MESSAGE HIGHLIGHT:

Intentional Relationships Part 3 – Ps John Bendixen (WTB)

If I focus my life around money, then money starts to drive my agenda and it starts to potentially drive my desires. My behaviour starts to get driven by money choices. I’ve got to start seeing money as a tool, not something that I must get or chase or try to pursue so that I can have enough. I need to be more intentional about this and I need to think about what my relationship is towards money and my giving. Because we can get into the habit of just giving but actually, it is part of our worship. It’s not just a habit to tithe, it should be part of your worship. If there is something that prevents your worship from leaving your hands, then you better evaluate how important the equation is.

We have to trust God to get provision, not money. Because God is the Provider, He’s not the money man. He may meet your needs through money, but He’s the Provider. You have to allow your relationship with God to be the Source of your life, which means He can provide your need in any way, it doesn’t have to be by giving money in your account. Our focus should always be on the Source.

If money doesn’t own you, you can give it away. You can see that if your trust is in God, then He will give you ways to get money back. You don’t have to have perfect lives, He wants you to ask Him to help you with specific things. He wants you to ask Him, to have confidence to ask Him to help you with specific things.

Prayer:
Lord, we thank You that You’ve given us seed to sow. And as we sow a seed, You cause it to come back to us on every wave. And we thank You that every wave includes business opportunities, it includes divine connections, it includes insights and ideas, it includes whatever way that You want to get provision to us. We thank You, Lord, that You provide for us on every wave, every day, every way and Your people will never, never, never be forsaken nor given to begging for bread because You provide all of our needs. In Jesus’ name.

God desires to have an intentional relationship with you. He is intentional about His love to you and He wants you to be intentional about your love for Him. Your trust is either in the system or it’s in God, it’s either in money or it’s in God. The Bible says you can’t serve both. How do you break free of the system? You’ve got to put more of God into you than the system. If you think of the system and you put the system into you and think about work in the system, then that’s what you’re going to get. But if you put God into you, then God comes out of you when you need it.

23 “Now therefore,” he said, “put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel.” 24 And the people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey!” (Joshua 20:20-24 NKJV) The Lord God we will serve and His voice we will obey. What are you going to believe? Are you going to believe what your eyes tell you? Are you going to believe what voices are telling you, what your ears hear? Are you going to believe what’s in your bank account? Or are you going to believe the Lord God Almighty? Who are you choosing to believe and obey? You have to make the choice what or Who you’re going to trust. It’s a choice, but it’s not a choice that you make once, it’s a choice you’ve got to keep making every day.


None of what you do means you trust God because your behaviour doesn’t mean you’ve made a choice. It means you’re doing something because you know it’s the right thing to do, not because you believe in it.
Trust in God is a choice that says when I read the pages of the Bible, when I read the book that is the Bible, I’m not reading words that don’t mean anything to me. I’m reading words that are the very source of life. I receive them into my spirit, I speak them out of my mouth, I live them in my world – they are the very essence of the foundation of my life. Everything I do is on the basis of what those words say because it takes me to a Person, not to a system.

It’s time for the Church to be intentional. It’s time for the Church to not just go along with the flow. It’s time for the Church to be intentional about what we do. If the Church doesn’t make a stand on it, if the Church doesn’t show the way on it, there is no government that’s going to show the way because governments are influenced by the people. God wants us to be efficient in His Word. When we are in training, don’t seek to be free of it. God wants us to be efficient in standing our ground against an enemy that knows how to come after you and target your weakness and take you out in any way that he can. He comes when you are least prepared. In the end it is only the people who know who they are in Christ Jesus that are going to actually be the difference makers. It’s not all Christians. It’s time to give God a priority in your life. It’s time to make a decision to be intentional in our relationship with Him.

Pray:
Lord Jesus, where I lack understanding, I ask You to show me the power of what You did when You died on the cross for me. I receive the ability to live life free from previous choices and I choose to give my life to You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.