Words of Jesus Podcast - How Do We Plan to Thank God

Starting point is 00:00:00 Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series. We're in chapter 67 now and a rather lot of reading. Better get to it. Jesus speaks of God's care. Seek ye the kingdom. After Jesus had related the parable about the rich man, he spoke to his disciples, saying, Therefore, now this is, he's saying,

Starting point is 00:00:49 we just got finished talking about this, remember the last program. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, neither for the body, what you shall put on, for life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap,

Starting point is 00:01:15 which neither have storehouse nor barn, and God feedeth them. How much more are ye better than the fowls? And which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? If ye then be not able to do that which is least, what take ye thought for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They toil not, they spin not. And yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory

Starting point is 00:01:46 was not arrayed like one of these. If God so clothed the grass, which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And seek not that ye shall eat or what you shall drink neither be of doubtful mind for all these things do the nations of the world seek after and your father knows that you have need of all these things but rather seek ye the kingdom of god and all these things will be added to you fear not little flock for it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom

Starting point is 00:02:33 sell that you have give alms provide for yourselves bags which wax not old a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Stopping there, I want you to see that Jesus gave the answer to the question that the man in our previous program asked. When he saw his great abundance, he asked the question, what shall I do? There's his answer.

Starting point is 00:03:19 I understand keeping a savings account. I understand that. I understand planning for your future. I understand those things. And we live in a very precarious, uncertain time that we live in today. We don't know that milk's not going to be $25 a gallon next week. We don't know that. Or it may be non-existent altogether. There may be expenses you don't know about. I mean, who in the world? You ever watch an old TV show, you know,

Starting point is 00:03:56 and you see Andy Griffith standing on the street corner, and you look behind him and you see, you know, chicken breast, 29 cents a pound there at the store. And you think, wow, how did it get to what it is now? Well, I understand that there's uncertainty in the times and there's a certain amount of, you know, conscientious savings. It makes sense. But you know, God cannot seem to bless us with so much that we consider other people.

Starting point is 00:04:35 You just can't seem to do it. How much do you want? How much is enough? So your answer to this is build bigger barns? Oh boy, I got a raise, I'm going to buy another CD. Does anybody do that anymore? I'm talking about a certificate of deposit for you young people that think I'm talking about a circular piece of plastic.

Starting point is 00:05:10 So, really, that's where we're going with our abundance? Is more stuff for me? Really, is that what we're going to do? How much could, you know, I've had people, you know, they say to me, you know, I bought a lottery ticket the other day. Oh, yeah, that's great. I'm happy for you.

Starting point is 00:05:31 No, I don't lie to them. But, you know, it's $45 billion. I don't know, billion, trillion, quintillion, I don't know, nor do I care. But they'll say things like, man, if I was to win that, TRI would never need anything. I bet we will. I bet we will still struggle to pay the electric and struggle to buy equipment and struggled to buy airtime and will still.

Starting point is 00:06:06 I'll bet you that the lottery couldn't pay you enough that you would give it away. I bet, I bet, I don't know, I don't know. What is that amount? I'll tell you what the amount is. It's what's left over after you've done what you're supposed to do

Starting point is 00:06:30 to make sure your family's taken care of. Let me talk to you just a minute about this because one of the things that we as Christians have sacrificed when we tore the Old Testament out of our Bible and said it doesn't pertain, when we have the Old Testament out of our Bible and said it doesn't pertain, when we have launched our campaigns of it's all about faith and it's not about works, it's not about what you do, and God doesn't care if you sin, and everybody's forgiven, his mercy endures forever, and we don't need the Old Testament telling us that we're sinners.

Starting point is 00:07:00 Let me tell you the fruit of that kind of thinking. It has separated us from some of the best money management ideas that the Lord ever gave us. One thing is, in the Christian world, many preachers are very satisfied with saying or teaching or making it known in one way or another, we don't believe in tithing anymore. That's the Old Testament. That's the Old Covenant. That was for the Jews. Oh, yeah, okay.

Starting point is 00:07:38 I see it over there in the garbage can with the Sabbath. Yeah, I get that. So what do we do now? How do we honor the Lord with our substance, with the first fruit of all of our increase, as the scriptures talk about? How do we do that? Well, now we owe God everything.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Right? You've heard this. And now, you know, it's not just 10%. It's everything. No, preacher. No, we're not going to go with your opinion if it's all the same to you. Let's just go with the scriptures. If God wanted 11%, he would have said 11%. If he wanted nine, he would have said nine. But you know what i've noticed about people who say we owe god everything for the most part those people don't give anything i wonder why that is i wonder why people who feel like they owe god everything don't give him

Starting point is 00:08:42 anything i wonder why that is. Well, you know, if you decide, I do want to honor the Lord with my substance. You have a concern about the economic times that we live in? I got a great insurance policy for you. And it's a promise of God. Why don't you pay your tithes? Why don't you quit robbing God? If you stop robbing God, he says,

Starting point is 00:09:07 I'll tell you what I'll do for you. I'll open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there won't be room enough to receive it. Talking with a person recently, can't pay the bills, always got money troubles. Now the car's blown up and can't do this and can't do that, don't have any

Starting point is 00:09:25 money got to borrow money got a borrowed interest you know and uh people knocking on the door and ringing the phone and everything and i say i would ask you if you're tithing but you're not oh yeah i'm tithing no you're not oh yeah i am no you're not and then you you know you push him a little bit and you find out he paid tithes in january you know six months ago nine months ago last year perhaps he did i don't know but tithing's not a part of his life and you want me to ask god to get involved in your finances you want me to tell you how to do this why don't you do what the bible says to do you know how can a guy like that say i just think think we owe God everything? I don't know how he does that, but he does. So you're not going to do

Starting point is 00:10:28 anything. You're not going to do anything. Well, I give offerings. Not if you don't tithe, you don't give offerings. I'll tell you what you do. Go down to the bank where your house is financed, and you haven't paid your house note in four or five months, and go up there and pop him a 20. Throw it on his desk and say, hey, bud, that's for you. What's this?

Starting point is 00:10:57 Just a little tip, a little offering. I appreciate you people. You owe us $2,345. Yeah, well, that's just a gift. No, we don't take gifts from people who owe us all this money. You know, I don't know how you think you're giving an offering to God if you haven't even paid your tithes. I don't understand that. Look, this ministry has a distinction that we never ask people for money for any reason. We don't sell anything. We don't ask for offerings. We don't say if you don't

Starting point is 00:11:39 give we're going off the air. We just don't do it. I'm under a mandate from God not to do it. Another story for another time. But, it becomes a problem when I want to teach you about tithes because everybody who listens to this program, everybody that's listening right now, they may have already done it.

Starting point is 00:12:03 Reached over and turned it off said i see there those preachers they're all about money and i which is one of the reasons by the way that uh that the lord gave me saying that we're going to do this without money we're going to do it somehow without you begging for money okay i've done it both ways one way you get money and the other way you don't but that's his lookout not mine but one of the reasons why is i was we were talking about hypocrisy a few shows back and i was telling you that uh that one of the reasons people won't go to church, they don't want nothing to do with church, there are a bunch of hypocrites in the church.

Starting point is 00:12:50 That's not the thing today. What's the thing today? It's all about money. Well, I'll tell you, we've really missed the boat on this one. We have really messed this up because it has been God's intention to bless us and to take care of all of our needs. And he takes care of the needs of this ministry. He certainly takes care of my needs personally. I tithe. I not only give the 10% that that he delineates in the old testament you remember the book that we we don't read um but i set aside 10 to keep the feast of the lord like the book says to do

Starting point is 00:13:33 i set aside a third of my income for the widow and the orphan and the the indigent the people you know that have needs out there in the world. Well, you're sitting there looking at 23% of a guy's income. Well, 23%? Wait a minute. I thought you said we owed God everything. You don't give a tenth. You're certainly not going to give 23%.

Starting point is 00:14:00 But you still maintain that we owe God everything. Wow, does life really make sense to you? Do you tie one shoelace to the other? I don't even know how you think. How can things be that illogical? When it comes to wanting to give to the Lord, yes, I'd like to make an offering to God. I'd like to be obedient to God. Well, like to be obedient to God. Well, where are you going to get that information in your New Testament? You're not.

Starting point is 00:14:30 You're going to get it from your New Testament preacher. He'll tell you. He'll pass the plate under your nose. He doesn't care that Jesus said don't do that in public. Don't ever give money in public. Why would you give money in public? So people can see you do it. Don't do that.

Starting point is 00:14:50 They don't care that Jesus said don't do that. They don't care that Jesus laid the laws out and spoke to mankind for 1,500 years before he got here and said if you want to give to the lord here's the way you do it and he talks about in those days you know sheep were you know they were like gold coins man they were that was a man's money that was his his riches you go you go out and bring your sheep out of the field and you're going to put them in the coat for the night? And as they come in,

Starting point is 00:15:30 the shepherd would touch them on the back with the rod as they'd go by. Anybody that tries to count cattle or something like that knows that that's pretty much the only way you can keep track of what you're doing. Touch each one of them and count as you go. And he says, every tenth one that passes under that rod belongs to me. Hmm.

Starting point is 00:15:52 A tenth, huh? So by this action of the tenth one passing under the rod, he said that one belongs to me. Well in those days when the temple was set up and the priest had to minister in the temple, you're talking about men that weren't allowed to own sheep. They weren't allowed to own any land. I placed myself voluntarily in that mandate on my life. But I'm not commissioned of God to be a priest

Starting point is 00:16:23 by any means, but you know what? If he says this is the way I'm going to make your mouth free and powerful to speak to people the truth, then I say it's a good idea. I've found it to be excellent. I've told preachers, you know, you want to add 60% or 70 percent power to your sermons? Quit taking money for doing it. All of a sudden, you're free. You're not preaching to somebody who

Starting point is 00:16:56 gives a thousand dollars a week to your congregation. He's preaching to a man. That's what the Lord wants you to do just a regular old guy well if i offend him he'll go away you know what if you're not on salary you don't really care and you're going to tell him the truth i found it to be very freeing as you can tell um but if he gave us a system to give why aren't we using that and i wanted to say i kind of got off on tithing but tithing is a part of this law that says that you know i mean this uh instruction it's not it's not in the ten commandments we're not under a legal obligation to pay tithes no that's not me that's not the bible no you're not and as i've said before many times we we gather up stupid behavior and put it

Starting point is 00:17:56 into the category of sin trying to get people to comply but you don't have the right to do that if it's not a sin it's not a sin, it's not a sin, but it's still stupid behavior. Now, here's the thing that we should understand, that if he gives us 10, one belongs to him, what are those other nine for? You want to be Mr. Super Spiritual and say, oh, God, you know, we owe him everything and give him all. It's not what he said to do. That nine that is left, that 90% of what you are increased every

Starting point is 00:18:36 week, month, year, whatever, however your situation is, that 90%, that's for taking care of your family. That's for gathering the things that are necessary for life. Now you have an overabundance, what are you going to do? Are you going to build a barn? Or are you going to give it to somebody who needs it? Are you going to set it aside to perhaps make an interest-free loan to somebody of your family? You know, the Bible says that we should do that.

Starting point is 00:19:02 Does any of us do this? Does anybody offer interest-free loans to our family? You know, I know somebody that has enough money in the bank right now to pay all of their children's house notes, pay them off for them. Money that those children are going to receive when this person dies. But they can't do it. They can't give them that money. They have to have the barn.

Starting point is 00:19:33 They have to have it in the barn. Now, all the time that this is going on, you have all of her children struggling to make a living, bought a house that's too expensive. They all are go go to some shyster i'm sorry go to some banker and get the money to pay for it dealing with loans that their aprs are unbelievable they're going to end up paying three or four times more for that house than they actually bought it for, which was overpriced to begin with. And all of this could be alleviated

Starting point is 00:20:12 simply by interest-free loan. Does that ever occur to anybody to do that? It would if they'd read the Old Testament and say, this is the way we're supposed to take care of one another. Do you realize how enriched the body of Christ would be if we took care of each other like this? No, that's not what we do. I got a banker friend down there. He'll give you a loan. Oh, thank you. Thank you ever so much. But essentially, nobody does this within the church. We don't take care of each other. We don't do for each other. We don't help each other raise their children.

Starting point is 00:20:57 We send them to babysitters. We don't sit and talk to them about the things of God and give them whatever wisdom and understanding that he's given us in our quiet meditation and share with them and help them along and teach them. No, we send them to psychiatrists. Maybe you can get them on some mind-bending drug that'll put a smile on their face. Maybe so.

Starting point is 00:21:23 We've just become a professional society look man that world out there that cares nothing about Jesus Christ that world out there they're making tons of money off of people who will not do what God has taught them to do when it comes to money and why?

Starting point is 00:21:44 okay I'll give you the benefit and say, okay, perhaps you haven't read it. But it's in there. It's in the book they told you to stay away from. It's in there. It tells you how to do these things. It tells you how to loan money. It teaches you how to do that.

Starting point is 00:22:03 It tells you how to forgive a debt. It's all in there. But see, nobody wants to live like that. They want that money in their barn. That's what they want. Do you know the Bible teaches that, you know, I've seen people that are in such mess, they cannot pay tithithe or they'll be out of a place to live. They get in that kind of mess. And if they will yield themselves, submit themselves, I can help people out of those situations simply just by counseling them if they'll do what I'm telling them to do. And one of those things is tithing, but many times the tithe has to be

Starting point is 00:22:44 suspended. Did you know that God actually made a provision in the Bible for you to use your tithe to help yourself get from one planting and harvest to another planting and harvest? Or if you need that money, you can redeem your tithe. Now, you can't have it, but you can redeem your tithe now you can't have it but you can redeem it he'll loan it to you you realize that he's not asking us to do anything for each other that he's not willing to do for us what a wonderful god we have what a wonderful god we have and he'll loan it to you at interest. Well, no, it's not really interest. But it does turn it into a 20% tithe when it's paid back. That's true. But the system is there to make this work. We do not have any excuse

Starting point is 00:23:39 for living like we do when it comes to the area of finances. If people tithe to their church and the church had a heart toward god and they were indeed christian and they really did care about other people there's a lot of ifs attached to all this but if we would do what we're supposed to do do you know when he says i'll open up the windows of heaven and open this storehouse to the point that your barns can't receive it you know what this is this is provision god to other people do you know if if the churches did what they were actually supposed to do they might be meeting in a hovel they might be meeting in a church that's got worn out carpet.

Starting point is 00:24:27 Or they might be meeting downtown in a civic auditorium. Or they might be renting a place or that kind of thing. Maybe their buildings wouldn't be so pretty. But the welfare system in that city, wouldn't they just be sitting around filing their nails with nothing to do? How could you do that? Tithe? they'd just be sitting around filing their nails with nothing to do. How could you do that?

Starting point is 00:24:47 Tithe? Just tithe? I don't believe in tithing. Well, go on then. Why don't you go find somebody that agrees with you? Like, I don't know, Satan? He doesn't tithe either. He doesn't believe in it. But, you know, if you're going to be christian you're going to worship him and if you worship him you worship the man that sent him the the being

Starting point is 00:25:14 the god who sent him that's what he said and what we find his father doing is laying out a system so that you can have me involved in your In the gain in your life tithe on on your increase That's another thing people don't teach you you tithe on the on the gross or the or the net, you know They want to talk about all that stuff. You know, I know people who who have made money and and I paid tithes on that when I made it. I don't have to pay it now that it's being paid back in their retirement. I don't have to pay tithes on that.

Starting point is 00:25:52 Really, you don't have to? Really, that's the way you live? You only do what you have to do? Well, good luck. Oh, by the way, God doesn't have to save you either. He didn't have to send his son. he didn't have to give you this scripture he didn't have to do a lot of things oh you think he did well he sure didn't think so when he says watch out noah watch out moses watch out i'm gonna wipe them out and we'll start all over.

Starting point is 00:26:28 Obviously, he doesn't believe what you believe. But many things that he does for us, he doesn't have to do. And if he gives you the power to get wealth, he gives you the power to have increase in your life, how are you going to thank him otherwise? Send him a Hallmark card? How are you going to do that? Write a silly little song and say, oh you are this and you are that and you are wonderful and I approve of you?

Starting point is 00:26:54 Or are you going to do it the way he says to do it? Didn't mean for this to be all about money today, but folks need to learn to tithe, alright? I don't know anybody who's teaching it, so I got to do it. All right, folks, we're out of time. Email me at don at thinkredinc.com, or you can write to us at Think Red Inc. Ministries, PO Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico, 87827.

Starting point is 00:27:22 All right, until next time, think red inc., my friend? Bye-bye. you've been listening to don c harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you

Words of Jesus Podcast - How Do We Plan to Thank God

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