Dr. Miranda: Giving in the Discomfort Zone (1 Kings 17:8)

God bless you, my brothers and sisters. It is a pleasure to be with you again this morning. As always, I am greatly blessed by the worship you offer before the Lord, and it recharges my energy and encourages me to come and share the Word with you. You are an absolutely delightful congregation, as Pastor Antonio was saying, and I am in love with your children and your young people—with all of you—and with the tremendous affection you have also shown Dr. Diehl. Well, we are delighted. We could not ask for more. Last night, the sisters blessed us with delicious cake, and well... we have not stopped eating since we arrived here. So glory to the Lord, and thank you for all your affection. I know that God is going to do great things.

You can tell when a congregation has... the Americans have a word called “momentum.” It comes from Latin and means something like impetus, movement, something that is moving forward, making progress and gathering momentum. It is like when you start running down a hill and run and run, picking up speed, accelerating as you go. You sense that; you sense it in people’s smiles, in their ability to laugh, in the vitality they display, in the diversity of ministries, in the new things being done, in the pastor’s enthusiasm, in the relationship between the pastor and his congregation, in the children’s joy, in the freedom you feel to worship the Lord—many things that, to the trained eye, are good indicators that there is life and health in a congregation. And you display that.

So I want you to know that it is already there. It is there, and when it is there, people who come do not have to be experts in church growth, or in theories about how churches grow, or anything like that. People feel it viscerally, and in their inner being they know whether it is a place where there is life, vitality, the joy of the Lord, and love; and they allow themselves to be drawn in, because need is always seeking to be filled. So people are often led by the fact that, when they arrive at a place, their spirit feels at peace. And where they experienced that feeling, they say, “I want to go back there.”

That is why it is so important for us, as a congregation, to take great care of that atmosphere, brothers and sisters. We must take great care of the atmosphere of our congregation. And do you know what? Every one of you—in this case I am going to speak about you, because I say the same thing about my congregation—every one of you has a little piece of that atmosphere to uphold. Just as each of those columns bears part of the weight of the roof, so each of you plays a role in maintaining the health of your congregation and protecting that health. Because within that health, others will be able to come and find blessing.

And that means—my wife is probably preaching right now over there in Boston, at my church, about forgiveness—that there are very important elements that allow the grace of the Lord to rest upon a community. Some of those elements are, for example, forgiveness: forgiving one another when brothers and sisters have their inevitable conflicts; clearing that up immediately; asking for forgiveness; granting forgiveness; tolerating one another’s differences in style, temperament, and preferences; giving preference to one another; recognizing the gift another person has that I do not have; enduring the wrong, if necessary, and entrusting our cause to the Lord instead of seeking our own justice. These are elements we must actively practice in our relationships as a congregation. They can also be practiced within the family in order to maintain the health of a church. Because many times it is, “Oh, he offended me,” and then we begin to damage the atmosphere with gossip or negative feelings, and we have already robbed our congregation of a little of its life. And if ten or fifteen people in a congregation do that, well, imagine: the damage already begins to be felt. And if principal leaders who have greater spiritual authority do it, the damage is even greater.

So you always have to be thinking, “I am responsible for the well-being of my church, and therefore I would rather absorb the hurt myself and let the Lord heal or restore me, as long as my church remains healthy.” If you practice that, God will bless you greatly. Amen. So I thank the Lord for the beautiful spirit that is here. Protect it tooth and nail. Never allow anything to enter your church and divide it, sow discord among you, cause gossip, or bring any kind of harmful action that glorifies the devil. Everything we do must always glorify the Kingdom of God and the values of the Kingdom of God.

Any conduct that you know does not glorify God is radioactive. Even if no one finds out, the atmosphere will find out. That is why you must protect your heart; you must always guard your heart and mind. Because even when we do not express things, the spiritual waves moving within us affect the environment. We are mysterious beings, and there is an extraordinary connection between the physical and the spiritual, the emotional and the mental. Everything is interconnected. So we must guard it like a precious vessel, a precious jewel, so that there may be an atmosphere that allows the grace of the Lord to flow freely through a congregation. And that is the most powerful resource for the growth of a church. Always remember that. And practice the fruit of the Holy Spirit, because that will bless you, your family, and your congregation.

Let us turn to the Word of the Lord in chapter 17 of First Kings. There is good light here, so I may even be able to read without glasses; let me see—otherwise I will put them on. How wonderful this fresh light is, this delightful air coming in, and... being in this setting! They tell me that it is snowing in Boston right now, so I thank the Lord that He has me here. One more reason to be happy to be in Mérida. Yes, this morning, in fact, I sent greetings to Boston. We were able to communicate with the congregation over the Internet—interesting! I could see my church there in its service, and I called them, we greeted them, and we sent them greetings from here, from Mérida; and our brothers and sisters there send their greetings to you as well. What a blessing these technologies are that God is making possible!

First Kings 17, beginning with verse 8, a passage quite familiar to many of you: the account of the meeting between Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. The Word of the Lord says: “...Then the word of the Lord came to him”—that is, to the prophet Elijah—“saying, ‘Arise, go to Zarephath of Sidon and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to sustain you.’ So he arose and went to Zarephath, and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, ‘Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.’ And as she was going to bring it, he called to her again and said, ‘Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand as well.’ And she answered, ‘As the Lord your God lives, I have no baked bread; I have only a handful of flour in the jar and a little oil in a vessel. And now I was gathering two sticks so that I could go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and then let ourselves die.’” One of the saddest statements I find in all the Scriptures is that passage, that expression of this desperate woman, already prepared to let herself die.

“Elijah said to her, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and do as you have said, but make some for me first.’” Everyone say, “First.” Again: “First.” “...First make me a small cake from it, baked under the ashes, and bring it to me, and afterward...”

Everyone say, “Afterward.” “...Afterward you shall make some for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘The flour in the jar shall not run out, nor shall the oil in the vessel diminish, until the day the Lord sends rain upon the face of the earth.’ So she went and did as Elijah told her, and he, she, and her household ate for many days. And the flour in the jar did not run out, nor did the oil in the vessel diminish, according to the word the Lord had spoken through Elijah.” May the Lord bless His holy Word.

Lord, we certainly bless Your Word, which is life and nourishment, and even now we take it in, pure, just as we have read it, Lord. And now we ask You to release within us the nutrients it contains and enable us to offer it to Your people, Father, broken down and elucidated through the illumination of Your Spirit. We believe that Your Word is alive, that it will reach the hearts of Your people and settle there to give life and generate new energy in every one of us. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.

In the world of international development, there is an entire profession and a class of experts who are development experts. They are people who have studied economics and studied the problems of poverty. They study the economic and political structures that keep a nation poor or underdeveloped, that prevent a nation from reaching its maximum potential for development. And these international experts travel to underdeveloped countries to serve as advisers. Within those very countries, people are also trained who... economists, sociologists, and so forth, who study how to move their societies forward, how to take them to a higher level of development, how to find where the national machinery is jammed; and like mechanics, they want to discover how to clear those jams so that things will run, the machinery of development can flow, and a nation can develop and break free from economic or social stagnation.

And there are many theories about how a nation can develop, how a society can develop. I am sure that here in Mérida, local sociologists, local economists, and your city government in Mérida have conducted studies to determine where the problems and bottlenecks are, what could bring your city and your province or state to a higher level of development, and how prosperity could come to your families and to the citizens of this region.

I am no development expert or anything of the sort, but I believe I have a suggestion—and more than a suggestion, it is a rule, a law of development—that I want to share with you.

How many of you would like to see this city and this region developed to their fullest potential? How many of you would like to see your family prosper financially? How many of you would like to see your children become educated and turn into influential professionals? Amen. We all want those things, don’t we? Well, I believe I have something to share from the Word of God about how you can enter into the prosperity, joy, and abundant life that Christ came to give you.

And it is a secret that, I assure you, would never occur to sociologists, economists, and development experts, because it does not have to do with the material world, but with the spiritual world. One of the most important laws we must understand in the world, in the universe, in the cosmos we inhabit, is this: spirit rules over matter.

What happens in the spiritual world governs what happens in the material world. The natural man, the man who sees things only from an economic, sociological, psychological, political, or historical point of view, does not understand this. And he moves only within the world of the visible, within time and space, and his inquiries and questions, his explorations and the answers he offers, occur only within the superstructure of the world—that is, in what lies above the surface, what is visible, what can be touched, what can be put into a laboratory test tube to see whether it works or not. Because today, more than ever, the human mind is a naturalistic mind. The philosophy underlying science and almost all the investigations of scientists and various experts is a naturalistic philosophy. That is, everything that happens in the world is purely the result of natural processes. And they do not believe in the spiritual dimension. And if some of them make room for the spiritual dimension, it is simply for religion, matters of morality, and things having to do with the church. But they do not try to mix the spiritual with the natural, because they think that doing so is contrary to the proper spirit of the sciences.

As Christians, we know that this is not so, don’t we? We know that the spiritual and the material are connected, and that what happens in one dimension affects the other. I can give you an example from the Bible to illustrate this principle, because it is very important for us to understand it.

When the Jews were fighting the tribes of Canaan, the land to which God had sent them, the first city they fought was Jericho. It was a city which, the Bible says, had extremely high walls and was shut up, tightly shut up, it says. And the Lord gave them a very simple answer. He told them, “March around the city once a day for six days. On the seventh day, march around it seven times, and the seventh time you go around it, shout as loudly as you can, and the walls will collapse. Then go in, plunder the city, and destroy everything in it.” The Jews did so, and that is exactly what happened, because God keeps His promises. And they plundered Jericho and destroyed it completely, but one man allowed himself to become enthralled. And God told them, “Do not take absolutely anything from that city; you must destroy everything. Everything—people, animals, material property, everything—because it is cursed; it is radioactive with the curse of that city’s sin.”

But one man fell in love, it says, with a very beautiful robe made of very precious fabric, a Babylonian robe, I think it is called, and also with an ingot, that is, a piece of silver or gold—I do not remember right now; I think it was gold—a very large one that was obviously worth a great deal of money. He was captivated by this, took it, and hid it. No one saw him, and he said, “Well, I’ll make an exception. Goodness, what harm can that do?” And he took it, hid it, buried it, and pretended that nothing had happened.

When the Hebrews went to fight against a second city, much smaller and less powerful than the first, it was called Ai—a fitting name, because they suffered quite a bit as a result. The city was called Ai. And they went and said, “Look, this is a tiny little thing. If we destroyed Jericho, we’re going to eat these people in this city like bread, so there is no need for everyone to go. Let most of the soldiers rest, and we’ll destroy these people in no time.” What happened? When they went into action, the Jews were completely defeated. They said to themselves, “But how can this be?” Look, they began to blame God. You see, the first time it was a coincidence, or perhaps God was inconsistent; but now, if we cannot fight against this riffraff, how are we going to fight against the other, more powerful tribes?

And they began to blame God, just as we often do, right? When things happen in our lives, when there are things that are stuck, shut tight in our lives. Our finances do not work, our marriage is not going well, our health is a disaster—and I am not saying that all those things are caused solely by sin; there are other reasons—but sometimes there are hidden things.

Then Moses inquired of God, “Lord, what is happening? How can You do this to us?” Again, blaming the Lord. And God told him, “Look, the problem is that there is sin among you.” Do you see the spiritual dimension? The material dimension was the war, the conquest of the land, the military struggle. That was the material realm, but underneath that material realm there was a spiritual realm that had not been put right. The law of the spirit was not being respected, and God told him, “There is a curse. Someone has taken something that I had declared accursed, and because of that you will never be able to defeat your enemies until you resolve that problem.”

Then, through a spiritual process, they came to the person who had committed the spiritual offense. They found the accursed thing, brought it out, confessed it, and then everything was put right again. They were able to defeat their enemies, and everything continued exactly as God had determined.

What happened? There was a defect in the spiritual world, and therefore it was affecting the material world. And until the spiritual world was put right, the material world could not function as it should. It is as if we were to build these beams and these things right now on shifting ground that is supposed to support them. It might last three or four days, but eventually the weakness of the ground will begin to show, and that strong, solid structure, which is supposed to support a great deal of weight, will begin to fall apart because the foundation is not sound.

And so, brothers and sisters, many times, if we do not respect the laws of the spirit, the laws of matter do not function as they should. But scientists and experts refuse to understand the connection between those two things. Now, we as the people of God must be wiser than they are and understand how these laws of the spirit work.

If we want developed societies, prosperous cultures, blessed families, and God’s blessing and promise to flow through our families, brothers and sisters, there are spiritual laws that we must understand. And to me, one of the most beautiful laws that allows nations, societies, cities, churches, and families to develop, and allows God’s prosperity to enter, lies in giving—giving, adopting a lifelong ethic of being generous and giving. And that has to do with grace, which is the driving force behind the entire relationship between God and man, because all of God’s dealings with man are by grace; otherwise, He would have destroyed us long ago.

And we must imitate our Father by living lives of grace, by always giving. And I am not referring only to money, although that is an important part; I mean being generous with everyone, brothers and sisters, with our time, our talents, our energy, our knowledge, our money, and our possessions. But we must adopt a generous attitude toward everyone. That also includes forgiving; it includes tolerating; it includes overlooking and ignoring offenses; it includes loving the weak and favoring the humble person. All of that is part of that element, that ethic of giving, giving, giving. Whoever lives that way is a person who is blessed.

And many times, when we give—and this is really the heart of my meditation—we must give in the zone of discomfort. If I could title this sermon, I would call it “Giving in the Zone of Discomfort.” It is in that zone, when we enter that zone, that the great miracles God wants to perform in our lives take place. And I want to suggest to you, young person, who still have your whole life ahead of you, your studies and all of that: adopt this as an ethic for life. Embrace it. I am going to be a generous giver. I am going to be a person known for my generosity, and I am going to be generous toward others and with everything I have. And I will always give in the name of the Lord. I will give portions to seven and to eight, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says. And every time I can help someone and bless someone with my gifts and possessions, I will do it, always in the name of the Lord, as a spiritual act, as something intentional. Not because I am pressured to do it, not because I want to manipulate God by doing it, not because I like people to say, “Oh, what an extraordinarily generous person,” but because by doing it I will be entering into a secret covenant with my God. And even if no one else sees me, my God will see me and will bless me.

That is what happened to the widow. Why is it that God likes widows? Here we saw one widow, and now another widow as well. The widow who gave everything she had—do you remember? The Bible says that the rich went to the temple and gave a great deal of money, putting it into the treasury, but it says that there was a widow who had only one peso to buy herself a cup of coffee. She came to the temple and had so much love for God that she took the only thing she had left, her sole means of support—it was everything she had in the world—and put it into the offering box. And how did she know that the Lord was watching her? Because God sees everything. And the Bible records these things so that we will understand something.

Look, there is nothing you do that God does not see. Not even the tiniest movements of your soul are outside God’s sight. Do not ask me how He can do it, because that is beyond the mind, but God knows. Even the fleeting thoughts that pass through your mind in a microsecond are recorded by God. And that is why we must walk this way.

And this woman did not know that the Lord was there watching, perhaps from a temple staircase, watching the people down below—the way the rich gave their money, and this widow. And He turned to His disciples and said, “Look, boys, did you see that scene? Those rich people give a lot of money, but they give out of their surplus. It costs them nothing. They give, let us say, a thousand pesos, but that is because they have a million pesos in the bank. And to them, one hundred pesos or a thousand pesos is nothing. They do not feel it. Someone says, ‘Wow, he gave a thousand pesos—imagine that as an offering.’”

Now, for this widow, those ten pesos she gave represented everything she had. And that, proportionally, was the million pesos those people would have given. And God does not need... To God, ten pesos or a billion pesos is nothing, because He owns the entire universe. But what pleases God is the movement of the heart. Do you understand? What that act of preferring God represents: faith in God, a militant and fierce love for God. And the Lord said, “That woman gave more in the eyes of the Father than those rich people,” because they gave in the zone of comfort, from what was comfortable, from what caused them neither pain nor discomfort. It did not threaten their finances, it did not threaten their well-being, it did not threaten their survival—nothing. They had it left over.

But this woman entered the zone of adventure, discomfort, risk, possible death, and madness, and that is why the Lord was more pleased with this woman’s offering, and she surely went away blessed.

Brothers and sisters, we need to understand that in every area of life, because therein lies a great secret for how to unleash God’s blessing in our lives and how to cause God’s power to flow in our lives.

Today, however, I want to make a clarification. In many Christian circles, giving has become something mechanical, something you use to manipulate God, and a beautiful, wonderful doctrine has, in my opinion, been twisted and somehow made crude and harsh, when it is something precious and almost artistic. Because today there is so much talk about giving as though it were a way of twisting God’s arm, isn’t there? I do not know whether people in this country practice that thing of turning a saint upside down. Do people do that here? They take statues of the saints and turn them upside down until the saint grants the miracle they want performed. Perhaps those things, those superstitions, exist only in the Caribbean.

But sometimes we believe that if I do something very specific, then God will give to me. And you know what? I believe there is something almost superstitious and even akin to witchcraft in that, if we are not careful. And I know that we say it with good intentions, and we hear it from other preachers and all of that, but we must be careful, because when things become mechanical in that way and do not come from the heart, do not come from an ethic for life, do not come from a conviction, do not come from a way of living, do not come from a process of becoming aware through which we have passed—a process that has spread through every part of our being and fills us evenly, mind, body, soul, spirit, everything—then it is like simply taking a hard stone and throwing it into God’s soil. Whereas what God wants is for our whole being to be permeated by a belief, a faith, an attitude, and then, as a product of that attitude, we give organically, and God is glorified. I do not know whether I am making clear what I am trying to say.

We must adopt an ethic of giving constantly, not only when I want God to do something for me, but so that I give because that is my nature. So that God has turned me into a cheerful giver. Not a person who gives only when there is a need, or when it is convenient, or when he wants to get something out of God; rather, being a giver must simply flow naturally from us.

Like when the woman with the flow of blood came up behind Jesus and touched the edge of His garment. What happened? It says that grace, power, went out from Him. Why? Because the Lord was a healer by nature, supernaturally and naturally. That is, healing flowed from Him. And when this woman touched Him, because the Lord embodied healing, power went out from Him and healed her, and He did not even do anything; the only thing that happened was that He felt power flow out, because Jesus—His spirit—was healing. He said that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him and had sent Him to heal the sick, the blind, and so forth. And that, brothers and sisters, is how we must be.

We should be such that when people draw close to us, grace flows out from us because we have absorbed the Father’s giving nature. And sometimes we should give when it is inconvenient or when we cannot get anything out of it, but simply to glorify our Father by being like Him. And that is the secret. When you learn to give in the zone of discomfort, you will be blessed in an extraordinary way; your church will be blessed. Churches must also be generous; they must give.

That is why, for me, I find my ministerial ethic summed up—and I do not always live up to it, let me tell you; I am human and I sin like everyone else—in Ecclesiastes, chapter 11, I believe it is, where it says, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days it will return to you.” And later it says, “Give portions to seven and to eight. Do not be stingy.”

There is always a call in the Bible not to be stingy and to give portions to seven and to eight. I believe that the minister and the church must always be sowing into people, must always be sowing into projects and things, and must always place themselves in zones of discomfort, giving and sowing grace in the city without worrying, because when they least expect it, many of those seeds return to them in the most wonderful and blessed ways.

And that is how we must be. Jesus exemplifies that to the highest degree. The writer of Philippians, chapter 2, says, “Let this same mind be in you.” Look at that: God calls us to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, who, being equal to God, did not regard equality with God as something to cling to, but emptied Himself—there is giving—robbed Himself, plundered Himself, and took the form of a man and went to His death, and not just any death, but death on a cross. The Lord was generous: He became a man, and not merely a man, but a poor man; and not merely a poor man, but a persecuted man; and not merely persecuted, but a murdered man; and not merely murdered, but tortured.

Because when He gave to the Father, He gave generously, and when He gave to us, He gave generously. And how wonderful that it does not end there! Rather, it says, ‘...Therefore God raised Him up, exalted Him to the highest place, and gave Him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow—in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.’

It all began with giving. It says, ‘Therefore God,’ because He gave Himself, because He gave generously, because He made Himself uncomfortable, because He emptied Himself, because He did something crazy that no one can understand rationally—for that reason God raised Him to the highest place. His exaltation was even greater than His humiliation. His enrichment was far greater than His self-imposed impoverishment.

And so that dynamic, sister, brother, is fulfilled in every human being who adopts the attitude and conduct of Jesus in their life. If you live as a person who gives of yourself and always gives, you too will experience in your life that blessing of God which will gradually lift you up, lift up your children, lift up your finances, lift up your mind, lift up your emotions, lift up your marriage, lift up your church, and lift up your city.

That is incredible; it is a mystery. But ultimately, it is the mystery of the cross: that on the cross—the ugliest, most terrible, most cruel instrument ever invented by man to torture a human being, the most horrifying thing there is—there, in that, was life. In the Lord’s climbing onto the cross and emptying Himself, and feeling sin—He who had never felt it in His being—being drained of blood, being unable to move, there, in that, Scripture says that He disarmed principalities and powers. The power of God was manifested as never before in the powerlessness of that sacrifice.

And that happens when we deprive ourselves, when we crucify ourselves in regard to the selfishness that comes naturally to the flesh. Self-preservation is the most powerful instinct in an individual. When you violate the most powerful biological instinct of all, which is your instinct to preserve yourself—to maintain your comfort, your permanence, your survival, your possessions—when you go against that carnal, earthly, diabolical principle of selfishness, you are then entering the realm of the divine, where God can perform miracles in your life. When you climb onto the cross through an act of personal self-emptying and preferring someone else, at that moment you are entering the very same dynamic that Christ Jesus entered, and the same thing will then be fulfilled in your life. For just as He was also lifted up because He emptied Himself, so you too will be lifted up because you empty yourself, because you deprive yourself in order to give to another.

How wonderful is the wisdom of the Lord! We then flow in that same dynamic. In this twenty-first century, God wants to do great things through the churches. And in order for the churches to do what God wants them to do, they will need quality facilities, they will need good sound systems, they will need electronic equipment to preach the Gospel, and they will need male and female pastors in the areas of counseling, youth, children, and social services. They will have to serve the community out there and give to people who will not be able to repay what they give them. They will have to be generous in the city. They will need well-trained pastors who will also need their salaries, because the worker is worthy of his wages, yes or no?

And where will all that money to conquer the nations come from? Where will the resources and talents come from to create a powerful church that can serve as a weapon of war to conquer the city and society? They will come from us, yes or no? God is not going to send—God is not going to make money rain down from heaven. He could do it if He felt like it; He could create it in heaps and bury us in money. But that is not how God works.

Just last night, as I was preaching, we saw that the Lord could have, if He had wanted to, supernaturally amplified His voice and preached to the crowd pressing in upon Him through a supernatural process. But He did not do it that way, did He? He looked for and found a man named Peter and asked him to lend Him his boat—his possession, his property—to use it to bless the crowd.

And God is glorified when His creature, His church, lends Him its money, its talents, and its time so that He can carry out the redemption of humanity and advance His historical plan. He could do it supernaturally, but God always does things in partnership with His children, with His prophets. But the wonderful thing is that the Lord says, ‘Look, I want you to do this as a symbol of your devotion to Me, of your faith in Me; but when you have given, I then commit Myself to blessing you far beyond what you have given.’ So it turns out that what we give is really more of an investment than a sacrifice. But the way your church will prosper is when you—when all the churches and all of us church members—learn to give generously to the Lord in the zone of discomfort.

You are sitting here right now in a setting that is clearly better than what you had a few weeks ago, as the pastor said. This setting here looks very beautiful—the curtains, the roof covering you. You are looking more and more like a church now. So, how did this happen? There are people here who contributed their knowledge and contributed money, isn’t that right? They contributed time. When I arrived here on Thursday night, there were brothers working at that hour. I saw the pastors sweating buckets to finish some things so that everything would be ready for Friday. And now we are sitting here comfortably, with fans cooling us, but behind all of that there is sweat; there are people who gave of themselves, people who gave. Some contributed talents; other sisters cooked for those who were working. Some brought soft drinks; others gave money for the beams. Some contributed knowledge and labor, and everyone worked so that this could be built.

And many times congregations come into these places, sit on carpets and comfortable chairs, look at very beautiful surroundings, see musicians playing, and hear the sound being amplified through a very sophisticated system. But all of that was made possible not because God sent money from heaven, but because people dared to give, many of them sacrificially, in the zone of discomfort. If we want powerful churches, churches that do the work of the Lord, we need generous people, people who are generous at heart.

If you look at the great projects in Scripture—for example, the construction of the tabernacle and the various temples—it always speaks of people who were generous at heart. Look up the word ‘generous’ if you have a good concordance—and by that I mean one of those large, unabridged concordances—and you will find many references to those who were generous at heart and gave toward the construction of the tabernacle, the first temple, the second temple, and so forth. And I have always said, I want to belong to that select class of men and women called those who are generous at heart.

Churches advance and grow through people who are generous at heart, brothers and sisters. Many studies have been done on churches, and there is a law that generally governs many areas of human life, and it is this: in most churches, 20% of the people give 80% of the money. I suspect that if we analyze things here, that is how it is, and that is how it is in most churches.

There is a group of people who stand out for being generous and because God has blessed them. But sometimes one wonders, ‘Well, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Are they blessed because they are generous, or are they generous because they are blessed?’ I believe that, generally, the generous person will be blessed. And I have seen continually that there is a correlation in the church: God blesses people who are selfless, who are giving, who are always the first to say, ‘Count me in,’ when there is a need or a project to be carried out.

So I say, brother, be one of that chosen 20%. Do not lean on the generosity of others. Give according to your ability, and even give beyond your ability. In the Bible, in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, it speaks about the Macedonians. Chapter 8, verse 1, says, ‘...Moreover, brothers, we make known to you the grace of God that has been given to the churches of Macedonia.’

Look at that: the grace of God fell upon them, and therefore they gave. Giving is itself a grace from God. ‘...That in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their generosity.’

You know what? There are people who say, ‘I am too poor to tithe. I have too many needs. People who have money can do that.’ You are failing to understand something if you reason that way. What God asks is that you give 10% of what you have, not of what you do not have. Okay. The person who has a lot comes and gives 10% of the abundance he has; the person who has very little money gives 10% of the very little he has.

And these people, the Macedonians, gave not because they were rich, but, it says, ‘Out of their deep poverty, they abounded in the riches of generosity.’ Look at what great praise these people receive. It says, ‘...For I testify that willingly...’ The Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver. When you give, do not give while watching that little bit of money leave you with terrible sadness, watching the pesos sprout wings and fly away. No, give with a cheerful heart. Give with a bold heart. Shout, ‘Hallelujah!’ even if you do not believe it yourself.

‘...They gave according to their ability, willingly, and even beyond their ability.’ People say, ‘Well, what is this business about tithing? Do we have to give, or don’t we? I do not believe in tithing because that belongs to the Old Testament.’ Well, let us suppose for a moment that this is so, that the tithe was only for the Old Testament. Here I see something interesting: in the New Testament, whom does God always praise? Those who have given beyond their ability. That is why He praised the widow, that is why He praised the Macedonians, and that is why Jesus Christ was praised. Whenever God praises someone who gives, He praises the generous person.

Paul says, ‘He who sows generously will reap generously.’ So the question is, well, it is not the tithe. If you do not believe in the tithe, then okay, I am going to propose something to you. Give, as the Bible says, according to your ability and beyond your ability. You know what? Then you will have to give more than the tithe. I would rather stick with the tithe than have to give beyond my ability continually. Choose whichever you want: choose to give according to the tithe or to give beyond your ability.

If you are honest, generally the person who resists giving the tithe resists because, ‘That is beyond my ability.’ And God tells you, ‘Well, you have to give beyond your ability.’ So there is no escaping it, brothers and sisters. Wherever you try to hide, the word of the Lord follows you there, in this case. I am not saying it to make you feel bad—or perhaps I am saying it to make you feel bad—because I want to encourage you to go beyond what is comfortable. People do not understand that we impoverish ourselves and hinder the flow of God’s grace when we calculate and count every little thing with God, when God has given us everything.

And what God wants is for us to be generous with Him, to be cheerful in giving, to be almost crazy in giving, because when we do that, we open the heart of God, and God rains down blessing until it overflows upon our lives. And that is how it is with everything. When you have to forgive, forgive generously; do not forgive and then look for a way to undermine the person who hurt you. No, forgive and forget it.

Sometimes someone says, ‘I forgive, but I do not forget.’ No, forgive and forget, if possible. May you get amnesia and not even remember what happened. Sometimes brothers and sisters come to me and say, ‘Pastor, forgive me,’ as a woman did recently: ‘Forgive me because once you lent me 700 dollars and I...’ The woman was in a crisis, and she was a member of the church, and we saw that it was a necessary and just cause, and she asked for it as a loan. I have already learned that when brothers and sisters ask me for a loan, I know I will see it again when Christ comes or in the other kingdom. I gave it to her—we gave her the money—and she came back about three years later, also apologizing to me because she had left the church. And I said, ‘Sister, the truth is that I do not remember.’ I did not even remember that we had given her money or anything of the sort, because when one gives, brothers and sisters, one has to be generous and live by that ethic. And you know what? Blessing rains down upon your life.

Be generous with forgiveness. Be generous in blessing others. Be generous in encouraging others. When you see something beautiful that someone does, be generous in giving that person a word of encouragement. When you see someone do something that embarrasses them and damages their image, be generous enough to look away and pretend you did not see anything, instead of going around announcing it to others: ‘Oh, do you know what so-and-so did—this, that, and the other...’

In the Bible there is the story of one of the generous sons—I believe it was Shem—who saw his father drunk, lying on the floor. Noah made a mistake; he got drunk, and what did Ham do? He went and told his brothers to come see their father lying there in his underwear, completely naked. Look how ridiculous he looks. And the Bible says that Shem, not wanting to dishonor his father, took a garment and walked backward so as not to see his father’s nakedness, and he laid the garment over his father. And when Noah came to his senses, he cursed Ham and blessed Shem for his generosity, because he turned his eyes away from his father’s shame. And from Shem came the Semites, who are the Hebrews, God’s blessed people. And from Ham came the Canaanites, who were the people cursed by God, whom God drove out of the Promised Land and gave it to the Hebrews centuries after that act took place.

How an act of generosity blessed a lineage, and how an act of stinginess cursed a lineage. Because the spiritual world governs the material world. When we move, brothers and sisters, in generosity toward our churches, toward God, toward our brothers and sisters, when we give knowing that my Father is watching me. That is the secret in my life, and it should be in your life.

I always see God watching me. If I bless a little child, if I show reverence to an elderly person, no matter how humble or poorly dressed he may be, God rewards me in public for what I do in secret. Because we must adopt an ethic of generosity, of giving in whatever way is necessary.

You have seen—and with this I will conclude—what happened with Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. God wanted to bless His prophet. The brook Cherith, where God had given him water and had sent ravens to feed him, had dried up. And I always notice something here. I say, could not the God who made the ravens bring bread and meat to Elijah have caused the brook to spring forth again after it dried up? Yes or no? One wonders, “Well, how do these laws of the spirit work?”

But I believe that God allowed the brook to dry up and suspended the airborne delivery of food to Elijah because He wanted to bless the widow. And He wanted to establish a principle so that His people would learn how to unleash God’s blessing in their lives. And then God says, “Look, I have commanded a widow in Zarephath to feed you. Go there, and you will receive food for as long as this lasts”—there was a great famine in the land because there was a drought. And Elijah goes to that city, which was not even a Jewish city, and there he finds a woman in extreme need. That is why I say it was a depressing situation. The woman had only a little handful of flour, a tiny bit of oil, and a few pieces of firewood left, and at that very moment she was about to make her last meal and then lie down to die, because there was nothing else left anywhere in the land.

Why does God choose the most extreme situations? Often it is to show His power, and because He wants to establish laws demonstrating that it is not by human strength, but by the power of God. And so Elijah comes there, first of all, to a widow, and then to a destitute, poor widow, and he commands that widow to feed him; spiritually, he commanded it. That is to say, it was already impossible for that widow to refuse, because God had given an order. Or, well, I believe it was possible, in a sense. She had the option to choose yes or no, but God already knew what was going to happen.

So when Elijah arrives there, notice that Elijah says to her, “Give me a little water,” and she immediately goes to get him some water. She gets him water so spontaneously, without saying anything, because she had plenty of water. That was not her problem. She had enough water to last her probably for some time.

At that moment she was giving from the comfort zone, like us when we give the Lord that little coin we do not need and can, after all, survive without. It makes no dent in the family finances.

So she goes very spontaneously, very helpfully, to get him water, and the prophet Elijah, as if it were no big thing, says to her, “Look, do me a favor. Before that, if you can, find me a little cake somewhere so I can eat it, because I’m hungry.” And she says, “Ah, now that I cannot help you with... because the only thing I have is this little bit for my son and me, and after that—in fact, we are going to lie down and die.” And look at what Elijah says to her: “Look, do not worry about that. Give to me”—that is why I tell you, repeat: give to me what?—“first. Give to me first, and then make something for yourself and your son, and you will see that you will never lack either oil or flour.”

Elijah was establishing a spiritual principle there that we now draw from Scripture and apply in the twenty-first century, and it will bless Mérida, it will bless your life, it will bless your finances, your children, and your family. When the widow believed Elijah—the prophets of God, we pastors, are continually speaking to congregations and telling them the same thing: Give to God first. Give God the firstfruits of your finances. Do not wait until you have paid all the bills, bought your children’s clothes, and made sure everything is fine before you begin giving to the Lord. Those are not the firstfruits; those are the “lastfruits.” Many of us Christians are experts in lastfruits, but not in firstfruits.

God always says, “Give to Me first.” God wanted to bring this woman into the discomfort zone. Because it is in that zone that the heart of God is unleashed, where blessing flows, where grace flows. And that is where we must learn to give to God and to others. When this woman obeyed the spirit of Elijah and the spiritual principle, blessing and prosperity were unleashed. And the Bible says that “the oil did not diminish, nor did the oil run short throughout the time Elijah was with her,” until the famine in the country ended.

And notice that after that, her son had a heart attack or whatever it was; he died, and because Elijah was there, he also brought her son back to life. Because the parents’ blessing extends to the children. Do you want your children to be blessed in the future? If you want a prosperous family and blessed children, if we want a prosperous Mérida and a blessed Mexico, let us fill it with people who are generous toward God. Let us fill it with people whose generosity toward God has neither restraint nor brakes. Let us have people who say, “Let nothing be lacking in the house of the Lord.” May we have a church where, whenever there is a need, there are always a few generous-hearted people who say, “Pastor, let us move forward in the name of the Lord; I support you.” As long as things are done within God’s order to build up the Kingdom of God. If we want a prosperous church, a church that can do everything it needs to do, that is why the Lord says that there should be no lack of food in His house, meaning that the food is the provision for what a church needs in order to carry out its projects.

God does not want anything to be lacking in His house, and that rests upon each one of us. I can tell you from personal experience, my beloved brothers and sisters, that it works. If I had another opportunity at some point to preach to you further, I could tell you testimony after testimony about how I have seen God’s blessing in my life through giving generously. And it is something you can practice.

When I began to tithe to the Lord, it was the most fragile time of my life, and the Lord... I said, “Well, if the Bible speaks about giving generously to the Lord, I am going to give generously to Him. It does not matter whether it is now, tomorrow, or whenever.” I can tell you how the Lord unleashed material blessing upon our lives. I was a graduate student; I was not working full-time like that. My wife was studying as well, and yet the Lord unleashed incredible provision in our lives during that time. And giving the Lord my profession and everything else has unleashed such a great blessing in our lives in so many ways, because we must give to the Lord in every area: money, profession, intellect, time, energy, forgiveness, grace. Everything must be shared, shared, shared. Give generously and do not worry. Sow; invest more over the course of your whole life, and you will see how you will always be able to reap. What you sowed here will take a little while, but some time ago you sowed over there, so you can harvest from this and then from the other, and you will always have plants that are growing and bearing fruit. Always, always, always.

The blessing will flow continually in your life. So the Lord says to you today, “Enter the discomfort zone.” Be generous with others. Be generous with God. Be generous with your church, and you will be greatly blessed. Amen.

How many of you receive that word in your spirit right now? Glory to the Lord. Glory to the Lord. Let us adopt an ethic of generosity in our lives. Father, we believe in a faithful God who commits Himself to His children, and You are the giver par excellence, and You have already given us the greatest gift, which is Your Son, Jesus Christ. Anything we give You will be minimal, symbolic, compared with what we have received from You. So, Lord, we now commit ourselves as a church always to give, to be cheerful givers in every dimension of life, and we believe—we choose to believe—that You are going to bless us, that You are going to take us to new heights.

Father, I declare a spirit of prosperity over this congregation, over its pastors and its leaders, and I establish this church as a center of blessing in this community, one that will bless and spread its flavor throughout this entire city. And I ask You to unleash the hearts of Your children, Lord, this afternoon. May they understand these laws of the spirit. May they unleash the prosperity of their families, their churches, and their communities. Father, You have promised it, and we know that You will be faithful to fulfill it. We praise Your name because You have never failed us, Father. You have always fulfilled what You purposed in our lives. Let Your blessing flow and Your prosperity flow among these people, Lord. And to You we will always give the glory, the praise, and the honor. Thank You, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Give the Lord a great round of applause in faith right now. Glory to God. Amen.

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