God has a generous nature. He wants to bless you with more than enough so that you can help and minister to others. In part 10 of How to Attack Lack, Ashley and Carlie explain the right heart attitude required for God’s way of prospering us financially.
Transcription
Announcer: 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. Thanks for joining us today. We’ve got a great show for you today. We’re talking about attacking lack, lack in your finances and about how you can attack that and actually see the prosperity and provision of the Lord manifest in your life on a day-to-day occurrence.
Carlie: Amen, amen.
Ashley: Amen. So we’ve been looking at a number of things. We’re actually towards the end of a series about this. And if you haven’t had opportunity to follow this program, then you can go and get the resource. You can go on our website, terradez.com and find out information there about the rest of the course. We’ve covered so much in this course it’s impossible for me to summarize the whole course…
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: … because it’s been a long course, but just a few real basic things is, it’s God’s will for you to prosper. God’s will wants you to have… He wants you to have your needs met and have an abundance to help others. That’s His will for you and that’s one of the things Jesus paid for on the cross, and it’s part of the atonement is for you to be blessed and have an abundance in your finances.
And finances is really the least important thing, but it’s important because with finances, if we have an abundance of finances we’re able to help more people and also able to really keep our mind stayed on the Lord. And if we’ve got a wrong attitude towards finances, it can even distract us from the Lord. Matthew 6:24, Jesus said, “You can’t serve two masters. You’ll either be loyal to the one or loyal to the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” You cannot serve God and money is what He’s saying there.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: So we’ve been looking at the types of giving and before that we looked at some of the things that will really help you attack lack in your life and help you receive. When you get born again you’ve already received the prosperity of the Lord on the inside, in your spirit, but we’re looking about how to walk that out on a day-to-day basis. So even though you’re prosperous in your spirit, what can happen is, is you might not see it manifest in your day-to-day life. And sometimes you may have a lack in the area of finances, sometimes your month might be longer than your paycheck, sometimes you might want to give and you haven’t got the money to give extra, sometimes you want to buy something and help someone, or you need to pay for something, and you haven’t got the money to do it.
And poverty and lack can be in various degrees. It can be from not having money to buy food to not having the money to buy this certain item that you want. Whatever that is, whatever that poverty or lack is, we’re talking about how to attack that and how to get rid of that. Praise God in your life. And we looked at the work of your hands, we looked at putting your hands to something, being diligent and letting the Lord bless the works of your hands. A hundredfold of zero is zero. So you need to give something for God to work with and put your hand to something, whether that’s a job, whether that’s starting a small business, whether that’s having something on the side, whether that’s volunteering, whatever it is, put your hand to something and be diligent about it and have a diligent attitude. Have an excellent spirit.
We looked at Joseph and people like that who did that. And then also we looked at your stewardship. How are you spending? How are you stewarding the money you already have? The money that’s already coming into you. And we looked at people in the Bible that just spent everything that came to them and then they ended up in poverty. They ended up poor.
Carlie: The prodigal son.
Ashley: The prodigal son is one example who ended up with nothing, ended up in poverty. So if you spend everything that comes into you, everything that you receive, you’re going to end up with lack. You’re going to end up in a poverty situation and that’s just a natural consequence. Remember God’s opinion of you doesn’t change. He loves you. He wants you prosperous, but how we steward what we have is a big part of whether we receive that prosperity in our day-to-day lives. So stewardship, we’re talking about savings some money, not spending everything, being good stewards of what we have, being faithful in the little, and then you’ll be given more. Being faithful in another man’s and then you’ll be given your own and things like that we looked at.
And then the last thing we looked at is giving, is your giving and it’s counter-intuitive. Really, if you think about it, if you want to attack lack and don’t have any lack in your life financially, then giving finances away is the last thing you’d think to do in your natural reasoning. And we looked at the kingdom of God, it doesn’t work by natural laws. It doesn’t work by our natural thinking or the world’s way of thinking. The world’s way would be, just get all you can. My friend puts it this way, “Get all you can. Can all you get. And then sit on the can.” He said, “Basically, hold all you can is a world’s way of doing things,” but the kingdom of God works opposite from the world.
And in Colossians 1:13, it talks about how you’ve been translated from one kingdom to another. And now that you’ve been born again, you’re now part of God’s kingdom. You’ve changed address spiritually and there’s different rules. There’s different ways of doing things. And now in God’s kingdom, the way to get ahead is to give. Proverbs 11:24 said, “There’s one who gives yet increases more, yet there’s one who withholds more than his right and yet it leads to poverty.” So really in God’s kingdom it might be opposite to the world’s way of doing things, but it’s the way it works in God’s kingdom. And some examples of that, you won’t be first, you’ve got to be last. If you want to be the ruler of all, be the servant of all. If you want to be promoted, then serve.
If you’ve got an enemy, love them. If someone wrongs you, forgive them, and so on and so forth. If you want to get ahead financially, then you give. You give finances away. And that’s how it works. So even though it’s contrary to your natural thinking, it’s contrary to logic, it’s God’s way of doing things. It’s the kingdom of God’s way of doing things and it’s powerful. So we’ve been spending the last few programs talking about giving. We’ve talked about the fact that God doesn’t need our money. No, God doesn’t need our money. He’s [inaudible] needs that we need to give to Him, but He wants us to give for our own good, for our own… Paul puts it this way in Philippians 4:17… he says, “Not that I seek the gift, not that I seek the offering, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account.”
So really, giving has more to do with the giver than the receiver. Jesus put it this way in Acts 20:35, Acts 20:35, Jesus said, “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.” So you get more blessed by giving than the person receiving. So that’s what we’re looking at at the moment, about giving. Then we looked about what giving does for God. Giving blesses God. God loves a cheerful giver. Giving magnifies God. In Psalms 35:27, Psalms 35:27, it says, “Let them shout and say continually, ‘Let the Lord be magnified, who takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servant?'” So God takes pleasure when we prosper. In Deuteronomy 8:18 it says, “You’ll remember the Lord, your God, who gives you the power to get wealth that He may establish His covenant as He swore to your fathers this day.”
So being prosperous and being givers help God establish His covenant. It helps God show the world how much He loves them, show the world how much He wants relationship with them and how much He loves them. And we can do that by giving, by giving into ministries and giving into missionaries and sponsor children. All those types of things is a tangible way of showing God’s love. James puts it this way, he says, “Faith without corresponding actions is dead. Faith without works is dead.” So if you have faith in something, if you really believe it, then you’re going to put an action to your faith. And that action is giving. When you give your finances away you’re saying, “I believe the promises of God. I believe God wants to prosper me. I believe that when I give I’m going to increase just like the Bible tells me so. When I give I’m going to increase.”
So when we give it shows that we believe the promises of God. Also, Jesus said… Matthew 6:24, Matthew 6:24, Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters. Either you’ll love the one and hate the other, or you’ll be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” So giving shows that we’re not serving money. When you give you’re saying to money, “I’m in charge. I’m in control.” Because money will sneak in and tell you, “You can’t afford that. You can’t do this.” And money will make you… you’ll make your decisions based on money rather than God. And that’s not a good place to be. We want to make our decisions based on the word of God, based on what God’s telling us.
I tell people, obey God and leave all the consequences to Him. So we want to make sure that we’re not listening to the voice of money all the time. We want to make sure, by giving we’re telling money, “I’m in charge and you’re not the master of me. I’m the master of you. God’s my master and I’m using money as a tool.” Money should be like a tool to use for the gospel and not something to be served. So that’s just some of the things we’ve covered so far. A few of the examples. Right now I just want to finish this off by looking at what does giving do for others? So when we give, what does giving do for others? And it says here, “When we give, we show the generosity of the Lord.” The Lord is the biggest giver.
We talked about this in an earlier show. The Lord is the… He invented giving. He is generous. John 3:16, John 3:16, “He loved the world so much that He gave his only begotten son.” So God invented giving. He loves to give. He won’t be out-given. He’s the most generous giver. And right here in Psalms 51… this is Psalms 51:12, it said, God has got a generous spirit.” It talks about God’s generous spirit. God has a generous spirit. And when we give to others it shows the generosity of the Lord. There’s been a number of times we’ve given. I’m thinking about a family whose car blew up, broke down and we just went out and bought them a minivan. It’s a used minivan but we bought them a minivan and gave it to them and said, “This is a gift from Jesus.” They went around telling everyone, “Jesus gave us a new minivan.” We’ve just shown the generosity of the Lord.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: And we wouldn’t usually share these things, but we’re talking about giving that’s why we’re sharing some of our giving stories. It enables people to preach the gospel. When we give… Romans 10:14-15 says, “How will they hear? How are they going to hear the gospel unless someone’s sent? And how is someone going to be sent unless someone actually sends them, unless someone actually pays for them to be sent?” So how’s a preacher going to be sent? [inaudible] paraphrased that for time’s sake, but how’s the preacher going to be sent out to preach the gospel if someone hasn’t sent them? So how are the people going to hear if someone hasn’t sent them? So when we give, we enable missionaries and we enable ministers, we enable people to go out and preach the gospel.
Gifts to this ministry enable us to travel the world and tell people about the goodness of God. We’re able to tell people about how good God is and how much He loves them. We’re able to tell people on these TV shows. We’re able to tell people on the internet. We’re able to tell people about the goodness of God and tell them the word of God. And then they’re able to believe for themselves and receive, praise God, but people have to send… it takes money to do that.
Carlie: Right. I mean, one of the things, we have eight sponsored children down in Nicaragua, and we give to an organization every month to make sure that they have an education, they have clothes, they have housing, that they have schooling, that they have a hot meal everyday. And these are families in Nicaragua, which is the second poorest nation in the Southern hemisphere, I think…
Ashley: Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Carlie: … after Haiti. And these are children that have grown up living in cardboard boxes, that have grown up sleeping in hammocks between trees and never had a house, never had running water. And through a sponsorship program, through an organization that we’re part of called Ambassadors To The Nations, we are able to provide these basic necessities to these kids. We’ve actually been on a mission trip down to Nicaragua and been a part of their feeding programs and their education in schools where the children are hearing the gospel.
But one thing I’ve realized that I really admire about not just this organization, but there are many different organizations doing a similar thing, we’re not just going out there spreading, “Oh, Jesus loves you. Be warmed and filled.”Because when people are in desperate need and they’re hungry and they’re starving, and they haven’t any clothes to wear, and they haven’t got a place to sleep, it’s hard for them to receive the gospel, but sometimes we need to demonstrate the gospel in practical needs.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: And that takes giving, that takes financial resources. It’s amazing how much better somebody hears the gospel and receives the love of God when they’ve got warm food in their belly.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Right? When they’ve got their basic needs taken care of. And so gifts, financial giving and tithes and offerings and that that type of financial blessing is so important to the furthering of the gospel because it’s a way to demonstrate the practical love of God. Be Jesus with skin on for people.
Ashley: Amen. [crosstalk] It really is.
Carlie: It’s life-changing.
Ashley: A good example of that is the good Samaritan. We looked at this in a previous show, but the good Samaritan, he came along and he was able to help the person. Everyone else walked past him, but he was able to help the person who was left for dead. He put him on his animal. You could say, put him in the back of his SUV, drove him to the local Marriott hotel or Hilton hotel and dropped him off there, paid for his room. Said to the hotel manager, “Whatever else he spends, if he buys room service, if he needs anything, if he stays extra days, put it on my debit card, I’ll cover it. It took money… That’s the modern translation to that story. But it took money for the good Samaritan to do that, but he was able to show the love of God by using his wealth to help people.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: And it costs money to do that sometimes. There’s been various… I remember one time I was on a plane and I was on my own. I was reading a book, funny enough, about giving. And the guy next to me had some young children with him. It was about four or five hour flight from the east coast and the children were really hungry. And he looked at the menu. And to buy food on this plane was really expensive. And he said-
Carlie: It is expensive.
Ashley: … he said, “We haven’t got the money to buy this. We can’t afford this. We haven’t got the money to buy you food. You just have to wait.” Two or three kids he had… I think he had two kids. They were young kids and they were moaning. They were hungry. “Dad we’re hungry. We’re hungry. We’re hungry.” He said, “You have to wait till we get home.” I just felt impressed, “You know what? I’m going to buy them lunch.” So I started talking to the guy. I told him I had kids and my kids were at home and this and the other. And I said, “Would you bless me?” I told him, “Would you help me today?” And he says, “Yeah. Yeah. Of course I will.” And I said, “Would you let me buy you, and your kids lunch?” He said, “No, no, no. I can’t let you do that.”
I said, “No, no. I really want to. Let me…” So he let me and I bought him lunch. And that was just a small token of showing God’s generosity. He wasn’t in poverty like he was starving or anything, but it’s just a small token. This has happened so many times for me doing things like this. But you know what happened once I’d done that? He wanted to know all about who I was, what I was doing. And [crosstalk] I told him I was a minister and-
Carlie: Your gift made room for you.
Ashley: It was amazing. He pulled the gospel out of me. He [crosstalk] kept asking me over and over. He wanted to know more about this Jesus that I served. “Tell me more about this Jesus.” And I was telling him the whole gospel. Now I didn’t see him born again then and there, but I sowed a significant seed in terms of the gospel. I told him the gospel. I told him about how to get born again. And I told him how much God loves him. We walked together down to collect our bags and we waited by the carousel together. And the whole time he kept asking me questions about the Lord and I was telling him about the Lord. I was almost talking about other things, he’d bring the conversation back in about the Lord, because he saw the generosity of God.
In Romans it talks about, “The goodness of God leads man to repentance.” And one of the ways we could show the goodness of God is His generosity. God is a generous God. And when we do things for people like this… Carlie was talking about Ambassadors To The Nations. It’s a great ministry. We endorse them because we’ve been a part of that ministry. We’ve been down there. It’s a great ministry. A hundred percent of their proceeds that go to the children, go directly to the… that gets [crosstalk] given, goes directly to the children.
Carlie: It’s not used up in administration in any way.
Ashley: Or wages or salaries or anything else. Their church… they have a church as well. The church pays their salary and covers their expenses. So the sponsor a child program they have, the money all goes to the children, which is, I think, pretty unique.
Carlie: Yes.
Ashley: And we’ve been down there to Nicaragua and we’ve seen them feed and clothe and put shoes on literally thousands of children. I mean, they’ve given school uniforms, they’ve given hot meals to thousands of children. They have four schools, physical schools [crosstalk] they’ve built.
Carlie: I think [crosstalk]-
Ashley: And they’re building a fifth one now.
Carlie: … fifth one now. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley: Four schools down in Nicaragua, where these kids are being raised up and they’ve graduated classes now, gone from K through to high school, graduated classes. They’ve been doing this so long. I think they’ve been doing this for over 20 years. What’s happening is they’re changing that nation. People are receiving the love of God. But Carly is so right. If you just say to someone, “Oh, I’ll pray for you,” you’re not helping them. In fact, Jesus talks about, if you see a brother in need and you’ve got it within you to help them, you’ve got the resources to help them, but you choose not to, that’s not a good place to be. We need to be able to help people when we can. And that means we’re going to need to receive God’s prosperity to be able to help people. You can help people more when you have more to give them.
Carlie: I mean, it’s totally Godly to be praying and believing for our own prosperity because it’s not about us getting stuff. It’s about us having an abundance for every good work.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: And as we prosper, we’re going to have more resources in order to be able to further the kingdom.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: It’s a good thing.
Ashley: Second [crosstalk]-
Carlie: It’s a godly thing.
Ashley: Amen. 2 Corinthians 9:8, 2 Corinthians 9:8, it says that, “All grace is able to abound towards us, so we’re having all sufficiency in all things, [inaudible] our needs being met. We’ll also have an abundance for every good work.”
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: So we should be believing God for an abundance for every good work. In fact some people will get on me, they say, “Ashley, you believe in this prosperity and believe in…” They say, “You believe in the prosperity gospel.” And I’ll say-
Carlie: Yes we do.
Ashley: “… What do you believe in? The-”
Carlie: The poor poverty gospel?
Ashley: “… poverty gospel?” No we believe in the prosperity… Now, some people have seen this taken to extreme, where it’s all about stuff. In Luke, I think it’s 12, Jesus says, “Take heed and beware of covetousness because one’s life does not consist in the possessions that he has.” So you’ve probably seen this and we all have, sadly, unfortunately, seen this taken to extreme when prosperity is all about, get what you want, name your seed and get… “I want this new car. I want this new this. I want this.” And just believing for stuff all the time.
Unless God’s leading that, that’s not a good place to be. That’s making it about you and about you getting stuff. That’s what it’s about. Really believing God for extra is about believing God for extra so you can give more. God will take care of your needs. And we’ve already talked about this. God’s El Shaddai. He’s not El Cheapo. He will look after you better than you can look after you.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: So if you trust God to take care of your needs and you believe for extra so that you can sow more… In fact, we already read this verse earlier, but God gives seed to the sower and bread for food. So God will give the bread for you to eat. He’ll provide your natural needs, but then He’ll give you… he’ll increase the seed you sow so you can give more next time.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: So really, we should be believing God for more.
Carlie: Amen. So giving is an antidote to lack.
Ashley: Amen. It’s how you attack your lack. Giving is so important. In fact, out of the work of your hands, your stewardship, and your giving… I’ll say, those three things, your work ethic, your diligence, the work of your hands, your stewardship, how you steward what you have and how you save and spend what you have, and then your giving, those three, really, if you get those three things in place, that’s like a tripod that you can receive God’s prosperity on in the natural realm. You can actually see the prosperity of God. Because what happens is, is people believe the promises of God, but they don’t see it in the natural realm.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: And that’s because some of these things aren’t in place and there’s never any condemnation. Because of the amount of people watching this show, we know there’s people that are in debt, there’s people that are struggling, that are in lack, that are having issues with this, that have made some bad decisions, there’s never any condemnation. You know what? All of us are flawed. Every single one. There’s only [crosstalk] one perfect person ever to walk the earth and His name was Jesus. Every one of us-
Carlie: We’re all a work in progress.
Ashley: We’re all a work in progress big time. And we haven’t arrived by any means. We may have just about left, but we haven’t arrived. So there’s never meant to be any judgment or anything. We’re just trying to help you because if you make some of these adjustments, it’s amazing how you will see the provision of God come through into your life. You’re not making God do anything. See, grace has provided everything for you. Jesus paid for everything on the cross for you. He paid for your righteousness. He took your sins to the cross, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and you get his righteousness. He took your sickness and your disease and your pain and your suffering. 1 Peter 2:24, “He took stripes on His back. For by His stripes you are healed so you could receive His healing and His health.” Praise God.
And then He took your poverty to the to the cross. 2 Corinthians 8:9, “Though He was rich, He became poor for our sakes so that us through his poverty might become rich.” So it’s the great exchange. God’s already done this. So you’re not making God do anything. By you doing these things, by you being diligent and putting your hands to something, by you giving, by you stewarding what you have, it’s not making God do anything. What it’s doing is, it’s receiving what God’s already given you. By grace you’ve already got it all. [crosstalk] when you got born again, you got the whole package. You got everything you need, but your part is by faith to receive it. And by faith you do these things. By faith you put your hand to something and believe God and say, “God, I thank you, I’m prosperous”
By faith you steward your finances and say, “I’m going to say no to this purchase at the moment so I can save a little bit of money over here. I’m going to steward what I have. This is God’s money and I’m going to choose how to use it. I’m going to use it wisely. I’m not going to live a lifestyle beyond my means. I’m not going to get into consumer debt. I’m going to choose to live within my means.” Those things are stewardship. That’s stewardship. That’s your faith part in receiving what God’s already done for you. And it’s the same with giving. When you give, you’re not moving God. I remember I used to believe many years ago when I first got born again… Well, that was 20 years ago now. So probably 25 years ago. I used to believe, when we give we’re moving the arm of God. It was like praying. When you prayed, you’re moving the arm of God. But you know what? I’ve realized God’s already done it. That’s why Jesus [crosstalk]-
Carlie: He already moved.
Ashley: … on the cross. That’s why Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished.”
Carlie: He’s done His moving.
Ashley: It’s beautiful. It’s a finished work, but we have our part to play by faith.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: But you know what? It’s already done. So the good news is, we already win. I’ve read the back of the book. We win [crosstalk].
Carlie: And when we give that is in a place of faith right there. There’s a couple of areas of giving that I want to touch on as we wrap up this series, because I know that people have questions about this. And what is the difference between a tithe and an offering?
Ashley: Oh, that’s a good question. And in fact, you’ve jumped ahead there because next program we’re going to… next program we’re going to unpack the different types of giving. We’re going to go into the different types of giving. Do you know there’s different types of giving? There’s not just, you just gave and that’s it. You don’t just scatter. There’s different types of giving. If you don’t understand the different types of giving then it can be very easy for you to fall into the trap of not knowing when to give. Remember I talked about God gives seed to the sower and bread to eat. Sometimes you can end up giving your bread and eating your seed. We want to understand the different types of giving. So your question was about tithing and [crosstalk]-
Carlie: What is the difference between a tithe and an offering?
Ashley: Well, a tithe… I believe a tithe is 10% and I believe it should go to the church or where you’re fed. And I’ll unpack a little bit of this in the next program, but when you tithe, it takes faith to tithe. Let me tell you. Tithing is an act of faith. People say, “Actually tithing, that’s part of the law.” Yes, tithing it was part of the law. Tithing was also before the law. There’s two incidences where there’s clearly tithing, people giving 10% before the law. And there was a blessing to that. Like I said, we’ll unpack this next program, but there’s definitely tithing before the law. There was tithing during the law, it became part of the law. And now there’s still tithing after the law. The difference is tithing during the law, there was a curse if you didn’t tithe. In Malachi three it talks about, if you don’t tithe, you know what? You’re robbing God and there’s a curse associated with not tithing.
But now because of Galatians 3:13, because Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law, now tithing is still Godly, it’s still the right thing to do, but there’s no curses involved with it if you don’t tithe. There’s only the benefits. So now when you tithe, you get the blessings but if you don’t tithe, you’re not going to be cursed. There’s no curse involved.
Carlie: You just miss out on the blessings.
Ashley: You miss out on the blessings. In fact, I teach it this way. I say, in Malachi three it talks about you’re robbing God. I preached this in the church the other day, I said, “If you don’t tithe, you’re robbing God.”
Carlie: And they went, “Amen.”
Ashley: [inaudible] “Amen. You God robbers. You should be tithing, [inaudible].” I said, “Hang on a minute. I’m not finished.”
Carlie: Whoa there.
Ashley: “I’m not finished.” I said, “If you don’t tithe, you’re robbing God of the opportunity of blessing you because when you tithe you’re basically saying, ‘God, I trust you with my finances. I want you to have control of my finances.'”
Carlie: It’s the action to your faith.
Ashley: It’s the action to your faith. “God, I trust you,” with your finances. And people say, “Well, tithing it’s…” Let me tell you, tithing is faith-based. If you’re a serious tither, you’ll know it’s faith-based. We sold a-
Carlie: Yeah. It definitely [crosstalk]-
Ashley: … a house.
Carlie: … it definitely… Even before then it was for us.
Ashley: Yeah. Whatever.
Carlie: When we first got married, we didn’t have two pennies to rub together, but every week we tithed. I think I brought home a hundred pounds a week for the entire… that was it.
Ashley: Which is about a $130. $140.
Carlie: The was the entire amount. And every week we gave a 10% before… Even though the £100 a week was not enough to pay our expenses we still gave those first fruits of that tithe and we were blessed every month. Even though we had a shortfall, God made up the difference.
Ashley: Amen. [crosstalk].
Carlie: Every month.
Ashley: You can have the wrong attitude about tithing. Like I said, we’ll unpack some of this in the next show because you can tithe as an obligation. You can tithe like you’re under the law and you can tithe with the wrong attitude and really, giving has a lot to do with your attitude. It has a lot to do with your heart attitude. Jesus said, “Really, where your treasure is, your heart will be also.” And really God’s more concerned about our heart attitude than our money. Money’s the least thing. Finances are the least important thing in the kingdom of God. People [crosstalk]-
Carlie: But it affects everyone.
Ashley: It affects everyone. It affects our relationship with God. It affects the word of God. We’ve looked at some of this. If we don’t have a right relationship with finances, it could be dangerous. [inaudible] we’ve already looked at Judas and the deceitfulness of riches and the lust after things and things like that. So really, your relationship with money is very, very important, but how you give, your heart attitude towards your giving, it makes all the difference. And that’s why I’m excited. Next program we’re going to unpack the types of giving. There’s different types of giving. There’s at least four different types of giving we can see in the Bible and they’re all relevant today as grace and faith Christians, New Testament, new covenant, spiritful Christians, grace and faith Christians. It is still right that we understand these different types of giving.
And I’m telling you, if you understand these different types of giving it’s amazing what can happen to you. We’ve been so blessed. We’ve been prospered by the Lord. And like I said, we haven’t arrived, but we’ve left. We’re a hundred percent debt-free. Our ministry is debt-free. We own our own house here in Colorado Springs. We pay everything with cash. We don’t take any loans on anything. And that is mainly because of God’s blessing on us. And God’s shown us through giving, God’s got us things through giving. When God’s asked us to give, it’s because He tried to get more to us. He tried to get something better to us.
And I’m telling you, when you understand this, you’ll become a cheerful giver. I’ve been in church services and in conferences where we’ve basically… me and my friends [inaudible] basically said, “You’ve got to take up an offering.” We’ve demanded to take up an offering because we know the power of giving in certain situations. Praise [crosstalk] God. Be sure to join us next time because we’re going to look at the different types of giving and the power in them different types of giving. But until then, let me pray for you before next time.
Father, God, I thank you for everyone listening and watching this program. I thank you that your will for them is to prosper in every area of their life. And I [inaudible] to be in health. That’s your will for us, Lord.
Carlie: Yes, Lord. Thank you, Jesus.
Ashley: We thank you for that. We thank you, you’ve paid for us to live in health and you’ve paid for us to live prosperous. And I thank you Lord, that as we’re understanding these truths, and we’re understanding your word, we’re going to increase and we’re going to see that prosperity manifest in our lives so we can live and give like we’ve never given before. We want to be able to give more. We want to help more people. And I thank you Lord, that you’re enabling us to do that. I thank you that you give seed to sowers.
And I thank you, Lord, as these people are sowing, you’re giving them seed to sow even more. Praise God. Thank you, Lord. I thank that that you love… You’re a good father. You love us Lord. You’ve only got good for us. And I thank you as our loving father, Lord, you love everyone listening and watching today. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Ain’t that awesome?
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Praise God. Well, if you don’t know Jesus, if this is your first time tuned in, please contact us, terradez.com. Hit that contact button. We’d love to reach out for you. We’d love to give you some resources and welcome you to the family. Amen.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: God is good. So we’ll see you next time. And until then, don’t just live a normal life. Why not live the abundant life? See you soon.
Announcer: To order your copy of the book featured in our program, visit our website, terradez.com. Download your free copy of Ashley and Carlie’s teaching notes at our website, terradez.com. Coming up next on the abundant life program…
Ashley: Our natural way of thinking is flawed now. It’s part of the world system. And when you got born again, you changed address. You no longer live in the world. You’re just on loan to the earth. Now you’re seated in heavenly places. Now you’re one spirit with the Lord. Now you’re ambassadors for Christ. So really, your spirit is now part of the kingdom of God. And you have to get with how the kingdom of God operates. And the kingdom of God operates different from the world. Some examples we gave, if you want to be first, the kingdom of God says be last. You want to be the greatest leader, be the greatest servant. Someone wrongs you, forgive them. You have an enemy, love them. You need more money, give some away. So you see how it works. It takes faith to do these things. That’s why we walk by faith and not by sight.
Announcer: Why live a normal life when you could be living the abundant life? Join us next time for the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.