How and Why we Prosper and Succeed (248)

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I want to welcome you to the Quality Christian Living Podcast.

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I am your host, David Friend.

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We are continuing our series on success, prospering, and abundant living.

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Today we are going to discover where God's Word approves of success and prosperity.

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We are going to try to understand why some prosper quickly while others do not.

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We are going to see how the words patience and trust and faith help us achieve prosperity

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and success in our life.

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We will learn the key to spiritual and financial growth and how we can have them both or we

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can have it all.

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As a matter of fact, there is going to be a podcast coming up pretty soon.

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It might be the next one entitled, How to Have It All.

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What that means is people sometimes will tell me they basically can do one thing or they

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can do something else like they can tithe or they can pay their bills on time.

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You don't have to look at it that way.

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You can tithe and keep your bills current.

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You can give money to the church and still have all the things that your once needs and

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desires will be met.

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So I just think we misunderstand that sometimes and I am a big believer that God wants us to

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have as much blessing in our life as we possibly can.

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And in this podcast I will address how and why we can on our able to prosper.

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But before we get into that, we need to pray, put the Lord first and ask for his guidance.

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Heavenly Father, once again I thank you for who you are.

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I pray that you would bless this podcast today.

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And for those who are listening in, I pray the Holy Spirit would come in a very special

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way.

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And I surrender to the Holy Spirit now, surrender and submit all my thoughts and plans, what

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I ve worked on, what I ve prepared and the notes I have for myself to stay on track,

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that you would bless it, that you would do whatever you desire to do with it and take

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us in the direction you would have us to go.

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If you change the focus, I invite you to do that.

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I surrender totally to you and ask for the Holy Spirit's leading and guidance and I ll

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be careful now to give you praise for the wonderful results I expect to take place this

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day.

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For ask these things in Jesus' name I pray.

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Amen.

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I believe it s important to point out that because the word of God has thousands of

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references, literally thousands of references to success, to prosperity and abundance, the

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proper use and the improper use, I felt a need to offer a concise list of reasons why

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and how Christians can prosper.

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The first reason is because God says it s okay for all of us to prosper.

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As a matter of fact, his word tells us on and on again that he wants us to prosper and

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I close out every podcast with a statement, I pray that we ll all prosper and be in good

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health even as our soul prospers.

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That s the word of God.

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Now, however, even though he wants us to be blessed, it s important.

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As a matter of fact, the most important thing to remember when we re talking about these

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issues is that we must never seek prospering or success or abundance.

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We re not to seek it.

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We re always to seek God first.

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Remember Matthew 6.33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and it says then

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all these things shall be added unto you.

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You see, we do not need to seek prosperity because God s word has a plan to bring it into

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our lives.

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Think about that.

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If we follow his word, we will have success.

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We ll have prosperity both spiritual and physical and financial prosperity and we ll live abundantly.

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Now the second reason why and how Christians will prosper is to let others see that our

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God loves us and blesses us and he wants to bless those who follow him and live by his

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word.

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It s kind of important to think about this.

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If every Christian lived in poverty, why would non-believers want to be Christians?

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Why would they look at us if we were just constantly living in poverty?

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We were constantly having problems.

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We couldn t pay our bills.

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We had no success at all.

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Why would anyone want to be a part of that?

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The third reason why and why we can prosper is because God placed the Holy Spirit in us

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so that we can be successful, we can be productive Christians and we can prosper spiritually,

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financially, physically, marriage-wise and all the areas of our life can prosper.

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Now, there is a powerful parable in God s word that we have all heard and we ve heard

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this parable probably many times in church or on with the TV, evangelist or wherever

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it might be.

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It s a parable that s found in the 25th chapter of Matthew verses 14 through 30.

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It s about the three servants who were given talents or money.

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One translation says they were given silver.

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Another one says talents.

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Others just say it s really money that they were given and how they handled it and how

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they used it.

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So let s get into that.

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I normally don t spend this much time reading that many verses in the scripture but I think

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in this podcast it s crucial that I read all these verses.

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It will only take a couple of minutes to do that.

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So let me read from Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 through 30 in the new international version.

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This is called the parable of the talents.

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I think I mentioned that earlier.

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Verse 14, again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted

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his property to them.

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Through one, he gave five talents of money to another two talents and to another one talent,

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each according to his ability.

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I think that s a very important point.

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Then he went on his journey.

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The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and

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gained five more.

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Verse 17, so also the one with the two talents gained two more.

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Verse 18, but the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground

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and hid his master s money.

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Verse 19, after a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts

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with them.

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The man who had received the five talents brought the other five.

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Master, he said, you entrusted me with these five talents and see I gained five more.

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His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few

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things I will put you in charge of many things.

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You see, I m going to stop here for a second because that s how God does it.

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If we re faithful with little, he ll reward us with much.

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If we re faithful with our finances and giving first to him, to help the church, to take

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care of the bills and the needs that we have, to help other people if we have the possibility

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of the ability to do that, if we do those small things then God will reward us, I believe,

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with even more.

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Now it says here, come and share your master s happiness, he says.

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Now there s another wonderful scripture, isn t it?

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Come and share your master s happiness.

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Just think about that.

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Jesus is our Lord and Master, amen.

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And we would like to certainly join in his rejoicing and his happiness.

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Verse 22, the man with the two talents also came, master.

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He said, you entrusted me with two talents.

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See, I have gained two more.

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His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few

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things.

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I will put you in charge of many things.

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Come and share your master s happiness.

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Verse 24, the man who had received the one talent then came.

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Mastery said, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering

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where you have not scattered seed, so I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in

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the ground, the gift you gave me.

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He says, see here, it is what belongs to you.

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26, his master replied, you wicked, lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I have not

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sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.

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Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I return

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I would have received it back, maybe with a little interest.

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Verse 28, now this is the words of Jesus, by the way, I didn t say that at the beginning,

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I should have.

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Verse 28, take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents.

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For everyone who has will be given more and he will have an abundance, whoever does not

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have, even what he has will be taken from him and throw that worthless servant outside

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into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Now we ve all heard that weeping and gnashing of teeth before and many times it will go

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on to talk about what hell is going to be like and about the misery that comes with

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it and the weeping and the sadness and the sorrow and no joy and no presence of the

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Lord.

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But here we are having a story that tells us so much, there are so many things that

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we can learn from this particular parable that Jesus talked about.

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First of all, the parable shows us that success comes from hard work.

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You know, we might receive a little bit from our boss, but some people have a tendency

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to just spend it all quickly and then don t have anything left over and that s a lesson

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that we need to learn that we need to at least put back something of what we have.

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Now I know there s a lot of people out there who have very difficult finances and you

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got to take every penny that you ve got just to basically keep the roof over your head

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and put food in your mouth, but if you re faithful with that and just maybe just give

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a little bit to help the work of the Lord at your church, I think that God will see

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that.

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I know he ll see that and he ll reward you openly.

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I believe that.

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So we need to remember even though we re going through difficult times, we can give at least

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something of what we have.

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Remember the story of the widow who gave the mites.

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Those are basically like a penny today.

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That s all she had, but she gave it.

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And that story has gone on to give an example of how God blessed her and said she was so

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generous because of what she had done because she gave all that she had.

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We need to understand that if we want to receive blessings from God and we want to receive prosperity

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from God and success from God, we need to put Him first in everything we do.

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Another lesson that we receive in this is found in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10.

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I m going to read that very quickly.

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It s found in the new international version, for we are God s handiwork created in Christ

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Jesus to do good works, which God prepares in advance for us to do.

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Now from that parable of the talents, we see something also in Ephesians chapter 2 and

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chapter in verse 10.

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And that is that for we are God s handiwork, I mean he made us and we re His creation and

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we were created in His image and we were blessed because of our relationship with Jesus and

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it s to do good works.

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It s not just to be good people, but it s also to do good works.

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And these are works that God prepared in advance for us so God has already prepared a plan

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for our life.

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He has placed talents in us, He has gifts ready for us, He has things He wants to pour out

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upon us, but He s wanting to be sure that we are trustworthy.

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You know a lot of people, when I ve counseled them over the years, God was a banker for

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many years and I did a lot of counseling in the area of finance.

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As a pastor I did a lot of spiritual and biblical counseling in the area of families and those

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types of things.

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And people come to me and they say, well, you know, I m just not so sure that I can

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help the church or trust my finances over to God to give something of what I have and

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that type of thing.

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And they ll say, you know, I just want God to bless me.

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What they re saying is that they don t trust God, but they want God to trust them.

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And that s really, we must never think that.

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Now this podcast is not all about you just giving a bunch of money to your church.

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That s really not what I m talking about.

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But what I m talking about is there s some things that need to be done and the ways and

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the house to receive prosperity and success in our life, both spiritually and financially.

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And these are found throughout the Word of God and I m just using a few examples.

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Another lesson that we learned from this parable that it reveals that everything we work for

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must bless the kingdom of God, not just ourselves, not just our wants, needs and desires, but

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everything we work for must bless the kingdom of God.

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Now these people who received the talents and then did something with them and then

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gave it all back and said, here it is, they gain greater blessing after that.

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The one that got the most turned around and received the most from God.

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So I believe the Bible tells us that those who sow sparingly will then also receive sparingly.

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But if we seed bountifully, then we will also be blessed bountifully.

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So there s a great lesson there that what we have, we must do our best to maintain it

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and to increase it and to bless the kingdom of God and not just us.

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See those servants were ready to just give everything they have back.

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They want to just give it all back.

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But the master said, nope, nope, I m going to bless you.

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But the person who did nothing with what they had, the talent or the money that they had,

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he took it away from him.

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And another thing, and there s many points, we ll just take one more that we learned from

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this parable, is that God has a reason to bless us and to give us finances.

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And the reason that he has for us is that it will be a blessing obviously to us, but

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also that we ll have a blessing to give more to others.

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When we receive a financial blessing, it s not just for us.

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It s so that it can come into it, us and go through us.

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I look at this situation as a conduit.

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That s like a pipe, a big piece of pipe, where the blessing comes in, one in, goes through

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and blesses whatever it s carrying through and then at the end goes out and blesses

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something else.

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So we are a conduit of the blessings of God coming into us and going out, not just applying

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to money, but applying to our talents, our abilities, our strengths, those things that

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we can help if we re a person who loves to help people or pray for people, then we need

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to use that.

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And that desire to help others and God will bless this and he ll pour back probably more

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than what we can imagine or even think is possible.

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Now God always gives his followers what they need to accomplish his purpose for them.

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I inserted that because it s important to understand that if you re lacking right now

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in your area, you don t have the prosperity that you desire, the success or the abundant

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life that you re wanting to live, then I want you to understand that, that God will always

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give a blessing to those who accomplish his purpose for them.

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So if your purpose is just simply to be faithful to your church and to your family and to your

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community and to your children and to your relatives and your friends, to be faithful

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to them, be kind to them, be nice to them and reach out and help them in some way that

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you can, if that s your purpose then God s going to bless that and he s going to, I

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believe, give us more when we operate in the gifts that he s given us.

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Let me give you an example of when we have a purpose in our life and if we step into

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that purpose and fulfill it, that we re going to be blessed.

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We re going to prosper.

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We re going to have success in various ways, not just to all money, but we re going to

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have prosperity in our life.

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Let me think about a church.

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God puts on the heart of an individual to start a church or start a ministry.

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God would not call that person to build a church or a ministry if God did not have a

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plan to bless them with several blessings.

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One is a place to meet, or a place to worship, or people to minister to and talk to and visit

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with and teach and help out.

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You see, God s not going to just put on your heart, you know, you need to start a church,

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you need to go out there and do this or do that or it might be and you re on your own.

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Go out and go do it on your own.

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No, he s going to help us as long as we stay in his will and his plan and seek his guidance

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and direction and we grow spiritually, preparing ourselves for the other blessings that God

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has in store for us.

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You know, it s the same thing with marrying someone.

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A lot of people come to me and they re a couple and they say, well, we can t afford to get

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married or we can t afford to have children or we can t afford to do this or do that.

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But I always tell them you ll never be able to afford to get married or never be able to

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afford to have children.

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You just have them when the Lord leads you to do that.

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So if the Lord places on your heart to marry someone, you meet a wonderful, godly, Christian

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person and the two of you marry and then the Lord puts up on your heart to get a home,

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he s going to provide for that.

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If the Lord puts up on your heart that you need to have children, he s going to provide

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for that.

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He s always going to bring the blessing when he s the one that put that on you to step

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into that area so that he can then turn around and bless you.

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Does this make sense?

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I hope it does because I m a big believer of it because I ve been in ministry for half

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of my life and I ve been in business for a large portion of my life and it s exciting

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to see and look back where God stepped in.

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When we stepped out in faith, he stepped along with us and took care of us because we were

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operating in his will.

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There s an old saying that I ve heard in the church for many, many years.

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It s about God providing funds for ministry.

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The saying says this, money follows ministry.

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What that means is if God puts it on your heart to have a ministry, to have a marriage,

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to have a business, to have children and he s the one that puts it on your heart, then

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he s going to provide the funds for that marriage, for those children, for that home and for

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that ministry.

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That s what I believe and I believe it s true and it ll prove out.

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When it comes to ministry, first we are called to minister to others.

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If our motives are pure and if we know God s purpose for us, the Lord will provide whatever

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we need, our finances, whatever it might be.

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I want you to think about that.

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As a matter of fact, think about that in relationship to whatever you want to see happen in your

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life.

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You might be a person who s always wanting to have your own business but you ve never

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felt that you could ever step out to do that.

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Well, if God s put that on your heart, there s things you need to do.

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There s what we call due diligence.

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Those are the things you do to go about planning and making the plans necessary to get yourself

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prepared to start a business.

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If you d like to know more about businesses and how to start one and how to see God bless

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one, you go to my podcast and I ll explain at the end of this podcast and tell you about

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about 20 podcasts that I did for Christians, either starting businesses or trying to grow

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a business and how that can take place.

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It s a wonderful guide because I ve had so many years of experience at God s given me

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that.

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Of course, we got the word of God, which is our instruction manual for anything we want

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to do in our life.

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So, if you want to be blessed, whatever it might be, maybe you re thinking about buying

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a car and you need to make sure that you are s in God s will.

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You kind of know when it s in God s will or when you have peace about something.

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A lot of people say, well, how do you know?

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I know I m kind of getting distracted a little bit here but I think it s worth moving down

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this little bunny trail for a second.

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Some people will come to me and they ll say, how do you know when you re operating in God

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s will?

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The first thing I like to tell them is, are you at peace spiritually?

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Are you at peace knowing that God is able to do what He s able to do?

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It s called the peace of God that passes all understanding and it will guard our hearts

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and guard our minds in Christ Jesus.

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If you re at peace with that, you know you re operating in God s will.

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To follow up with that, get us back to our podcast today if we re operating in God s

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will and doing the things He s called us to do and pleasing Him.

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If our ways are pleasing to the Lord, then He will help make our path straight, will

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guide and direct us and He will bring the prosperity that we need into our life, the

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success that we need and the abundance that we need, success, prosperity and abundant

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living.

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The primary reason I believe that the Holy Spirit wants me to speak on success, prospering

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and abundant living is to help Christians understand that there is nothing wrong with

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having these in our life.

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Provided, they always include God s will and His plan and His purpose for our life and

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we keep Him first.

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The reason why some may experience prosperity sooner than others is whether or not they

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follow the instruction manual on prosperity.

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Now that instruction manual is the word of God.

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We may wonder why we know of Christians who have greater possessions than us, but possessions

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are not what is true wealth or prosperity.

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God looks at the heart, not our possessions, true prosperity and true success and true

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abundance will always bless God and glorify the kingdom of God.

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Let me kind of wrap some things up here.

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We must all have patience, trust and faith in God to help us live a successful abundant

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life.

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Isaiah 55 tells us that God s ways and God s thoughts are better than and higher than

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our ways and our thoughts.

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So let s trust God for those things.

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How, why or when we prosper is determined by many things, but patience, trust and faith

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in God must be our foundation to receive the blessings of our Lord.

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Now God s word is filled with examples of Him desiring to success people and bring prosperity

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into their lives.

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These are some points I d like to make through some scriptures as we kind of wrap up this

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podcast.

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Psalm 374 says this, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires and

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petitions of your heart.

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So therefore if you need help from God, delight yourself in Him and when that happens, He

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is going to bless you.

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Here s another one that gives us examples of how God wants to bring success and prosperity

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and abundance into your life.

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Deuteronomy 28, 13, the Lord will make you the head, which means the leader, and not

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the tail, which means the followers, and you will be above only and you will not be beneath

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if you listen and pay attention to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding

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you today to observe them carefully.

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Now there s a great example.

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That s Old Testament stuff, but think about that.

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That s so real today.

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If we want to have those good things in our life, those blessings from the Lord, we ve

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got to follow what His instructions are and He does have an entire book of instructions

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with a few thousand references to the things that we re studying in this particular podcast.

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Now let s look at Job 36 and 11.

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You might think, well, why would I use Job when it comes to prosperity?

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Because isn t he the one that lost everything?

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Yeah, he was.

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He was wealthy.

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Then he lost everything, but then he gained it all back twice of what he had before because

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he never gave up on God.

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Here s what Job 36 verse 11 tells us.

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If they hear and serve Him, they will end their days in prosperity and their years in

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pleasantness and joy.

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Isn t that nice?

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Just think about that for a second.

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You may be only 20 years old or you might be 80 years old, but think about that.

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It says if they hear and serve Him, we will end our days in prosperity and our years in

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pleasantness and joy.

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We ll have the joy of the Lord.

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When that happens, because we ve lived according to what God s word says, that doesn t mean

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we lived a perfect life.

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It doesn t mean that we re flawless people.

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It just means that we ve done everything we could, did our best to follow what God said,

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faithful to the house of God, faithful to reading His word, faithful to have prayer,

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and faithful to reach out to other people and use the talents that God has given us.

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Those are the conditions for God to pour more blessing in us.

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Here s another scripture.

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3 John 1 and 2, beloved, I pray that in every way you may succeed.

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Now, that s an interesting word because I heard some of the other day tell me you ll

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never find the word succeed in the Bible.

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Well, they have it down and they haven t looked very hard.

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There are many translations that use that word frequently in the word of God talking

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about prosperity.

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It says you may succeed and prosper and be in good health and physical condition just

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as your soul prospers.

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I want to add to that spiritually.

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The key to this teaching and this is so crucial, if you don t get this, you re going to miss

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the whole point of this particular podcast on the hows and the whys and the wins of prosperity

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and success and abundance.

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These things should not get into our lives until we ve prepared ourselves spiritually.

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I did an entire podcast on spiritual prosperity leads to financial prosperity.

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I believe that teaching, I believe it s based upon the word of God.

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We ve got to be focused on growing spiritually.

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If we grow spiritually, we ll do the things that God wants us to do.

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If we mature spiritually, we ll be active in the things that God wants us to do.

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We will live according to his word.

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We ll live according to his plan for our life.

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We ll know our purpose in our life.

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But it all requires a focus not on just success and prosperity and abundance, but at first

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a focus on God.

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Remember earlier in this podcast I said one thing we must never do is to seek success,

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prosperity and abundance.

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If we seek that, we re messed up.

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We re on our own because God s word tells us so strongly to seek him first.

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Always put God first.

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Always have him first in your business, in your home, in your family, in your marriage,

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in your finances, in the work that you do, in the games that you play, in the friends

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that you have.

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Keep God first.

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Make him one of the topics in your conversations.

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Sometimes I go out with a lot of Christian people for coffee or whatever and we talk

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and visit and sometimes we ll spend a couple of hours and very little is said about the

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things of God.

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We re talking about sports or politics or whatever.

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In the middle of it I have to say to myself, somehow I got to get this conversation headed

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back in the direction of putting our trust in God and seeking him first for these things.

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Then it says all these other things are going to fall in place.

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That s crucial for us and just absolutely vital for us in order to receive the type

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of prosperity that God wants for us, the type of successes that he wants us to have and

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the abundant living that he wants us to have.

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With all of that said, I m just going to say this, may the Lord bless you and keep you.

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May his face shine upon you.

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May he be gracious to you and give you peace.

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Here s my favorite part and may you prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers.

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Thank you once again for listening into Quality Christian Living.

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I have been your host, David Fren.

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This is podcast number 248.

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May God richly bless you and bring forth success, prosperity, abundance according to his will

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in your life.

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Thank you once again for listening in.

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God bless you.