 In 2018 or whichever year that this message eventually will be rewatched or re-listened to Some of the practical things that we can do and scriptural things to manage our finances And if you can pull your notes out, we'll take some notes and I'll go through them very quickly The first one is I would encourage every person according to scriptures also is to have an emergency fund two-thirds of people living in the United States cannot cover $1,000 crisis and And a half of people one and a half people cannot cover a $500 crisis your car gets towed get a flat tire and the microwave dies and you're in depression because you can't cover $500 crisis and one of the reasons why is because people don't set an emergency fund You have to learn to set certain fund that is for emergencies That doesn't mean you have to expect emergencies, but it gives you a peace of mind Especially when you're married, especially when you have kids from two to three months or at least two months Or at least one month start with one month so your your things can be covered and typically people who have emergency funds tend to avoid emergencies and Emergencies tend to happen to people who don't have a fun to deal with them Number two live within your means Live within your means means live so that your expenses do not exceed your income And if your income increase that doesn't mean you have to increase your expenses There has to be a breathing room between what you're making and what you're spending When we were in North Carolina and this gentleman who God uses powerfully there He was ministering and he was very tall and he came up to pray for me And so he prayed for me and then he hugged me But he was tall and very strong He hugged me so much that and he was holding me. I couldn't breathe and The whole prayer was about encountering God and I'm standing there And I'm I can't breathe and I'm like God a few more seconds and I will encounter you I'm praying initially. I was praying for the anointing and after that I was praying that he lets me go Because he didn't realize he's holding me so tight and I appreciate the compassion and love but I can't breathe and That's how many people live with their finances is their expenses are so close to their income They have no breathing room That's why couples fight all the time many people even get sick they can sleep and So in many times what we do is we buy things we don't eat with money We don't have to impress people we don't like and we kill the breathing room in Finances, it's always important to care to keep a breathing room in your finances That means that you can't spend on the level of your faith You can have you know images you want to drive a nice car wear nice clothes Whatever you have in your heart that's awesome keep it on your refrigerator, but don't spend like you dream Until you make that kind of money because otherwise you will have unnecessary troubles that will come from that breaking simple Commandment or simple tip or simple advice. Amen Number three is use wisdom in investing Bible teaches us about investing investing is very important to send your money so that money can make more money for you But the problem with many people is many times they invest in what they don't understand or they invest with money They don't actually have if you have to borrow money to invest now There are cases where people honestly they just get a killer breakthrough But typically if you have to borrow money or pull money out of equity to invest that is already tells you you're doing something wrong You can't take the money that you need to feed your children and invest them You can only invest the extra that's why you need to save you need to cut back So you can have money to invest and don't invest in something that everybody's doing learn it for yourself Watch videos get the books so that you will know what you are doing. Are you with me? number four is avoid borrowing Today we live in the world where everything is on payments a hat is on payments the socks aren't payments belt is on payments The car is on payment the phone is on payment the phone case is on payment everything is on payments And the Bible says that that the person who borrows all the time is a slave to the lender And so that means that we have to learn to avoid as much borrowing as you can and the average in 2015 an average household Credit card debt is fit was $15,000 mortgage was $171,000 the car loans were 70 $27,000 and the student loans were $48,000 Learn to save money and buy those things with cash cash is the king And plus you can enjoy your phone. You can enjoy your car better knowing that you don't have to worry about Constantly making the payments and now it's understandable sometimes with house and certain things you can make you have to get a loan There's no way you can pay for it And when you do make it your priority to pay that off as soon as possible Otherwise that will swallow you up in the in discouragement and in anxiety number five work hard One of the principles of managing your finances in order to have finances you have to hustle You got to work and you got to work hard The Bible says he who doesn't work shouldn't be eating now. There are people who have disability There are people who are retired and elderly. We're not talking about that But we're talking about young people who are sitting at home and only dreaming but doing absolutely nothing You can't prosper God. God blesses the work of your hands not the dreams of your mind That means you got to pull your hands out of your pocket and do something do something and if you're so like over here I can't do this kind of a job because that's below me humble yourself and then hustle Come on somebody God is your source, but the job is your resource In my house. I have a hose that goes from my house and right now because of the cold weather the water in the hose got frozen So when I open the water nothing comes out. It just drips Why because the hose is it has ice there and many people because their habits are so bad with work God who is supplying blessing But your bad habits is the ice that actually keeps it from flowing and you only got dripping in your life If you constantly complain at your work if you show up on time instead of early that is late If you want promotion you can't come on time You're a Christian you got to be early if you want promotion you can't leave on time You got to stay longer you got to do better than other people You got to educate yourself in the areas where other people get complacent and you will see the ice the laziness The complacency that little self entitlement bad attitude bad relationship with other employees When that ice gets broken God's grace to flow through the hose of your job Are you with me? Work hard Next one is work smart Work smart is this instead of buying things to compete with your colleagues Use money to buy things that will make money for you Make money work for you The Bible says in Matthew that one man took a talent and he hid it That means he put all of the money just in savings And like I mentioned it's good to have savings it's good to have emergency fund But you got to be able to be creative so you make your money work for you But those other guys they took their money they took their talents and they traded with those talents And they made more talents and when the master came in he complimented them And he says you guys were faithful Amen The way you can do that is that sometimes for example instead of just buying a house You can buy a rental property Where you can rent one side and you end up really not paying for rent And you start looking for opportunities in which money can work for you Or any other investments When I was younger at the age of 21 you know I first acquired a rental property But in order to get a property at 21 I had to take it on my credit at the age of 16 I had to instead of buying new things all the time I had to save that money So when the property appeared I had enough money saved up to pay for down payment And then through that property eventually acquired another property And now I can live at the age of 30 live in the house of my dream And sell those properties and everything because from 20 to 30 I had I hustled I'm not the smartest kid in the block but at the same time I knew that Instead of just buying nice cars and impressing people who don't even care about that stuff And looking flashy online and stuff I'd rather live maybe in a poorer neighborhood In a poorer house but I'm gonna save those money and then those money will work for me Amen And so learn to make money work for you Number seven Don't cut corners Meaning don't cheat and don't lie One of the things you can destroy your finances completely from ground up And not only your finances, your family, your marriage, your health, everything If you start duping people, doing work, not paying people Asking things and then not doing them and becoming a person who has a corrupt character In the Bible, Satan is presented as a thief Jesus was crucified between two thieves Judas was stealing and eventually he had demons enter him Aiken was destroyed because of that And one servant of Elisha got leprosy through that In the area of finances you gotta be clean That means you pay your taxes That means you say what you mean and you mean what you say That means that if somebody did a job for you you pay them We can't do that That means that you don't cut corners When you do that there will be a curse on your life You don't shoplift, you don't take things that are not your own And you pull a pay a full price And you don't develop this stingy poor little me Where everybody always owes you something Because you will only attract that Be a person who is blessed on the inside Even if you don't have something, have a different mind And then God will begin to release blessing on you I cannot tell you how many people that I When I preached this about finances and I had youth repent Because they sold cars that were broken And people asked is there anything wrong with this car And they said no nothing is wrong But they knew they only dimmed And killed certain kind of an alert And they sold a bad car People who stole money from other people And then they started to have problems in their life And after they repented they saw change Some people even reached out to someone That they sold things years ago And say I'm so sorry I'm gonna send you 300 bucks To compensate for the mistake I've made Because I lied to you when I did that God wants us as Christians to be clean It's better not to make more money But not lose your integrity and not lose your honesty Because eventually the devil will take Whatever you are not being responsible with The series is based on the book of Daniel I want us to read Daniel chapter 5 And as we are going to cut a little bit more now What does it mean not to steal as well Daniel is speaking to Belchazar He's saying but you his son Belchazar have not humble your heart Although you knew all of this And you have lifted yourself up Against the Lord of Heaven They have brought the vessels of his house Before you and you and your lords Your wives and your concubines Have drunk wine from them And you have praised the gods of silver And the gods the gold Bronze and iron wood and stone Which do not see or hear Or know But the God who holds your breath in his hand Owns all of your ways You have not glorified Belchazar Was a king of Babylon And Babylon is a nation Was a nation about 50 miles From Baghdad Modern Baghdad Babylon was started in Genesis Chapter 10 It was one of the oldest cities It was such a powerful city It had walls as high as 300 feet up And as long as Each area could write on those walls The walls were around Babylon For about 60 miles of circumference And they could be locked in the city And survive for over 20 years Because of the water And the food supply in the city Honestly, you couldn't penetrate Babylon It was so powerful, it was so strong And when the enemy surrounded Babylon In this verse we see that the enemy Surrounds Babylon And Belchazar Instead of planning how to defeat the enemy Instead of being alert Belchazar throws a party But the problem wasn't with the party The problem is that He used The articles That were dedicated to God's temple To be used only in God's temple But his dad Conquered the temple And he brought them to Babylon And Belchazar in his drunk state Pulls all of those articles dedicated to God And he fills them with wine And they begin to just party it up And as they're doing that An invisible hand shows up On the wall And he begins to write certain letters That he doesn't understand And the Bible says that the joints In his knees loosened And he started to shake uncontrollably He called all kinds of witch doctors And sorcerers and astrologers To begin to read that nobody could read it He says that in this incident Daniel was already an old man And you can see how Daniel speaks He speaks like a boss He comes to him and he gives him a history lesson He says your dad thought he was something He turned to an animal He says you knew that He says you saw that But you learned nothing from it He says you're getting drunk He says I don't care about that What you do is your business But he says when you took something that belongs to God He says on that hand says this He says God numbered your day And you come to an end Number two he says God put you on his scales And he says he found your light Not that means he's skinny It means that there's nothing There's no reward in his life His life is actually worthless It didn't mean anything And he says thirdly he says the thing Everything you worked for Tomorrow is going to be divided And given to another kingdom I was pretty serious I don't want to be Balthazar The point here Is not against drinking Even though that's not the point here And that's not what I want to preach about today What I want to preach about today is this It almost seems unfair That God holds Balthazar accountable For using something that's supposed to be given Only to his kingdom When he abused it for his own pleasure Balthazar wasn't a Jewish man Balthazar didn't serve God It almost seems like God What he does with his possessions Is his business That's none of your problem But God saw that these articles belong to him And they only had to be used In his temple I want to ask you today Are there things in your life Or in our finances that God sees As they belong to him And we use it on our own pleasures I want to ask you today Do you worship the God of gold Silver and iron And I want to ask you today When you die And God puts all of the things you've done for his kingdom Will the scale move And I want to ask you today When you die Who's stuff You're losing your health, sleep And ruining your life to get Who's stuff Where does that stuff will go Or will it go to your relatives And they're going to hire lawyers It's like a pig and a cow had a meeting And the pig looked at the cow And says, I give to humanity And you give to humanity But they like you more And they don't like me The cow says The problem with you Is that you only give When you're dead I give when I'm alive Learn to be generous when you're alive Amen Amen Saint Augustine Where your pleasure is There is your treasure Where your treasure is There is your heart And where your heart is There is your happiness I want to encourage every person today To live for eternity And to view our finances From the day when you're going to stand before God And you're going to be put on God's scales And how much weight are you going to have then Because all of our life will come to an end No matter how great we live it No matter how poor we were, how rich we were How healthy or not so healthy We will stand before God and we will give an account For God for our life I want to look at the second verse The second scripture In Malachi and we hear this Verse all the time and so I want us to Look at it through a fresh way one more time In Malachi chapter 3 verse 7 It says the following Return to me and I will return to you Says the Lord of hosts But you said in which way should we return So I want you to see that God tells people of Israel Return to me And then God says I will return to you And of course people Have common sense so they say God how should we return to you Do you want us to do what And then God answers how we can Return to God And then God comes with this question He says will a man rob God Yet you have robbed me But you say in what we have robbed you Again God says can you rob God And God says you robbed me And we say how could you rob God And God explains if we go to the next verse In tithes and offerings You are cursed with a curse For you have robbed me Even this whole nation And then God gives an instruction He says bring all the tithes That there may be food in my house And try me now in this Says the Lord And then he gives awesome promises So I want to look just for a few minutes right now Into what is tithing We practice tithing as Christians And once a year or once in two years We give just a brief explanation Of what it is So I want you to write this down Those of you who are coming maybe today for the first time You came to a very good service Those of you who have been coming for some time The issue of money Raises your blood pressure In church and you hate church Because pastors always talk about money And they want your money and everything We are going to kind of dismantle A lot of these arguments today through the word of God God's word says a lot About a lot of things in our life That we sometimes don't maybe even want to hear But just because we don't want to hear That does not mean we don't need to hear Number one Number two money is something you need Money is something that you come in contact every single day And Jesus talked a lot about it The first thing about tithing is that Tithing is returning to God According to the scripture We see that God says return to me One of the ways You will know that somebody's heart Begins to come back to God Is when their wallet gets converted Talk is cheap Amen Come on, if you are a young lady If a guy says he loves you If you pay for dinner He don't love you I don't care how many emojis he sends you Every single day He doesn't buy anything for you What will you tell him? You say listen honey, talk is cheap That's it and that's exactly how God sees The Bible says where your treasure is There is your heart And many people who will come and say things like I love God, I love God and everything But when they are not generous God says you are now reflecting my nature I love you, I gave my son I didn't give a janitor From heaven, maybe some of the other Lower angels, I gave the best Because that's how love is reflected Number two, tithing is about trusting In God, God said Try me Now This is the only time where you can test God And not get in trouble Israel tested God And the Bible says it didn't go so well for them But in here God invites us To test me Number ten in the Bible is a number of a test God gave ten plagues To test the heart of Pharaoh God gave ten commandments To test the heart of Israel We see the ten virgins We see also the ten day of fasting The ten day of testing in book of Revelation So number ten is the number of testing One of the reasons it's a ten percent Is because tithing is the only thing Where you are testing God And God is testing you Which is about trusting in God Number three is tithing Is about bringing Not giving We read in Malachi where God says Bring the tithes into my house God didn't say give the tithes into my house When we were in North Carolina And the guest speaker Who was there One of the guest speakers was there He wanted to meet with us for dinner But we didn't have a car there And so a guy named Vlad from Arkansas Called me his Ford Really nice and beautiful car Took me a while to get used to it Because it has so many nice little bells and whistles I remember it took his car We went to the restaurant We came back and the next day Imagine what would have happened If the next day I would come to a guy named Vlad And tell him hey I just really fell led by God To give you this beautiful car And give him his car keys And say I just want to bless you with that car I didn't give him his car keys I brought him his car keys So when God says bring the tithes He's saying you're not giving it to me You're returning What's already been mine I'm just letting you keep the rest of the 90% So let me take a step further If you don't return the keys Who do I become then? A thief That's why God says You rub me I mean this is how God sees it I didn't write this I wouldn't have the audacity I wouldn't have the cleverness God says this bring it And he says when you don't bring it So God has this view That he owns everything We tend to sing that as well We agree with him He owns us because he created us He died on the cross for us to redeem us And so God actually owns everything And God says I want you to return 10% And I own everything And I will bless the rest of the 90% And I'll let you keep it And you should be grateful That means when you give 10% You should not feel generous You should be grateful that God let you keep 90% Amen Number 4 Tithing goes to a local church Bible says we give tithes God says bring the tithe to the store house And that there will be food In my house So practically what it means is tithing goes To the church where you serve Church where you go Church where you help Church where you're local church Some people you know they give their tithe I had one person who one time came And I just want to sew my tithe into you And I said that's not scriptural You can't be sewing your tithe into me You gotta bring the tithe into the local church I bring my tithe to our church And so should you I am one of the Servants here You can't bring your tithe and give to somebody on the street That is not tithing according to the scripture Tithing according to the scripture Is we bring it to the local church We can do charity outside Of the tithing We can do other things but the tithe The 10% goes to the church where you go And last one Tithing was encouraged By Jesus This one I get a lot of questions On because people say well that's great It's all Old Testament This was all under the law Well first of all Abraham the father of faith Who received righteousness by faith tithe Jacob tithed other people Way before the law came in They practiced that I don't know who taught them But somehow they discovered God's character And God's nature And they practiced that and God blessed them But I want you to see a verse in the bible And let me settle a lot of questions and doubts That you might have About tithing In Matthew 23 23 it's so easy to remember Matthew 23 23 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees Hippocrates For you pay tithe of Mint and Anis And Something good And have neglected the weightier Manors of the law Justice and mercy and faith These ought to you have done Without leaving the others Undone So these are the words of Jesus I want you to see what Jesus is Convicting the religious people of the day Is they were tithing And they were focused on tithing so much They even were tithing leaves On the trees of their backyard I mean that's pushing it That's really pushing it They were like tithing mint So if they have a tea They would try to cut One tenth of that They were really really radical And Jesus says But the bigger things Which we know Is justice, mercy and faith You guys neglected these And then Jesus summarizes These things you ought to have done Means justice, mercy and faith Without Without Without Oh you should focus on love, mercy and justice Period He says you should do this, this Without leaving Others undone Jesus wasn't Canceling them tithing out of their backyard leaves He was saying make sure you Put priorities in order And don't just tithe out of the leaves in your backyard And then you go around killing people But he wasn't saying That tithing shouldn't be practiced By followers of Christ I believe if your follower of Christ Tithing is just a baseline It's only where you start It's not where you finish Don't focus on that Why Jesus never focused so much on tithing Most of the guys he asked to follow him Gave everything So I'll stick with the tithing first We'll work to that part a little bit later Are you with me? In the end I want to share with you My personal experience with this Of people in our church But before saying that Let me encourage you that Jesus' ministry It really touched me this week That Jesus though being empowered by God And being God on earth He relied on human gifts For example He needed Mary's womb Mary Borrowed her womb We don't tend to think like that He needed The gifts from the wise men He eventually Needed the boat of Peter He eventually needed The lunch of a boy He needed Someone's mode of transportation The donkey He also needed money That women were supporting Their husbands were making the money And the women were bringing it to Jesus' ministry He needed that money to spread his message Now this was God He did not need anything He needed the Holy Spirit And he chose to rely On the contributions of people around him To continue to move in his ministry And even when he died He didn't get buried In some kind of a space He got buried in someone else's tomb Who borrowed that to him So I want you to see That Jesus' ministry from beginning to end Was only effective on this earth Because people were willing to contribute to it If you would be here today We won't be needing this Jesus It would happen You watch too many movies That's not in the Bible Jesus relied on the contributions Of people around him And we should never as a church be ashamed to talk about it And encourage us to do the same To spread the kingdom of God Amen Let's put our hands together for Jesus Christ How do I give? How do you give? How can you start giving? How can you encourage every person If you haven't done that before To tithe Make your decision Take first 10% of your paycheck And you set it aside And you bring it to God Don't wait until the end of the month to see if you will have left Because the devil will really give you a lot of sales and clearances And by the time the end of the month comes in You won't have time You won't have money The Bible says to do it first In doing it first you're trusting it in God Last year She was encouraged to She had a salon And she still has a salon where she does people's hair And she was encouraged to tithe And she tithed before But Julie was She heard a message from here that sometimes You can increase your tithe To the desired income that you would like to have So instead of waiting To increase of the income You actually increase the tithe so God can increase your income And so she heard that It was spoken from the stage so she decided this year To increase her tithe To her desired income And within few months Her salon had to be moved from one place to another For those of you who do hair you understand That sometimes it's very difficult You start losing customers And on the top of that she actually got a new idea To do something else where she started to do eyelashes And Toward the end of the year she testified last week And she said I've seen My business grew To the tithe I started to give In January Ivan also shared Ivan and Katrina shared a very good Testimony with me Where Ivan applied to be a security guard In one of The places In tri-cities Last year he had an application He went through first interview Everything was good, he went through second interview And I think on the third interview 60% But he was supposed to score 70% So he didn't pass He leaves the interview and God convicts him He says it's interesting You're not tithing 10% and it's 10% You missed So he got convicted because he wasn't consistent He treated it like whenever I have it Kind of like a tip Not giving anything today That's how people treat tithing Like tipping He made a decision He and his wife started to tithe consistently And even above that And then he applies for this position In a very, very good company In tri-cities And there's 400 applicants They're way better equipped than him And guess who gets chosen He gets chosen for the job He says that He really believes as a witness from the Lord That when he became faithful in this area That God started to bless him in that area When he applied for the job She got it and within a month She got a promotion And the next month she got a raise And they both said We see God's faithfulness When we are faithful with God's word Amen I would challenge you With this challenge For 12 months You make a decision That you're going to tithe If nothing changes The Bible says to try it And if it doesn't work You may say Is this some kind of a gimmick I didn't come up with God says it is God says it is, God says try it If it doesn't work You just go to heaven and say God You told it worked, it never worked Give me my money back But be careful so God doesn't send you to hell with your money You're like, okay God keep the money Just get me the ticket out there I'm just kidding Try it I grew up in a family where my dad Didn't even give us an option My leg got broken At the age of I think 13 Because somebody ran over me On a bicycle I was on a bicycle, they ran over me My leg got broken and then the insurance Paid off some money And I remember holding It was like $6,000 When I got the money For a 16 year old 15 years ago $6,000 I looked at that I started swallowing My heart's blood pressure is rising It was so amazing and dad gave me another envelope And he says, and this is the tide And I said, what do you mean this is the tide? That's mine He says, oh no, that's not yours That goes to God and he says, and I will give you To give it to him And I was like, what if I don't He says, mm-mm And so he told us From the mothers, from growing up in the family This was like a law, Christian you Not Christian, it doesn't matter, you need to give to God Period, because you want God as your partner And so I'm glad for that discipline That my parents instilled into me Number two, I personally I give to my pastor Now the reason why I decided to mention that Is because this message will be watched all around the world And will be rewatched Decades later I genuinely believe as in the Old Testament Bring also things to the priest That you have to Learn to honor your mentors Your pastors or your parents Even financially First with prayer but also financially I had a person come up to me this weekend Run up and without even saying Hi and how are you He quickly said it worked, it worked And I said worked, what worked When I was in his city He came up to me and he asked me because He was struggling with his pastor relationship It seemed like he wasn't clicking with his pastor And I asked him two questions, I said Do you pray for your pastor? He says, well if I don't forget I do I said secondly, when was the last time you gave him a gift? He looked at me like I asked him If he killed his pastor He looked at me, he's like bribing And I was like, gift He's like Why would I want to do that? And I was like because something is wrong with your heart And the gift will clean that up And then maybe If something is wrong with your pastor's heart And the gift will clean that up too That's exactly what I told him He was a college student so I was like I know you probably don't have a lot of money And I was like just a small coffee The Bible says if you give to a prophet a cup of water You will get his reward If Jesus would have been in 21st century He would say if you give to your pastor a cup of coffee You'll get his reward That's Jesus Do you know what this actually means? That if I bless Everything my pastor worked for All his life Got wires to my account Are you buying cups of coffee? The only thing is a pastor doesn't like coffee I really believe that We have to be as Christians That doesn't mean bribing It doesn't mean you have to give money But you have to live your life I want to build a culture in our church Where we honor the pastors Why? Many of you sitting here As a pastor And one day you'll thank me that I mentioned this And build a culture Crazy Jesus I didn't like it when he was saying But now that I'm a pastor God bring that message back We will have churches all around America And many of you You will go there You don't even know now But that God has a call for your life We want to build a culture Where pastors not just criticize constantly And we encourage them With small prayers With small talkings of appreciation And also with giving That's what I do I'm not saying this for you guys To do that to me My heart is pure when it comes to this I'm sharing with you what I've been doing Already for years And what I will continue to do Number three What I believe is also very important Is to bless other ministries On this level And you're not... You've fried my brain I can't take it anymore Just gonna put it in the refrigerator for now Let it freeze for a little bit And then maybe one day the Lord will bring it up But learn to bless other ministries Why I do that is because I believe You have to sow where you want to grow And you have to sow where you want to go If you have a seed You don't sow a seed into the worst soil In tri-cities and expect to harvest And you look for the best soil So you look for ministries where God is doing Where something you feel like, man, this resonates And you bless those places And God will use them to do that And Mary, one time she had savings Worth of a whole year's salary And she took all of her savings And instead of just finding poor people Which is very good and very important And I'll mention that in a minute But Mary took and bought a perfume Not for herself She went and opened the perfume And the first reaction is like $30,000 Worth of perfume Poured on the body of Jesus And he's gonna die a day later So your first reaction is like A waste So Judas actually said that If I would have been there I probably would have thought that I wouldn't have the audacity to vocal it out But I would have thought that Judas said It's a waste, she should have given it to the poor Have you ever looked at somebody Who's blessed and thought the same thing To the poor? Don't raise your hand The interesting part is anytime people say that I ask them back, what have you done to the poor? Because you know the jeans you're wearing You have two of them, you can give one to the poor You know that you have a car You can ride a bicycle So it's crazy how we don't push ourselves But because we have Jesus Looked at Judas And he says the poor you have always with you But he says you don't have me always with you You actually complimented the woman And Judas who pretended to care for the poor You know what he did to Jesus? He killed him A lot of times you're either Generous Or you actually pretend to be generous In reality a person who really Has just no desire to help other people I don't want to be like Judas I want to be like Jesus I want to be like Mary I want to help other ministries A friend of mine from our church Atter As long as I knew Atter in the young Young days of our life When Atter came to our ministry Atter was the most hardworking person I knew He hustled He had more jobs And he would sweet jobs quickly He could find jobs like this He always worked and he always worked very hard But there was one thing that I saw in Atter In the early stages of our friendship Is Atter always lacked finances And I couldn't know Anybody who worked harder than him When he got married he started coming to our church And I started to teach about this That we need to learn to give And to be generous Me and my wife went with him And his wife to Olive Garden on Sunday And he mentioned to me He said, Vlad, I want to give $700 to one particular ministry I knew Atter's situation And my heart almost sunk I'm like this guy He's struggling I'm about to go really struggling Because, and I'm thinking And if I wouldn't be talking about it He wouldn't get those crazy ideas I felt bad for me and I was about to say Atter, that's not for you bro That's like for other people Don't do that, why would you want to Especially to who to that ministry I'm pretty sure they have just enough money They'll survive without your money But as I was about to open my mouth And stop him, I felt the prompting Of the Holy Spirit said, Vlad Atter, I think this is from God Two months later About to think two months or three months later I meet him and he says I have three Paychecks laying on my desk And I don't need to cash them Because everything is paid for Atter Some other time later Atter gets an idea to be a photographer Today he's been featured On more magazines that I had a chance To hold in my hands In tri-cities And it's not It's not that God gave him more money God enlarged his fear of influence He found his passion And there are things that God has done That I'm not at liberty to share on the stage That I know, that I've seen I've seen a change in this man's life And I'm not saying it's only because of that But I know that when we live Like Jesus lived, disciples lived We begin to see the grace of God flow in our life Are you with me? Come on somebody Number four We bless those who are in need We bless those Who are in need Means those people who are hurting Those people who are suffering And it's not always financially Sometimes we can give him something that we're about to sell We can bless somebody That we have something extra That we can share with somebody And God wants us to live like that I asked Mike and Anna today Good friends of mine About giving This is what Mike told me He said, Vlad, the more we give It seems like the more we can save And bless others with Also, it gives me peace of mind Because I know that God is in charge of my finances And he will always have more than enough When they started to come to church And I remember when he started to tide And he started to also contribute So that we help those people who are in need Sometimes people need a car Sometimes people need a washer or a dryer Some other things We'll give $300 to help in this particular need And I look at their life And I see change in their marriage I see change in their finances It seems like every person who gives They say this one thing There's always enough And every person who doesn't Seems to have only one problem It's never enough Number five, give sacrifice A sacrifice is something that That hurts Something that stretches you That is actually the first thing But then when you get used to tithing It becomes like automatic Sacrifice is something that you do maybe once a year Or once in two years For some people maybe once in three years Where you give something so precious That honestly it's on your mind for months And maybe for half a year And it stretches you on the inside And it changes something on the inside I watched a story Of a lady named Galina this morning Galina had A husband and her husband Was in a coma She needed money to Keep him in the hospital She had no money so she went She got a credit for $68,000 In Ukraine The husband pulled through Everything was fine Economy crashed in Ukraine And she no longer owed $68,000 She owed $120,000 Her husband came from a coma The people she borrowed money from When bankrupt So she now got a deeper problems Dead collectors were always on her footstep Her husband though he recovered He couldn't work so he was on disability And she had three children She jumped into real estate She jumped into being a consular She worked as a consular But she was not able to scratch Just to even pay the interest And she had an accident where her husband died And things went so bad Where she honestly didn't want to live No more Three children She has $120,000 dead They don't even focus on food They just want to keep away the dead collectors And she started crying out to God And she went to pray by the river one time God spoke to her And God said You got all of that dead in one day And in one day I will wipe it out She goes to church She goes to a particular church Where pastor was teaching about giving and sacrifice She got encouraged She got prayer And she got her first break She got a real estate deal Where she made $3,000 cash And in Ukraine $3,000 Is a lot of money Sometimes people make the most Is $200 a month or $300 So $3,000 is big money But it wasn't enough to solve her problem You know what she did She went to church And she said God it's not enough to fix the problem But she says I'm going to do it for the first time I made a lot of mistakes She says I'm going to trust that you will multiply $3,000 by $100 And you will take care of what you promised me During her counseling session A man walks in Who had problems with depression and other things She counseled him and everything And during one time he looks at her And he says you helped me so much Do you have any problems He pressed He says be honest She says I do I have $120,000 dead And she broke down He asked which bank and which organization She wrote to her He says tomorrow I will take care of it Completely wiped her dead The Bible says give And it will be given back to you Press down, shake it together Watch to watch this Men will give into your bosom Into your life through men and women Sometimes it's you working And somebody becomes kind to you for no reason Sometimes somebody opens a door For you and you find money in that opportunity Sometimes somebody shares Something with you and it triggers something It's going to be men that God is going To use in your life To bring something into your life Sometimes it's like this I remember I was blessed with a new phone Somebody gave me two new iPhone 8s But I wanted iPhone 10 But iPhone 10 wasn't out yet And so I was about to sell the two new phones And my wife says I'll keep the iPhone 8 And I was like I'll sell my 8 Once somebody gave me and then I'll buy the iPhone 10 And as I was about to put it down for sale I feel the prompting A person's name flashed in my mind Who's from another state on the other side of America To give that to him That's how it works I quickly messaged them, I asked them for the address And the iPhone was shipped The interesting part is that person I found out this week Somebody gave him an envelope And there was money there Not even opening the envelope During an offering at church He dropped it in the offering And he says God I'm giving it to you But he needed a new phone Little did he knew that somebody from a Washington state Was about to sell I mean literally his name just surfaced in my mind That God would connect somebody there This week As there was a minister there Andres Busoni And we were going there I was really wanting him to pray for me But I'm one of those people I don't ask for prayer For importation if I don't bring anything in my hand But the day before he arrived Me and my wife We emptied our accounts And we gave all the money away It was painful I was sick in my stomach But I felt it was from the Lord And I talked to my wife and she says let's do it I left enough just to pay the bills for this month And we felt so good Because I know God has taken us on another level God's been always stretching us And we have not been stretched for a while Because we got so comfortable with our giving And they got stretched like a rubber band And it hurt for a few hours but it was so sweet I felt God's presence and everything The moment service was done I walk into a cafeteria two people walk up to me One person gives me a check And the other person gives me a check So I looked at I was like wow praise God It doesn't have my name on it As I go into my room The Lord start prompting in my heart He said you wanted that minister to pray for you And you wanted to bless him but you had nothing I gave you two checks One to give and one to bless you with When I met with that minister And I blessed him I said hey listen I didn't have anything to bring He's like what are you talking about I'm like this is between me and God Don't worry about it And I was like I just want to bless you Before I even said that he says I've been watching your ministry He says I know who you guys are He says I want to meet with you And I said we'll do that later But right now we want to pray And he said something when I gave him That honestly I believe will change My relationship with God forever He said when I saw you yesterday in the prayer He said God's spirit told me That you are Holy Spirit's friend And that hit me like the handle breaks And something Then I started to sense a relationship with God That went to just another level As having that confirmation that Holy Spirit knows me And the Holy Spirit thinks I'm his friend It's worth My whole life And so God has a way To answering your needs God has a way of touching your life But I ask you that you be attentive I'm not sharing these stories It takes courage to share what I share with you right now I like everyone else I want to keep it private And keep it secret The only reason I share it Is because I know that people Need to be encouraged To be generous Amen