WARNING TO THIS GENERATION : THIS GENERATION DOES NOT LIKE INSTRUCTIONS – Bishop Oyedepo
TAKE GOD’S WORD OR LEAVE IT!
OUR STEWARDSHIP IS REWARDED ONLY WHEN WE SERVE GOD ACCEPTABLY, NOT ACTIVELY.
-Bishop David Oyedepo at CHoP
This generation does not like instructions.
They want their input and they want you to respect that.
God does not need your input: it is ‘Take it or Leave it’
Every time we come at the feet of Jesus for His Word, we have access to 4 dimensions of that Word:
He unveils to us the principles of the Kingdom: we call them Doctrines.
He reproofs,
He corrects and
He instructs.
But we in the Charismatics, keep celebrating the principles, mostly impervious to its reproofs, some of the time angry with His corrections and wonder why we have to live under instructions all the time.
The profiting that comes from the Word is not being fully realised in many lives. That is why it takes meekness to learn because most of the time, we are reproved, we are corrected and we are always instructed. The instructions are strict, so it takes meekness to align.
“You don’t turn to the right or to the left. You do all I say you should do”: This generation does not like that. They want their input and they want you to respect that.
God does not need your input. His Word is settled in Heaven forever: it is ‘Take it or Leave it’ – Psalm 119:89
Prayers: Ask the Lord for grace to embrace these 4 dimensions of blessings that comes through the Word.
To align with the principles, to embrace the rebukes, go for its corrections and its instructions.
Thank You Jesus for this grace this morning.
…Heavenly Father, thank You again for the beginning of another working week. Let this week be filled with Your presence. Let the fullness of your blessing manifest in everyone’s life. Again, change our spiritual lives.
Move us forward in our walk with You.
Let this week be a most profitable one for every one of us. Let it be a crisis-free week for us. In the name of Jesus Christ. Thank You Father, in Jesus precious name.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
We understand from God’s Word that He is not looking for who to use, but who to bless.
Mark 10:28
There is no one who has left all to serve me who shall not have hundred-fold of it now in this time and in the world to come life everlasting.
Matthew 19:27-29, Mark 10:28-30, Luke 18:28-30
All saying the same thing. God is not looking for who to use but who to bless.
Everyone that is genuinely all out for God, they enjoy 100-fold returns for all of their investment. That’s God’s agenda.
God is not looking for who to rob of his time, energy and resources; but who to enrich – Job 36:11
Luke 22:35 – God is not looking for who to rob of his resources, of his time, of his energy but who to enrich.
When you serve Him with your resources for instance, according to Haggai chapter 1, He opens the Heaven over your life, as you will be getting enriched for serving Him with your resources.
-Somebody, for instance, will build a house through Transportation seed.
-Somebody will own a car.
-Somebody will buy a bus.
-Somebody will seed a bus to his Zone.
By simply promoting His Kingdom with His resources in your hand.
That’s not your resources, it is His resources in your hand, to watch what you will do with this one before He brings you to the next level. “Let me watch what He will do with this one.”
Transportation seed: “No, when I am blessed, I am going to get involved.”
You don’t get blessed until you are involved.
You just must know where to begin from. If you don’t know how to start off in solving an equation, you will just get stranded.
You must know where to start from.
We must understand what it takes for our stewardship to yield expected returns. We must learn – Ecclesiastes 10:15.
Acts 17:30, 32 – People have their choice.
“The times of ignorance God has winked that, but He commands everyone, everywhere to repent.” It is important for us to learn what it takes to make our stewardship profitable.
UNDERSTANDING THE DEMANDS FOR PROFITABLE STEWARDSHIP
Because good understanding procures favour but the way of the sinner is hard. We need good understanding of what to do to make our inputs, our investment of time, energy and resources profitable.
Proverbs 13:15
Let’s come out of that hardship. Let’s come into the comfort realm of stewardship by knowing what it takes. We are looking at 3 of them:
1. We must serve God willingly.
If I do this thing willingly, I have a reward.
But If I am coerced and pressurized: “I have to be involved; I am an official of the Church.”
1 Corinthians 9:16-17
“…woe is me if I preach not the gospel”: That means there is a lot loaded in there for me to do.
There is a lot of favour loaded in preaching the gospel.
So I don’t have anything to glory in, I am just tapping into the blessedness of doing it.
However, “if I do this thing willingly”: it is the only way I will have a reward
If against my will: I am just marking time! I am serving God like an Ass.
When Balaam could not hear anymore an Ass spoke with the voice of a Man.
2 Corinthians 8:12
First: It is a fundamental requirement. Willingness in stewardship is key to accessing your reward. If you are not doing it willingly, you are just marking time, you are wasting time, nothing is going to happen in return.
But when you engage in it as if you are eating.
John 4:34
It is your natural will to eat. You are not struggling with it. Eating is the natural will of man.
When doing the will of God becomes your natural will, you become heavily rewarded in return.
2. Our service must be from the heart.
Ephesians 6:6; Proverbs 4:23; Jeremiah 17:9-10
He checks out on your heart, before He determines what returns you are entitled to.
Proverbs 4:23
“Well, if not I was here, can I be in all this kind of mess. If I was in America, if I was in Europe, I mean, I won’t be running around like this.
Well, well, let’s go!” – He heard every single note that you made in your heart. God hears everything. He knows what you will say tomorrow, so He is not taken by surprise.
But He rewards everyone according to the ways that He found in his heart and then the fruits of His doings.
So your heart first and your doings next.
-No one here shall labour in vain anymore.
-You shall not labour in vain anymore.
2 Chronicles 25:2 – We had a king named Amaziah. He did that which was right but not with a perfect heart. So returns truncated.
He did what was right but not with a perfect heart. So returns from his investment, his doings was truncated.
So we need to have a genuine heart for God, to have our stewardship to be profitable.
3. Finally, remember, until our service is acceptable it is not rewardable. It has to be acceptable first, before it can yield rewards.
Until the earth receives your seed, your harvest is not in view.
What is it that makes it acceptable?
Hebrews 12:28
“…serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”
That is the fundamental, the beginning of Wisdom: Doing things that work.
That is wisdom.
Let us have grace that we may serve God acceptably not actively.
Amaziah was doing it actively but not acceptably. His heart was not right.
“Let us do it fear and godly reverence” – You need godliness, we need godliness to have our stewardship yield returns.
2 Timothy 2:19-21
No games.
To be a vessel of honour, to enjoy returns: purge yourself of everything that turns God off.
Then your ste wardship will be acceptable.
Purge yourself of the things that put God off; then your stewardship will be acceptable.
Free yourself from pride and arrogance and all forms of defilement and then your stewardship will profitable.
Until your stewardship is acceptable, it can never be profitable.
Prayers: Lord, grace to serve You acceptably and profitably. I receive it today.
Let this week mark another turn of event in my walk with you. Help me to serve You with fear and godly reverence from now.
Help me to keep serving You willingly. To keep serving You from the heart, not with eye service, that men may see me. Lord Jesus, I receive this 3-fold grace this morning.
Don’t be among those who will mock it, be among those who will follow it.
#BishopDavidOyedepo
#CHoP6Sept2021
CHoP is an acronym for Covenant Hour of Prayer