark 12, there’s a story of the widow woman. And the widow woman comes forward and Jesus was sat opposite the treasury. He was actually sat there watching the way that people gave, which I think is an interesting concept, you know it’s …
Carlie:
If your pastor sat watching you give into the offering, you’d think that was a little bit odd wouldn’t you?
Ashley:
I’ve actually been to a church where the pastor watched. He had various different offering bowls for all different types of missionary work and mission … And then they had tithes and offering box and they had all these different bowls. And he was watching from the stage people giving. and someone gave and he said, “Come on Bob, you can do better than that.” He turned around and gave an extra 20. I was there. I was like, “This is like unlike any church I’ve been to.” But great church praise God. [crosstalk 00:17:55]
Carlie:
Jesus sets an example for it.
Ashley:
But he was just doing Jesus’ example. This is in Mark 12. This is the widow woman giving, and Jesus … It a=says here, Jesus sat opposite the treasury, sat opposite the offering bucket, if you like. And he saw how people put their money in the treasury. Jesus was watching to see how people … He said, “Many rich people put much in.” Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites. That’s the equivalent spending value today of about a dollar, maybe $1.50 somewhere around there.
Ashley:
So it wasn’t a penny. It was actually … She could have actually bought something with that, $1.50. She was a widow woman. She could have actually done something with that. So that was her last $1.50. That was it. She gave that in. And in verse 43, so he called his disciples. So he made this a teaching moment. Jesus said, “Come here lads. I want to teach you something.”
Carlie:
Look at this.
Ashley:
He called the disciples and said, “Assuredly I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury.”
Carlie:
So it wasn’t about the numerical value of that gift.
Ashley:
Right, exactly. It’s about compared to what you have. So this means God has set it up in such a way that every person can be a generous giver. This is good news. This means if you have hardly anything you can be a generous giver.
Carlie:
It’s actually easier for you to be a generous giver.
Ashley:
It really is. It’s easier for you to be a generous giver if you don’t have very much. If you have a lot of wealth, you’re going to have to give more to be generous. And you say, how do you know when it’s a generous gift or not? Well, let’s go back to … And by the way, just a few things here, the widow woman, she gave that money. Jesus didn’t chase her down and say, “Hey miss, here’s your money back. You don’t need to give in the treasury. You’re poor.”
Carlie:
“You’re too poor to give.”
Ashley:
“You’re too poor to give. Leave the giving to the rich people. You need your money.” No, Jesus knew the best place for that widow’s money was in the treasury. The best place for that widow’s money was to sow it so that she could receive increase.
Carlie:
It was to invest it.
Ashley:
She invested in the gospel.
Carlie:
She was investing in kingdom things.
Ashley:
Amen. She invested it and she’s going to receive increase. And I can’t wait to get to heaven. I’m going to have one of those airport signs like Mr. Smith, like the drivers have.
Carlie:
Widow woman, two mites.
Ashley:
And it’s going to say, widow woman, two mites. I’m going to walk around heaven. I’m going to find that lady. I’m going to find our testimony about how she prospered because I know the word of God works. There’s one who sows, yet increases more. There’s one who scatters, yet increases more. So we know she increased. So how can you tell if you’re generous or not? It’s according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have.
Ashley:
So right here in verse … we’re back in Second Corinthians, chapter nine. It says, those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully. And how many of you know God’s way of reaping to us bountifully is much bigger than our way of sowing. So God’s idea of bountiful is awesome, praise God. Our idea of bountiful is giving til it hurts. His idea of bountiful is going to be awesome. So you say, how do you know if you’re generous or not? The next verse is, let each give as he purposes in his heart. This is your choice. If you want to do this or not, you don’t have to so bountifully, but you’re not going to reap bountifully if you don’t choose to sow bountifully.
Ashley:
And it says here, as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. Now, right here this word cheerful is actually the Greek word hilaros. It’s where we get the word hilarious from.
Carlie:
He loves a hilarious giver.
Ashley:
He loves a hilarious giver. In fact, if you study this out, it can be translated as he loves a giver that’s not only cheerful and happy. Why? Because God gets pleasure at the prosperity of his servants. God gets pleasure at the prosperity of his servants. God loves it when we understand his promises and put a demand on them. And if you’re a cheerful giver, it’s because you understand that when you sow, you’re going to reap. You understand that when you scatter, you’re going to increase. You understand that the seed that you sow is going to increase. You understand these spiritual truths and that’s what makes you a cheerful giver. You can also study this out that it’s not only just an hilarious giver, it’s almost an hilarious giver to the point of craziness. Someone who’s hysterically giving.
Carlie:
Not out of panic, but out of expectation.
Ashley:
Not out of panic, but out of expectation.
Carlie:
Right.
Ashley:
And you can tell when you’re a generous giver when your flesh starts freaking out. I’ll tell you what, it doesn’t matter, it’s not about the amount. It’s about how much you’ve got leftover. And if you start giving, if you ask the Lord, “Lord, how much should I give?” And he tells you and your flesh starts going, “Whoa, we’re going to die.” That’s a generous gift to you. We’ve had this happen several times in our life. It’s not a one-time deal. Lots of times I’ve prayed and I’ve said, “God, how much will I give in this offering?” And he’ll tell me an amount and I’d be like, “Whoa.” Lot of times I’d say, “Lord, that’s all I’ve got.”
Carlie:
That’s all he’s asking you to give.
Ashley:
And he’ll say, “That’s all I’m asking you to give.” I’m like, “whoa Lord.” And I’m starting to shake as I’m writing the check and I put it in the bucket and I watch the bucket go and I’m like, “It’s gone.” Then I’ll go to bed that night and think, “Did I really give that amount of money?” And then I’ll wake up the morning I’m thinking, “Did I really give that amount of money?”
Carlie:
You’re not believing for a harvest, you’d just be happy with a refund.
Ashley:
I’d just be happy with a refund, yeah. I don’t care about the harvest, like, “Give me a refund Lord.” If that’s your attitude, that is a generous gift to you.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
It could be, for some people watching here it could be $10, $100, $1,000. To some people watching here, it might be $10,000, $20,000, $100,000, $1,000,000. It’s all relative to how much you have.
Carlie:
Yeah.
Ashley:
But when you start giving, let me put it another way. If you’re giving isn’t getting your attention it’s probably not getting God’s attention. If your giving is not getting your attention … I’m telling you, when you’re giving gets your attention, it gets God’s attention. God’s like “Whoa, there’s a generous giver. There’s a cheerful giver. There’s someone who’s giving bountifully.”
Carlie:
“There’s someone who will trust me.”
Ashley:
Amen. There’s someone who will trust me and someone who’s in faith for me. And I’m telling you what, it works.
Carlie:
Because it’s not really about the money is it?
Ashley:
No.
Carlie:
I mean do you think God really needs our money?
Ashley:
No.
Carlie:
He paves his streets with gold and owns the cattle on a thousand hills, so why is it important for us to give?
Ashley:
Well where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” That means whatever you value, whatever you love, you’re going to give towards. Everyone really is giving to something. Everyone’s tithing and giving offerings to something. They really are. If you’re into … you might be into a hobby, into hunting or something. It might be into, whatever it is, you’re giving to something. You’re giving to whatever you love. Whatever you value, you’re going to give towards.
Carlie:
You’re investing in it.
Ashley:
You’re going to invest in it. And if you love the Lord and love the kingdom of God, you’re going to want to give towards it. And you know what? This is a harsh statement. I’m going to say it. If you say you love the Lord and you love Jesus, but yet don’t give out of your substance, you don’t give financially, I question that. Whatever you love, you’re going to sow towards, you’re going to give towards.
Carlie:
Because it’s for your passion, it’s where your heart’s at.
Ashley:
That’s where your passion is, right here. It says, don’t give grudgingly of necessity. God loves a cheerful giver. And look at this. God is able to make all grace abound toward you that you have in all sufficiency in all things are going to have an abundance for every good work. We like to pluck this scripture out and just quote this scripture. But this scripture is right in context with giving. The next verse says, he who has dispersed abroad has given to the poor, his righteousness endures forever. And then the next verse again, giving, he who supplies seed to the sower and increases the seed that you sow. So this verse right here, where God’s going to supply all your needs, you can’t just quote that willy nilly, God’s going to supply all my needs and that’s it. Now in context, he’s talking to givers.
Carlie:
It’s in response to giving.
Ashley:
Yeah.
Carlie:
Now, when we give, it says, and God is able. In other words, as a result of our giving, as a result of our heart being willing to trust him with some financial substance, which by the way, Jesus says is the least of things, then God is able to release his power for abundance in our life. At the end of the day, if we can’t trust God with money, which is the least of things, how can we trust God for things that are way more important?
Ashley:
Yeah. Luke 16 says that, if you can’t trust God with unrighteous mammon, who’s going to give you true riches. And the fact is these verses are talking to givers. In Philippians 4, Paul talks about giving in Philippians 4. And I love what it says in Philippians 4:19, my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory. That verse in context is talking to givers. He’s talking to people that are partnering with him, people that are giving to him. And all the way through Philippians 4 he’s talking to givers.
Ashley:
So I’m telling you, God wants to supply your needs. God wants to give seed to the sower, but he gives seed to the sower, and if you’re not sowing, you’re not letting God give to you. And it’s not a question of God’s looking down, that one is and that one isn’t. No, you’re activating a spiritual truth.
Carlie:
He wants to bless us.
Ashley:
Amen. When you sow, you’re activating a spiritual truth. God’s already provided for us. God’s already prospered us. It’s in seed form. And we need to sow that seed generously so that we can see a generous harvest. If you want to see a generous harvest, you need to sow generous seed. And that can vary according to what you have right now. But I’m telling you I want to change you today. Ask the Lord, say, “Lord, how much do I sow?” And if God gives you a number and you’re thinking, “Whoa, that’s a lot of money.” That’s probably God speaking to you. And don’t worry about your flesh. Your flesh can’t understand the purpose of giving and receiving.
Carlie:
It’ll get over it.
Ashley:
This is spiritual truth. When you give, praise God, you’re going to get back, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. You’re going to get back. Praise God. You’re going to get increased back. God wants to increase you. Remember, he’s the greatest giver. He’s the biggest giver. He’s not trying to take from you. He’s trying to get more to you. And when you give, I’ll tell you what, he won’t be able to help himself to give to you back. It’s just like a parent and a child. When a child gives to their parent, they want to give back. They want to bless them. They want the best for them. Praise God. And that’s the truth.
Carlie:
I think there are some people watching today that really want to get this down on the inside of them, and I think would be great to pray for them.
Ashley:
Amen. Let’s pray right now. Father, God, I thank you for everyone watching and listening today. I thank you, Lord, you’re increasing them. I thank you Holy spirit, you’re moving on them in this area. And I thank you, Lord. You’re stirring their hearts. They’re going to start to give cheerfully, hilariously. They’re going to start to trust you with their finances, many people for the first time. And I thank you Lord as they trust you with their finances for the first time. I thank you, Lord, you will increase them back.
Ashley:
I thank you Lord. You’re the greatest giver. You’re trying to get more to them. You’re not trying to take, Lord, from us. You’re trying to get more to us and I thank you, Lord for supernatural increase coming on everyone who gives today. I thank you for supernatural increase. I thank you Lord for people increasing like never before. I thank you Lord for people increasing in every area of their life. I pray for supernatural increase coming upon them in Jesus’ name.
Carlie:
Amen.
Ashley:
Amen. Praise God. Thanks for watching today. Hey, don’t just live a normal life, go out and live the Abundant Life. We’ll see you soon.