"not given to wine, not violent, not GREEDY FOR MONEY, but gentle, not quarrelsome, NOT COVETOUS [loving money]."
1 Timothy 3:3 (NKJV)
• If God has given you a vision and you have no money to finance it, it may be aborted.
MONEY plays a major role in a person's life and the assignment God has given to him or her.
- As a leader or a minister, your motive on money is important to God.
IF your motivations on money are wrong, you may not experience abundance in finances. - Some hate hearing about money yet they are greedy of money (1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7).
IF the reason why you want to serve in the ministry or leadership position in God’s kingdom is money, you may not get it.
IF the reason why you are ministering is to make money, forget it, you can not get it. - Money is spiritual and God determines the flow of it.
FINANCIAL blessing or breakthrough in the ministry IS a result of your faithfulness.
YOU have to be faithful in whatever God has called you to do.
BE faithful in the work and be financially accountable.
-> Accounting system and proper recording
• Whoever is faithful in the little shall be put over much (Luke 19:17; Matthew 25:21,23).
- Until you know how to keep the little income given you by God, He will not give you much.
YOU should be a good manager of God's resources.
IF you do not know how to keep and use two thousands, God will not give you ten thousands.
GOD is against waste, if you are lacking in wisdom on spending, you will suffer lack.
ALL the money brought to your ministry must be properly accounted for.
ALL the money given to you must be recorded and judiciously spent.
IF you are reckless in spending, you will be reckless in lack. - Every ministry must have records of all incomes.
IF you used God’s money the way you like or want, you will suffer for it.
SUFFERING for spending foolishly is poverty
LET there be proper recording system for your ministry finances.
-> Financial management
• Financial management is about knowing the how TO handle or manage the money given to you—the money that passes through your hands.
- God expects you to spend every money given to you wisely—judiciously.
DO not borrow the Church's money for personal use.
DEFINE your wages, do not spend all.
IF you are the founder of the ministry, you need to discipline yourself in this area. - If you are working in the church treasury department, do not steal from the Church money.
DO not take a soft loan from the Church's or ministry's money, it is not for personal use.
SPEND the ministry's money as you are instructed by God.
DO not reduce God to the level of your brain, He knows more than you do.
-> Seed Sowing
• Part of financial management is knowing where to sow your seed AND how to sow it.
- As a MINISTER, you have to pay your ministry tithe and your personal tithe to where you are being fed.
- The person who oversees your work is qualified to take your tithe.
- The person who feeds you and oversees your life spiritually is entitled to your tithe.
- Mechizedek did not need Abraham’s tithe, but Abraham needed his blessing.
- Mechizedek has the Blessing and Abraham has the promises, the promises cannot be a reality without the Blessing: "but he whose genealogy is not derived from them RECEIVED TITHES FROM ABRAHAM AND BLESSED HIM WHO HAD THE PROMISES. NOW BEYOND ALL CONTRADICTION THE LESSER IS BLESSED BY THE BETTER" (Hebrews 7:6,7).
-You need the Blessing to realize God’s promises for your life.
REGULAR tithing, both personal and ministry tithes.
VENISON, that is, offering to your prophet.
OFFERINGS: worship offering
Project/mission offerings: offerings to the Projects commanded by God
• If you are relating with someone as a Father or mentor, you relate with your seed—money.
- When you claimed that you are following someone, you follow with your seed—monetary seed.
- The truth is, for the deposit of the anointing to work in your life, there must be an exchange.
- As your prophet pronounces a blessing on your life, the anointing is released, THEN you have to give material things in exchange (Genesis 27:1-4).
- It is that exchange that will actualize the blessing pronounced on your life: "Who? Where is the one who hunted game and brought it to me? I ATE ALL OF IT before you came, AND I HAVE BLESSED HIM—AND INDEED HE SHALL BE BLESSED" (Genesis 27:33).
• Note: If you see the person you are relating with as a colleague, the anointing on his life cannot bless you:"NOW BEYOND ALL CONTRADICTION THE LESSER IS BLESSED BY THE BETTER" (Hebrews 7:7).
• If you do not believe in the conviction of the person you claimed that you are following, you cannot benefit from the grace on his or her life.
- If you want to go along with the person and receive the full blessing of the commission or ministry, you have to believe in what they believe.
- If someone claims to identify with a ministry that believes in financial prosperity, and such a person does not believe in the principle which they believe in, the grace for financial abundance on the commission may not rub-off on him or her.
IF you mock what they teach in your heart, the blessing cannot flow to you. - You have to make up your mind, be RESOLUTE, if you want to follow whomever you claim to be following.
- For examples: The strong conviction for financial lifting in our ministry is GIVING, no other short cut to it.
• For your sowing to be productive you have to work: "nor did we [Paul and his team] eat anyone's bread free of charge [for nothing], BUT WORKED WITH LABOUR and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you" (2 Thessalonians 3:8).
- If you are lazy, God will not bless you (Ephesians 4:28).
AS you are practicing Giving, you have to be diligent and work hard as well. - God rewards the labour of the righteous: “YOU WILL EAT THE FRUIT OF YOUR LABOUR.”
IT means if you do not labour THERE would be no fruit to eat: “Say to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: FOR THEY SHALL EAT THE FRUIT OF THEIR DOINGS" (Isaiah 3:10).
• As a minister, whatever assignment given you by God, work on it with all your heart.
GOD blesses in the place of service.
GOD'S BLESSING flows to you through your work.
AS a MINISTER, you reap where you sow.
YOU cannot milk the cow you have not fed.
YOU must labour that you may harvest.
IT is not common with God to bless you without obeying the principle.
- As a minister, God hardly blesses through someone you have not laboured on, the person you have not ministered to or blessed before.
ALTHOUGH He does it at times, but not always, and when he does it, it is for a purpose.
AND before God does it, he must have seen your faithfulness in the assignment given you.
• Prayer
IT is my prayer that you will not fail in Jesus' name.
EVERY hold of lack is broken in your life in Jesus' name.
YOU are blessed.
Peace!