Sowing in Drought

Last week God began to challenge me about some more of my poverty mentalities.

A poverty mentality believes that resources are finite and therefore you have to take from one place to have enough in another, but this is not true in God's Kingdom. His resources are limitless.

About 8 months ago, Bryn was preaching about inheritance, and I struck me that I need to plan to have a material inheritance to pass on to my children, not just a Spiritual one, and it was not God's desire for my being in ministry to disadvantage my children in any way. We get paid a generous salary but I no longer get city bonuses, which were the most obvious way of having extra cash to invest for retirement and inheritance to pass on to my children. However, if I believe that He is my provider, and not my employer, then how much comes from my monthly pay cheque is largely irrelevant. How much He gives me is what determines how much I have to live on, how much to give away and what is left over for investment. As we were in the process of trying to move house at the time, the idea of not selling our current house, but keeping it as an investment and renting it out, arose. The sums do not add up for this, we would need a significant cash/equity injection for this to happen, but this is not beyond God.

However, in October, when we went to speak to a financial adviser about how this would work out, it seemed impossible. If we took equity out of our current house, to use as a deposit on a new house, we would still need a significant cash/equity injection and the debt leverage would mean that the interest rates we would be charged would have us right at the edge of what we could afford. Stretching ourselves to the limit when interest rates are at the lowest they have ever been seemed very unwise, so we discounted the possibility and put our current home on the market to sell. Also nagging in the back of my mind was a prophesy from Sharon Stone, a recognised prophet, in Sept 2008 about God leading his church into a new financial era, one that was not based on extreme debt, but on His provisions and ways. http://www.christiangrowthinternational.org/Articles/126567/Prophecy_by_Dr.aspx Maxing ourselves up on mortgages when interest rates are so low did not make any sense intellectually or spiritually. In the meantime, we received no offers on our house.

Then last week God began to remind me of the things He had said over the previous 9 months. A prophetic word about God wanting to bless our family financially and telling us not to worry about where the provision would come from, Him speaking about inheritance and then Ryan's word over KingsGate about God saying 2011 would be a year of prosperity. As Bryn preached on Sunday evening, he spoke about a 'realm of the impossible' where people trusted God for impossible things. Angus Buchan's story of sowing potatoes during a drought in response to God's word came back to mind, as did another conversation the day before about Elisha telling the kings of Judah and Israel to dig trenches in the desert to contain and channel the water God would send (2Kings 3:16 - 19).

Father asked me what would prosperity look like for me in our house situation. Without doubt, my first prize would be to keep our current house as an investment, and to buy another. He then asked me what I would do to the house if I was going to rent it out. Our windows are currently old single glazed windows and need replacing. We applied for planning permission in the past to do this, but were refused as we live in a conservation area, and you can't install standard uPVC windows. The council will, however, give a 50% grant to install steel double glazed windows, which fit in with the character of the area, that they want to maintain.

So there is our trench, our potatoes, our seed. It makes no economic sense to replace the windows in our house if we plan to sell it and in the natural, we cannot afford to keep it and buy another house. but then it made no sense to dig water trenches in the desert or to sow potatoes in a drought.

I believe Father is looking for people who will take his prophetic words at face value and start living as if the future was present reality. After all, that is in essence what faith is, being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we have not yet seen (Heb 11:1). If we believe that He is our provider, that His resources are unlimited and that He want's us to prosper in every way, not just financially, then surely we must put plans in place now to contain His blessings when He releases them in the future. As I said on a previous post, this doesn't leverage His hand open or make Him owe us. It just says "Father, I know you are good and you are true to your word" Therefore, I'm going to act like the future is now.

Have a great Christmas as we celebrate Father's lavish goodness to us in every way, past present and future.

How do we live in His blessings?

After my last post on 'A Debtors Ethic' the next obvious question must be "If we don't live under Fathers blessings by giving to receive, how do we live under His blessing?" Lets face it, all of us want to live in blessing and abundance.

I think the first thing that has to be said is that God himself is the ultimate prize. His presence, His voice and His touch are the greatest blessing we can have on this earth. In Genesis 15:2 God says to Abram "I am your very great reward". There is no greater reward we can have, and we can have this no matter what our circumstance are. We simply spend time with Him, cultivate our relationship with Him and our reward increases. The more we experience this the more we know it to be true. Verses like "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere(Ps 84:10)" or "as the deer pants for the water so my soul longs after you (Ps 42:1)" used to be merely theory to me, words that might have meant something to someone else but not my reality. However, as I have learned to spend time in Fathers presence, I am beginning, slowly, to understand what the writer is talking about. He is the ultimate prize.

Having said that, the bible speaks too often and too emphatically about us living in material blessing for us to settle for the rewards Jesus spoke of being confined to the spiritual. In some ways, settling for our rewards just being spiritual, means we don't have faith for the tangible, just the intangible.

So how do we have faith for and experience the tangible outpouring of Father's blessings? I believe the two keys are position and positioning. Let me explain with an analogy. As I said last time, I believe Father's hands are always fully open to bless. I deliberately used the word 'outpouring'. If you imagine Fathers blessings being poured out like a flow of water. The flow never changes but I've got to stand under the flow to get wet. How do I position myself under the flow?

Position - Firstly, as I grow in revelation and understanding of my status as a son (or daughter), as I gaze into my Fathers face and am filled by His love and affection, His light illuminates dark corners of my heart and I can recognise them and allow Him in to heal, restore and set me free. Me being confronted with a debtors ethic lurking deep within is a pertinent example. As I was spending time with Father, He reminded me of some things and then showed me the thought processes behind them. As I spend time with Him and allow Him to change me, I become more like Him, I become more a son in experience, not just in status, and this ongoing process brings me continually closer to Him and therefore more under the flow of His outpouring.

Positioning - Secondly, as a son, spending time in my Father's presence, my will is transformed to align with His. I increasingly do things His way and think His way. I submit my will to His will, not because I am afraid of the consequences if I don't, but because I love Him and want to do what He wants. As I think His way and do thing His way, I walk closer to Him and so come under a greater measure of His outpouring. Jesus said in Mat 5:5 "Blesses are the meek for they will inherit the earth". Inheriting the earth sounds like material blessings now and that goes to those who are meek, bridled to and submitted to a greater Authority.

Jesus said in Jn 15:7 "if you remain, live, dwell and are rooted in my love, and my words remain, live, dwell and take root in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." This remaining is not a once for all, static and passive status. It is an ongoing cultivation of a relationship as with any human relationship.

Often we think that Father is withholding His blessings from us when actually the reality is He is still pouring out His blessings, we are just not correctly positioned to receive it.

So to summarise, we come under Father's outpoured blessing, not by doing things to try and get Him to adjust His aim, but rather by pressing into Him understanding who we are. As we get closer to Him, in experience as well as status, we come under His outpouring. Which takes us nicely back to where we started. He is our very great reward. When we pursue Him, we experience His benefits. When we pursue the benefits we can end up missing out on everything.

Jesus said in Matt 6:33 "seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the other things will be added to you". Search for the Giver and you'll find you get the gifts. Search for the gifts and you get neither the Giver nor the gifts.

A Debtors Ethic

I have realised recently that somewhere deep inside my psyche resides a debtors ethic. What does this mean? At it's most basic level, it means I give to get something in return and when I receive something, I think I must repay it as I am indebted to someone. When something is given, subconsciously at least, I then begin to wait for payback.

Where does this come from? I'm not 100% sure, but most people carry it to some degree. Is it because we tell our children they must be good so that Santa will bring them presents ( i.e that presents are a reward for good behaviour, not freely given) or that they will only get a gift when parents return if they have been good for the babysitter, or they'll get a gift if they succeed in their exams? How's that a gift? It's recompense for good behaviour or achievement.

Anyway, whatever the reason, somehow, I understood that my generosity and my giving were necessary to unlock Father's generosity and goodness, and if I'm not seeing as much generosity and goodness released on my life as I want/need, then I need to do something more to unlock what I want. Writing it down now it sounds like 'giving karma'!

The idea of unlocking Father's generosity and goodness is flawed. He is always generous and good. I may need to be obedient to his ways to fully come under the outpouring of His generosity and goodness but his hand is never closed and never requires unlocking.

His generosity and goodness are poured out unconditionally. My giving cannot prize his hand open any wider because it's already fully open. He is the initiator and gives freely. We then give freely in response. We do not even owe a debt of love. Love cannot repay what He has poured out for us. Love cannot balance the books and He doesn't want our love out of indebtedness. Rather as our hearts are filled with His freely given, unconditional, no-strings-attached love the desire rises up in us to love in response, not to repay, just to respond.

If I live by a debtors ethic, I only come under God's ways i.e obey Him, for what I can get from Him and not because I want to be with Him. Last time I checked, that called using someone. I'll come to your house and be your friend because then you'll let me play with your xbox.

If this is my motivation, what do I do if His blessings and favour don't look like what I wanted/needed? What if he blesses my marriage with new depths of intimacy when I was giving to Him, expecting to see financial blessing? What if I start to see a load of my family or friends turn to Jesus when I was hoping for a job promotion? In Matt 6:4,6&8 Jesus says"Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you". He doesn't specify what the reward will be, and certainly there is no mention of it correlating to the righteous acts mentioned. Do I stop being obedient to God's ways because the slot machine is not rewarding me in the way I'd hoped/prescribed? I'm not getting the required return on investment. Living like this almost guarantees disappointment and unmet expectations.

The words of that song "You wont relent until my heart is yours' ring very true right now, but at least there is the real comfort of knowing that Father only exposes our defects to set us free of them, not to humiliate us. Good fathers discipline their sons, because they see the son's future.