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Listening Has Its Rewards from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

Transcript: 
Today I am going to be talking about: “The importance of listening to the Holy Spirit” and some things that the Lord has taught us over the years. There is great reward in hearing His voice, and obeying it. 

Now I have always been a giver, but after attending a church that preached on tithing and giving 5 to 6 times a month, I began to grow calloused about it. The messages ran off me like water off a ducks back. I mean I still paid my tithes, but I was out of work, I never knew what the next week held, and I had a house payment and kids in school. I lived entirely on faith, doing odd jobs as I could find them. I did a lot of carpenter work, pressure washing, and at night played in bands.  

I kept a detailed record of every dime that I made, and I faithfully paid 10% of it to my church, and the Lord did take care of us week by week. This is a picture of my tithe records during that time. I kept it in the back of my prayer notebook. This is just to show you that we practice what I am telling you.

One Sunday when I was at church, there was a visiting speaker there, and they took an offering for him. I had already paid my tithes for the week that morning, and I was going to give a few more dollars in this offering, but I felt the Holy Spirit urging me to give more. So I looked in my wallet, and I had $40 on me. I went up and put it in the offering basket. The pastor said a prayer over the basket, saw a light on it, and said that all the money put in it would be returned 100 fold. 

I just thought “another day, another offering”. This was nothing new to me as I had heard that speech before and I had given in literally hundreds of offerings. The $40 was all that I had at the time, it was a bit like the widow's two mites, and I left church that day with just enough gas to get home. I knew though without a doubt that the Holy Spirit wanted to bless that speaker, and I was ok with that.  

The following week, someone gave us $4,000. It was not a loan, but a gift, and they didn’t even go to church. It was just some people that I was working on a house for. They said: “We feel like we should help you, and gave us a check.” God had returned my $40 gift exactly one hundred fold, and it came from an unexpected outside source that knew nothing of me giving money in an offering.

The Lord has done things like that for us several times. Most of the server equipment that Refreshing Hope runs on here was given to us, after we gave something away. Once we felt like we wanted to bless some widows in the church with computers. We had lots of parts around from our business and work was slow, so we put together three computers and then picked out three widows in the church, and gave them each a computer. 

A month later, one of our clients closed their business and gave us all of their high end server equipment. I had hand picked most of it myself and installed it for them. It was easily 10 to 15,000 dollars worth of computer equipment, just given to us. See, that is how the Lord works. We give, then He gives it back multiplied.

In 1^st Kings, God sent Elijah to live with a widow that had nothing but a handful of flour left to live on, and He asked her to give him some of that. Who would ask for a poor widows last morsel of food? God would.

1 Kings 17:8–16 (NKJV) — 8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, 9 “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed 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.” 11 And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” 12 So she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” 

13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.’ ” 15 So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. 16 The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke by Elijah.

God wanted to bless this poor widow, but He required her to give Him something first. This is real. This is how the Lord works. If you keep an “I can’t afford to give anything” mentality, then you will always be just getting by. You will never walk in the fullness of God’s provision until you become a cheerful giver. 

Some will say “Well, thats old testament. We live under grace.” But Jesus Himself told us: 

Luke 6:38 (NKJV) — 38 Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

We give first, then God gives it back multiplied. Let me explain something. When you feel like you should fast, it is absolutely the Holy Spirit calling you to fast. Your body likes to be fed. It is against its nature to go hungry, so it will never tell you: “I feel like that I should fast for a while.” That is the Holy Spirit’s job.

It is the same with giving. When you feel like you should help someone, give something away, or give money to someone, it is the Holy Spirit urging you to do so. Listening to that voice is very important. You have to take that first step of faith, and then there will come a reward from God. 

Certainly you should not be suckered in by long-winded speeches of greed, but there are times when the Lord will ask you for a little, and if you are obedient, He will turn that into a lot. God is not a piñata, and your giving is not a stick. It is your obedience to His timely prompting that counts. 

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please show me divine opportunities and make it clear when I should give, and where, and I will listen and do it. Teach me to listen for Your voice Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray.