Honor the Lord with Your Possessions

My desire in bringing these meditations has not only been to inspire you to give, to keep your commitment alive, so that in this way our church may benefit in the project that is yours, mine, and first and foremost the Lord’s—the construction of a new temple—but also that you would remember that one of the purposes of my meditations has been to invest in your lives, enrich your lives, and sow in you principles that go far beyond this time of construction

, so that when that temple is finished, you will have this knowledge and this word of inspiration to live a creative life, an enterprising life, a visionary life, a life that does not resign itself to barriers, but breaks through the barriers and goes beyond them. God wants an aggressive people; God wants a visionary people.

Brothers and sisters, I believe that this community—and all the others God may want to bless, but I am going to speak about my community—look, God is going to bless us far beyond what we expect.

And I see your children, and I see your personal lives being enriched. I see a community going from growth to growth. That is what I believe God is doing through you, and in my life as well. We are going to prosper in many ways. Right now, there are warnings of storms and dark clouds and destruction in the world, but the people of God are protected by the Lord’s blessing, and God tells us, “I know the thoughts that I have concerning you; they are thoughts of good and not of evil, to give you the end you so greatly desire.”

So what we want is to put the beams and foundations in place for that prosperous life God wants to give all of us. These meditations, then, have had as their chief purpose the sharing of principles for Christian life and practical life that you can always use. Just yesterday, in fact, as we were traveling along one of New York’s highways, around Queens, I saw the remains of the World’s Fair that was held in New York. I do not know how many of you know about that World’s Fair. It took place in the—I think it was the sixties, sometime around then. I had not been born yet, but I am told that the fair was held in New York.

What is interesting is that several of those buildings are still standing there in New York. I do not know how many of you have seen them, from that World’s Fair. I do not know whether there is a stadium; I saw a stadium there. I do not know whether it is Shade Stadium that remains, whether Shade Stadium remains as a result of that World’s Fair. In other words, that fair was an event lasting a few weeks; it made history in the world, and when the fair ended, a number of buildings remained. There is an immense restaurant that I saw up there in one of the towers they built; there is that stadium and other things. That park remained there as a memorial to something that took place but outlived its immediate usefulness and became something that has lasted for decades. And that is how I want this effort to fulfill that purpose as well: that it not be only for this moment, but that structures remain in your lives that you can use for everything you undertake. I see a couple here who got married recently, in Italy. In fact, they are members of our congregation. We bless them in the name of the Lord. They have returned. God bless them in their endeavor. But they are young, and God wants young couples like José and his wife, uh, to prosper and live according to biblical principles that will enable them to be a blessed, prosperous, successful, influential couple, in the best sense of the word—and likewise many of our children and other individuals.

So what I want to do is share those ideas with you, and what I have for you today is like the very essence of everything we have been saying. It is like the main lever for a successful life, and I have entitled this—this meditation: “Honor Jehovah with Your Possessions.” And it is a very, uh, I believe, fruitful meditation, and I am going to do everything possible not to linger over it in the way it deserves, because there is a lot of material. But I want us at least to pay attention to that text the Lord gave me last night, while I was already at the airport. It came to mind when I said, “Lord, give me a word that is not a generic word.” I have a dozen sermons there that I have preached over the years about finances and stewardship and all these things, but I did not want that. I wanted it to be something for today, freshly baked bread for you. This has just come out of the oven, and He gave me that text. I did not know where it was, but I remembered the first words of the text.

Proverbs 3:9 says: “Honor Jehovah with your possessions.”

Everyone say, “Honor.” Honor. And it also says: “And with the firstfruits.” Repeat after me: “Firstfruits.”

“With the firstfruits of all your produce,” and then it says: “And your barns will be filled with abundance.” Listen, they will not merely be filled as though they were three-quarters full. No, no. With abundance. “And your winepresses,” it says, “will overflow with new wine,” and you say, “What do you eat that with—winepresses and new wine?” That word “winepresses” can be confused with another word out there that is not very good.

But “winepresses will overflow with new wine.” In a moment I am going to explain to you what that means. So it is what I call the most basic rule governing how we relate to God and how God relates to us here in life. It is like the very structure of how things work. If you apply today’s lesson to your life and integrate it, I assure you that you are going to experience radical changes in your life. For me, that verse, Proverbs 3:9 and 10, is the very foundation of prosperity and blessing.

As children of God, our aspirations for a fruitful, successful, productive life rest on this foundation that Proverbs commends to us. It says here: “Honor Jehovah with your possessions, with the firstfruits of all your produce, and your barns will be filled, and your winepresses will overflow with new wine.”

What it is saying here is the following, brothers and sisters: there is an action that is a precondition leading to a consequence and a result. That phrase, “And they will be filled”—if you look up the English translation, for example, it is: “Then, your barns will be filled with abundance.” In other words, that “and” means that, as a consequence of your honoring the Lord with your possessions and with the firstfruits of all your produce, something is going to happen in your life. It says that your barns will be filled and your winepresses will overflow with new wine. Uh, it is no coincidence, incidentally, that this great principle of life is contained in the book of Proverbs. Why? Because Proverbs is a book devoted to practical wisdom and prudence. It is a book written by a man whom God endowed—and by other men in the Old Testament whom God endowed—with practical knowledge of life, supernatural knowledge. If you truly want to acquire wisdom in life, look, read the book of Proverbs. Put it into your spirit, cultivate it, read it continually, and let all the life and wisdom contained in that book enter through all your veins, your nervous system, and your brain, and become something special in your life. And you will see how that energy enclosed there will do great things in you.

So it is no coincidence that this essential counsel for success in life is found in that book of wisdom, because it is a fundamental rule for life; it is the secret of success and abundance. Nowadays there is an entire industry of books, videos, CDs, and conferences about “Self-Development” and “Self-Mastery,” and all these things—how to succeed, how to be a great leader, how to live a successful life. You know what? God already wrote that 2,000—3,000—years ago and went to sleep for a while. What people are doing nowadays is actually giving bad advice. In fact, there are many very good things in the secular world, but for complete, all-encompassing happiness and prosperity that cover every dimension of life, there is no better formula than the one the Bible gives.

“Honoring the Lord with our possessions,” because that is the secret of success and abundance. So let us look at something here. First of all, when I hear the word “honor,” it is a very strong word. The language of this text is very radical language; it is not lukewarm, middle-of-the-road, average language.

Everything there is “yes or no,” “much or nothing,” “commitment or indifference,” “totality or zero.” You remember what I read to you last Sunday, when the Lord said: “He who does not share with me scatters; he who is not with me is against me.” The Bible is like that; the Bible is radical.

Either you are in or you are not. Lukewarm Christians—look, God is not pleased with that; that is the truth. I am not telling you this to make you depressed. I am saying it to encourage you to get moving and seek more of God. Every day I have to—we all have to—go to another level, and that is why you come to church: to be challenged, to be encouraged, to be informed about how you can live that life, be a living fire for God, and be greatly blessed.

So notice that all the language here is tremendously enthusiastic and radical. It says: “Honor!” No, it is a strong word. To honor God means to prefer Him, praise Him, exalt Him, and give Him a special place.

When you honor a person, you place that person in a special position and prefer that person above many other things. I would say that this is the essential ethic of the Christian. What is the principle that should always define your life when you enter the Kingdom of God? It is to place God above everything else, to love Him above all things. Our lives should reflect a white-hot passion for God. What is the first commandment? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And there is another version that says: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

God is radical. Either you surrender yourself completely to Him, or, look, go your own way. Why? Because God is so powerful. God is—God is the totality of everything that exists; there is nothing outside Him. Look, this idea of God as everything has reached such a point, and the great sages of humanity in other religions—Buddhism, Hinduism—have reached such a point, and I was almost going to say it, but then I said, “Wait; theologically, from a Christian perspective, it is not entirely true.” But look, I could say that—I am not even going to say it, actually. Let me put it another way: I do not exist outside God. I am not going to say that I am God or that God is me, but in the sense that my atoms, my cells, my existence, my reality are real because God exists. Amen.

Look, I would say that we are God’s dream. I believe that I am a tiny particle of a cell of God, so to speak. I am almost entering into heresy by saying all this, brothers and sisters, but there is no other way to say it. Look, existence itself—I was watching a documentary about the origins of the universe and about how cosmologists, these philosophers of creation, uh, who do not necessarily believe in God and do not attribute the creation of the universe to God, try to explain what it is. But in any case, when you look at the scientific cosmology of the twenty-first century, you realize how mysterious the universe is and how everything has been created, whether you attribute it to God, which is what we believe, or attribute it to a “Big”—a gigantic explosion—a “Big Bang.” The truth is that it is something overwhelming, something terribly mysterious, and that is what God is. The truth is that no one understands the origins of the universe or what you and I are.

One day, when we get to heaven, look, we are going to laugh out loud when you discover what you truly are. Paul says that when I get there, I will see as I am seen—all the secrets of the universe. And as I say all this, I realize that I am not keeping my promise to be brief. But these things are wonderful; they are beautiful, aren’t they? Brothers and sisters, one day—I laugh as I watch these cosmologists trying to explain it. Listen, what foolishness! I know they are tremendously accomplished people, but what foolishness! They accept myths that require as much faith as this Christian belief, and they stubbornly insist on explaining something that is so mysterious. No one knows. Nowadays people speak of parallel universes, universes within universes, uh, times that are past, present, and future all in one, energy becoming matter and matter becoming energy. It is an incredible thing.

The world is mysterious; the universe is mysterious. What I see is this: God is everything; God is the center; without God, nothing exists. If His mind were not observing and conceiving us, the atoms that make up our personalities would scatter and we would be nothing. What gives you cohesion and coherence as a thinking being is, I believe, that God keeps His gaze upon you; otherwise, your atoms would scatter and become pure energy. It is incredible, but that is how it is. So I have wandered so far afield that I do not even remember what I was telling you.

What we have here is this, isn’t it: that the essential ethic of Christianity is to place—it is like being amazed and overwhelmed by the mystery of God and living only for Him, loving Him above all things, understanding the mystery of your life. Why are you going to spend your time, your life, accumulating metal and cement and fabric, when you can live your life as a member of the Kingdom of God, serve an Angel, an exalted being who lives for eternity and who lives beyond time and space?

And the son of God, the daughter of God, who has been touched by divine revelation understands that outside of God there is nothing, lives for Him, through Him, in Him, and sums up in Him everything we have and are and aspire to be. And that is why, when we say, “Look, give the Lord something from your offering,” it sounds banal, when everything you are belongs to God and is of God, and without Him it neither exists nor has meaning. Our lives must reflect that sense of wonder, of total reverence for God’s generosity; and when we generously give tithes, offerings, and help to others, it is to honor the Lord, it is to honor the Lord, it is to please Him, to say to Him, “Father, we understand that this is a fiction and that the only real thing is what we invest in Your Kingdom for eternity.”

Honor Jehovah with your possessions. What are our possessions, our belongings? Uh, they are everything we have: our money, profession, talents, time, material possessions, bodies, knowledge, aspirations, dreams—the entire essence, the totality of our lives. Those are our possessions, and it says, “Honor Jehovah with your possessions”; “honor the Lord with everything.”

Many times we say that honoring the Lord means giving Him money. No, you have to give Him your time; you have to give Him your sleep, your privacy, your energy, your vision, your anxiety—everything, everything. You have to surrender everything to the Lord; everything has to be consecrated and set apart for one single thing: “honoring the Lord.” You are a factory, a machine that produces honor for God; you are a producer of honor and glory for God. That is what you exist for. Apart from that, everything else is totally illusory, vain, a fiction. This is the primary use of your possessions: to honor the Lord. That is what they were designed for; that is what you were designed for: to glorify God. Your possessions exist to bring honor to the Lord.

This is very different from the way the human mind works—the secular human mind that has not received that illumination. Why? Because the man without God, the woman without God, thinks, you know what? My possessions are for me. I earned them. I had to work my tail off at the university and burn the midnight oil taking exams, and now I have this big old degree here. And now, when I work, it is my money, my house, my car, my bank account, and I can do whatever I please with it because I earned it. I am going to use it however I see fit, and many times people do that with it.

Bill Gates has donated billions of dollars to philanthropic foundations and endeavors. Uh, Jobs—Steve Jobs, may God have him in glory, I hope—also gave billions of dollars, and a good portion of his fortune was devoted to that. But you know what? With the secular man, the difference is that even when he gives things to noble causes and devotes his talent, for example, to creating great works of art or scientific inventions and all of that, there is an inner posture in the secular, unredeemed man that says, “This is mine. I developed it, and I can use it however I want.” The horse’s neck is still stiff; it has not yet been broken before the divine rider. That is the difference. The man or woman of God, meanwhile, has bowed before the Deity and says, “What I have, God has given me, and it exists for Him. I have no right to decide what I am going to do with it; God says what I must do with it.”

The apostle James says, “Come now, you who say, ‘Tomorrow we will be in one city and the next day in another, and we will remain there for a certain time,’” instead of saying, “If God wills.” The man or woman touched by God is like a tamed horse that already knows it must go wherever the divine rider takes it. Its strong legs, its marvelous neck, and its back, which can bear a great deal of weight, now go wherever the divine bridle directs it.

That is unlike modern man—the man without God, the woman without God—who believes that he or she is still like a steed roaming through the jungle, with no one riding it, doing whatever it wants, like a lawless goat, as Gregory says, right? It is a very different thing, isn’t it?

So those are the possessions of the man or woman of God. There you have the example of the rich fool. Do you remember the story of the rich fool in the Bible? The Lord says that this man had produced so much and had so much money that he did not know where to put it—so much grain, so much wheat, so many possessions. What he did was tear down his barn because he wanted to make it bigger, and he lay down saying, “Wow! That’s it; I have reached the top. Now I am simply going to enjoy everything I have,” right? And it says, “I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have many goods stored up for many years. Rest, eat, drink, and rejoice.’”

But what happened? He lay down, and an angel appeared to him, I imagine, and said to him, “Fool, fool, tonight they are coming to demand your soul from you. And everything you have provided—whose will it be?” Listen, I was meditating on that recently. Steve Jobs, one of the greatest geniuses, one of the men who most influenced culture—if you have a Mac around there, an Apple computer, thank Steve Jobs. Listen, that man had an incredible impact on design, technology, science, and culture in general, and yet, cancer.

That entire intellectual edifice, that tremendous creative power, collapsed in an instant because behind that tremendous creativity there was a fragile, brittle nervous and biological system, and all it took was one small malfunction to make it collapse completely and disappear from the map. All that creativity, all that creative power, all that genius disappeared in a moment. That is what human beings are like. That is why the only thing that matters, the only thing that endures, is what you invest for eternity—which is everything.

And that is why we have to live that way. This man thought, “No, here I am; I am going to enjoy life and everything I have done and invested.” Fool, idiot! Tonight you are going to die, and when you arrive up there, that is when we will truly see, right? Then the Lord delivered this serious and sober verdict: “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Listen, brother, I ask the Lord, “Help me to be rich toward You, even if I am starving here on earth; but when I arrive there in heaven, they will say, ‘Come, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.’” Amen.

That is what the Lord will say to you: “Daughter, you sacrificed many things, but look, now I give you that planet to cultivate. It is entirely yours—not a little house, but a whole planet, a galaxy. Why not?” Cosmologists say there are galaxies upon galaxies, so who knows what God will give you? Make sure you lay good foundations now for eternity, because this world is only an antechamber to what truly matters. Here we are as though in a waiting room, and beyond it there are halls upon halls upon halls, eternally vast. This world is a mystery; this life is nothing but an experiment here, a riddle that God permits for a purpose known only to Him. And yet we live in this world as though it were everything. This is simply it: you are an instrument for the glory of God. Live as an instrument for the glory of God. Use your possessions and be rich toward God, not merely toward yourself. How sad it is when things are lost: something falls into a well and keeps falling, and you never hear it hit the bottom. Many of us human beings are like that. Our lives go no further than our own efforts and achievements, and when we die, the light goes out and leaves no trace. That is terrible.

So let us be rich toward God. The paradox of the rich fool is that the more he held back, the more his hope faded away. The paradox for the woman or man who does not use their possessions to honor God is that the more we hold back, the more we lose. If you consecrate your possessions to God and serve Him with them, the paradox is that your possessions grow all the more, you will have more, and you will be more blessed. Here I like to add a clarification that may throw a little cold water on the celebration, and it is this, because I believe we have to be fair and clear about things, right?

When we say that God prospers and blesses those who honor Him with their possessions, we have to remember something: it is a general rule of life. It is not as though, if you turn the saint’s statue upside down, God will have to give you whatever you ask Him for. No. Many people believe that way, right? “I put twenty dollars in here, and out comes the girlfriend I asked the Lord for, the latest-model car, the purebred puppy I have wanted all my life, the six-bedroom house I wanted, the university degree,” right? We have a magical mentality that thinks, “I give to the Lord so that He will do something for me, so that He will give me this and give me that.” That is not how it works. It is not white magic. It is about what God says, which is, “Look, honor Me with your possessions and your life in its entirety, and the processes of your life will have a positive net result: blessing.” Why? Because there are moments in life, right? There are times when we lose a little, but afterward things work out and we gain more. Many of you may be going through difficult situations in your lives right now—trials, illnesses, some loss in your life, whatever it may be. But remember this: do not focus only on the moment; think about the end. The Bible says that the end is always good. Perhaps this moment is a time of a little bleeding, but it says that blessing comes in the morning; the song comes. So what God says to you is, “My son, My daughter, honor Me with your possessions, and things will go well with you. Your life will be prospered and blessed. The curve of your life will always be upward. There will be moments of difficulty, but in the morning the sun rises again and the blessing comes.”

And when you have breathed the final breath of your life, you will say, “How good it was that I lived it in God! How good it was that I honored the Lord with my possessions!” And you know what? Your light will continue shining after you are gone—in your children, your grandchildren, the people you discipled, your spiritual children, and the works you did. Your life will not end but will continue until God brings history to an end. So you may be going through a time of trial, scarcity, or difficulty, but remember that what God tells you is, “In the end, son, daughter, there is no loss. The good guy always wins in My movies, and God has good things for you.”

I think I am coming in for a landing now. Let me say something else about this wonderful, pregnant passage. I am talking about being generous, but let us look at the alternative for a moment. Not being generous toward God and His purposes is not merely an omission; it is not merely an omission. It is not that you decide not to do something and that is all. No. What the Bible tells me, the pattern the Bible establishes from Genesis to Revelation, is that failing to honor God actively with your possessions is a sin; it is an active offense and leads to ruin and scarcity. That is what the parable of this foolish man, this rich fool, and many other texts throughout Scripture tell us. It is not that I simply stayed there quietly, made myself invisible while God’s people were carrying out projects and doing things, and simply said, “Well, this has nothing to do with me.” No, no. It is an active omission; it is an offense on our part when we do not live red-hot for God. When we do not honor the Lord with our possessions, it is a sin; it is a failure, because you entered the Kingdom to bear fruit, to be useful, to be an instrument in God’s hands.

Even when you have an abundance of possessions, do you know what happens? When you do not honor God with your possessions, you may have a great deal; you may have great riches and great achievements, but those possessions will turn to water between your fingers. They will not provide the happiness they ought to provide because they have lost their essence, the nature for which they were designed. Not giving to God is withholding; it is turning your possessions into something illusory and into instruments for evil. That is why, for many people, their beauty and youth become an evil to them; their artistic talents turn into neurosis, depression, and destruction; their wealth and professional excellence turn into broken marriages, resentful children, neuroses, and illnesses that arise. Why? Because although they possess material things, when they suddenly look at the material, it is a skull, because that is what it really is. Things without God are death; they are daggers that pierce you inside. The staff on which you lean turns into a serpent in your hand. But with God, it retains its identity. So when you serve the Lord and give to the Lord, that is what happens: it then recovers and retains its true identity.

The Bible says that some give freely and receive even more, while others withhold more than is right. What does “withhold more than is right” mean? It means taking and keeping for yourself something that belongs to God or something that ought to have a positive use in life. It is when you simply accumulate and make gods of material things instead of allowing them to flow for the benefit of others. To withhold—when someone withholds in that way, holds back what belongs to God, and keeps it for themselves—it then becomes something that works against you. The more you withhold, the more you come to poverty. And there are other brothers and sisters who give and, you know what? They seem to become a womb that gives birth endlessly: it constantly gives and gives, and it has more. It becomes a flowing river. I say that we were not made to be ponds; we were made to be rivers that flow. Oh, give glory to God! That sounded beautiful. That came from Him—but how good it was, right?

Look, if you are a pond, you stagnate; if you are a river, you laugh—there’s another one too, isn’t there? That’s how it is: if you hold back more than is right, it will turn into putrid water, like so many ponds, right? But it says something else; it says that the generous soul will prosper, and whoever refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Here this now enters into a horizontal dimension, because not only should we give to God, we should give to our brothers and sisters.

Hey, if you have a cousin somewhere who has just arrived from Honduras or Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and the poor fellow needs a little money to begin his life here in the United States, look, share it; after all, who knows whether you will ultimately be able to use that money you have sitting there in the bank account. Be generous. Perhaps your children need some help, a little boost toward a down payment on a house. Why wait until I die and they are 60 years old to give it to them? What good will it do them then? Give it to them now and enjoy it. Then tell them, “You know what? I’m going to give you that, but I’m going to visit you there, and you’re going to prepare a good meal for me when I come to your house.”

The idea is that you have to seize the moment; you have to be generous. Give to someone in need; be generous. I say that we must live by an ethic of generosity and grace. I try—I want to live that way all my life. I want to give and serve. I do not always succeed, but you know what? That is the secret of mental and emotional health.

A tightfisted person is neurotic in the end, you know, and it is not good to be around such people. They are terrible killjoys. That’s how it is: they are boring and neurotic. Lord, have mercy on them. The person who gives and is generous receives blessing, lives well, lives happily, and God gives them more and more and more.

Be generous. You will be filled, and one day you will find yourself in need and, as if by magic, provision will appear, because whoever shows mercy receives mercy; whoever lives by an ethic of generosity is blessed and receives generosity. The generous soul will prosper. Look, I am going to skip ahead and finish now. I have left many things here; the important thing is that. One last thing—I am going to skip a few things here, and I am going to ask the musicians to come up here quickly. I will leave you with this, this.

Because I was captivated by the fact that this text in Proverbs 3 says something. It says, well, “Honor Jehovah with your possessions, and your barns will have abundance,” but it does not stop there. It also says: “And your winepresses will overflow with new wine.” And I thought, that is not merely—because I always see the Word of God as a chemical formula: when God puts something in it, it is not simply for decoration, but because it has a structural function. Why does God put there that “your winepresses will overflow with new wine”? “Winepresses” are where the grapes are pressed and squeezed to extract the grape juice that becomes wine; those are the winepresses. There are many ways to press grapes, and “new wine” is freshly made wine, wine that has just been pressed. It is an effervescent wine; it is an adolescent wine, expressive and rebellious just as adolescents are, intoxicating. It is a wine of joy. New wine is used for celebration. When the grapevine is harvested in societies where there are grapevines and vineyards, that is the celebration—the new wine, right?

And I believe God put that there to tell us something very important, and God says: “If you always honor me with your life, not only will you have material abundance, but you will also have joy; you will have peace.” You know what? Give me a choice between a toaster or a microwave and joy, and I will choose joy every single time, isn’t that right?

What good is it for me to have a toaster if I am not going to have the joy to enjoy it? There are people who have everything they need and have an ulcer, and what good does it do them to have wines and meats in the refrigerator? Joy—if you are depressed, you cannot enjoy anything even if you have a mansion full of material things.

What God is telling you is: “Son, daughter, if you serve me, honor me, prefer me, I will not only bless you materially, but I will also give you the ability to enjoy what you receive. I will bless your health, your old age, your mind, your emotions, and I will enable you to enjoy life.” It does not take much to enjoy life, my brothers and sisters; it really does not take anything grand, only God’s blessing upon you and his approval.

That is why he says, “I am going to fill your barns with new wine,” so that you may celebrate, so that you may laugh, so that you may dance, so that you may enjoy life, so that you may be a happy old man instead of being depressed because you are alone and no one loves you and you are going to die—no. God wants us to have a blessed old age. Even if we are poor, look, a little piece of bread with butter and a little salt, and a fresh lemonade—you can enjoy yourself and celebrate. You do not need great delicacies. A little tortilla with salt and some refried beans there—that is manna.

If you are happy and God gives you the ability, you do not have to be rich to be happy, brothers and sisters. Family, friends, good works, God, service to the Lord, communion with the eternal, knowing that our passage to heaven has been paid for, first class—that is what brings happiness, brings joy; that is what brings emotional and mental health. God says, “I am going to fill your winepresses with new wine, and you will celebrate as the great cultures celebrate when the season of the vineyards arrives and it is time to gather the grapes.” That is what God wants for you, “Lion of Judah” congregation. Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the firstfruits of all your produce, and he will fill your barn with abundance, and your winepresses will overflow with new wine. The Word of God for you on this day—stand up, receive it in the name of the Lord, receive it now, make it your own, put it deep inside you.

Say, “Lord”—lift up your hands—“Lord, I receive your blessing; I receive your Word on this day, and I fill myself with it.” Believe it and say, “Lord, I am going to live this way for you. I am not going to measure out what I give you with a tiny spoon—no, no. I am going to give you abundantly. I’m going to take all the stuff, and I’m going to just rejoice in giving and serving you all the days of my life. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! Glory to the name of the Lord! Praise the Lord!” We give you glory and honor on this day, Father. Blessed be your name. Lord, there is nothing more to say. Now place your seal of approval and blessing upon your Word in our hearts, Lord. We love you, we love you, we love you. We want to be useful to you; that is all we can say to you. Bless this moment, Father, and give us your blessing.