What are you believing for yourself and your family for 2020?
Seven Areas of Breakthrough This Year:
- Faith – your personal walk with God
- Family – marriage, relationships with children
- Finances – managing our money, etc.
- Freedom – areas of our lives that we have habits or strongholds
- Fun – we need to enjoy life
- Field of endeavor (job or vocation)
- Friendships (social relationships)
Finances is an area that a lot of Christians need help.
We must understand that there is more to going to another level in your finances than just giving.
This is not a sermon about tithing and giving only because tithing and giving are not the only financial principles that you need in order to get your finances in order and prosper.
Mismanagement of finances opens the door to many things: marital problems, emotional problems, physical problems, spiritual problems.
You did not get into the situation that you are in overnight, and you are not going to come out overnight.
What WILL happen overnight is peace and joy can come into your lives because you are doing what is right where money management is concerned.
We are going to talk about the Ten Financial Commandments:
- Thou shall honor the Lord first.
Exodus 20:3 NKJV (3) “You shall have no other gods before Me.
You have to put God first.
You have to give to God first. The tithe has to be first.
Why would God who owns everything, ask you for 10% of your income? It is not for His benefit. It is to benefit you.
When we put God first in this area, it opens the door for God to be first in other areas of our life.
Proverbs 3:9 NKJV (9) Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase;
1 Kings 17:8-16 | NKJV (8) Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, (9) “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” (10) So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.” (11) And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” (12) So she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” (13) And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. (14) For thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.’ ” (15) So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. (16) The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke by Elijah.
The widow woman must have thought that Elijah was crazy but she did it anyway.
There are people that people probably hear me teach and exhort on tithing but think I am crazy because they cannot afford to do it because of their bills.
Did you ever wonder why God did not send Elijah to a rich man’s house to sustain him during the famine?
God did not send Elijah to the widow to provide for Elijah. God sent Elijah to the widow to provide for the widow.
God could have done any number of things to meet Elijah’s needs and did as recorded in the Bible.
But there was a woman and her son that were going to die if they did not grab hold of giving to God the first part.
God sent Elijah to the widow because He cared about the widow.
Do you think God knew what would happen later? Later on, the woman’s son ends up dying and getting raised from the dead. Could it be that because she honored God first, God was able to move in her son’s life?
Tithing is not for God’s benefit but for your benefit.
If God personally showed up to you and said if you would tithe that He would stand at the door and keep the devil out of your house and that He would bless you and make sure that you always had more than what you tithed, would you tithe?
This is what Malachi says God will do when you honor Him with the first.
- Thou shalt not try to acquire happiness by material items.
Exodus 20:4 NKJV (4) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image–any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;
God is saying do not put anything before Him in your life and look to anything on this earth for happiness.
Material things cannot bring happiness into our lives.
Material things may bring a temporary satisfaction but the only thing that can make you happy is a vital ongoing relationship with Jesus.
Nothing new can give you peace and joy except for an ongoing vital relationship with Jesus.
Proverbs 27:20 NKJV (20) Hell and Destruction are never full; So the eyes of man are never satisfied.
You will never get your finances in order until you get your eyes under control. “You cannot buy everything your little ole beady eyes see.”
Myth: “If I can buy this, I will never want anything else.”
- Thou shall not be unthankful for whatever standard of living God has provided for you.
Exodus 20:7 NKJV (7) “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. (use, misuse, or repeat frivolously)
Vain – excessively proud of or concerned about one’s own appearance, qualities, achievements, etc. proceeding from showing pride.
To take the Lord’s Name in vain is really about selfishness and not being grateful. There is nothing wrong with believing God for things as long as you are not ungrateful for what you already have.
Look at what being unthankful will open the door to in your life:
Romans 1:21 NKJV (21) because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (deceived)
2 Timothy 3:1-5 NKJV (1) But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: (2) For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, (3) unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, (4) traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (5) having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
The quickest way to drive depression and discouragement out of your life is to be thankful for what you already have in your life and what you believe Jesus has already provided for you.
When you get serious about getting your finances in order, God gets serious about blessing you.
It takes two things to have a breakthrough in any area of your life: faith and corresponding actions.