Creflo Dollar - The Attractiveness of God's Grace - Part 3
Satan is attempting a worldwide spirit of poverty. You hear me? The years that I tried to prepare the Body of Christ in the area of prosperity was always met with demonic force. Huh. It's here now. What are you prepared to do? Who will you believe? Because people that are possessed with mammon, they're not gonna let you in. What you gonna do? Where you gonna live? Where you gonna get food from? You're cool right now. It's good, right now. You're trusting the system now and all systems go. I stand before you as a prophet of God, telling you right now, please hear me. Prepare now, prepare like Joseph prepared.
Do what you have to do, get before God, "God show me what to do, show me how to walk, show me how to trust in you, Hallelujah," and that same God, that took care of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that same God that took a hundred-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman and contradicted every natural law and caused an Isaac to be born, is ready for whosoever believes. I believe. I believe. When the heart finds all its satisfaction in the things of God and in his Son, there is no need to condemn the pleasures of the world, when my heart finds complete satisfaction in him. God offers far better things in place of those which are to pass away. Psalms 37 verse 16 and 17 in the NLT. Psalms 37 verse 16 and 17 in the NLT. Man, I hope you hear me. This might be the most... You know, God'll tell me which was the most important message I've ever preached before in my life. But this might be one of 'em.
Verse 16 to 17 says, "It is better to be godly and have little, than to be evil and rich, for the strength of the wicked will be shattered, but the Lord takes care of the godly". There's still a transference that's coming. The question is, are you gonna be in position? Look at this Scripture, Philippians, chapter 1:23,24 in the NLT. Philippians chapter 1:23 and 24 in NLT. He says, "I'm torn between two desires. I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me". Did you see that? Do you see what Paul said? "It would be far better for me to depart and to be with Christ". Huh, you kidding me? Far better. Far better. God said to me, he said, "Son, it's not a hard thing to pass over". Passing over ain't no hard thing, all you gotta do is make a decision, what you gonna do? It's not a hard thing.
Paul said, "It would be far better, but for your sakes it is better that I continue to live". For your sakes it is better that I continue to live. Paul saw a whole lot better for him, but for your sake. There are people, we're gonna find out later in Heaven, people that came through this earth, the earth wasn't even worthy to have 'em here, 'cause you're gonna find out the most important things. The world's got it upside down. What you consider the most important thing here on the earth is not what God sees as the most important thing in Heaven. You're gonna find out that this Word is the most important thing that God sees in Heaven and it's the least important thing on the earth, because after all, "All those preachers want is your money".
A demonic slogan. They could easily say it, "All Kroger's wants is your money". They could easily say it, "All Home Depot wants is your money," but it was, "All preachers want is your money," so nothing else mattered except the concern of, do preachers have my money? Well, you don't have to worry about that here, because we can't afford it. Our money's working, ain't none left over for no preacher to be having. You wanna go to the light company and get on the phone and say, "We've been to turn the lights on in the Dome," click. See how much money you don't spent right quick. But that demonic slogan has come upon the minds of so many people, Mammon and greed and fear, why? Because there's a plan to drive you into poverty. A lot of worldliness in the church today is due to a failure to draw the hearts of people to Christ by teaching and emphasizing his attractiveness that we find in grace. It's attractive.
That I've been made the righteousness of God, not by what I did, but by what Jesus did, that's attractive. That all my sins have been forgiven, past, present and future; that's attractive. That Jesus will do the work in me if I believe it, that's attractive. That Jesus will change my desires and give me the power to do what pleases him; that's attractive. And because that's not been heard and taught, there was never the attractiveness found in grace because of the condemnation that came from our preaching in the pulpit, to try to get you to change by shaming you and making you feel guilty and making you feel shameful and condemned. You can't look at me like, "Oh, that's not the truth". I know it's the truth, I used to do it. When offerings were low, Malachi 3 was my baby. I had to go to Malachi 3. "You cursed with a curse. You don't rob God in the whole United States of America, and you've not only robbed God in tithe, you are crooking offerings too.
Now let's receive the offering, praise the Lord". I don't even see how we did it. But the attractiveness of grace is God says, "I want you to be generous in your giving, but I wanna make sure it come out of your heart, not out of a threat, and a fear, and shaming you: Shame on you, you got a divorce. Shame on you that you missed it last night. Shame on you, you still smoking cigarettes. Shame on you that you didn't show up for the Bible study on a Wednesday to help us feed the poor. Shame, shame, shame". And you can take so much of shame before you just don't wanna come near it no more. "Hey, man, you going to church". "I'm tired, I just", you don't know what to call it buddy. What it was was, "I just don't feel like being shamed no more. So, I'm gonna just go on and stay home with my shameful self. And I'm gonna sit in my shame".
Wake up, man, how many things that God has done right in your face? How many people he saved, and you know what they used to be like? You know where they came from, and he saved them. And you saw it. Okay, they may not be perfect and flawless, even though they got saved, but who is? I don't think it's right for you to take a young man or a young woman who's struggling in their sexuality and condemn them to hell. I don't think it's right. I don't care how much Bible you know; I don't care how long you been in the middle, member of the church, I don't care. Because you'll never know about it until it visits your front door. I don't think it's right. That's not my God, that's that religious God over there somewhere. All I know is God can help anybody, wherever they are, no matter what they dealing with, I trust in God. I trust in God, and now we gotta learn how to trust God.
Why do you think that the journey means, the journey can't continue because you had a flat tire and you got two spares in the trunk? Why are we so quick to do that to people? As we stand up in our self-righteousness, "Well, I'm not that, at least I'm not as worse as they were. You know, they done had three divorces. I've been with the same wife for 50 years". That don't mean she happy. What that mean? I am preaching this sermon today like it is the last sermon I will ever have to preach to you. I am preaching it today because I asked, as I was studying this, if this was the last sermon I preach, what would it sound like this? This. "Well, I don't know about this church. I don't know if I can... the way he articulates and the stuff that he says, it's too worldly," now you calling my sermon worldly.
Good, maybe you can understand it with your worldly self. Maybe I did like God did, brought the law on the level of man, I'm trying to bring a sermon on the level of people who've been impacted by this world, who have experienced, oh, my goodness, the trauma of living on this planet, the trauma of being homeless, the trauma of being a different color, by church folks. It's just time for this... it's time for us to wake up. It's time for you to look at yourself and say, "Who do I think I am? For without you, I can't do nothing". And when you see people going through stuff, ask God to give you empathy. Ask yourself why are they there, doing that? Get in their shoes, just for a moment and wonder, wonder what happened that bought them from being this innocent child, to killing somebody. What trauma had to take place for them to be there? And If empathy should show up, it should definitely show up from us.
The Bible says, "Allow room for the faults of others". No empathy. God help us to have empathy. Help us to know that people didn't just, they just wasn't born like that; something happened. Show me what happened. Show me how to address this thing. Don't let me show it with this holier than thou arrogant attitude, show me how to be empathetic. And show me what to do. I don't know how many years we got, nobody knows the day or the hour, but I'm on telling you right now, don't even ever ask me, "When you're gonna retire"? It ain't gonna happen. I ain't going, I ain't retire... Oh, okay, well I can answer that, when will I retire? When I leave. "Well Rev, we wanna hear somebody else".
Well go to another church and hear somebody else, but as long as you come here, you... this is what... I'm a be right in this pulpit. I ain't going nowhere, 'cause the ministry in me hadn't even started yet. It's all coming together, it's just now coming together. I'm not looking back at what happened 40 years ago, it's just now coming together. My brain had just closed that 30, and then it was getting cemented through my 30's, and then my 40's I was realizing that I don't know as much as I thought I knew... and in my 50's, I was just tired of everything and was ready to quit every time you look around. But oh, the wine is getting better, and better, and better, and better. You hadn't even got started yet. You haven't even got started yet, honey. The best is yet to come.
And you got to stop this thing of, "That ain't what I wanna hear," like it's some type of, it's like McDonald's, "Have it your way". It's ain't, some stuff, it ain't about what you wanna hear, some of the stuff you just gotta sit there and take your medicine. Some of this stuff is gotta be something you need to hear. And then you go shop churches like you shop everything else, until you can find something that that you like, for a minute. I'm free man. I love y'all, but ain't no way in the world we're going to heaven and you accuse me of not teaching what God told me to teach. You better be careful saying, "Well, we never did learn that". I'm gonna be right behind that throne, "Yousa liar".
Now, I wanna do something today. I want you to prepare your offering. This is really weird, but not that weird. I want you to look at Psalms, put it up on the screen. Psalms 96, verse 7 and 8 in the New Living Translation. If you need an offering envelope, raise your hands. Where's my offering? Oh, here it is. Yeah, Taffi and I were talking about this, prepare while you're home, worship while you home. Don't have to wait 'til you get to church. When you start taking this seriously, this is like man, this is vital part of my life, giving. Those of you who are watching through the stream, I'm glad you had waffles in bed, but get up and get your telephone so you can participate in our giving.
Somebody say, "Waffle and Coffee with Creflo," then I say it's offering time, they say, "Well I guess that's the end of the service". Why has the enemy attacked this so much? Because I believe it's gonna be a major key in what's getting ready to happen. Psalms 96. Let's look at it in the King James first, 96 verse 7 through 9. "Give unto the Lord O you kindreds of the people. Give unto the Lord glory and strength". I'm like, okay so what do we do? We lift our hands up, what do we do? How do we give unto the Lord glory and strength? What does that mean? He says, "Give unto the Lord glory due unto his name".
How do we give unto the Lord glory due unto his name? Bring an offering. What? For me to give glory to his name, he says, "one way to do it is to bring an offering, and then come into his courts". Verse 9, "Come into his courts and worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, reverencing before him all the earth. Oh, worship the Lord". Now I get what he was saying, giving is worship. Somehow in my head I was like, well, let's do the altar call, so we can get people saved. He's like, "No, no, no, worship me. Worship me, give me glory. Give me glory for what you heard. Give me glory for what the Spirit of God spoke to you. Bring me an offering and worship me. Continue to worship me. I want what's in your heart. I wanna speak to you. I want to be involved in your giving. Worship me".