What’s in your house? Ashley and Carlie explore 2nd Kings chapter 4 – the story of how Elijah helps a widow. Discover how God uses the natural things available to you as the seed for abundance in your life.
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. My name is Ashley. This is Carlie. And we’ve got a great show for you today. We’re going to be talking about how to attack lack in your life, especially in the area of finances. And we’ve been teaching a series on this. So we’ve been looking at the fact that God wants you prosperous. God wants you to prosper in every area of your life. And we’re talking at the moment about finances, prospering in your finances. And there’s so much to this. That’s why we’ve spent so many episodes talking about this. And today we’re looking at giving. We’ve been looking at giving over the last few episodes because giving is such an important part of prospering financially. And what we’re saying is we’re talking about attacking lack. If you have any lack, if you’re lacking in your finances and you’d like more, and you’d like to be able to give more and be able to use the finances like you want to, then you may have lack. And if you have lack, we want to attack that lack.
Praise God with the word of God and show you how to attack that lack. So we’re talking about giving today. And just a real quick summary on giving. We’ve looked at the different types of giving. And we’ve looked at the fact that you know what, the tithe is a New Testament, new covenant principal still. Even though it was part of the law, it’s also before the law. And before the law, those two instances of the tithe when Jacob tithed and when Abraham tithed. You can look them up in Genesis 14 and Genesis 28. So the first type of giving we talked about was the tithe and how the tithe takes faith. It takes faith to tithe to God. And when you tithe, the emphasis on the tithe, if you read Malachi 3, the emphasis and the tithe was God is trying to get more to us.
And we started off this whole giving series on the fact that God is the biggest giver. He invented giving. God is a loving God. And he’s a generous God. He is good, he’s loving, and he’s generous. And he’s only got good things for us. So anytime he asks us to give, it’s because he’s trying to get more to us. So the tithe is the first level of giving. And I believe the tithe is good for everyone. I believe the tithe should… when your income comes in, you should tithe. And you’re not doing it out of obligation. You’re certainly not doing it because it’s part of the law. You’re not part of the law anymore. And there is no curse if you don’t tithe. Galatians 3:13, Jesus redeemed us from the tithe… from the curse of the law, I should say.
So the tithe… And there’s no curse if you don’t tithe. But there’s all the benefits if you tithe. There’s all the blessings. And God is trying to get things to you. He’s trying to bless you. He says it’ll open up the windows of heaven and pour out such a blessing you won’t be able to contain it.
The second type of giving we looked at was offerings. Giving to ministries, giving to missionaries, giving to places where you’re fed. If you hear teachings and you get fed and you hear the word of God and it encourages you and it helps you, then gives that ministry. I give to ministries when I’m fed. When I’m fed by ministry, I give to ministry. And then partnerships, as part of offerings is partnerships. We’re partners with missionaries, we’re partners with ministries, especially ministries, we’re fed from and ministries that we really gain from. And we partner with those ministries and we give on a consistent basis to those ministries. We give monthly to those ministries. Because in Romans 4:10, it talks about getting the gospel out and how are they going to hear the gospel unless someone’s sent.
And when you partner and you give to a ministry, you’re sending the gospel out. So we partner and we give to ministries that are preaching the life giving message of God, that are preaching the goodness of God because we want to be part of that. So we give that way. Then we talked about benevolence. Giving to need. When you see someone in need, when you see someone who needs something, then you can give to them. And having wisdom in when to give and when not to give. Don’t just chase need around, but the Lord will show you where there’s genuine need, and you can help them. People you know, people that you see that are in need, Jesus says, if you’ve got it within yourself to give, don’t close up your compassion to them. Give to them and you’ll be showing the generosity of the Lord by doing that. So give to benevolence. Jesus said, there’s a great reward. When you give to people who cannot repay you.
But Jesus in Proverbs, it says that when you give to the poor you’re lending to the Lord and the Lord will repay his debt. So when you give to the poor, it’s okay, God’s going to pay you back. And he’ll pay you back with interest.
Carlie: That’s a good deal.
Ashley: It’s a great deal. And then we also looked at first roots about how when God increases you, or you have a promotion, or when there’s unexpected increase comes into your income to give that first root back to God to honor him. And the main thing about giving is it’s about relationship with God. God wants your heart. Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So giving is more to do with the giver than the recipient. And we looked at the fact in Acts 20:35, Jesus quoted as saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And then Paul says in Philippians 4:17, he said, “When you give to me, I’m not seeking the gift, I’m seeking the fruit that abounds your account.”
So when you give, you’re inviting God into your finances and you’re inviting God into your money to bless your finances. And if you don’t give, if you decide to do it on your own, God can’t get involved in your finances unless you give him permission. He won’t save you against your will. He won’t heal you against your will. And he won’t bless your finances against your will. So really, when you give, you’re inviting God into your finances to bless your finances and increase you.
And we looked at some of the ways that we can… We talked about attacking lack. We talked about some of the ways we’re going to attack lack. We talked about the work of your hand. We talked about stewardship and then like I said, now we’re talking about giving. And we just finished up on generous giving, talking about giving generously and what that means. We talked about, I think it’s 2 Corinthians 9:6, it says those who sow generously will reap generously. Those who sow sparingly will reap sparingly. So really, and let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not begrudgingly of necessity, but with a cheerful heart.
So basically give as you want to give, but you can decide if you want to give generously or not. And the way God set it up, everyone can be a generous giver. You might say, actually, I haven’t got any money. You could be a generous giver with what you’ve got with the the little you’ve got, you could be generous giver. So if it was Ashley, I can’t afford to give. I’d say you can’t afford not to give.
When you start to get serious about you’re giving, God’s going to get serious about your getting. And one of the main reasons why you may not have any money to give is because you haven’t been putting giving as a top priority. And there is no condemnation, there’s no judgment. I’m just telling you our testimony for the last 20 years. We’ve put giving first on our budget. We’ve put giving as the main priority. And I tell you, we are being blessed, blessed, blessed. We were debt free. We’ve paid our house off where we were both full-time in our ministry without having to take a salary. We are blessed because we’ve put God first in our giving. And God wants to do that for you. God wants to prosper you financially. And it takes faith. It takes faith to give.
Carlie: It does.
Ashley: So grace has already provided it. Jesus has provided for your provision. But our part by faith is to reach out and say, “Thank you, Lord,” and receive that provision. And that’s the giving part. And understanding your flesh doesn’t like it. My flesh still doesn’t like it, especially when it’s a big amount. We was talking about generous giving last time. When it’s a big amount, your flesh [inaudible] of freaks out.
Carlie: The knee wobbling.
Ashley: The knee wobbling-
Carlie: Type of giving.
Ashley: Your hands get sweaty. But it’s okay because God won’t be out given. Ge’s the biggest giver. And he increases the seed you sow. So when you sow seed, it’s going to increase. Praise God. And it’ll also gives you bread to eat. So you’re going to be looked after. He’s going to supply your needs, according to his riches in glory, Philippians 4:19. So today we’re going to look at a story in 2 Kings chapter four, this is 2 Kings chapter four. And Elisha is going to a widow woman here. So have you got that verse?
Carlie: Yeah, this is in a 2 Kings 4:1. It says, “A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha saying, ‘Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that the servant feared the Lord. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.'” So this woman was in a bit of a pickle, right?
Ashley: Bit of a pickle.
Carlie: A bit of a pickle. “So Elisha said to her, ‘What shall I do for you? And tell me, what do you have in the house?'” That’s interesting.
Ashley: So she’s come to Elisha saying… She had a relationship with Elisha. She knew him from before. Her husband used to work for him. And now she’s in trouble. The debtors are going to come and take her sons away from her. And she goes to Elisha and says, “Elisha, I need your help.” And the funny thing is, the first thing Elisha says to her is, “What you have in your house?”
Carlie: What do you have to start with?
Ashley: What do you already have? What do you have now? And we’ve already talked about the work of your hands, but it’s really important to put your hands to something. And a lot of the time God’s going to use what’s already in your hands, what’s already in your house, if you like, to prosper you. God’s going to use your existing job. God’s going to use your talents. God’s going to use your previous contacts or whatever. God’s going to use the natural things around you. And he’s going to put his super to those natural things. And he’s going to increase you by the natural thing.
So sometimes we [inaudible] miss God on this because we’re looking for the spectacular, whatever, the big break. We’re looking for the million dollar check in the mail. We’re looking for some big deal. When God wants to start with what we’ve got in our house, what we’ve got in our hands and then increase that. Start prospering that. Start increasing and multiplying that. So don’t miss God in the small things. God’s a humble God. And he likes to take small things and increase them for his glory. Don’t despise small beginnings. So that’s the first thing Elisha asked her, “What do you have in your house?”
Carlie: This reminds me when, when we moved into our house in Warsaw when we were going to Bible college, we got ourselves in a pickle, right? We really were.
Ashley: If you’re watching in America who aren’t English, I can translate that. In a pickle means in a little bit of a jam or that’s English as well-
Carlie: It’s a sticky wicket.
Ashley: Sticky wicket, knickers in a twist-
Carlie: They’re all English, it’s not going to work-
Ashley: Basically in trouble, you’re in trouble.
Carlie: We were in a financial mess, okay?
Ashley: [inaudible] Yeah, in a financial mess. Bit of a mess.
Carlie: We moved to Bible college. We didn’t have any savings. We went on a word from God. We figured we weren’t going to work because we were going to be spiritual. And then we really quickly found out that that wasn’t going to work either. So even though we were following God, we didn’t quite hear it perfectly. Right? Which I’m sure many of you can relate to. So we found ourselves one day, about two days short of all of these bills coming due and we had no more money left anywhere and no ability to get any more money. And so I was vacuuming the house. Ashley was out. So I was vacuuming the house. And as I’m vacuuming the house, I’m just praying in tongues.
And I remember that the Lord spoke to us before we even went to Bible college. And he told me in Philippians 4:19, that he’s going to supply all of our needs, according to his riches in glory. So I just started to remind him of this. Because God isn’t ever early usually, but hopefully he’s not late. Right? And I’m like, “Listen, Lord. In two days time, these bills are coming due and you promise me, remember, that you are going to supply my needs. I have a need.” Right? And as I’m praying in tongues, what comes to me is the Lord saying, “I’ve already provided for you. It’s in your house. It’s in your hand.” So just like here with Elisha and the widow woman, he started to tell me what’s in your house. And I thought about this story and I’m like, I started to get excited. I’m like, “I know if God’s speaking to me that it’s in my house. That means it’s in my house.” So I phoned you up, didn’t I?
Ashley: Yep.
Carlie: I phoned Ashley up and I started getting all excited on the phone, telling them God’s spoken to me this. These financial troubles that we have are over because God has spoken. And he says the provision is already in our house, it’s in our hand. And I don’t know, you probably thought I was a bit crazy at that point.
Ashley: Well [crosstalk]-
Carlie: Maybe. Nothing new. Nothing new. That’s just Carly. She just following God. Right? But when I put the phone down, I’m still vacuuming. I’m on the phone, still vacuuming, multitasking. And I’m like, “Lord. Okay. If it’s in the house, then where is it? I’m going to find this provision. What does that provision look like?” And as I’m vacuuming our front porch way, I hit the baseboard right by the front door. And in England, we have these little slots in the front door. The mail comes directly into the house. I hit the baseboard and out of the wall cavity where it was hidden from view, popped a check that had been, I guess it’d come in the slot-
Ashley: Went under the wall. It was an old house so [crosstalk] gap between the wall and the floor and under it. And you open it up and it was a it was-
Carlie: Check.
Ashley: A tax refund or something.
Carlie: It was a check for two months rent. I can’t remember what… but it had been in that wall cavity for two months, basically to the day when we moved in the house. God had provided for us.
Ashley: And then about a week later, when she gave you that word, I went looking through my files and I realized I still had a personalized number plate in England. We have… You can actually buy… Personalized number plates aren’t owned by the state like they are in America, you own in person. And I’d bought this personalized number plate that said Ashley. It was A-5-H-L-Y, like Ashley. And I didn’t realize I still had it on a certificate. So I put it on eBay. I prayed. I put it on eBay. And that paid for a year’s worth of college tuition. We paid a year’s worth of college tuition with that, we went… It sold for so much money. My family made fun of me. Like, “Why are you trying to sell that license plate for?”
Carlie: They thought it was ridiculous.
Ashley: But this guy bought it for his son because his son’s name was Ashley. And anyway, he paid for that license plate. And that was something I had just forgotten about in my filing cabinet. That was a whole year’s worth of tuition for both of us.
Carlie: And it didn’t stop there. Whilst going through our filing cabinet, we find an insurance policy, an insurance saving policy that we’d been paying into since we got married, like a really small, it was like three pounds a week. Because when we first got married, we had nothing. So we were just paying it in. And it had been going out of our bank account, just such a small amount that it hadn’t even been noticed, for the last 13 years at that point. And so this little savings account had, had just built up and built up. And when I found the latest statement there, I realize we could cash it in. And it was another year’s worth of tuition.
Ashley: So we paid both our tuition
Carlie: Both our tuition
Ashley: And the rent all in a few days-
Carlie: Our expenses for the year [crosstalk] at least.
Ashley: All that was in the house.
Carlie: Maybe two years. All in one week for the things that were in our house. So I’m just saying somebody has just going to praise the Lord. Right? I mean, that was awesome moment [crosstalk]. The provision is in your house.
Ashley: Back to Elisha and the widow woman.
Carlie: Sorry, I got distracted with God’s stories. Okay. So verse two. “So Elisha said, ‘What should I do for her? You tell me, what do you have in your house?’ And she said, ‘Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.’ And then he said, ‘So go borrow vessels from everywhere, from all of your neighbors empty vessels and do not gather just a few.'” What’s that about?
Ashley: Well so he was saying, she said, “All I’ve got is this oil.” And this is a word from God. Elisha said, “Go and get some vessels. Go and get some pots and go in the house.” And he said, “Don’t gather just a few, gather a lot.” It was up to her how many she gathered, but she gathered some pots and then Elisha said in verse four. “And when you’ve come in, shut the door behind you, you and your sons.” He was saying about getting the house and shut the door behind you. I believe this is talking about shutting out unbelief. Shut out the unbelief. Don’t listen to all the world’s way of doing things. Shut out unbelief, get on your own with these pots. And then he said, “Then pour the oil into these vessels and set aside the full ones.”
Now, all she had was one jar of oil. She went from him, shut the door behind her, her and her sons, who brought the vessels and she poured it out. And then it says in verse six, this is 2 Kings 4:6. “Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, ‘Bring me another vessel.’ And the son said to her, ‘There is not another vessel.’ So the oil ceased.” Now this fascinating. So the oil was pouring out. It was like liquid gold. Imagine. She’s pouring out the oil, it’s coming out this jar into these vessels. The vessels are filling up. They’re setting the full ones aside like Elisha told them to. We don’t know how many she had, but I reckon quite a lot because we find out later, she sold to and paid her debts off. But these vessels are filling up. It reminds me of when, before we had dishwashers and we never used to want to wash up and you want a cup of coffee. And all the cups are gone.
Carlie: So you start on the gravy [crosstalk]-
Ashley: You look around you and you get the gravy jar. You get the vase. It’s like whatever you can find. They were finding pots everywhere and just filling these pots put with oil. And they filled up. And as soon as the last pot filled to the top, it says the oil ceased. So think about this. The oil just kept flowing. But as soon as that last pot filled to the top, the oil ceased. This tells me two things. One, it tells me that God’s not into waste. None of that oil was wasted on the floor. So God’s a supernatural God of increase and abundance, but he’s also a God of stewardship. And that oil didn’t just keep coming and wasted all over the floor and gone to waste. No, as soon as that last pot was filled, the oil ceased.
The feeding of the 5,000, there was masses of food. Everyone ate. Then they picked up all the fragments and had 12 baskets of leftovers. So the disciples could have a to-go box each. There’s certainly stories like this where God doesn’t waste things. He’s not a God of waste. He’s a good steward with things. And, here, this oil wasn’t wasted. The second thing is tells me is that the overflow can only flow where the overflow can flow.
Carlie: So the abundance of God can only flow when it has something to flow into.
Ashley: So if she’d had one vessel, the pot would have only filled up once and it would have stopped. If she had no vessels, the oil never would have even increased. If she had a hundred vessels, then a hundred vessels would have increased. She could have had a thousand vessels and it would have kept flowing.
Carlie: So she limited God’s abundance by how many pots she set out.
Ashley: She set the harvest size. So let me say it again. The supernatural overflow of God will only flow where it can flow. And someone will say, “Ashley, what does that mean?” Well, this is what it means. You’re believing for God, for increase. What you’re going to do with that increase? Have you got a plan for increase? Have you got a giving plan? Have you got a plan where to invest? Have you got a plan what to do with that money? Because God’s not going to give you the supernatural increase or it’s not even up to God, it’s up to you. The supernatural increase isn’t going to go… All the promises of God are yes and amen. It’s up to us. Are we going to receive him or not? And if the overflow starts flowing into your life, what are you going to do with it?
Carlie: How are you going to steward it?
Ashley: How are you going to steward that overflow? And she had a plan. She had the pots, filled them up at the top. And then it says later on, the next verse actually, she went and sold them. It said-
Carlie: Verse seven.
Ashley: Verse seven, it says, “Then she came and told the man of God. She told Elijah. And he said, ‘Okay, great, go and sell the oil and pay your debt. You and your sons will live off the rest.'” So then the next part was, she followed the word of God. She did that. She had a plan. Filled all the pots out, and then she went to the man of God and said, “What’s next?” Now this is interesting as well. Often we want the full plan. She didn’t know she could sell this oil at that stage.
Carlie: She didn’t know how many pots she was going to fill. She didn’t know the oil wasn’t going to stop.
Ashley: [inaudible]. She needed money. And the man of God said, “Fill some pots up with oil.” She didn’t know the next part of the plan. Sometimes we’re looking for steps, two, three, and four to God’s plan. And we haven’t done step one. We do step one. When God tells you to do something, do that first step, and then he’ll show you the next step. Then he’ll show you the next step. Some of us won’t even do step one until we can see the whole plan. And it doesn’t work like that. God’s a God of faith. He wants us to operate in faith. And if he told us the whole plan we’d probably mess it up anyway. So she had to do the first part of the plan, which was fill the pots up with oil. Then Elisha said, “Now go and sell them.” So she still had to do something.
See, God doesn’t give us money directly. He gives us the power to get wealth, Deuteronomy 8:18. It says you’ll remember the Lord, your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant this day as it was to your fathers. So he didn’t give the woman money. He gave the woman supernatural increase, and then she took that then pots of oil and sold them. And not only was it enough to pay for her sons to get out of prison, to pay the debts off so her sons weren’t taken to prison, that’s enough. But there’s also extra because then there was enough to live off of as well.
Carlie: She had enough and extra.
Ashley: Enough and extra. So when God provides your needs, when you’ve trust in God to provide your needs, he doesn’t just get you by. He gives you your needs and extra. And she got her needs met and extra. But she had to do her part. She had to follow the word of God. She had to go to the word of God first. She went to the man of God and got a word from God. Then she had to follow the instructions, even though it didn’t seem logical. Then once you followed the instructions, then she had to do the next stage, which was go and sell them. So she had to be faithful and sell them. And then she was able to live off of the increase.
Carlie: Some of it is it’s just [inaudible] need to get some pots.
Ashley: Get some pots. She had a plan, that’s right. Get some pots. And the way I look at this is what is your plan for supernatural increase? See, we started putting a plan together. What happens if we make this much money? What happens if our business makes this much money? What happens if this much money comes into us? And we start having a plan. Well, the first thing is we tithe. We tithe off of all of our income. So, that would be the tithe. And then we have partnerships with ministries. So we would pay those partnerships. Then we support missionaries.
And one of the ways we supported missionaries is rather than just giving a set amount a month and saying, “Here’s whatever, $50 a month or $100 a month.” We said, “We’ll give you a percentage of our profits and our business.” So when we was in business full-time, we’d give a percentage of our business profits to those missionaries. So it didn’t matter how much would come in, we’d give percentages. Some months it’d be high. Some months it’d be a bit lower. But we told the missionaries this, and do you know what happened? We had missionaries all around the world, praying for our business to prosper because they knew-
Carlie: And it did.
Ashley: The more we made, the more we’d give to them. So you can give percentages. So have some pots ready. Have some giving pots, have some investing pots. Are you investing? Are you saving? It’s good to save. It’s good to save. In Deuteronomy 28, it talks about the blessings in your store houses. He’ll bless you in your store houses. If you’ve got no store houses, you’re not going to be blessed in your store houses. So have some store houses so that God can bless your store houses. So take some of that. One of your pots should be at least one savings account. Maybe several savings account. Have an emergency fund so that you’ve got money in rainy day. If something happens, you can pay cash. If your furnace goes out or if your transmission breaks, you’ve got cash to pay for it.
Maybe [inaudible] want some investments. Maybe you want to invest in retirement. All these things, these things are pots ready for the increase. So get some pots laid out, get a plan laid out, ready for God’s supernatural increase. And when he increases you there’ll be somewhere for that overflow to flow. Amen.
Carlie: That’s powerful.
Ashley: Isn’t that good? So that’s a good example there of supernatural overflow when God gives us supernatural overflow. And that’s that’s, for me, it’s like a symbol of how having a giving plan. Have a plan for your giving. Don’t just think, “Oh, well, whatever will be, will be.” Have a plan for your giving. Put giving as the most important thing on your… I’ve never had this happen to me yet. I’ve never had someone say, “Ashley, I lost my job or my business is failing. How am I going to give?” Now, they always say, “Ashley, how am I going to pay the rent? How am I going to pay the mortgage? How am I going to pay the car payment? How am I going to put food on the table?” Which is all very honorable. It’s good to look after your… to take care of your obligations and to provide for your own household.
But really giving should be the top priority. And the first thing to think of is, “How am I going to give?” Giving should be your top priority. When you get serious about your giving, the more serious you get about your giving, the more serious God can get about you’re getting. And like I said earlier, he gives seed to the sower. So when we start having a plan for our giving, it’s amazing how the getting will come. If God can get it through you, he’ll get it to you.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Amen. Isn’t that powerful? So make sure you have a plan for your giving. Make sure you have somewhere for the overflow to flow, because if you don’t it can only flow where the overflow can flow. And you can determine your harvest. How much do you want to give? We told the story about how we gave a very large one-time offering. We’d already planned for that. We’d already seen ourselves, imagined ourselves writing out big checks. Have a plan, visualize what it’d be like to give, visualize what it’d be like to give X amount of money a week to your church. Visualize what it would be a like to give, to support more missionaries, to give to more ministries and things like that. Have a plan for your giving. Get serious about your giving. And I’m telling you, it’s amazing how that can turn your financial picture around.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Isn’t that awesome?
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: That’s a great story there about the widow woman. I’ve got some other things here I was going to touch on real quickly. Matthew 6:20. Matthew 6:20 Jesus says, “Store up treasure for yourselves where rust and moth can’t come in.” Matthew 6:20. Maybe you want to read that because this is part of giving as well. When you give you’re storing up treasure for yourself. You actually put in… it’s like you’re putting money aside and it’s being stored up. You’re not just losing that money. That money is going ahead of you. Is that Matthew 6:20?
Carlie: Yeah, 19:20 it says, “Do not lay up for yourselves, treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.” Because they’re just temporary. Right? “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Ashley: Amen. So you can lay up treasures for yourself in heaven by giving to God’s kingdom. And when you give it’s going ahead of you, I tell people this. A man… I heard this quote once I can’t claim it’s my own. I don’t know where it’s from.
Carlie: If you just keep saying it often enough.
Ashley: It can be mine.
Carlie: Yes, it’ll been grafted.
Ashley: If I knew who quoted it, I’d give them credit. But I don’t know-
Carlie: A man.
Ashley: Or a woman-
Carlie: Said one day.
Ashley: A man is wise who gives away what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose. Let me say that again, you are wise when you give away what you cannot keep. We can not keep any of our resources, any of our money. We read in Proverbs 27 in an earlier program, that money grows itself wings and flies away. So we can’t trust in riches in this earth anyway. But even if we could keep all the money in this earth, when we die we’re not going to take it with us. So we’re going to lose everything anyway if we die. So a man is wise to give away what you cannot keep. So you can’t keep money. So you’re going to give it away. So you can gain something that you cannot lose. And that’s what Jesus is talking about here. You can put it ahead of you.
And your money is the least thing. And people, and the relationship of God is the most important thing. So when you put money into the gospel, what you’re doing is you’re helping people get set free. You’re helping people hear the gospel. You’re helping people hear the goodness of God. And when you do that, your money’s going ahead of you into heaven and your rewards are going to be literally out of this world. You’re going to have people coming up to you saying, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” I’m only saying this because we’re teaching on giving, but Terradez Ministries, we have partners with this ministry and people partner with this ministry. And they partner with this ministry so that they can send us out to share the goodness of God.
And we travel around the world. We make these programs, we do ministry in all different areas and we’re able to help people. We see people set free. We see people born again. We see people healed. We see people’s relationships restored. We see people receive the goodness of God and that’s done by partners, partnering with us and giving to these ministries so that we can go and do that. When people give to this ministry, that money is going ahead of them. When they’re going to get to heaven, they’re going to have people coming up to them and saying, “Thank you, thank you. Thank you.”
And they’re going to say, “What?” And they said, “You gave to Terradez Ministries.” We’re just one of many ministries. I’m just using it as an example. “You gave to Terradez Ministries and that’s how I heard about the goodness of God. That’s how I heard that God loved me. That’s how I heard that Jesus died for me. And that’s when I gave my life to the Lord. Thank you for doing that.” Or whatever the situation. That’s how I gave my healing or got set free. Isn’t it powerful when we do that and the money goes ahead of us.
Carlie: Amen. This is in Proverbs 11:25. It says, “The generous soul will be made rich. But he who waters will also be watered himself.” If we have a generous. So that is that… it’s talking about thinking first about other people’s needs because you’re trusting God that he’s taking care of yours, right? And then getting more excited about watering other people. Understanding that as we water other people, water other people’s gardens, our garden is going to grow too.
Ashley: Amen, amen. That’s Acts 20:35. “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.” Amen. Isn’t that good? We out of time this time, but we’re going to be back real soon. So we want to thank you. Me and Carlie want to thank you for joining us today. And we’re going to carry on talking about attacking lack and about giving in a future program. So be sure to join us again real soon. And until next time, don’t just settle for living a normal life when you could live the abundant life. We’ll see you soon.
Announcer: Listen to this partner’s testimony from a recent event.
Speaker 4: Oh, it’s wonderful. We’re supporters. We started supporting them last year. And since we’ve done that, we have been so blessed above and beyond what we could think or ask. Our house is paid off. Our cars are paid off. We are debt free.
Announcer: We want to thank the friends and partners of Terradez Ministries. Your faithful financial support enables us to produce the abundant life program and spread the good news of God’s love around the world. If you have been blessed by this program, we invite you to donate and partner with Terradez Ministries. Visit our website, terradez.com and become a partner today. To order your copy of this teaching, visit our website, terradez.com. Download your free copy of Ashley and Carlie’s teaching notes at our website, terradez.com.
Ashley: Hey, I want to tell you about Carlie’s confession card she wrote. It’s a little card. It’s prescription size. And it has verses about who you are in Christ. This is powerful. I use this regularly. You put your name at the top and then you read it to yourself. It says, “I’m a party waiting to happen,” 1 Peter 1:8. “It says I’ve been sanctified,” 1 Corinthians 6:11. “I’m a child of the King adopted into his family.” It goes on and on. “I lack no good thing.” “I can do all things through Christ.” This card is powerful. This will change your life. This will show you who you are in Christ. And I’m telling you, if you haven’t got one of these yet go to our website, terradez.com. We’d love to give one of these to you as our gift completely free. So go to our website, terradez.com and get your confession card today.
Announcer: To receive your free copy of Carlie’s confession card, as our gift to you, go to terradez.com today.