Bill Winston - Rising To The Top, Part 4
If you belong to Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Are you Abraham's seed? Are you an heir? What he spoke to Abraham, is that for you? How are you going to receive it? Now, that means you get up in the morning, say "Father, I thank you for the blessing that is on my life". Now, why am I saying this? That same blessing now is passed onto Isaac. It says over in Genesis, chapter 26, at verse two, he said, it's talking about Isaac's life, "The Lord appeared to him and said: Go not down to Egypt. Dwell in the land that I shall tell you of. Sojourn in this land and I'll be with you".
Sojourn means walk around in it like you own it. "I will bless you, for unto thee and to thy seed will I give all these countries, and I'll perform the oath which I swear to Abraham, thy father". Then he says, "I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and I'll give unto thy seed all these countries, and in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be", what, "blessed". He's not just going to bless this group. Who is he going to bless? All the nations. Now, he's not just going to bless this group of people here, he's going to bless who again? Now, who does all the nations of the earth include? That includes you. Black folks, white folks, Indian folks, come on, Chinese folk, any folks that's folks, they going to get the same blessing.
Notice verse 12 in that same chapter, "Then Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year 100 fold and the Lord blessed him. The man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great: for he had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, great store of servants: and the Philistines envied him". You were never supposed to be pitied, you were supposed to be envied. I want to show you something, because when the blessing starts coming on you, you can't hide it. You cannot hide the blessing. Why? It's going to overrun anything you've got.
Now, what I said to you in terms of six steps to the top, don't confuse or mistaken your condition with your portion. If what you read doesn't agree with your life, you're coming up short. I'm saying the devil is stealing something. The first place he steals it is through lack of knowledge. I'm telling you I'm giving you the knowledge. I'm giving you the knowledge so that you can wake up in the morning and say, "I'm blessed. I'm blessed going in into work this morning, and I'm blessed coming out of work". You take that scripture. Why? You've got to believe what you say. Lets look at the New Living Translation. Again, look at this, "When Isaac planted his crop, that year he harvested 100 times more grain than he planted, for the Lord", what, "blessed him". Now, we're not talking about increase over time, we're talking about explosive increase. We're talking about increase that happens over night. Are you following what I'm saying?
Now, it would be not good if God increased you, ran all that stuff over and then the devil took your life. One thing you know, not only do you get the prosperity, but you get the protection with it. No, you're not to be pitied, you're to be envied. The time for y'all getting second hand stuff is over. Come on. Stay with me now, because I see y'all looking at me strange now. I don't know about this. Don't try to take the Word of God and bring it down to your thinking. You take your lifestyle and take it up to the Word of God. Got it? Think about it, if you knew everything, you wouldn't be in here. If your life and condition in your life does not match the Word of God, you got some work to do. It's not that God is holding it back from you, there's something you don't know and something the devil has stolen. This is your inheritance, go get it.
All right, now I want to show you something in here, because where Jacob got blessed, I want to go back there to Genesis again, chapter 27. "Isaac began to tremble uncontrollably and said, 'Then who just served me with wild game? I have already eaten it and I blessed him just before you came in. Yes, that blessing must stand". Now watch this, I got my Bible at home, my New Living Bible or Old Living Bible at home. Here's what it says, "I blessed him with an irrevocable blessing". Once you are blessed, you can't wash it off. Once you are blessed, Satan can't separate you from it. Once you are blessed the only way it doesn't work is that somehow you have been taught into doing things that are anti-blessing, things that will cause that blessing not to work. Hatred won't work. Come on now. Anger doesn't work. Are you following what I'm saying?
I'm saying you, as you rise, anybody that's going to rise with a blessing is going to be persecuted. In fact, he said over in Mark, chapter ten, at verse 29 and 30, when you receive the blessing of the hundred fold. He said, "Jesus answered and said 'Verily I say unto you, there is no man that has left house, a brother and sisters, or a father, a mother, a wife or children, or lands for my sake and the gospels, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, brethren, sisters, mothers, children, and lands with persecution". You're guaranteed to be persecuted. Now if you're guaranteed to be persecuted, how are you going to handle it. Love.
See, if you retaliate with it, it will cut off the blessing for your life; what you've accumulated could be stolen. Not only that, you won't make it to the top. Make up your mind right now that you ain't going to get mad, start hating on people and so forth and so on. Make up your mind right now. Come on now. Now see in the natural those kingdom principles seem to be weak when they come up against principles like revenge and manipulation. No, they're not weak. You see, hatred is a slow death. The Bible says in Proverbs, chapter 14 in verse 12: "There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end of that way is death". Your body and mine were not made to hate. Folks, you can even get strife in your body and in your mind, and you'll find that strife and anger and hatred, it even effects the bones. It said it will rot your bones. Why? It's from the pit of hell. I'm saying get it out of your life and make up your...
Wait. "well they make me mad", well you better find some other way to vent it, because if you vent it other than love and start letting a lot of mess come out of your mouth, that anointing will stop. That thing will stop, and the next thing you know stuff that you got starts drying up, then you wonder what happened to you. Get your attitude back right. All right, lets look at it. Come on over here to Matthew's gospel, chapter five. Is this a ripe bunch I'm talking to? Now you saying, wait a minute now, "for some reason I think I deserve to hate. You don't know what they did to me, pastor. I deserve". No, no, no, no. You can't play that kind of game. You in the kingdom now. Say "Amen". You are going to represent your Father, and he said one thing, "Vengeance is mine, and I will recompense".
Folks, he just told you, whoever tried to curse you going to be cursed. All this is yours. Say "it's my inheritance". Everything that he did for Abraham, everything that he did for Isaac, everything that he did for Jacob, he has to do for you. The blessing is your only guarantee that you will reach your destiny, that this blessing that is on your life guarantees that you'll finish your assignment. Remember you're not supposed to be pitied, you're supposed to be envied. As a matter of fact, look at that on a scripture. Look at what it says in Deuteronomy, chapter 28 and verses one and two.
Let's look at that first, Deuteronomy 28, "And it shall come to pass, if thou hearken diligently the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee high above all nations of the earth". Go all the way down to verse ten, please. "And all these blessings shall come on you and overtake you". Verse ten "All the people of the earth shall see". Say "see". Folks, you can't hide it. You can't hide it. You think they like you and all of that, but wait till you drive up there in that Bentley. Come on now, come on. Wait till you show up with this Boaz. "How did she get him? She don't even look as good as I do". Come on. come on.
See this blessing will go to work for you. From today, you're no longer to be pitied. You're to be envied. What God is going to bring through the blessing in your life is equivalent to the Garden of Eden. Glory to God. It's so much till you can't hide it anymore. Man, I'm preaching, better than you're saying amen. Now what happened? Do you believe that? See, if you just believe you're a man of God, and start confessing it and walking in it and expecting it, it will work on your life. Now, what can you do with it? You can change the culture of a community, glory to God, of a whole city. See, Adam had it on him to manage the universe. The power of that blessing, it was...
Let me just read you a couple of people, because it's going to take you from the bottom to the top. Say "The bottom to the top". Say "I'm going from the bottom to the top. It's starting today, In the name of Jesus". I saw some things here. I saw Job's life. Job had lost everything. Am I right about it? God in Job, chapter 42 restored Job twice-fold what he had before.
How about Joseph? Joseph was in jail. Am I right about it? Did he not get raised up out of jail and became prime minister? Am I right about that? Joseph made Pharaoh the richest man in the world. Pharaoh had a lot of political power, but he didn't have all the wealth. Joseph got all the wealth for him.
How about Jacob? Look what it says in Genesis, chapter 32 in verse 10. This is Jacob's life now, Jacob, look what he says his life. He said, "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which thou has shown unto thy servant. For with my staff I pass over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands". Let me give you my translation. "I left home with a stick, and now I have become two armies".
How about Ruth? You know where Ruth was found. Ruth was found in the field with her mother in law, poor with nothing and gleaning. What is gleaning? Gleaning is when the rich people leave some vegetables around the field, around the out perimeter of the field and the people who are poor just go in and pick some beans for themselves, kind of share cropping if you will. That's where she was. All of the sudden a man rolled up, a man on a big, white horse rode up and said, "who is this damsel here"? They said, "Oh you don't want to know her, she's a poor woman", and so forth. He said, "No, no, no, I like that sister". Come on, sister girl, who are you? Come on now. Ruth ended up marrying the richest man in the county.
Come on, Ruth. There's some Ruths up in here. How about Esther? Esther, you know who she was. She was an orphan. Her mother and father had passed and her uncle took her in. Folks, that's just another mouth to feed, but her uncle had vision. He had understanding of a blessing. He had it so much until he wouldn't even bow down to wicked Haman. What happened? He got Esther in the palace, and the next thing you know Esther got favor. The next thing you know, Esther saved a whole nation from being exterminated. I'm saying I got some Esthers up in here.
Now how about Mary? Mary was somebody you never heard of, but one day an angel came and said, "Hail Mary". Say "Hail Mary" three times. No, don't you do it, don't do it. He said, "Hail Mary, thou art highly favored among women". He said, "Blessed are thou among women". What happened? This woman who never seen a man became fruitful. I'm telling you right now, you might be past the age of childbearing and you said "I'm getting married"., and you say, "Well, I'm past the age now". Uh-uh, don't count the blessing out, because the blessing will reverse the curse. The blessing will put you back so you walking like a young lady again.
I'm saying, what about Jesus? Jesus was in that grave. He was counted out, but one day God said "Get up", and he rose up and became the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Give God a shout. You are blessed in Jesus' name. Come on, give him a shout. Receive the blessing. That's it, receive the blessing. Receive the blessing. Glory to God. Glory to God, glory to God. Say this with me, "I am blessed of the Lord. The blessing of Abraham is on my life. From this day I will confess the blessing, I will activate the blessing, I will see the demonstration of the blessing, and all people will know that I am blessed of the Lord".
Now give him a shout and receive it. Woo. Now what I did down in the meeting, I told them, I said, "Now there's the scripture and it's coming out of Deuteronomy 15, verse one. In Deuteronomy 15, verse one he says: "At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. This is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release".
Now look at that in the Message translation. It says this in the Message translation, it says, "At the end of every seventh year cancel all debts". Then it says, "It is the procedure. Everyone who has lent money to his neighbor, write it off. You must not press your neighbor or his brothers for payment. All debts are canceled, God said so". One more time. All debts are canceled, God said so. Now over that, somebody said, "Well pastor, that's seven years".
Well look what it says here in Mark, chapter seven and verse 24. This is a woman who came to Jesus for healing. "From thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and he would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek". Say "A Greek". "A Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. She answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. He said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of your daughter".
Now see, in Romans, chapter one, verse 16 Paul says "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes, to the Jew first," to the Jew first, to the Jew first, to the Jew first, "Then to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written the just shall live by faith". You're going to live by faith. Now notice, this Syrophenician, Greek woman, she came to Jesus, but it wasn't her time. He's coming for the Jew first. It ain't your time, lady. Lady, stop bothering me. It's not your time. She pressed in by faith, because faith moves time. Any time you come in faith, your seven years are going to become today. I've said all debts are canceled. God says so. You receive it by faith and your debts are going to be canceled starting today. Now give God a shout. That's all we've got today.