Overflow and Abundance (4)

One of the biggest obstacles in living the life of overflow and abundance is people’s belief’s. We believe the lie that we aren’t good enough or that we aren’t meant for good things. I get told all the time that people don’t believe in the prosperity gospel or the name and claim it theology and while I don’t believe in everything they provide I also don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

God desires to bless you abundantly

Philippians 4:19 ESV

19 And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Genesis 12:2 ESV

2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

Malachi 3:10 ESV

10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

There aren’t just material blessings

Ephesians 1:3 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

I was in a conversation the other day with someone who was having a hard time about the 5 fold ministry because he couldn’t get passed his mind that there were levels of authority and gifts people couldn’t receive and he quotedThe word

Ephesians 4:11–12 NKJV

11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,

The word some is only found in some translations and isn’t found in the Greek translations that I have, but if you look up the definition of some in the concise oxford dictionary it means an unspecified amount or number.

I went into explain, that although apostleship seems to be the top of the 5 fold ministry it is only the top because an apostle is someone who operates in the other ministries, knows how to teach them, and has a heart to step back from the spot light so other people can exercise their gifts.

It is also only ascertain by those who are willing to do the work to maintain the level of relaitonship needed to access these gifts. I believe these gifts are available to all who believe, but also all who desire a deeper relationship with God. Anyone of these gifts can produce pride and separate us from God, but we must be willing to seperate ourselves from the world so that we can draw closer to God and receive this gifts.

Jeremiah 4:4 (ESV)

4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts,

Jeremiah stated this to Israel because of their sin. Their sin was removing themselves from God. In order to draw closer to God we must circumcise our hearts or remove the foreskins of our hearts. Foreskins are there to protect, but we can’t put walls up around our hearts to protect ourselves and expect God to bless us.

I have found that unbelief is often a wall put up to protect us from the possibility that something isn’t going to happen because we believe a lie the enemy told that that made us assume that the father isn’t good and doesn’t want good things for us. Sometimes good things come at a sacrifice on our part. to draw close to someone we have to remove the protections of our heart.

THe biggest issue with unbelief and why many people state they don’t work in miracles and such is because they haven’t seen. But Capernaum is where Jesus did roughly 90% of his ministry

Wee see part of this in the centurion in Capernaum

Matthew 8:6–7 ESV

6 “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” 7 And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

However, in Matt 11:23 Jesus states

Matthew 11:23 ESV

23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

Unbelief leads to condemnation. Belief that God can is important.

Every one of us should be doing the excess of ministry. There isn’t anything important about a single person other than the work they are willing to do to grow their relaitonship with God.

Mark 11:23–24 ESV

23 Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

I love the term received here because it’s passed tense. Ask in prayer, but as you ask believe that you have recieved it. But it is a version of take that also means to Marry as you would marry a wife. the idea to receive fully because in those days marriage happened in the bed.

it’s fully and intensely take before it happens.

You have to fully engage both your belief and your will to receive.

James 5:15 ESV

15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Fervent prayers aren’t prayed in passivity, but rather it’s prayed in activity.

We see this activity of faith when Elijah prayed for rain and sent his servant 7 times to look for clouds. He never gave up.