God's Faithfullness in Finances (Tue, 4 Feb 1997 1996)

Lately, the Lord has been speaking to me... that if we want to move in His power and authority; if we want to do the things that Jesus did (John 14:12-14) -- then He must have absolute Lordship in our lives. This includes, especially, His Lordship of our finances. God has told me that He is going to be testing His Lordship over our finances and that if we choose Mammon over His will, He will not give us the level of power and authority that He desires for us to walk in.

Interestingly, the Lord did something really neat just today regarding mammon. I recently went for a 17 day missions/outreach trip to India. This trip was very expensive and the Lord told me to finance it out of my own pocket. It cost me about $2,200, not to mention taking a week off of work without pay. This was definatley sacrificial giving for me. I received several personal prophesies that God would restore double for all that I scarificed to obey Him go to India. I figured that this "payback" would come in the spiritual realm... and I was very blessed to see many people accept Jesus and to see God touch and change lives and to see Him quite miraculously heal the sick and even still a storm (He turned away a killer cyclone that was headed straight for the village we were holding some outreach meetings at. The people heard that we'd prayed and God turned away the storm, and many believed and gave their lives to Jesus because of this).

I did not expect payback financially.

However, today is exactly (to the day) 7 weeks after I returned from India. (Intersetingly, 7 is the number of the Holy Spirit and also the number for completion). When I got to work this morning, my employer gave me a surprise bonus check that worked out to -- you guessed it -- almost exactly double what I had spent to go to India. It seems that if we will first make God Lord of our finances, He will "open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." (Mal 3:10). But He will really test us to see if we will give Him Lordship over our finances.