In part 18 of How to Attack Lack, Ashley and Carlie share something that you can do to appropriate the provision of God in your life. God’s supernatural abundance doesn’t happen automatically, it requires your response of agreement.
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. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. We’ve got an exciting program today. We’re talking about how to attack lack, how to attack lack in your finances. Now, God wants you prosperous in every area of your life. He wants you prosperous so you can have an abundance for every good work, but if you’re experiencing lack in the natural, if your month is longer than your paycheck, if you’re experiencing lack somewhere, then we want to show you how to attack that lack and be done with that lack so you don’t have to experience that anymore.
Carlie: Just be done with it.
Ashley: Be done with lack. We’ve been there. When we first got married, I was a youth pastor. Carlie was working at Christian Coffee House, and we didn’t have much money. I tell people we didn’t have enough money to pay attention. We lived in this little shack of a house in the woods that a friend of mine let us use, which he demolished afterwards. That’s how bad it was.
Carlie: It was full of squirrels.
Ashley: It was full of squirrels. It didn’t have any heating. It was a bad deal. What we realized was-
Carlie: Our love kept us warm.
Ashley: Love kept us warm. Yeah. Not for long.
Carlie: In case the heating didn’t.
Ashley: The heat sure didn’t. It was bad. We’ve been there, in points of lack. We’ve been to the grocery store where we haven’t got enough money to buy all the groceries we need. We’ve only had to buy a few things because we didn’t have money for the rest of it. If you’re experiencing lack in your life, we’ve been there. I know some people experience extreme lack, and then there’s some people that they haven’t necessarily got lack. They can buy groceries and stuff, but they’re believing God for more because they want to do some things for the Lord, or they want to buy their kids things, or they want to do things and they haven’t got the money to do it.
I believe God wants you prosperous. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet though he was rich, for your sakes, for our sakes, he became poor that us through his poverty might be made rich.” That’s a financial verse. That verse is talking about money. In 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul is talking all about money, about offerings. Them chapters are money chapters. They’re talking about money. You can apply that verse to spiritual riches, no problem, but really in the context, that verse is talking about money.
Jesus experienced poverty. He took poverty and lack to the cross so that we could take on his prosperity and his abundance, just like he took your sin to the cross. 2 Corinthians 5:21, for instance, it says “He made him to be made sin who knew no sin, so we could be the righteousness of Christ.” He took our sins to the cross so that we could be made righteous. We could take his righteousness. 1 Peter 2:24 is another example. “He took stripes on his back so that we could be healed.” He took on our pain and we get his healing and health.
It’s the great exchange. It’s the gospel. It’s part of the atonement. Jesus did these things for us, and when we believe on Jesus, when we’re in a relationship with Jesus, we get all the spoils. Praise God. We get all the benefits and all the good stuff, just by being in relationship with him.
Carlie: That’s a great deal.
Ashley: It’s almost too good to be true.
Carlie: Ain’t it?
Ashley: That’s what the word gospel meant in the original Greek. Almost too good to be true news.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Aint’ that awesome?
Carlie: Good deal.
Ashley: Praise God. Then 2 Corinthians 9:8, so that was 2 Corinthians 8:9. 2 Corinthians 9:8 puts it this way. It says that “All grace may have bound towards you, that you having all sufficiency in all things,” so all our needs met in all things, can have an abundance for every good work. Have an abundance for every good work. We should have an abundance for every good work, so not just our own needs met, but also have extra for every good work. That’s what God wants for us.
Carlie: Yep, he sure does.
Ashley: That’s where it was up to. Today, we’re looking at the work of your hand. Let me put it another way before I go any further. We believe if you’re born again, you’re already blessed. God’s already provided for you. Grace has provided for you. Grace has provided all your needs. Grace has made you prosperous, just like you’re healed, just like you’re righteous, but then in the natural, sometimes we might not see that evidence in the natural. You put it this way, right? You can’t look at a physical. How do you put it? I don’t want to misquote you.
Carlie: You can’t let a physical condition determine a spiritual position.
Ashley: Say it again, Carlie.
Carlie: You can’t let a physical condition determine a spiritual position.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: In other words, what we have in the natural doesn’t change around in our relationship with the Lord, our right standing with God, our position, seated with Christ, a child accepted in the beloved. All of those things remain true despite what’s going on in our natural circumstances.
Ashley: We’re righteous because we’re born again and God’s made us righteous in our spirits. If sometimes our actions might not show that, that doesn’t mean we lose our righteousness. It just means our actions are doing that. If we’re suffering, if we have sickness or disease in our body, that doesn’t mean we’re not healed because by his stripes, we were healed. We are healed in our spirit, but sometimes it takes time for it to manifest because of how we’re believing. According to your faith, whether it be so, we don’t see it manifests right away sometimes.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: Even though it’s God’s will, and God’s best for us to be healed. It’s the same with finances. Finances is the least thing, by the way. Jesus paid for us to have prosperity in our finances. Jesus paid for us to have an abundance, and sometimes we don’t see it in our bank account.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: Sometimes we have to see it manifest, and that’s why we’re talking about attacking lack in this series. We want to attack lack. We want to get to the point where we hate poverty. Poverty actually kills. In third world nations, there’s hundreds of people that just because of poverty, just because of a lack of resources, they don’t have enough to eat, or they don’t have access to clean water, and it’s killing them. It’s terrible. Poverty is a bad thing.
In fact, in Deuteronomy 28 all the times … You can look at Deuteronomy 28, read that whole chapter, verses one to 14 shows the blessings, and every time prosperity and abundance and blessings are mentioned, it’s in a positive context. It’s a blessing. Every time lack, verses 15 to 68, every time lack and not having enough … It talks about planting a vineyard but not eating any of the produce. It’s talking about seeds but not reaping the harvest. All that cases of lack and the cases of not having enough and the cases of experiencing poverty, that’s always negative. Abundance and prosperity and provision is always a blessing. It’s positive, whereas lack and poverty is always negative and it’s a curse.
We don’t want to live with those things. We don’t want to live with lack and poverty because it’s not from God. That’s not from God. In Romans, I believe it’s Romans 12:21, it says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” You could say it this way, in this instance, “Don’t be overcome by lack or poverty, but overcome lack and poverty with abundance and prosperity.”
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: The way to overcome lack isn’t to manage the lack, isn’t to focus on the lack, isn’t to try and budget the way out of the lack. The way to overcome lack is with prosperity and God’s provision. God wants to prosper us so that we’re not focused on lack anymore. You know what we’re focused on? How can we help other people? There’s so many reasons why we should believe in God for his prosperity to manifest. We can help more people. You know what? We can spread the gospel. We can send out preachers and missionaries. We can give. We can give in all these different ways.
Later on in this series, we’re going to be talking about giving and the power of giving. Today, we’re going to be talking about something you can do to really appropriate the provision of God in your life. Let me say that again. We’re going to be talking about something you can do to appropriate the provision of God in your life. God’s supernatural abundance doesn’t just happen automatically. It’s already been paid for by grace, but we have our part by faith to receive it. Now, all the things of God take our positive response. They don’t just happen automatically. All the promises of God are yes and amen. God says yes to the promises. They’re all yours, but we have to say amen and agree with them and receive them. We have to receive them.
If I gave someone $100 check one time, they had to go and cash that check. They had to go and deposit that check. I gave him the money, but they had to deposit the check.
Carlie: They had do believe in what you’d already provided for them.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Right. This is in 2 Peter 1:2. It says, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord.” In other words, grace and peace are multiplied to us as we develop in our relationship with the Lord. This word knowledge isn’t talking about a casual knowing. This is talking about an intimate relationship. Okay? It goes on in verse three to say, “As his divine power has given to us all things,” not some things, like everything we’re ever going to need, “that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue.” There’s that word knowledge again, that intimate marriage type relationship. He’s given us everything we need for life, including prosperity, including an abundance for every good work, including victory over lack in our life.
He’s given us all those things, but we access that provision through the relationship that we have with him. It says this a bit clearer in verse four. It says, “by which,” in other words, it, through this relationship, “we have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises.” The prosperity that’s part of the atonement that Ashley was talking about, that promise, “That through these, you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through loss.”
In other words, overcoming lack is not about having stuff. It’s not about promoting ourselves. It’s not about us just wanting to have stuff so we can live a comfortable lifestyle. It’s not about the things of this earth, about natural things. It’s about developing our relationship with the Lord to the point that we trust him and really understand what it means to allow him to provide for all of our needs.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: That happens, that manifestation of that fruitfulness of that relationship in our life, happens through our relationship with Jesus.
Ashley: It’s all through a relationship with Jesus.
Carlie: Everything comes back to that.
Ashley: Everything we receive is through relationship with Jesus. In fact, Paul puts it this way in Romans 8:37. In Romans 8:37 he says, “In all these things, we are more than conquerors.” Romans 8:37, “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us, thru Jesus. We’re more than conquerors.” In all these things, whether it’s lack, whether it’s healing, wherever we need, we’re already more than conquerors. It’s through our relationship with Jesus. In fact, I look at it this way. What’s more than a conqueror?
Well, more than a conqueror, this is the way I look at it. Imagine two boxers when they’re boxing, and you have the heavyweight championship boxing match. When I was a kid, I used to like watching boxing. It was like the good old days with Lennox Lewis and Frank Bruno and all them people. They would fight and they would punch each other and then eventually one would punch the other one to the ground and there’d be a knockout.
Carlie: Be a knockout.
Ashley: Be a knockout, and they’d lift up the winner’s arms. They’d lift up his arms and they’d say he is the champion of the world. He’d be a bit beaten. He’s been taking some blows and he’d be like, “Adrian,” like Rocky. They’d lift up his arms. He is the champion. He’s the champion of the world. He’s the world champion. He’s a conqueror. They had to gave him a big golden belt. It would say champion of the world. Then they give him a purse.
Carlie: That’s for girlies.
Ashley: I know. Why not give him a wallet or something? They give him a purse and they’d give him the prize money. It might be $100 million prize money. They give him $100 million prize money for being the champion of the world, the world champion. They lift up his arm. They say he is the conqueror. He has conquered. Here’s the conqueror. Then his wife, she’d jump in the ring and she’d walk across the canvas. She’d lean up, kiss him on the cheek, and she’d take that $100 million prize money and she’d go down the mall to spend it. Now he was a conqueror, but she’s more than a conqueror.
Carlie: Right? She won without without even having to fight.
Ashley: Exactly. She is more than a conqueror. Jesus has paid the price. Jesus has beaten sin. Jesus has beaten death. Jesus has beaten sickness. Jesus has beaten poverty, like we just read, and now us through our relationship with Jesus, for our marriage relationship with Jesus, we’re more than conquerors. We get all the spoils without having to do any of the battle.
Carlie: That’s a great deal.
Ashley: Jesus did the battle. We get the spoils just for our relationship with him. It’s the almost too good to be true news. Isn’t that neat? That’s where we’re at, but if you’re not experienced in those things in a day-to-day life, then what’s going wrong? What’s going? You need to put your hand to something. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. There are some things you can do to appropriate those promises in your life so you can see the victorious life manifest in your day to day.
We’re talking about finances here. This is talking about attacking your lack. This is one of the things you can do. I believe there’s three main things you need to do to attack lack in your life and see the supernatural provision of God enter into your daily life. That is giving. Your giving is so important. We’re going to cover that later on in this series, but how you give, when you give, why you give, who you give to, when you, all these things are important. Your attitude when giving, giving is so important. We’re going to cover that. Also, stewardship. We’re going to be looking at stewardship, about how the fact that how you steward your money, if the money that comes into you, you just spend every penny or even worse than that, you go into debt, you’re not going to experience the prosperity of God. You’re going to experience lack because you’re spending everything that comes into you. You need to steward your money.
The third thing you can do is put your hand to something, the work of your hand. That’s what we’re going to be covering today, putting your hand to something, the work of your hand. This is so exciting because I tell people this. If you really want to see God’s blessing on your life and you want to see increase in your finances, it’s really good to put your hand to something as if you’re saying, “Hang on a minute, Ashley.” You’re talking about work.
Carlie: You mean I have to do something?
Ashley: We’re beyond work now.
Carlie: We’re spiritual.
Ashley: This is a new covenant.
Carlie: I thought this was a spiritual duty.
Ashley: We don’t work anymore. Well, let me show you some scriptures on this. In Genesis 2:15. Genesis 2:15. Genesis 2:15. God actually made Adam for the purpose of work. Genesis 2:15 says, “Then the Lord God took man and put him in the garden to work and to tend it.” God got Adam and put him in the garden and gave him a job. He said, “Work and tend the garden.”
Carlie: He had a job before he had a wife.
Ashley: That’s very good. Adam had a job before I had a wife. If you want to come date, my daughter, I told her she can start. She’s 15 now. You can start dating when you’re 35 or so.
Carlie: Sorry, Hannah.
Ashley: When you start dating, you make sure that the man you’re dating has a job because God gave Adam a job before he gave him a wife. Anyway, that sounds very sexist and old fashioned, but there you go.
Carlie: Oh, well.
Ashley: God put Adam in the garden. This was before the fall, so this was perfect. This was before Adam and Eve disobeyed God. This is before the fall, F-A-L-L, before the fall. I had to translate for our American viewers.
Carlie: Yes.
Ashley: This was before the fall.
Carlie: Subtitles.
Ashley: God gave Adam work to do. He said, “He put me in the garden to work and to keep it.” Adam worked the garden. He liked it. He did whatever he did in the garden. He gardened and grew stuff.
Carlie: You don’t know what to do in the garden.
Ashley: I don’t know. I’m not green fingered. We kill plants. We’re not very good at it.
Carlie: Yeah. Yeah. If it doesn’t speak in my house, then it’s going to probably die.
Ashley: Plants can’t call out and ask for food.
Carlie: Fish, they don’t do well, either.
Ashley: Only cats and dogs survive.
Carlie: It has to be able to make a noise.
Ashley: Anyway, we’re not great at gardening, but Adam gardened. He had a job and he loved his job and it worked and it was fine. He was eating the produce of the ground and it worked great, but then we know what happens. Adam and Eve disobeyed God. What happened was, after they disobeyed God, everything changed. They call that the fall. Everything changed. This is Genesis 3:17, Genesis 3:17. After the fall, this is what God said to Adam and Eve. He said, “Cursed is the ground for your sakes.” Now, this is interesting. God never cursed the ground. Okay? The ground became cursed because they disobeyed God. A lot of the time, religion will tell you will God cursed the ground. No, the ground became curse because they disobeyed God. There’s a difference there.
He said, “The ground’s been cursed for your sake. In toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” Listen to this, “Both thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the herb of the field by the sweat of your brow.” Now, what happened here to Adam was, is the ground became cursed. After he disobeyed God, the ground became cursed. Now when he went to work the ground, he did the same job he did before. He went to tend, to work the garden, but now there was thorns in there and the thorns in them days were those long thorns. These thorns, there were thorn bushes now. As he went to work the ground, dig in and planting seeds and things like that-
Carlie: It was hard.
Ashley: It was hard work. It was painful work sometimes. He was getting pain. Sometimes it was frustrating. He would do the same amount of work but not get the same results as he used to get. He was becoming frustrated. He wasn’t getting enough. In fact, Haggai puts it this way. Haggai 1:6 said, “It’s like earning wages only to put it in a bag with holes.” Have you ever felt like that?
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: Have you ever felt like you’re earning money, but it just goes in a bag with holes and you never quite have enough? Maybe you’re in a job that you don’t like and you feel like you’re frustrated. You never quite make enough money. You can never quite get ahead. Well, this is what happened to Adam here. He was doing the work on the ground, but then thorns and thistles were getting in and causing him pain. They were causing him frustration. He wasn’t able to produce like he used to be able to produce.
That was the curse of work. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the ground became cursed. Now there was thorns in the ground. When Adam went to work, his work, the work of his hands was cursed and it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t working out and just like Haggai says-
Carlie: It wasn’t fulfilling.
Ashley: It wasn’t fulfilling. He wasn’t bringing in enough. He wasn’t getting ahead. It wasn’t working out. That was the curse of the work of the hands. Jesus redeemed us from the curse. Galatians 3:13, Jesus redeemed us from the curse and everything Jesus did when he was on earth was symbolic for our redemption. During his death, burial, and resurrection, it was symbolic for our resurrection. He took stripes on his back to relieve us of our ailments, of our pain and sickness. There was things he did. He became poor so that we might become rich. There was things he did that were symbolic.
In Matthew 27, Matthew 27:29, I’d always wondered about this. The Lord showed this to me one day. In Matthew, 27:29, Jesus was in captivity. They took him. The guards took him, and he was going out before the Sanhedrin. The guards, they want to mock him because they called him the king of the Jews. They wanted to mock him. They took thorns from the ground. They got them thorns from the ground, from thorn bushes. They took those thorns from the ground. They formed. Their only reason those thorns were there was because the ground had become cursed. There was no thorns before the fall. There was no thorns before the work of man’s hand was cursed.
They took those thorns from the ground and the guards made a crown out of them, a crown of thorns. In Matthew 27:29, it says, “They made a crown. They forced it onto Jesus’ head, and they made a crown out of thorns.” When they forced that crown of thorns onto his head, have you got the passage yet to read it? Matthew 27:29, if you go there, what does it say?
Carlie: It says, “And when they put the twisted crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews.'”
Ashley: They made that crown out of thorns. They put it on his head, and when they put it in his head, then it caused blood to run down his brow. In Genesis 3:18 it says, “By the sweat of your brow, you will be eating the fruit there over the ground.” They put that crown of thorns on his head, and that was Jesus right then, redeeming us from the curse of work. That was him redeeming us from the curse of work, not being enough, not quite getting ahead, frustrating, painful work, putting our wages in a bag with holes in it, never quite getting ahead, always falling short, always experiencing lack.
That was Jesus redeeming us from that. That was symbolic. That crown of thorns, the guards thought they were just doing it to mock him. No, that was symbolic. Them thorns got pushed into Jesus’ head. Those same thorns that was causing Adam to have a frustration in his work were our redemption for now the curse of the work of our hands has been lifted. Jesus paid the curse, and now the works of our hands are blessed. Now, whatever you do, it doesn’t matter what you do. The works of your hands are blessed. It doesn’t matter what you do. Do it as unto the Lord. Colossians. You were going to say something?
Carlie: I was just thinking.
Ashley: I heard you. [crosstalk].
Carlie: It’s interesting because I think sometimes we don’t realize that the curse of the work of our hands has been removed because we’re too busy cursing it ourselves.
Ashley: Come on.
Carlie: The only curse that we have on the work of our hands and the things that we touched, the only reason why our business isn’t prospering is because we’re cursing it. Right?
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: What we say about about our situation has a huge impact on it.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: We need to be recognizing what Jesus has done for us. He’s removed that curse. Galatians 3:13, it says that we have been redeemed from the curse of the law. Man, if only we could start being thankful for our business, thankful for everything that is going right, thankful and blessing the work of our hands, it’ll become fruitful again.
Ashley: Amen. It really is. The feeding of the 5,000 is a great example of this. They took the few loaves, the two loaves and the two fish and five loaves, gave it to Jesus. The disciples said, “What are so few among so many? This isn’t enough to feed these 5,000 men.” Jesus didn’t say this isn’t enough. Jesus took those loaves and fish and he gave thanks. He thanked God for them. He said, “Thank you, God, for these loaves and fish.” They multiplied and fed everyone. How many of you would do that? How many of us, if we had a job that only paid $100, $1,000 a week, and we needed $1,500 a week, would say, “That job’s not paying enough,” or we have a $10 an hour job. “That’s not enough. I need a $20 an hour job.”
We would curse the work of our hand. We do a small business or some. Nowadays, you can do things online. You can have side businesses. You can have your own things online and whatever. That only makes $100 a week, or that only makes $50. That’s not enough. We’re actually cursing the work of our hand. “I hate my job. I hate my boss. This is a dead end job. Oh, woe is me. It’s Monday. Now, thank God it’s Friday. Oh, no. Monday blues.” All that is not good because you’ve been redeemed from that curse. You’ve been redeemed from the curse of unfulfilling, frustrating work, and now we need to start believing it and walking in it.
Carlie: Amen, so confessing the curse and start confessing the blessing.
Ashley: Amen. Start confessing the blessing over the works of your hands, because that’s the truth. Jesus redeemed you from the curse of the work of your hands. Now the works of your hands are blessed. Do everything as unto the Lord, Colossians 3:17. Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do in word, or do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him.” Whatever job you’ve had, I’ve had some bad jobs.
Carlie: I’ve had some bad jobs.
Ashley: We both had some bad jobs. We’ve just done what we’ve had to do in times past, just because we’ve had to. Whatever we’ve had to do, we’ve done it. I’ve had jokes where I’ve hated going to work but I decided to be positive. I didn’t do everything perfectly, but I decided to start giving thanks, finding something to give thanks for.
I’ve had bad bosses, but I’ve decided to give thanks to God for my bosses. Back in England, I’d be in work situations where terrible situations. I’d start thanking God for my boss. Start praying for them. Start thanking God for them. It’ll change that situation. Start thanking God for wherever you put your hand to today. I know there’s a lot of people watching. Some of you might be full stay home parents full time, start thanking God for the opportunity of raising your kids at home. Maybe you’re retired and you’re volunteering somewhere. Thank God for that. Maybe you’re doing a small business. Thank God for that. Maybe you’re working full-time in a job that you don’t like. Start thanking God for that job. Start thanking God for the opportunity to go to that job and to serve him and do it as unto the Lord. If Jesus was right there as your boss in the flesh, you would work differently probably than you are now. Start thanking God for that.
Carlie: This is a real testament, honestly, but when you started working for the huge car supermarket back in England, Ashley’s bosses were really good heathens.
Ashley: They confessed that. They said, “We’re good sinners. We know how to sin.”
Carlie: They really were. It was a toxic work environment. It wasn’t Christian by a long means. In fact there’s quite a lot of violence and all kinds of stuff that happened in the workplace. Ashley being a salesman, coming in at the bottom of the rung, he only worked three days a week because that’s all they’d give him. He got the worst three days, the worst three shifts of the whole week for car sales.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: Rather than saying, “Oh, you know what? This place is toxic. My boss is a heathen. This is horrible. I’ve got the worst shift and I’m not going to make any sales on cars.” It was 100% commission. We started blessing it. We started blessing the work of his hands. Thank you, God. You know what? Whatever he touched prospers. Thank you, Lord, that he might only work three days a week, but in those three days, he’s going to make more money than people that would work all week. I tell you, it was supernatural, the promotion of God on your life and the prosperity that all brought through there.
Ashley: Within three years, I was running the whole place. The only people I was answerable to were the owners. Not only that, I put a position in place where I actually got them online. That was back in the internet days.
Carlie: You introduced them to the interweb.
Ashley: I introduced them to them worldwide interweb.
Carlie: The world wide web.
Ashley: What happened was, I was actually getting commission for cars that were sold wherever I was there or not. I didn’t even have to work. I could actually stay at home and still work on commission because I was putting all the cars online and the ones that sold online, I was getting commission for. When I left that position, it was a contract job. When I left that, people said, “Ashley you’re overworked and underpaid or overpaid and under worked,”
Carlie: Yeah. [crosstalk].
Ashley: That was the favor of God. The works of your hands are blessed. Give something. Give God something to work with. A hundred fold of zero is zero. Give God something to work. This is a Psalm 1:3. Psalm 1:3 says, “Whatever he does prospers.” Whatever he does prospers. Deuteronomy 28 says, “The Lord will command a blessing on your store houses.” We’re going to teach about stewardship and about having a storehouse in a future episode, but right now, we’re talking about the work of your hands. “He blesses your storehouses and all to which you set your hands. The Lord commands a blessing in all to which you set your hand. He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God has given you.
Psalms 68:19, Psalm 68:19 says, “Bless the Lord who daily loads us with benefits.” Isn’t that powerful? In Proverbs 14:23, Proverbs 14:23, it says, “In all labor, there is profit, so put your hand to something.” In all labor, there’s profits, so put your hand to something and do something for God. I had a guy come to me. He said, “I’m out of work. Ashley, I’ve been out of work for six months.” I said, “Well, go and find a job.” He said, “No one’s hiring.” I said, “Well, Subway’s hiring.” He said, “Subway?” He said, “I used to be a CFO, and I used to have a Fortune 500. I’ve got two degrees.” I said, “They’ll let you make a sandwich in Subway with two degrees.” He couldn’t believe I was telling him to do this.
Carlie: He wasn’t earning any money. He hadn’t been for months.
Ashley: He said, “They only pay $8 an hour.” I said, “Well, how much have you been earning in the last six months? Nothing.” My point is this. If he’d gone and worked for Subway, he wouldn’t have worked there for very long before he was promoted to manager and then co-owner, or someone would have come in and seen him and offered him a job. That’s how it works. When we give God something to work with, when we’re faced with the little, god will give us much. Until you put your hand to something, whatever you’re doing, put your hand to something and give thanks to God. There’s no excuse now not to put your hand to something.
Carlie: Don’t despise small beginnings.
Ashley: Amen. Amen. Don’t despise small beginnings. You know what? God has a plan for you and you put your hand in something, he’s going to prosper you. One way you can attack lack in your life is put your hand to something and let God increase it.
Praise God. Put your hands to something and bless it and let God increase it. There’s so many examples about this that God’s supernatural increase comes when we do the natural obedience. The feeding of the 5,000, we have already said, they had to get the loaves and fish. Jesus blessed them and they increased. John 2, that turned the water into wine. They had to naturally fill the water pots up and give them over. Then it turned into wine. When they paid the taxes in the temple, Peter went fishing and caught a fish. He had to do something natural, caught a fish, took the coin out of the fish’s mouth.
When they got the abundance of fish in the nets, they had to throw their nets over the other side of the boat. When you do something natural in the obedience of God, he could put his super, to your natural and he can bless the works of your hands. You can see increase come your way.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Isn’t that good? Praise God. Well, we’re out of time, this time. We’re going to come back real soon and continue this teaching on attacking lack. Thank you for joining us. We’re going to be praying for you throughout the week that you put your hand to something and you’ll see increase. Praise God. Until next time, remember, don’t just live a normal life. Go out and live the Abundant Life. We’ll see you next time
Announcer: To order your copy of the book featured in our program, visit our website, TerradezMinistries.com. Listen to this partner’s testimony from a recent event.
Speaker 4: Because honestly, they are doing what the gospel says that we’re supposed to live. They are changing lives. They are preaching the gospel. They are healing the sick, raising the dead. They’re reading freedom to Christians and people that are in bondage, too. That’s why they should support Ashley and Carlie, because they are changing the world.
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