 Right now, I'm going to address one of the most abused, one of the most controversial subjects in the Bible, and that is the subject of finances. Today, I'm talking about financial breakthrough. Now, I know this topic has been altogether abused to manipulate God's people, but that's not what I'm going to do. We're going to address this subject in a biblical and practical way so that you can find freedom financially as laid out in the Scripture. Stephen Moctezuma is with me as usual. He's going to lead us in some worship right now, and then we're going to get into this very practical, very helpful message, and I believe you're going to experience financial breakthrough. Stephen Moctezuma. As I said at the top of the program, this is a controversial subject because it has been abused, but I do believe that the Bible gives us the roadmap to financial prosperity. Now, I am not a prosperity preacher. I do not believe that your life is to be lived without any trials, without any obstacles, and I don't even necessarily believe that every believer needs to be super wealthy, and I don't necessarily believe that wealth is a sign of God's favor. However, the Bible does give us keys to biblical financial prosperity, and when you walk as the Lord wants you to walk with your finances, you will experience a breakthrough. Now, I know there are those that'll tell you that if you sow $1,000 today, you'll be debt-free in 30 days. I believe God blesses the giver. I believe in sowing seed into ministries. I do it all the time myself, but at the same time, I don't believe it's my place to promise people how God is going to bless them. Whenever I take an offering, whether it's on Spirit Church, whether it's at an event, you'll notice that I talk about souls. That's because I don't believe that the church needs to be manipulated into giving. I don't believe that you need to burden them with guilt. I don't believe that you need to burden them or manipulate them with gimmicks. I believe that the church or the living God will give simply for the sake of the gospel. If people see the gospel being preached, if people see value in a ministry, they're going to sow into that ministry, and that's how ministries are funded. I get comments all the time, very ignorant comments on my channel saying, why do you take up offerings? Why don't you just do what you do without taking up offerings? Because it would be impossible to do television broadcasts without any financial backing. The truth is, though the gospel is free, the means to deliver the gospel can be very pricey. Now, Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6 verses 20 and 21, he said, store your treasures in heaven where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and still. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will be also. Finances are a gauge of your heart. This is why people don't like you talking about money. I've already gave the disclaimer, I'm not going to be manipulative and tell you, sow $77 over the next 77 minutes. Nothing like that. That's not biblical. I agree with those who maybe God speaks to you about what you should give, but I don't believe, for the most part, that God always speaks to people like that. Most people who do those sort of things, and again, not all, but some who do those sort of things. Some are sincere and some may at times hear from God, but for the most part that's just manipulation used to try to get people to give. However, on the other side, there are also those who are so against financial sowing and they use that, the doctrinal issue, they raise that, and they hide behind the so-called doctrinal issue, because they don't want to get committed with their finances. Here's the truth. If you follow Jesus, everything that you are needs to be committed to who he is, even your money. You talk about the gospel. If we don't invest in the gospel, who do you think is going to invest in the gospel? You think Hollywood's going to invest in the gospel? You think the Democrats or the Republicans are going to invest in the gospel? No. We, the church of the living God, are the resource of the gospel and God uses what we have to fund what he does. So whenever I take an offering, I make it very clear, I don't tell people that if you give, this is going to happen unless God truly speaks to me. What I say is if you give, we'll use your support to help fund the spreading of the gospel, which is, it's direct, it's straight talk, it's very transparent. And I believe in doing it, and again, let me be very clear. I believe God wants to prosper you financially. I believe in supernatural sowing and reaping. I believe that when you fund the gospel, God does something supernaturally for you. I believe all of that. I even bless you for sowing financially. However, I also recognize that that's been horribly abused. So we have to separate what the Bible says from how men abuse what the Bible says. So you can kind of tell when people are doing that. You got to use your discernment, but those principles are biblical and true. Now I'm not going to be able to read the entirety of the context, but in Matthew chapter number 25, we see the parable of the talents. And this is a demonstration of the first key to financial breakthrough, and this is stewardship. Here's the problem. Some people are so superstitious that they think they can drop $5 in an offering basket, continue spending their money with horrible spending habits, and then suddenly see a prosperity. God's church is not a wishing well. The truth is, the reason God blesses, let me tell you how the dynamics work there, it's not that, oh, I dropped $5 in the offering basket, God saw it, and he throws magical powers on my checkbook and on my checking account. No, that's not at all how it works. The way it works is that those who consistently manage well what they have, God blesses with more. And in fact, it also is very practical. There's a supernatural element where God brings certain opportunities your ways, certain job promotions your way, certain investors, certain donors, certain resources your ways. And then there is the practical element that proper stewardship automatically attracts to itself because that's how God set the laws in motion. It's the law of stewardship. If you treat what you have like it's what you want, then God will bless you with more. Jesus said that if he can trust you with a little, that if you can be faithful with a little, that you'll be ruler over much, and we see that demonstrated in the parable of the talents. There are those who say we should take from those who have a lot and give to those who have a little. That's not the way God thinks. In Matthew chapter 25 he says, from those who have little, because they've been so awful with stewarding what they have, I will take what they have and I'll give it to the one I can trust. And so when you sow into the gospel, when you're a good steward of what you have, then God is able to bless you with more. And it does you no good to come to a church service, throw $5 superstitiously in the offering basket. If you're going to go home and get yourself in debt, if you're going to go home and go out to eat every night when you can't even afford to pay the rent, if you're going to constantly buy Starbucks when you can't even afford to pay your bills, if you owe people money but go out shopping for yourself, I know I'm getting into some issues right now, but you need to hear this. This is the truth. You owe people money, yet instead of paying them back, you go and spend on things that you don't really need. Now I understand we all hit financial hardships and I myself have experienced seasons where I've been challenged. But let me be honest with you. If you're not a good steward of your finances, if you don't manage well what God gives to you, he's not going to trust you with more. So there's that very first practical element. Again, I told you this lesson was going to be practical because I actually want to see you get out of financial debt. I actually want to see you find financial freedom. Those who abuse you, they don't care whether or not you get out of debt. They promise you get out of debt if you give them money. But that's not what I'm doing here. I'm telling you that the first key is stewardship. It's practical stewardship. Can God trust you with abundance? You'll know whether or not God can trust you with abundance by how you handle the little. And if you handle and manage the little well, then God will give you more. Now, number two is generosity. Luke chapter 6 verse 38, give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full. Press down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back. I like the way that Proverbs chapter 10 verse 22 puts it when it says, the blessing of the Lord makes a person rich and he adds no sorrow with it. God wants to give you abundance. God wants to give you overflow. You know why? Because it's in his nature. God doesn't want you living in lack. God doesn't want you living in poverty. Poverty is not spirituality. Some people think, and again, this goes back to works-based legalism. They think that if they punish themselves, they take on punishment. It's almost like a whipping of the self. I'm taking on poverty on myself and it makes me godly. No, it makes you ineffective to support the gospel. When you live in poverty, you're taking what could otherwise be a fountain of supply, a fountain of resource for the gospel message. And you're instead becoming someone who's in constant need. Jesus met the needs of those who followed him. In fact, Jesus had so much wealth, had so much coming in, that he had to have a treasurer, Judas, who managed the money. We're talking about people who would come to the feet of Jesus and they would pour out on his feet a year's worth of finances. Now some say, well, Jesus said, I don't have a place to lay my head. OK, well, Jesus didn't have any real estate investments. But Jesus most certainly had finances flowing. And because of those finances that were flowing, he was able to bless people. It doesn't say he fed the thousands only by miracles. It recorded the times he did that. But he was constantly feeding people. He was constantly helping people. And God wants to turn you into a resource instead of a need. God wants to turn you into a blessing instead of a prayer. And if you're constantly living in the place where you're in lack, where you're in need, where you're in frustration, that is not in his nature. Think about the vastness of who God is, the one who formed the universe, the one who gives all supply, the one who's into multiplication and largeness. God is a big God. Put your big faith in a big God and see big results. In fact, put your small faith in a big God and see big results. He wants you to trust him for more. And I believe he wants to break that frustration. Some of you are watching, there's somebody watching me right now. You've been in frustration. You've been in lack. You've prayed and you've prayed and you've prayed and you've given, but I'm about to show you how you're gonna really come out of this and you're gonna find that breakthrough. So number two is generosity. You have to be able to sow in order to receive. You know, you're looking at me right now and I'm here at our television broadcast studio with probably close to $100,000 worth of television equipment. Yes, that's what it costs to do what we do. Because again, we don't just do YouTube, we do television as well. Almost $100,000 worth of television equipment. And you say, well, that's a waste. No, it's not. We're using it to leverage and do more than we've ever been able to do before. We can reach more people now than we ever have and never could before. Now here's the truth. When we give, God blesses us. Jesus said, give and it shall be given. Here's the problem. We say, Lord, bless me and I'll give. He says, give and I'll bless you. You see, you have to take the first step. You have to be the one to step out and receive. You have to be the one to take him at his word and trust that he's going to bless you. Now, it's not just giving a loan that does it. Remember that first component, stewardship is very important. Some people, they have stewardship but they don't give and they could be much further along than they are right now. And some people, they have the generosity but they don't have stewardship and they find themselves constantly in lack and wonder why. It's because you're not a good steward. You may be generous but if you don't steward well, well-being generous, you're gonna find yourself in lack. There's a friend of mine, actually one of our ministry supporters, his name is Paul Pimentel and he was one of the big backers that helped us fund the studio. And he wrote a book called, God's Not Broken. In the book, he talks about how a plane takes off to fly. Now, when a plane takes off to fly, there are hundreds of things that have to go right in order to give that ton or whatever it weighs to take off and go into the air. Now, that amazes me every time I get on an airplane and I'm flying, I cannot believe that I'm in something so large, so heavy that it's flying. There are hundreds of things that have to go right in that engine and in the engines of the plane to cause this thing to have lift and go up into the air. But if one or two things go wrong, if one or two things are off, it can bring the whole thing down. This is what financial prosperity is like. You may be doing just one or two things right but if you're not doing all of the things that bring it together to give it flight, you're not gonna take off anywhere, you're gonna stay on the ground. You need to bring all of the components of biblical prosperity together. And I'm giving you today three of those keys. So the first one is good stewardship. You have to manage your money well. You have to budget, you have to plan. You can't get yourself in debt. You can't go buying things you don't need. God is not going to bless that. God will not bless a mess. God only blesses what is well organized and what is orderly. You have to present him something to bless. He watches for how you do. Secondly, it's generosity. And that is an important component. You can't just have one and not the other. You have to have both good stewardship and generosity toward others and toward the gospel. The scripture says that he who refreshes others shall himself be refreshed. That's what the Bible says. And the truth is that I've experienced this in my life. You know, I mentioned the $100,000 equipment and I wanna get back to that story now. This didn't start right there. I started doing broadcasts on the internet with a $250 camera. And then I upgraded to a $2,500 camera. You know what I did with that? I sewed it and God blessed me. And when God blessed me, he upgraded us to about $20,000 worth of equipment. And that equipment was enough to get us onto public access television. We did cable television, public access and cable. I think we were in like 60,000 homes in one city. It wasn't a big reach. But we did the best we had with that. And you know what God told me? When we were doing television, we did it for about two years. The Lord told me this. He said, take all of this equipment that you have and I want you to give it away. I want you to sew it to other ministries. I said, Lord, are you sure? For me at the time as a televangelist, a televangelist giving away his TV equipment is like a pastor giving away his church building. I said, Lord, I need faith for this. Help me. The Lord helped me. I sewed all that camera equipment. And it wasn't that much later when I finished sewing all the camera equipment. Maybe a couple of weeks after I sewed the last piece of equipment into other churches, I get a call from a man who was willing to put up half of the cost for everything that we're doing and we raised the other half in six months and God met the need. We're talking going from $15,000, $20,000 worth to reaching our about $100,000 goal at the time. I want you to think about that. It's a multiplication effect. And each time you go, God will test your generosity. We grow from glory to glory, from faith to faith. God is constantly stretching us. So maybe when you were broke, it was a challenge to give $5, but you did that and you sewed it and God blessed you. And now it's a challenge to give $100, but you do it and God blesses you and you sew and then you grow. And then it's a challenge to give $1,000. There's friends that I have who are multimillionaires, some of our biggest supporters for this ministry, multimillionaires, and they're telling me it's kind of the same thing. They said, Lord, why don't you ask someone else to give $10,000? I had one of my supporters tell me that. He said, why don't you ask someone else to give $10,000 to the ministry? And the Lord told him, fine, I'll bless someone else with a million. So the truth is that to whom much is given, much is required. At each level, we need to demonstrate our faith. Finally, number three is faithfulness. Now, I don't think I need any scripture for faithfulness. We all know because we found it in Matthew 25 that the good and faithful servant gave, but faithfulness is doing these things consistently. Some people will be good stewards and be generous for a week or two. And when they see no financial breakthrough, they say, ah, see, I gotta stop. And they hold off on their giving. And this is fear. It's a fearful poverty mentality. They call ministry and say, we have to stop giving because we had a little problem here and I had some problem with my finances or maybe we lost an income. And the first thing people do usually is they cut their support to the gospel. That's the last thing you should, you cut as your support to the gospel. I can tell you this because I live it myself and I've been in very tight situations where I said, Lord, I have no idea how you're gonna get me out of this. And the Lord will tell me to sew and I sew. And he'll tell me to be faithful and I'm faithful. He'll tell me to manage well and I manage well. And all of these three things, these three components will help to bring about financial breakthrough. Number one, good stewardship. Manage well what you have. Number two, generosity. Don't let fear get the better of you. Trust your God so generously. Put your faith in him first and he'll bring about the blessings next. And the number three is faithfulness. You can't just do these things for one or two days, one or two weeks, one or two months or even just a year. You have to be faithful and consistent to be a good steward and to be generous. And if you faithfully and consistently do those things, remember, it takes a long time to have faithfulness. You can't have faithfulness in minutes, days, or even weeks. It takes months and years to have faithfulness. And you wanna be faithful and you will do it. God will bless you. You do those three things. Good stewardship, generosity and faithfulness. That is it for this edition here on The Teaching and I wanna pray with you now. Let's pray that God will begin to speak to your heart and that God will use you. I know you. I know that in your heart, you're saying, God, if I could just find financial breakthrough, I would fund this ministry and that ministry. And in your heart, I know it. Look, I've been there. I know the people of God. You want to give to the gospel. You want to be a research. You know why God wants to bless you? Not just for the gospel. He wants to bless your family. He wants to bless your grandparents and your parents and your children. People will be blessed through you. I declare it in Jesus' name. I don't care how much debt you're in. I don't care how hopeless it looks. If you'll apply what the Bible says, if you'll do what the scripture says to do, then I want you to go and do it. And you'll find that you will receive breakthrough. I wanna pray with you now. Let's pray that God will give you the courage to do what he's called you to do and that God will inspire you even right now whatever difficult situation you might be facing. And let's pray for breakthrough. Come on, join your faith. You know he promised before we pray. He promised he would rebuke the devourer. We're gonna rebuke the devourer. God's gonna make you a blessing. Just watch. You're gonna be a resource center for the kingdom. Join your faith with mine right now. Father in Jesus' name, I pray for that one watching. Who is struggling with finances. In the name of Jesus, I bind the spirit of fear right now. And I speak to that one watching. Let faith come alive in you in this moment. I speak right now. Faith come to life. I speak faith. I speak life. I speak hope. I speak generosity. Lord, we rebuke the devourer right now in the name of Jesus. Father, forgive us for being poor stewards of our finances. Forgive us for withholding out of what you've given us. And forgive us for not being faithful and consistent with good stewardship and generosity. And Father, I pray for that one watching right now who's struggling, who's frustrated, who's scared, who feels like they're up against a wall. I pray in the name of Jesus. Lord, that you would supply or the God who supplies all our needs according to your riches and glory. Father, you are the source. You are the God of abundance. And so I pray, precious Jesus, that you would bless. Lord, I speak right now in the name of Jesus. Job promotions, breakthrough in business. We call forth new clients, Lord. We call forth favor in the name of Jesus. I pray over those finances, Lord. Lord, I pray that they would see a turnaround in your timing and that you would give them the courage to do what you've called them to do in Jesus' name. You know, I wanna encourage you. Say amen, say it with me, say amen. You don't know what this year holds. You're coming out of it. You're gonna receive your breakthrough. You're gonna get breakthrough in this area. Just do what the Bible, just do what the Bible says. Well, I wanna welcome now the new members of Spirit Church. There you are up on the screen. We welcome you, we love you, we're praying for you. We're glad, we're so glad you have joined the Spirit Church family. There are your names. Look at all of these names. They're coming from different cities, different nations. And I am just so excited about how fast Spirit Church is going. At the time we're recording this, we are over 600 members of the Spirit family, which is just incredible. And we get several more joining every single week. We get about 50 members a week or more, that's a minimum. Now, if you're watching this and you're blessed by the program and you're a member of Spirit Church, set up, here's what we're asking. And I'm gonna read your comments in just a moment. But we're asking that those who are Spirit Church members, if you consider Spirit Church, your church, join our automatic giving plan using the information at the bottom of the screen or clicking on the link that just appeared overhead, join up for our automatic giving plan to give your ties and offerings. Now, if you're watching Spirit Church, you're a member of Spirit Church, but you also have a home church, don't sew your ties and offerings here. I wanna make sure I stay in order and I respect and honor the local church. So don't sew your ties and offering here if you have another church. But if you are a member of Spirit Church, then we're asking these members to consider becoming a partner for $30 a month. So maybe you can't sew your ties and offerings, but you can do $30 a month pledge. That would be incredibly helpful to us. Okay, now to your comments. Here's the first comment. Oh, and just so you know, these comments are from the video, three keys to clearly hearing God, which is one of the more popular teachings here on the YouTube channel, at least this week. Frankie Mendoza writes, I love you, David, you're anointed. Thank you for letting the Lord use you to help the church. I could fill the Lord's power right through my phone. Thank you, Jesus, why I love you too. We're praying for you. We want to bless you and I'm so glad you're blessed by the YouTube channel. And here's the truth, we get a lot of comments from people who say that they can fill the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit from their phone, from the computer, just by watching the videos. And we're blessed because that is one of the distinctions on this ministry and we're so very excited that people are experiencing that with the Holy Spirit. And so it is that distinctive presence of the Holy Spirit that we are striving for and that really marks this ministry. The next comment, this one's from Sandra Chow. Thank you, David. I wish I can be like you one day to get so close to God. Well, I want to encourage you, Sandra, you absolutely can. And here's what I learned from our pal Sid Roth and I love it when I heard him say it. Anything I can do, you can do better. And I truly believe that. You're going to walk in a closeness with God and that goes for everybody who's watching this. That is why we put these videos out because you can do this too. You can walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. I truly believe that and that's why we put these teachings out. Thank you for your comment. The next comment, Lily Smith writes, this is life changing. Well, thank you for your comment, Lily. And Lily is right. And I can say that because it's coming from the word of God, I really encourage you to watch that teaching. It's going to bless. It's going to help you clearly here without any doubt, without any second guessing, the voice of the Holy Spirit. Our next comment comes from Regina Borga who writes, thank you once again for this new lesson I learned. Thank you, man of God. You are truly blessed and thank you for the channel, for spreading the word of God. By watching your channel, it helps me a lot to increase my faith. Well, again, that's why we do it. Thank you for watching. We are so blessed to know that you are blessed. Okay, so here's one from Ange Messenger. Oh, what profound teaching, especially the reference to the three voices, the secular, the satanic and the spirit. Well, thank you for your comment. And if you watching want to know what they're talking about, the secular, the satanic and the spirit, then go ahead when this video is done, watch that video, three keys to clearly hearing God's voice. And we got very specific. We got very practical. And you're gonna know what the satanic, the secular and the spirit are. So now I wanna go and transition now. Don't turn off the video. I wanna talk to you real quick. You know this ministry is all about souls. That is our why. That is our purpose. We're evangelistic. We're twofold. We evangelize the loss. We edify the believer. But really edifying the believer is a means to an end. We edify the believer so that we multiply our efforts to evangelize the loss. So we carry out this very simple vision to win the loss through a very practical plan. And that plan is carried out not with many things done in mediocrity, but three things done with excellence. And that is international events. That's where we take the gospel message all around the world. Signs, wonders, miracles, the power of the Holy Spirit. My team and I go, we'll select a region, we'll go in and we'll host an evangelistic event. People get saved, people get healed. The believers get baptized in the Holy Spirit and they get a fresh touch of his power. And that's powerful. But that's just one aspect. Then there's our global discipleship media. You're watching it right now. And these are things like our website, our blogs, our podcasts, Spirit Church, which is our internet program. And then there's EncounterTV, which is worldwide television. So Spirit Church and EncounterTV are different from one another. Spirit Church is YouTube, but EncounterTV is all over the world on actual television. Not internet. We're talking cable, satellite, and the like. So we carry out again our simple why, which is to win the loss through our practical what, which is international events, global discipleship, and worldwide television. And we do this so that we can win the loss. That is the most important thing that, that's why I've been put on this earth. That's why we exist as a ministry. That is our ultimate goal. And you can help us do it. You're tired and you're frustrated with seeing the way the world is going. Let me be 100% clear. Together, you and I can change the world. I believe that because the gospel has the power to change the hearts of men. So if you're tired of the things, the way things are going in your nation or our nation, you're tired of the way things are going with your generation. If you're tired of the way that Hollywood and secular culture and the media and the secular music industry are putting out messages and ruining people's lives through the darkness that they spread. If you're tired of people being broken and living in the darkness of sin and you wanna pierce their darkness with our light, then stand together with me. Help me change the world. When you and I gather together with, we have over a thousand supporters from all around the world. When you join your support together, you're joining your resources. Maybe you can only give $5, $10, $20. But when you do it, you're joining your $5, $10, or $20 with someone else's $5, $10, or $20. And we collectively together are taking the gospel message and spreading it all around the world. So here's my challenge to you. This is what I need you to do. Consider today a one-time gift of 10, 20, or $30. Consider also, some of you can consider a one-time gift of 100, 500, or even 1,000. Now here's where you really could help us out. Consider also, prayerfully consider, becoming a partner with our ministry for $30 a month, $50 a month, or even $100 a month. Some of you can do $10 a month, but do something on a monthly basis. And this helps us plan. We're looking for 1,000 new $30 a month partners. We need to double our support and we wanna do this by the end of the year so that in the beginning of next year, we can launch with the new plan, the new vision that God has given to me. And I wanna share that with you in the coming months. So do that today. Don't delay, don't say I'll try or I'll think about it. Go right now. Click on the link to just a period over my head. Do it right now. You could even leave the video. Click on it and go and help and support this ministry. Do that today. Do what God tells you to do. And I know God will bless you for it. Well, that is it for this edition of Spirit Church. Until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God. Hey guys, Steven Moctezuma here. And if you enjoy the content you see here on EncounterTV, then don't forget to subscribe, like, comment and share. You can listen to the messages and teachings by David Diga Hernandez and experience the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. I also wanna encourage all of you out there to join me on my worship playlist here on EncounterTV. Thank you guys for watching. God bless.