God wants to give you resources supernaturally. Expecting only natural solutions limits the God of the impossible!
Transcription
Ashley: Did you know God has supernatural ways of getting resources to you? That’s right. God has different ways, supernaturally, to get resources to you. That’s what we’re going to look at today. Don’t go anywhere.
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 Abundant Life. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today in the lounge. My name is Ashley Terradez, and this is my wife, Carlie. And today we’re excited because we’re going to be talking about how God wants to give you resources supernaturally.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: God has ways to get resources to you supernaturally, and we’re going to be looking at some of those ways today. And when we find out the principles of how people in the Bible accepted these resources, then we can put them to work ourselves. And we’ve experienced this ourselves.
Carlie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ashley: We’ve experienced God’s supernatural blessings ourselves, and we want to show you how you can experience them too.
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: Isn’t that neat? So the first thing we want to look at is the first story, if you like, or example of God supplying someone supernaturally is in the story in First Kings, chapter… Or Second Kings, I should say. Second Kings, chapter four. Have you got that there, Carlie?
Carlie: Yeah, I have.
Ashley: Second Kings, chapter four.
Carlie: Yeah, this is the-
Ashley: You’re going to read that. And you’re reading this in the modern English version.
Carlie: I am, because-
Ashley: Not the old English version.
Carlie: … I’m modern.
Ashley: The modern English version. I usually use New King James, just for the record, but because I use an iPad, I have about 25 different translations available at the touch of my fingers.
Carlie: Wow, that’s very snazzy.
Ashley: And it’s smaller than your bible. And your bible is one translation.
Carlie: Yeah, but my bible doesn’t ever run out of battery.
Ashley: That is true.
Carlie: It’s always on.
Ashley: I have actually been preaching in front of thousands of people, my iPad’s crashed before now, which is quite embarrassing.
Carlie: No crashing here. Never crashes. Never crashes.
Ashley: Yeah, but anyway, I use the New King James normally. We have a translation to compliment, but you’re using the modern English today.
Carlie: And if you go bible bashing, you need a bible like this. Yes.
Ashley: That bible is very big. It’s a big bible.
Carlie: Just saying.
Ashley: You could do some damage to that. So anyway, if you can’t reach something in the top shelf, you could just-
Carlie: It’s very useful.
Ashley: … stand on that Bible.
Carlie: Use the word.
Ashley: Use the word.
Carlie: Stand on the word, people.
Ashley: So anyway, back to teaching. Back to teaching.
Carlie: Yes, the widow woman.
Ashley: This is Second Kings, chapter four. Carlie, tell us about this story.
Carlie: Okay. All right. So this is Elisha and the widow woman. We’re just going to jump right in here in verse one. It says now one of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two sons as slaves.” So she was in a bit of a pickle. And Elisha said to her, “What should I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” Well, she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” She hadn’t been to Walmart recently. Nothing in the house except a jar of oil.
Then he said to her, “Go ask for some vessels from all of your neighbors, empty vessels, and not just a few. So then go in, shut the door behind you and your sons, and pour the oil into these vessels. And when each one is full, set it aside.” So she left him, shut the door behind her and her sons. And they kept bringing vessels to her. And she kept pouring. Now, when the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” But he said to her, “There’s not another vessel.” And the oil ceased. And she went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go sell the oil, pay your debt. And you and your children can live on the rest.”
Ashley: Wow. What a neat story.
Carlie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). There’s a lot in there.
Ashley: So we have a situation here where there’s a widow woman and she’s in so much debt, her sons are being taken away from her, her husband’s already died. In fact, this lady had served… Well, her husband had served Elisha, and they had a special relationship. He’d served Elisha, and she’d made provisions for Elisha. She loved the prophet and they both did. And he died. So she’s a widow now. And she was in debt, and actually, her sons were being taken away and being imprisoned for that debt. And these times, if you was in debt and you couldn’t pay it, they’ll take your sons away. If the husband wasn’t alive, they’ll take your sons away, and imprison them until you pay the debt. So, this was a serious situation. She was in serious lack here, and she had a serious need.
Maybe you were in a serious need. Maybe you have serious lack in your life. And here, we’re going to show you some principles about what happened to this widow woman, and how she received this abundance. She went from lack to abundance. She went from not enough to having more than enough. And I’m going to show you some things that went on here. The first thing I want to bring out here. This is in verse two. So we’re going to hang out here in Second Kings, chapter four. So if you’ve got your bibles, go ahead and turn there. We’re going to be hanging out and going through this almost line by line. This is the Second Kings chapter four. The second verse, it says when she came to Elisha and told him the problem, she said, look, this… First of all, she made a good decision because she came to the prophet of God for an answer. She turned to God, if you like, for an answer. When you have a problem, when you have a lack, go to God. Go to the word of God, go to Jesus. He’s got your answer. In this case, she came to Elisha, but basically she was going, looking for God for answer. She was looking for an answer from God. And that’s why she went to the man of God.
Carlie: And it’s interesting because I think actually a lot of people today are in the same position that this woman was in. They’ve got in trouble with debt. She was in debt to the creditors and she sought the Lord to help her get out of debt. I mean, we can do that too.
Ashley: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, that’s right. She went to the man of God. In the Old Testament, the Old Covenant is different. We can go directly to God ourselves now, but in this day they went to the prophet. They went to the prophet of God for an answer from God. In verse two it says Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” This is huge. What do you have in your house? So often we are looking for God to supply our needs. We’re looking for God to give us supernatural increase, but God will say, “What do you have in your hand? What do you have in your house? What do you have right now?” These are one of the biggest mistakes I find Christians make when they’re looking for God’s supernatural abundance, especially in the area of finances. This was a financial need this lady had.
So this is a financial need. They go looking somewhere outside of what they already have. Let me explain this to you. We know that Jesus already paid the price for our prosperity. We know that Jesus paid the price for our financial prosperity. It’s part of the gospel. It’s part of the atonement. Just like Jesus died for our sins, Jesus also died for our prosperity. And you can find this in Second Corinthians, eight and nine. Second Corinthians eight to nine says for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know he was rich. Jesus was rich in Heaven. He also had money on earth, by the way. People get upset about this, but there’s no getting away from it. He had money on earth. He traveled. You couldn’t travel without money. He had disciples that he paid for, a traveling ministry. He had a treasurer who was stealing from him. If you have a treasurer, it’s because you have money. And if your treasurer is stealing from you, you better have-
Carlie: A lot of money.
Ashley: You’re going to have more than $10 if you’ve got your treasure stealing from you. And he had such nice clothes that they fought over his clothes when he died. I mean, Jesus had money. When he was born, or shortly after he was born, wise men turned up with gifts, very expensive gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. So Jesus had money. There’s no getting away from it. Jesus had money. But though he was rich, yet for our sakes, for our sakes, for your sake and for my sake, he became poor. So just like Second Corinthians 5:21 says he became sin, even though he knew no sin, Jesus did no sin. He knew no sin, but he became sin so that we could take on his righteousness. Second Corinthians eight and nine says he became poor, so that us, through his poverty, could take his riches. We could be made rich.
So because Jesus became poor, we could become rich. And that’s the gospel truth. That’s what happened at the cross. So spiritually speaking, we are rich. And people say, “Well, it’s just talking about spiritual riches.” Well, if you take that verse in context, second Corinthians chapter eight, and second Corinthians chapter nine, it’s all talking about finances. So if you were to take that verse out of context and say, “It’s got nothing to do with finances,” then you’re taking that verse out of context. And that verse in context is talking all about finances. It’s talking about offerings. It’s talking about money.
So that verse in context then, that we’re talking about your actual physical finances, Jesus paid for you to have an abundance in your finances. Jesus paid for you to have more than enough. Lack and not having enough money is not God’s will for you. And if you’re experiencing that, then we want to help you be empowered to experience God’s best for you. But God’s best for you is to have more than enough. Second Corinthians 9:8, Second Corinthians chapter nine, verse eight. Again, a financial verse. It says that we can have all God is able to give us, all grace, that we have all sufficiency in all things. That means all our needs met, and we’ll have an abundance for every good work. So God’s best for us is to have so much financial abundance that we’ll be able to give to every good work. Our own needs are met, and we can give to every good work. So that’s good will for us.
Carlie: That’s good news.
Ashley: That’s the good news. I mean, that’s the good news. But what happens is a lot… So that’s the truth, but people don’t see it. They don’t experience it in the natural day to day. And one of the problems is they go looking for the big time. They go looking for something spectacular. God’s a god of supernatural, but he’s a supernatural god, but he’s rarely spectacular.
Carlie: We can miss the supernatural looking for the spectacular.
Ashley: Explain that.
Carlie: So sometimes I think God is trying to get good things to us. He’s providing for us. He’s even working in the areas that we cannot see. And sometimes we can easily miss a miracle because it seems so normal. It seems every day.
Ashley: Yeah. Exactly. So right here, the first thing Elisha says to the widow woman in verse two was, “What do you have in your house?” He sent her back and said, “What do you have in your hands? What do you have in your hands? What do you have available to you?” In my experience, God’s prospered us. But he’s prospered us, not with things outside, but things within, and he’s used something natural that we’ve already got and put his super to it, and given it supernatural increase. We came to Bible school over 10 years ago into Andrew Wommack’s Bible School, Charis Bible College. And we had no money. We was paying our full time tuition. I couldn’t run my business anymore. We moved up to the other end of the country and we started running out of money pretty quick. We had a similar situation to this widow. Now they weren’t taking our sons away as slaves, so it wasn’t that bad, but we was in debt. We was getting in debt. We was needing some input.
Carlie: We was at the end of our overdraft.
Ashley: And I was praying to God, “God supply my needs.” And I was looking for something spectacular. I was like, “God’s going to provide my needs. It’s going to be supernatural.” But you know what happened? God said to me, “What do you have in your hand?” What do you have in your house, if you like? And I realized we had two cars and we only needed one car. We was going to college together, and we were spending our time together, we only needed one car. So I felt the Lord leading me to sell one of your cars. I was like, “I could sell one of the cars and make some money.” So I sold one of our cars and made some money. And then I took that money. And some of it, I used as bread, if you like. I used it to pay our bills. And then some of that money-
Carlie: I think, actually, you sold my car.
Ashley: Yeah. I sold Carlie’s car. Well, it was the more practical choice was to sell Carlie’s car, but I did all the driving anyway. So anyway, I did sell Carlie’s car. She had the nicer car. So I sold Carlie’s car. At least I asked you this time. I have sold her car before without asking her.
Carlie: When I’ve been away.
Ashley: When she’s been away on vacation or on a mission trip, I’ve sold her car. But anyway, I’ve replaced it with a better car. But at this point, the last thing I wanted to do was buy and sell cars. I wanted to do something spiritual. I wanted something spectacular. I wanted God to provide my needs supernaturally. In fact, I was waiting for God to provide my needs supernaturally, like an amazing spectacular thing, and it wasn’t happening. And the only thing I felt to do was to sell this car. So I sold this car. I used some of the money to pay our bills, and I used some of the money, and I actually met someone who used to go to a car auction. I went to that car auction with him, and I used the rest of money to buy another car. And what I did was I bought that car, and then I turned around, and I sold that car just a few days later, and it made profit, it made money. So I took that money, I took the profit, I used it for our bills and for our tuition and everything else. And I took the money, and went and bought another car.
And before long, I was doing this as a business on the side of going to Bible school. I was keeping my own hours. I could do it whenever I wanted. And to cut a long story short, then there was two years that we was at Bible college, we was in a different town, outside of our family circles, outside of our support network, was in a different town. We was both full time college students. So all day during the day, we was at college at Bible college all day. But for those two years, by me buying and selling these cars, we actually made more money, and more importantly than making more money, we gave more money in those two years than what we’d given previously when I was working full time and in business full time. So it just shows you, sometimes the first thing God will say to you is, “What do you have available to you?”
Maybe you have previous contacts, maybe you have training. Maybe you have skills. Maybe you have hobbies. Maybe you have previous jobs that you’ve done before. Maybe there’s things that you could do. Maybe there’s things physically in your house that you can buy and sell. Maybe there’s a place you’ve been before, and jobs you’ve done before. I speak to a lot of people and they say, “Well, I don’t want to go back and do that. That was accounting. I don’t want to go back into tutoring, or I don’t want to go back into this.” But that can often be the very thing God wants you to do. And he’ll put his super to that natural. And when you do it as onto the Lord, it’s amazing how he could give you supernatural results.
Carlie: It is indeed. And oftentimes in our life, God has used what we already have. What we already have. And it’s really, it’s like a mindset shift, because I think, sometimes, when we’re talking about the supernatural provision of God, we can be thinking, “I’m just waiting. I’m going to be prosperous one day when the windows of Heaven open, and things rain down on me.” And it’s almost like we’re missing something. And when we get it, then it’s going to be our lucky day, like we’re going to win the lottery or something. But the supernatural provision of God looks really rather normal sometimes. And it starts with what we have. I remember when we went to Bible college, and you started buying and selling those cars, and I was vacuuming in the house, just vacuuming the house. And we were right at the very beginning of this journey. We were following the plan of God for our life. God called us to Bible college. We were standing on Philippians, 4:19, that my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory. But we’d gotten some of that. We just thought God’s going to provide for us spectacularly and miss the natural piece of it.
Ashley: Well, actually, what happened was is I took the scripture right here. This is Luke, 6:38.
Carlie: In Luke, yeah.
Ashley: Luke 6:38, I took this scripture. I said, “We’ve given up our business. We’re going to full time Bible school. We were going to be spiritual.” And I read Luke, 6:38, and I took it to heart, like this was it. In Luke, 6:38, you may know this, it says, give and it’ll be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will man put into your bosom. And I was like, “Man’s going to put into our bosom.” I said, “Carlie, we don’t have to work anymore. We’re beyond this now.”
Carlie: We’re going to be spiritual bible students.
Ashley: We’re full time in the gospel now. So we’re just going to go to college.
Carlie: We’re not going to work.
Ashley: And we’re not going to have to work. Man, we’re going to give, because we’re givers. We’ve always been givers. We’re going to carry on giving, but man is going to give into our bosom. God’s going to reign it down from heaven. And we’re just going to… Man’s going to give into our bosom. It’s be awesome.
Carlie: And after a while, we realized that wasn’t really working out real well, because we twisted the scriptures. You know in part, your prophets are in part. And we were trying to follow God, but no one does this perfectly. But our heart was right, and God was meekness and our place of need. And so even though we’d followed God, and we’d got to Bible school, we got a few things confused, and we’ve got a few things misinterpreted. But you know what? God’s grace is bigger than that one. So we were actually, our rent is due, and we got to the end of our overdraft. We can’t borrow any more money. We’re in debt. We’ve blown through our savings because we’ve been at Bible college paying three kids in private school, and our two’s private tuition for the last two months. When the expenses of moving house, Ashley’s not working, and we’d gotten ourselves in a fair amount of debt now. And it was the point it was at the crunch point. And I’m vacuuming the house and I’m just reminding the Lord, “This was your idea. And by the way, our rent is due. And I know that you’re not usually early, but can you please not be late?”
Ashley: Isn’t it a good day to be real with God?
Carlie: Very real in that moment.
Ashley: You can be real with him, just remind him, “Yeah, this was your idea Lord.”
Carlie: Yeah. So it was like, “You remember that scripture, you’re going to supply all my needs according to your riches? Well, now’s a good time. This would be really handy if it could come in now.” And so I’m just asking the Lord, like, “So, where is the provision?” And as clear as anything he said to me, “I have already provided for you. It’s not some outside source. I have already provided for you. It’s in your house. It’s in your hand.” Just like the widow, just like Elisha said here to the widow woman, “Go look in your house. It’s in your house. Start with what you have.” And I started to get excited. Now, I didn’t see everything at that point. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I was excited.
And so I phoned Ashley up and I says, “The Lord’s told me he has already provided for you. It’s in your house. It’s in your hand.” Well, the in your hand part was for Ashley. Do what’s in your hand, do what you know to do. But the in your house part, that was for me. And so I started going around the house, looking in our house. What is it, Lord? The provisions in our house, well, where is it? And it was very natural, just like with the widow woman. She had to go and get her oil jars, and pots, and gather. I started going around my house, looking at what we had. And as I was vacuuming, we hit a baseboard by our front door. In England, the mail comes in the front door, and then the mailbox is, there’s a slot in the front door there. And the mail had come in, and it’s a big old Victorian house. The man had come in, and he’d blown with the draft in that house, up inside the wall cavity. And there was a check inside the wall cavity.
And when I hit the baseboard with my vacuum cleaner, out popped this check. And when I looked on the date of the check, it was almost to the day that we’d moved in the house. And the check was some back payment, over payment of taxes, or something that we paid. But it was equivalent to two months rent. And this was two months later. It’d been sitting in there for two months, almost the day of when we moved in, and when we needed it. And it really spoke to me, like the Lord was like, “I know exactly where you are. I have already provided for you. In fact, my provision has already gone ahead of you to the place where you were going to.”
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Man, it was in our house. It was in our hand.
Ashley: Literally.
Carlie: Literally in my hand.
Ashley: And that’s a bit more of a supernatural, the fact that it came through. The reason why she hit the baseboard so hard vacuuming was she was frustrated. But that’s a bit more-
Carlie: I was power vacuuming.
Ashley: She was power vacuuming. I know when Carlie’s power vacuuming, stay clear. But that’s a bit more of a supernatural side there. But both ways, I mean, God led us to have provision in our house. We didn’t have to go out looking for it elsewhere. Now there’s nothing wrong with going out, looking elsewhere. But I’m telling you, most of the time, God’s going to use something natural and put his super to it. And I’m thinking there’s so many other examples of this in the Bible. There’s examples where he told Peter, “Throw the nets over the other side.” He was a fishermen. Just use what you already have and he’ll put his super to it when we follow his command, when we follow his word. And they needed to pay their taxes, and Peter said, “Go and fish.” He told Peter, Jesus told Peter, “Go and take a rod, fish, and that first fish you pull out will have a coin in it.” There’s natural things that God tells to do.
In John two, second chapter of John, they needed wine at the wedding. Running out of wine was a big deal then. They had a situation where they needed some resources. Jesus said, “Get the water pots. Fill the water pots up with water.” God’s going to use something natural with our obedience and put his super to it. Feeding the 5,000. They said, “We’ve got no food. There’s 5,000 men here. What do we do?” They said, “We’ve got these few loaves and a few fish.” Jesus said, “Bring them to me.” They gave him these natural resources they had and he put his super with them. So the first point I want to make here today is that God’s going to use what’s already in your hand. And I want you to be thinking about this. What talents do you have? What things can you do? And sometimes what happens is we curse our seed, if you like. We curse the work of our hand rather than bless the work of our hands. Deuteronomy 28, it says God will bless the work of our hands. It talks about this in Proverbs one, the works of our hands are blessed. Whatever we put our hand to prospers. So we need to start blessing the works of our hands, and start thanking God, and start saying to God, “Thank you, Lord-
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: … “for my experience. Thank you.” Maybe you got a job, maybe your job… And God’s trying to give you increase in your job. But because of our bad attitudes sometimes, we moan about the boss, we moan about the situation.
Carlie: It doesn’t pay enough.
Ashley: It doesn’t pay enough.
Carlie: It’s not a good enough job.
Ashley: We’re cursing the very thing that God’s trying to get money to us. We’re cursing the seed, if you like. And I know people that they’ve changed their attitude. I’ve taught this, and they’ve changed their attitude, and they’ve gone to work. And even though their boss hasn’t changed, even though their boss is still mean in the natural, even though they still don’t like their job in the natural, they start giving thanks to God for these things. In Colossians, it says whatever you do in word or deed, do it as unto the Lord. And we can start giving thanks for what we have in our hand right now, what we have in our house, if you like, right now. We can start thanking God. Start thanking God for your boss. Start praying and thanking him. Start believing God for your promotion. Start praying for your work colleagues. Start thanking God. Start actually being diligent in your work, what you put your hands to. It’s amazing that God could put his super to your natural. There’s so many examples of this. And I’m telling you don’t go out looking for the spectacular big time. Give God something to work with now.
I remember I was at a men’s fellowship, and I was teaching there. And one of guys took me aside and said, “Ashley, I’m in serious trouble. I’m in debt. I’ve been out of work for six months.” He said, “I’m out of savings. I’ve used everything I’ve got. I’m in debt now. I need your help.” And I said, “Well, what can you do?” And he told me some of the things. He said, “I’m a CFO. And I did this and did that.” And he said, “But there’s no jobs for me at the moment. There’s no jobs in this town.” And I said, “Well, there is jobs in this town.” I said, “You’re just not looking.” He said, “No, I have. I’ve looked and there’s no jobs in this town.”
Carlie: No jobs that he wanted to do.
Ashley: Exactly. He said, “No jobs that meet my criteria.” And I said, “Well, you’ve got to give God something to work with.” The widow woman gave Elisha the oil jars to work, if you’d like, they’ve God the oil jars. Give God something to work with. What have you got in front of you that you can work with? I said to him, “Just down the street, I saw a sign that Subway is hiring.” Well, this guy looked at me like I’d run over his dog. He was like, “Subway?”
Carlie: I know.
Ashley: He said, “Do you know who I am?” He said, “I’ve been in this, this and that.” And he said, “I’ve got two degrees.” I said, “I think they’ll let you make a sandwich with two degrees.” I said, “That’d be okay.” And he said, “You can’t be serious.” I said, “I can, because you’ve been looking for work for six months. You found nothing that fits your criteria. Give God something to work with. What do you have you can give God to work with?” And there’s some example. It could be a job. It could be overtime. It could be getting promoted, promotion in your current job. It could be putting your hands to small business. Nowadays with the internet and stuff, I know so many people that have started their own small business from home on top of their normal job. You can start businesses with eBay, and Etsy, and Craigslist, and all these types of things. You can start your own business and start making money. You can start selling the junk in your house, for instance. Everyone’s got too much stuff.
Carlie: The provisions in your house.
Ashley: The provisions in your house, literally. I bet you there’s stuff in your house you could sell online and make some extra money, raise some extra money. And people say to me, “Are you serious?” I say, “Yeah, you can do that.” In fact, I have a course about that on my website. But you can do that. You can actually sell the stuff in your house and raise money that way.
Carlie: That’s right.
Ashley: I know people that run businesses. They love shoes. These women love shoes. I love shoes too, but these women-
Carlie: Actually, our son is the shoe man.
Ashley: Yes, our son’s got shoes at the moment.
Carlie: He loves to sell shoes.
Ashley: He buys and sells shoes. Find something you’re interested in. Find something, so either a hobby or an interest, something that’s in your hands. Maybe you’re good at gardening, maybe you’re good at whatever it is. Offer your services. Say, “I’ll come and do your garden.” Things like that. God’s going to use things like that. I’ve got a friend who’s got a lawn business. And I said to him, “What do you do?” And he said, “I mow lawns.” I found out afterwards, he hasn’t mowed lawns for years. He’s got lots of tens and tens of employees.
Carlie: He has a lawn company.
Ashley: He has a lawn company, but he started off just mowing lawns because he put his hand to something. So put your hand to something. Give God something to work with. What do you have available that you can give God to work with? And what happened to here, she said, “All I have is a little bit of oil.” She said, “I just have a little bit of oil.” And Elisha said to her… She said, “All I have is nothing in my house, but a little bit of oil.” And she almost despised the little part she had. Like with the feeding of the 5,000, they said, “What are so few among so many? Just a few loaves and a few fish?” Don’t despise small beginnings.
God’s an expert in taking small things, seemingly insignificant things, and making them into something glorious. Most amazing businesses, most amazing breakthroughs you hear about, they started off in a seed. They started as something very small, and seemingly insignificant. And when God puts the super to our natural, she said, “All I’ve got is a little bit of oil.” But Elisha said, “Great. We can work with this. Go and borrow some vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors, empty vessels. Do not gather just a few, borrow them.” So Elisha says, “This is great. We can actually use this. God’s going to actually put his super to this natural bit of oil.” And rather than this oil running out, we know what happens in the story. When she gathered those jars and gathered those vessels, she started pouring the oil, and the oil increased.
And as the oil increased supernaturally, praise God, all those jars started to fill up. And she followed the instructions of what Elisha told her here. She said, this is my second point, very important, is, “Follow the word of God.” Follow what God’s told you. So the first thing is use what’s in your hand. Make sure you’re giving good access to what’s in your hand. Make sure you’re not overlooking the small, seemingly small things, because you’re looking for the big time, give God something to work with.
The second thing is do what the word of God tells you to do. Follow the instructions. God’s going to give you instructions in how to get this done. He’s going to show you. It might be directly from the word of God. It might be the word directly to you, but he’s going to show you. In this instance, Elisha told the widow woman, “Go and borrow some vessels from everywhere.” Now in the natural, this doesn’t make logical sense. She’s just got a little bit of oil, and now the man of God says, “Go and borrow a bunch of vessels.” This doesn’t make natural sense. But listen, don’t worry. God often asks us to do things that doesn’t make sense logically to us. It’s okay. It’s because we’re living by the kingdom ways of doing things, not by the world’s way of doing things. The kingdom way of doing things are opposite to the world’s way of doing things.
And often, we’ll miss it, because we’ll think that it has to be logical, and we’ll try and work it out. So the first way we miss seeing God’s resources come about is we overlook what’s already in our hands. We overlook what’s already in our house. We overlook what we’ve already got available to us. Then the second way is we try and work out the word of God, or work out God’s instructions logically. And we say, “That can’t be right.” Think about it. The widow woman could say, “Why would I borrow a bunch of empty vessels? I’ve only got a little bit of oil. It makes no sense.”
Carlie: We can limit God’s provision by our response to it.
Ashley: Exactly. By our response to it. Don’t worry. When God asks you to do something, it often doesn’t make sense logically. All we have to do is obey him. I tell people obey God, and leave all the consequences to him. And then, praise God, she obeyed God, she went out and borrowed these vessels. And guess what happened? She saw a supernatural increase.
Carlie: That’s right.
Ashley: Praise God. So we’re going to pick this up next time. We’re out of time now. We’re going to pick this up next time, and carry on this story, and show you how supernatural increase is available to you today. These same principles hold fast today, praise God. So let me pray for people real quick before we let you go. Father God, I thank you for everyone watching and listening today. I thank you, Lord. Your will for them is to increase supernaturally in every area of their life, but also in the area of their finances. I thank you, Lord, for people that believe in you for extra. And I think, Lord, they’re going to receive from this teaching, and they’re going to be able to start receiving extra in their finances, and therefore, be able to give extra. And they’re going to be able to give glory to you for that. I thank you, Jesus.
Carlie: [crosstalk]. Thank you, Jesus.
Ashley: Isn’t God good?
Carlie: Yeah.
Ashley: Amen. Well, thanks for joining us today. We’ll be back real soon to finish this up. But until next time, remember, don’t just settle for living a normal life, because you could be living the abundant life. We’ll see you next time.
Announcer: To order your copy of this teaching, visit our website, terradez.com.
Carlie: Well, thanks for joining us. We hope you have enjoyed this series that we’ve just started on talking about the supernatural abundance of God. God has good things for us. He is trying to get them into our hands. So I encourage you to join us for the rest of the series, and go online, and order your copy, so you can access all of the teachings, and receive everything that God has for you. He is trying to add his super to our natural. Amen. So go get yours today.
Announcer: Download your free copy of Ashley and Carlie’s teaching notes at our website, terradez.com. 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 partner today. Coming up next on the Abundant Life Program.
Ashley: Yes, grace has provided it all. But we, by faith, have to reach out and accept it, reach out and [crosstalk].
Carlie: As a response.
Ashley: Yeah, it’s a response. It’s like someone gives you a gift, you have to unwrap it. If I gave my son a PlayStation, and he had to unwrap it, he said, “Well, my dad made me work for this PlayStation. I had to unwrap it.” No unwrapping’s the easy bit.
Carlie: First world problems.
Ashley: First world problems, right? Unwrapping, it’s the easy bit. So really, what we do is just unwrapping what God’s already provided for us.
Announcer: Join us next time for the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.