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Living
in God’s Supernatural Favor
by Robert Morris
A pivotal
moment on my journey to the blessed life occurred when a man I hardly knew gave
me an unexpected word from the Lord: “God wants to teach you about giving so
that you can teach the Body of Christ.”
At the time I
was a traveling evangelist, and all of my income came from love offerings I
received from the churches where I preached.
My income
from offerings might be $800 one week and $200 the next. My wife Debbie and I
just never knew.
But early in
our marriage, we had learned to trust God where our finances were concerned — and
our income skyrocketed as a result.
The more
Debbie and I gave, the more God gave to us. It was as if we were truly living
out the old saying: You can’t out-give God.
We were able
to increase our giving to 70% of our gross income, and we found ourselves
living more comfortably on 30% than we previously had on 90%.
Are You
Blessed?
Since God
brought us into that remarkable season of giving, I’ve done a lot of studying
on God’s favor and what it looks like to have a “blessed life.”
Being “blessed”
means having supernatural power working for you.
By contrast,
being “cursed” means having supernatural power working against you.
The days of
the blessed person are filled with divine “coincidences” and heavenly
meaning.
Blessed
people may or may not be wealthy by the world’s standards, but they enjoy a
quality of life that most billionaires would envy.
At several
separate points in the book of Deuteronomy, God tells those who will obey Him
that He will bless everything to which they put their hands (Deuteronomy 14:29,
15:10, 23:20, 28:8, 28:12).
That’s God’s
favor!
Everything
you touch does well. Blessing permeates every aspect of your life — health,
relationships, work, family, emotions, and thoughts.
A Heart
Transformation
Yes, as God’s
people prosper, more money will come into the Kingdom. But much more important,
our hearts will be changed!
No one is a
natural-born giver. We are all born takers.
We enter this
world with a fallen sin nature, and at the heart of that nature is a tendency
toward selfishness.
In contrast,
God is a giver.
The most
widely known verse in the Bible tells us: “God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16).
Our Heavenly
Father is generous beyond our ability to imagine. In contrast, it was
selfishness and pride that caused Satan to be cast out of Heaven.
Yet many
people in our culture have that picture exactly backwards. They see God as
stingy and the devil as the one who likes to pass out favors.
I can tell
you from personal experience, there’s no greater adventure on Earth than living
the life of generosity and abundance that’s available to all of God’s people — but
that so few ever dare to live.
It is a
journey of reward, blessings, and favor. So, let your adventure begin!
This article in an
excerpt from the book, The Blessed Life by Robert Morris.
Robert Morris is the
founding lead senior pastor of Gateway Church, a multicampus church in the
Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Since it began in 2000, the church has grown to
more than 39,000 active members. Learn more at pastorrobert.com
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