Money Talks With Dr. Phil Ransom-Bello
For someone who has been experiencing favour of recent, God says, this is a new chapter in your life and it will continue.
And for somebody who is still joyful even in their affliciton, God says He’s intentional about you. Get ready for a new move.
When teachings like this come, its because God is about to do something so He needs to order our steps.
Are you ready for the word? I realised I’ve never done a teaching on money before. The first time we had a teaching like this, it was my friend, Pastor Tosin Komolafe who taught.
It’s an aberration to think that believers shouldn’t touch a certain level of wealth and that if you’re faithful, because of your straight forwardness, certain wealth can’t come to you, that’s wrong.
So you know that the blessing that rested on the Israelites by the blood passover came with a lot of money? Meaning that God is deliberate about your money. He wants you to prosper.
In the course of these series, I’m going to get few people who will also share their knowledge base because we are raising young millionaires here. It’s God’s will that we prosper.
The focus of tonight’s teaching will be on giving. You cannot talk about wealth if you don’t give. There’s a certain dimension of wealth, you get into that your conversation becomes philanthropy. The richest people in the world first of all, are givers before they got there and even if they were not givers, the wealth makes them become givers. So one man’s need is the eradication of polio or malaria in Nigeria.
So his need becomes more than your need. So you begin to think how to give to nations. Therefore it’s important that we talk about the first foundation of giving because you will not encounter certain dimensions of wealth, God will not trust you with certain kinds of wealth if your heart is not a giving heart.
Let me give you a description of the blessed man. You are blessed and there are signs of the blessing. There’s a way a blessed man looks like.
Psalms 1:1; The amplified version says that the blessed man is happy, fortunate, prosperous and enviable.
So to be happy is an indication of the blessing. To be fortunate, some translations will say luck. Have you thought about what fortune is? It’s not salary o. Fortune is fortune.
So this is where God is taking us.
Are you ready to be on this journey?
There’s nothing spooky about those descriptions of the blessed man. It didn’t say a cloud of glory is following you. No, this blessing is going to make you prosperous, it should make you enviable. When your wealth comes to a place where people begin to envy you, that’s a sign of a blessed man.
This is us.
I’ve seen what the blessing has done to many people. By way of not looking at your account for example, if you see a blessed man, you’ll envy him. Somebody has given me something before that when I put it on, it looked better on me than on him.
Don’t let people fault you for being happy because these are signs of the blessing. It’s not a crime to be happy. I’m not happy because of what’s in my account. No, we rejoice in Christ. This is the foundation of what we are.
Joy is planted in your spirit as a seed but to rejoice is your responsibility, so to rejoice is to bring out joy. When you’re depressed or sad, the real you is actually excited in the spirit. To rejoice is to replicate who you are in the spirit.
■Declaration
Always rejoice
If Jesus rejoiced in the place of His pain and death, then you have a reason to rejoice. Scripture says, “Who for the joy that was set before Him, despised the shame…..”
God will bless you with too much money that people will envy your wealth. You know Peter got so blessed that when the blessing came, he said, “Father forgive for my sins”. So when the blessing comes, its as though you’re feeling condemned and asking, “Who am I?”
I want the kind of blessing that my prayers did not match up to or I did not deserve.
On the matter of money, we are going to bring to you the balance between favour and diligence. When God gave wisdom to Joseph, He gave him the storehouse principle to save in the years of plenty for the years of scarcity. So what do you do when the scarcity is there?
Don’t be on the side of diligence where you think you have to work for every penny. But also realise that in your working, God will breathe upon your work.
We are going to go into giving and I’ll show you some scriptures.
2 Corinthians 8:1; The Bible talks about their joy and deep poverty. When the Bible talks about a poverty as deep, then it’s really deep. It’s not the one we are flexing here.
The Bible won’t exaggerate.
Now this baffles me because there are a lot of believers who are only happy when they have money. I used to be there before and I had to train myself to understand that my joy is not based on only abundance.
Don’t be a situational believer where everything that influences your joy is substance based.
And you know it’s when things are tough, is when people are calling you and you’re asking why? They should call you because when God sets to bless a man, He begins with a perception. A perception that you have and they actually call you because they think you can but you yourself know you can’t in real time but you can by capacity in the Spirit.
I want you to learn from the Macedonian church, they balanced their depth of poverty with abundance of joy.
A natural man will react to deep poverty by being pitiful, gloomy, depressed etc. How many believers are exceeding joyful when there is no money and then normal when there’s plenty money?
■Declaration
Mix your affliction with abundance of joy.
I’m saying these things to you because things get tough. In business and in life. But we have a common expectation of good so that heads or tails, we win.
So how did this people respond to the depth of poverty? With joy. You have to know something to respond like this.
It says abundance of joy.
Have you seen people who have borrowed joy? They are only happy when they are around happy people. If you can be happy when you’re by yourself, you’re really happy .
Look! Keep your joy. Your joy is precious to you. All through life, don’t let your joy modulate with life. Let it be according to knowlege.
I want you to know tonight that giving is not in the amount. Giving is a heart matter.
Everything was in excess in the Macedonian church. It was an extreme church so that when they went through pain, you knew, but you couldn’t deny their joy.
Secondly, when they gave, they did liberally. In willingness.
There’s no extra rhema to look for there.
What I’m saying is when you don’t have, that’s when you should give. You always have something to give. It’s liberality.
Verse 3;
You know when preachers say give what you can, i hope we know that’s good?
But these people did not stop with what they could give. They gave beyond what they could. They were extreme in giving.
■Declaration
I receive grace.
I wasn’t always like this. I’d rather hold back and take your own but now when I talk about this, does it sound like me? No.
The Spirit of God can change anyone. You can change. Giving is not temperamental. It’s not for sanguines.
Repent.
How many of us know the temperament of Gideon? He was timid. I’d talk to you another day about the significance of the fact that he was threshing corn in a wine press.
So don’t talk to to me about temperament. When the Spirit of the Lord infuses you, you’ll lead an army.
So giving fits into any temperament. Be It sanguine, choleric, melancholic etc and best of all, the Christ temperament.
I receive this grace to give far more.
If I need to exercise the fruits of the Spirit to make you give, don’t you think something is wrong?
Another thing to note is that these people in spite of their deep poverty and liberal giving, they begged people to take their gifts.
This is us minus the deep poverty. I’m the Pastor of this church so I will choose the one I want.
Just in case anyone is relatively poor, as in, what you have now is nothing compared to where you’re going, you can do this.
Don’t ever think the reality of giving is about the amount.
Somebody said, “It’s not about what you give, but it’s about what it’s left.”
The reason why Jesus said the widow who gave her mite, gave best was not because she gave her all, but because of the percentage.
That’s why I said there is a dimension of wealth where you feel you need to give back. If you think money is to be kept for personal aggrandizement and fail to see that money is to be used for needs and nations, you’d not touch certain levels of wealth.
It’s principle.
Giving is heart, and you must have such to come into the level of wealth that we are talking about.
Verse 5; These people, gave themselves to the Lord before they gave their substance. If you’re not given to God, you cannot be a good giver of money.
So this is a principle to learn. That the first thing I need to do is to be given to God before giving my substance. The reason why many of us struggle to give is because we are not completely yielded to God.
In verse 6, Paul was talking to the Corinthians church but he was referring to the Macedonian church and how that the Corinthian church needed to be encouraged in the ministry of giving.
Do well to give, TSP. It’s a ministry.
There are some people who start out well in giving but are not consistent. So they need to be constantly preached at.
I don’t need to preach a hot message before you give. You’d tire me out, please.
Every message that you hear has to be backed up by a decision. That’s how to change. Somebody is deciding tonight to be a better giver. Another dimension of decision is to follow through and consolidate on your decision. Some of you who made a decision to give above a certain amount, have forgotten and gone back, so you need to finish it up.
■Declaration
Finish it up.
I’d be doing you great harm, if I don’t teach you how to be great givers. Because even Muslims and unbelievers use these principles and it works for them. You must be a giver o.
■Declaration
I decide to do well in this ministry
Verse 7 says that as much as we are articulate, strong in faith, full of love, and knowledgeable, we should also abound in giving.
Don’t downplay the minsitry of giving. Jubilate when it’s time to give because it’s also ministry.
I hope I’d not need to preach this ministry again in 6 months.
2 Corinthians 8:8 Let your giving grace come from a place of eagerness.
Always be the first to give, as long as you have it.
Be eager to give.
That’s why I like P. iDeal. He’s always the first to give when there’s a need.
In your family, if there’s a need, always be the first to give. If you don’t have money, give counsel or your presence. Give something.
Be the first to give, if you’re not the first, be the first in your head.
That’s who we are. Glory to God.
Have you seen people who go through the extreme to show that they want to give you something?
You have to decide that you’ll be a relentless giver. That’s what differentiates you. That’s why when you get to office, you can’t steal because your conversation is what do i have to offer Nigeria?
2 Corinthians 8:9 isn’t referring to a prosperity gospel. It’s saying that just the way Jesus gave Himself in the conversation of redemption, give like that.
We are going to be better givers from today. There will be changes in your life when you give.
Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, all these guys when they guve a portion of their wealth, there’s a peace they experience that they can’t explain and that’s why they will work to keep giving.
Receive the grace to be a giver. And then, start practicing it.
