In my zeal to bring forth what I believe the Holy Spirit has revealed to me through prayer and the reading of God's Word, most of which has been for my own spiritual maturity, I've been negligent in sharing my own personal testimony of God's wonderful love and faithfulness regarding my experiences over the course of the last several months.
But before I attempt to express them in detail, I want you (the reader) to understand that I do know there is nothing any more special about my relationship with God the Father through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ than any other person does or could have with HIM. I do not have any aspirations of becoming anything other than what God has purposed me to be for and to HIM in HIS Kingdom. Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that I sought to find out from other members at this site what had happened to me who spoke so frequently about God, it is very likely I would have never given any thought to coming back to the site because many of those with whom I interacted simply didn't have enough knowledge of our Heavenly Father to cause me to want to speak to them again, having read their exhaustive opinions to the contrary. This does not mean I do not like those people. It does mean that I do not want to be drawn into discussions which could eventually cause me to lose the precious relationship with our Lord which I truly do enjoy.
One day at my place of employment, a young girl ( late teens, early twenties) walked into the store wearing something similar to a cast extending from just below her right knee and completely encompassing her foot. She hobbled to the back of the store, picked up a couple of items, and limped back up to the counter. I greeted her and asked her about her affliction. She told me she had had some bone spurs removed from the bottom of her foot which now that I think about it seems kind of odd because I thought this was something which was more common to people much older. Anyway, she said something to me which really struck my heart. She said, "You're always nice to me every time I come in.....you must have a nice family life."
"Well," I responded, and before I proceeded to tell her about my own family life, which is good, I suddenly became aware of an opportunity to witness to this girl about the Lord. Continuing, I said, "I have a good church family." Then I asked her, "Do you have a good family life?" She said, "No, my family life isn't very good." I don't know why this girl at this time. I can say there is a certain boldness which comes upon a person which I attribute to the power of the Holy Spirit once one begins to give a personal testimony about the events from which the Lord has saved them.
Looking squarely into the young girl's eyes I said, "About two years ago, I used to be a very angry person." I then asked her if she believed in God to which she responded in the affirmative. Then I said, "I got to the point in my own life where I became so desperate I started praying and reading the Bible, and God answered my prayers. One day, I was standing in my kitchen....." and I began to relate the experience to this young woman. I could literally feel the power of the Holy Spirit working through the words which were coming out of my mouth. As I began to speak, I noticed her eyes beginning to fill in the bottom of her eye lids. Before she left, tears quietly running down her cheeks, I told her to pray to God. I said, "Be absolutely honest. Don't hold anything back and don't worry about how it might sound, and God will hear you and help you. Then I asked her if she had a Bible to which she stated that she did. I said, "Go to Psalm 142 and do exactly what it says. Just remember, Psalm 142." The young girl left the store, and, unless she has since come in and I don't recognize her, I haven't seen her since that day.
Why Psalm 142? Read it! Like I said in my previous post, I ask the Lord in prayer where HE wants me to read in HIS Word every day before reading HIS Word unless there is something I'm desiring to study about. About a month before this incident, the Holy Spirit impressed upon me to read Psalm 142. Now just so you know, I had never read that psalm before, or if I had, I certainly don't remember ever having paid any attention to it. But it stuck with me because I also ask the Lord to write HIS Word on my heart and ask HIM to bring the remembrance of HIS Word to me by the Holy Spirit.
Since I first spoke of my own personal amazement when the Lord spoke to me regarding something I was working on prior to an evil holiday, the Lord has spoken to me a few more times. Most recently, HE has said to me, "Tell them about ME." Now just so you're aware, I'm not entirely sure as to just how I'm supposed to do something HE has told me unless it is just plain obvious like when HE said to me one day while taking my daily stroll with our dog, "MY WORD is MY BOND."
Well, obviously, I like to write, and I can't think of a better way except by voice which isn't exactly one of my strengths except when the Holy Spirit stirs me to speak personally to someone. Now God's Word clearly states that HE expects us to give or pay a tithe back to HIM in Malachi 3:8-10. And HE clearly states in the latter part of verse ten HE will bless a person to the point that, and I quote, "there will not be room enough to receive it."
Dear friend, whoever or wherever you are in your walk with the Lord, or even if you do not know Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour, I can prove by experience this promise of God is true. You see, for the majority of people, money is the one thing most people don't seem to have enough of, and cannot conceive of giving away (or back to God) what they don't have. But the truth is, many of those people do have it, but they want to receive first before they give. Sorry, that isn't God's way. Now lets understand first and foremost, God doesn't need your money. What God wants is your trust in HIM. And what you're going to have to do to show HIM you trust HIM is give HIM a portion of the one thing you place the most trust in. Now I cannot think of any other way in which one can show trust to God than by having FAITH to place in HIS hands what a person seemingly needs most.
When I started the job I currently have almost two years ago, I worked a whopping twenty-six hours a week. More than enough so I couldn't continue to collect unemployment benefits, but just barely enough to meet my responsibilities to my marital financial obligations. But I was determined to tithe ten percent, and I did tithe ten percent of my paycheck and have done so without fail for almost two years now. For the first couple of months with my new employer, it was rough until one of my co-workers quit. Then I started working more hours which made it much easier. A permanent replacement wasn't found for about five months. Then it was back to nineteen hours, the extra seven hours being cut during the winter since it was designated as a stocking day. Now I could have taken the assistant manager's position at the time, but if I did I couldn't go to church because it would require me to work weekend mornings. Never the less, the Lord provided me with work on the side to compensate for the hours I lost when an assistant manager was found.
But around March of last year, after all of my expected resources had been used up, I was facing a crisis of Faith. I had only one more source of income to look forward to which would supplement the meager nineteen hours of scheduled work; my state income tax refund check. One day while watching one of the television ministers, a special guest on the program suggested that Christians should continue the Passover by sowing a seed in faith to the Lord. Now I've got to admit, although I'm no Biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, I wasn't sure this notion of sowing a seed by faith due to a Passover offering was true given the fact that Christ offered HIMSELF as my Passover offering. But yet, I couldn't disprove the idea either. So I sought the council of two different pastors both of which doubted the validity of the idea. Still, I wasn't one hundred percent sure the suggested idea was in fact false, so I determined in my heart to sow the entire check back to the work of the Lord.
I received the check about a week later. I wasn't going to be receiving any wages from my current employer for an additional week after receiving the refund check. With a dollar in my wallet, I cashed the check, walked about a mile to the post office, and I mailed the whole sixty-nine dollar check on a Friday afternoon to a predetermined ministry which helps the poor in the midwest (which, by the way, was not the ministry which brought the Passover offering to my attention). When you're down to a dollar, sixty-nine dollars is a lot of money. By the way, the minister which suggested making a Passover offering also cited Joel chapter two as to what to expect from God.
The following Monday, after sending the check off on the previous Friday, I received a call from a man who wanted to know if I would help him cut down some dead trees at his brother's house. I earned fifty dollars from that work (which I tithed on), but more importantly, I earned around four hundred dollars from the same man helping him clear some land at his own lake home during the weeks to follow! In addition, I was asked to mow the yards of two different persons last year. I ended up making almost an additional $1000 doing yard work after sowing that faith seed, and my firewood business increased after expenses 50%! And not only that, but my employer decided to increase my hours to full time in spite of the winter slow down around July of last year. GOD IS NO RESPECTOR OF PERSONS.......YA DIG!!!
After reading the Word of God for a period of time after being filled with the Holy Spirit on May 9th, 2004, I incorporated into my offerings the practice of "First Fruits". I started out very simply by giving the very best of the first of the vegetables from my garden to the Lord via the church. Now just so you're aware, some of the first of the vegetables from the plants in the garden didn't produce very well even after giving the first fruits. But the following year, continuing the practice, I picked boat loads of the same vegetable even giving away quite a bit after I had plenty. Hmmm, "not room enough to receive it"?
So using the same principle from the Word of God, I sowed the first monies I received from the yard work into the work of the Lord, and I tithed on all of the work I received thereafter. However, God's Word states to sow also on the increase. So, desiring to be faithful to the Lord, every time there was an increase in pay for a two week period from my place of employment, or on a bonus, or on work I was doing for the individual who asked me to help him clear his property, I sowed the increase to the Lord's work and tithed on the remainder. I have to admit it can get confusing trying to remember where the current bar is set to determine what is the increase above it, but I am also aware that God judges the intent of the heart, not the amount of the actual gift. I also use a very simple rule in my own walk with the Lord: When in doubt, give.
To sum up, I defer to something Charles Capps said to a woman who stated that every time they tried to tithe one of their children would get sick and they would have to spend money on a doctor visit, or something would break down and need to be repaired. Charles Capps said to the woman, "Well, I think I know what your problem is. Tithing doesn't work if you try it, it only works when you do it."
I like what the pastor at the Wednesday night prayer service says periodically, "Isn't God GOOD?!"........YES!!!
When you say "Yes" to the Lord, you're saying "No" to the devil. |
