Creflo Dollar - The Value of Knowing God - Part 4
God is never gonna give you what you're not able to receive. Some of you want big stuff but you ain't even passed the test with the little. Be faithful of the little, and then you'll be able to be ruler of much. Everybody gotta go through something, because that's what God uses to mature us. So don't get mad at what you're going through. The Bible says, "In this world you'll have," what? "Tribulation but," what? "Be of good cheer," why? Because the tribulation has helped to promote me. "They that live godly shall suffer persecution," why? Because I need to be promoted. I need to be matured. I need to mature. I need to mature. You cannot allow the same tricks of the devil that he used against you this year to be working next year and the year after that.
And some of you, for the next ten years. One little trick of the devil, you done carry it for ten years and God like, "You're not ready". Yes, I'm ready to be a millionaire. "You can't even handle $30,000 a year". "Oh, I want me a 50,000 square foot house". Ha, ha, ha. See, that just show you, you don't need it right there, 'cause you hadn't calculated taxes, maintenance, electrical bills, furniture, who gonna cut the grass on that 200 acres. You ain't ready. And your 500 square foot apartment nasty. You don't ever make your bed up. You put the grocery store bags out 'cause you too lazy to take the trash out. 'Frigerator nasty. House smelling like whatchamacallem. God is not even gonna let you know his perfect will for you until you're ready to receive. That's why you're taking these laps.
Let's see how you do with this much money. Will you allow it to become mammon and put it before me? Or will you use it to be a blessing to me and the others? Let's see how you do with all of this stress coming your way. Will you carry the care or will you cast the care? "Well, I'm gonna carry". He said, "Well, you need to take that lap again". "Well, I'ma keep it". Well, you need to take that lap again, and you're gonna be stuck on that same lap until you can be successful with where you are right there. That's how that happens. A lot of you wonder, "I just don't understand why I keep drawing the same kind of no-good-for-nothing man". God's love is what's trying to help you. He told you he was a fool at dinner the first time you met him. You didn't believe him because them waves, them waves, them waves, and he was bow-legged and all that other stuff you had in your qualifications list and he met everything in your man bucket list, except he told you he was a fool.
And my mama always told me, "If somebody tell you they're a fool, believe 'em". "I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I don't believe it, I'll make him better. I make him better". Now you the fool. And then you end up marrying that joker at the courthouse 'cause your preacher said, "I'm not feeling this". "Well, we don't have to get married in no church anyway". And then you go to the courthouse and then the judge didn't even show up. "Well, we just don't have to get married. Let's just live together". And now, you're a sugar mama, taking care of a man, castrating him, and robbing him of an ability to mature in his manhood because he's become comfortable laying on the lap of financial blessings coming from his sugar mama.
Did I get that right, Angie? There are sugar mamas, sugar daddies, and there's one more sugar, I forgot. They told me about it. My sisters there helped me out. There are lots of sugars out here. And God's trying to show you his love. So this verse in 19 is about experiencing God's love in a way that is infinitely greater than mere intellectual knowledge. When you experience God's love in this way, you will be filled with all the fullness of God. God's objective: fill you with his fullness. How's he plan on filling you with his fullness? By allowing you to experience his love.
Now here's what we gotta get. How is that? Now here's what's happened. Here's this twisted thing that's happened in religion for years. We have spent more time focusing on how much we love God, and that's not what he's talking about. He wants you to experience how much he loves you. But you quickly jump to the defense, "I love God. Don't you love God? What's wrong with you"? No, ha, no, no, no, no, pause this. I said I wouldn't do that no more. I love God. But have you experienced his love? You know, sometimes people use this "I love God" as an excuse to be comfortable in their sin. You know, you go out and you get involved in something, you say, "Well, God loves me". Well, the truth of the matter is before you even got into whatever you got in, God loved you. God loved you while you were yet a sinner.
You know, you know, "Well, I'm a murderer, but God love me". Well, yeah, he loved you before you became a murderer, so why are you trying to use the love of God to make you feel better about doing something that his love has already convinced you that was something you don't need to do? See, it's God's love that's trying to talk you out of your stuff. It's not God's judgment trying to talk you out of your stuff. God's not showing up and saying, "You know, if you keep doing this, you're gon' die". Now, there are consequences for what you do, but the love of God's trying to rescue you. You won't let him. Now watch me very carefully here now. Go to Galatians chapter 5 and 6. Let's put this in proper order. How do I experience God's love? Galatians chapter 5, verse 6 in the King James and then go to the NLT.
Now follow me carefully here. "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh," or is produced, "by love," or the results of it. "Faith worketh by love". Now I'm gonna show you something pretty fascinating. Everything in the kingdom of God operates by faith, everything. But faith worketh by love. Now here's what the church did. "If you want your faith to work, you better walk in love". Okay, it's good to walk in love, but that's not what he talkin' about here. We got the context wrong. The message of the New Testament is not how much you love God. And context is king. The context of the New Testament is God's love demonstrated towards you.
So what he is saying is your faith works based on how much you believe God's love for you. The question this morning is do you believe God's love for you? The access from the enemy is try to get you not to believe and trust that God loves you. And so every time you do something wrong, "I don't believe God loves me anymore". Every time something goes wrong, "I don't believe God loves me anymore". And the whole issue of your faith working is gonna be based on can you stand up in compromising situations, in rough situations, in situations of betrayal, in situations where you've missed it, in situations where you're hurt, in situations where you're sick, in situations where you're about to die, and declare, "God loves me, and I know it"? That's what he's talking about. He says, "Your faith works out of love, out of you believing that God loves you".
Now, what happens to people who walk around thinking that God hates 'em? I use "hate" because it gives a little bit more thump than God not loving me. See, when you don't think God loves you, you'll go as far as to say God hates me. And then you'll give the "because". And that's how deep his love is. But what happens to the people? Can we see the things that are going on today 'cause I'll submit to you that a lot of things that are happening today is because people have been convinced by this wicked world and by religion that they have successfully gotten God to hate them, not love 'em no more because they're not keeping all the rules. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 1, verse 26 and 27. Deuteronomy chapter 1, verse 26 and 27. I'm not trying to give you a license to do stupid stuff. I'm just trying to show you that your stupid is never going to be greater than God's love for you. It's just not gonna be.
All right, now notice this. This, I'm reading about, you're getting ready to read about people who said God hate us. He said, "Notwithstanding you would not go up, but rebelled," so they rebelled, "against the commandment of the Lord God". I'm asking what would cause somebody to rebel? Look at our society today. Total rebellion against God. Ain't nobody talking about God, people are ashamed of God. Ain't nobody wanna have nothing to do with God. God is a myth and a fable. Absolutely don't believe. Now, he getting ready to show out big-time. You will believe, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, that's gonna happen now.
Right now, we're just walking in some prophecy that's gotta take place, but there's nowhere in prophecy that says that Satan will be successful in defeating the church. The church is rising right now in the name of Jesus. All right, now watch this, "So they rebelled against the commandments of God". He says, "And you murmured in your tents". They rebelled, and now they're murmuring in their tents. Murmuring in their tents. "Because the Lord hated us. He hated us, he's bought us forth out of the land of Egypt, just to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites," and all of this stuff we're going through is because God hated us. Which one of us have even said with our mouth when things were not going right, "Lord, did I do something wrong"? When sickness hits your body, you think, "Did I do something wrong"? When something's taken away from you, "Lord, am I not pleasing to you"?
It might have worked in the Old Testament, but not under this covenant. And a lot of things that you may go through may be to test your faith where his love for you is concerned. Sitting right in the middle of jail, "God, you must not love me". A wreck and your legs are broken, "God must not love me". And most of this is coming from Christians. "Something must not be right with them and the Lord 'cause God wouldn't have let this happen for no reason at all". Well, you're kind of right. The reason is they're gonna begin to mature and they're getting ready to experience his love. But you'll never experience his love on a high horse and ain't nothing ever happen. What can you tell me about the love of God when you've never really had need for it?
So all you do is talk about how much you love God, but you ain't got no testimony about "I know God love me". And I believe there are plenty of you sitting in here this morning that can find a testimony somewhere in the chronicles of your life where you can say, "This place right here I can testify that God loved me, 'cause I know that I didn't deserve it, but he showed up anyway and did a mighty thing in my life. I know I didn't deserve it. I was a hellraising, no-good-for-nothing somebody, but I looked up in the middle of that situation and said, 'God'. And before I could get it out of my mouth, help was coming".
That's experiencing his love. But what happens when you think he hates you? You'll rebel, you'll murmur, you'll think that every trouble and tribulation came because God hates you. And the devil shows up and accuses you of all of your past stuff. You gotta know the devil keeps a record of all of your sins, why? He's the accuser of the brethren. He doesn't want you to have grace and he doesn't want you to have forgiveness. So, to keep you from getting the mindset to receive what Jesus has done for you, he just keeps accusing you. Thirty years ago and he keeps saying, "You remember that baby you aborted"? Forty years ago, he says, "Oh, yeah, but I just wanna remind you this is your second marriage".
Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got adult children now but I just wanna remind you, you were just a rotten father and a rotten mother. Yeah, yeah, I just wanna remind you of your little fling you had. He gonna come up, I mean, most of the time when you were just right in the presence of God, and accuse you and accuse you and accuse you until you get enough gut on the inside of you that say:
Look here, that's it. I'm tired of this. Now, we talk about my past. Let's talk about your past. Who used to be the archangel in heaven? You. Who got kicked out? You. How was the landing? Hard. Who goin' to hell forever? Hah, you, no, I forgot, you goin' to the pit. That's hotter. You. Don't talk about me. If you talk about my past, we gonna talk about your past, and I'm telling you, hallelujah, I'm gonna tell you about my past. My past was so bad, it was messed up, it was terrible, but Jesus came in with his mighty grace and his mighty mercy, and he saved me. He sanctified me, he cleaned me up. His love overcame everything that I have ever done. I mean, I've experienced his love. I've experienced his love. When clots were all in my lungs, I experienced his love. In 30 hours they'd all been broken up, I experienced his love. When cancer hit my body, I experienced his love. It wasn't that I was not a man of faith when the cancer hit my body. When the cancer hit my body, because I was a man of faith, I had faith in his love, I knew God loved me. I knew God wouldn't let the cancer kill me. I knew God wouldn't let the blood clot. I knew God loves me. When I was broke, busted, and disgusted, I experienced his love. When I was so broken there was nothing else to break, I experienced his love. He showed up with a still small voice and said something that lifted me up out of that pit. I've experienced his love.
Ooh, glory. Ooh, glory. Ooh, glory. Ooh, glory. Yeah, I've exchanged my knowledge about him for knowing him through the experience of his love. Ha, ha, ha, oh, and there's something about every experience that drives your faith higher and higher. Weak faith, big faith, little faith, small faith, you're not measuring your faith by the results you get. Big faith is big faith 'cause it's still working. You didn't pull it off the field and just stop. Little faith is little faith 'cause it's no longer working. The Bible said Abraham, who was not weak in faith because he continued to believe that that old woman and that old man would be able to receive the promises of God.
Why was he not weak in faith? 'Cause his faith was still working. You're talking about the intimacy that you develop after every experience of his love, when you know you didn't deserve it. It happened anyway, and I dare you to try to explain it to somebody like you did it. All I know, if it had not been, Brother Chris, if it had not been for the Lord on my side, I don't even wanna think about where I would be. Ooh, Jesus. Ooh, Jesus. He wants us to experience his love, and then come to where we have faith in it. And when you don't have enough money to pay the rent and all your money's spent and a little bit to buy some food and your baby need a pair of shoes, you look up towards heaven and say, "I know you love me". And that's really all we got to say. God say, "Oh, wait a minute, they still believe that I love 'em. Y'all get on down there and straighten all that up".
And out of his love, your faith begins to produce everything that you need 'cause you know he love you. I know he love me. I know he love me because of my experience of love for him, but I know he loves me in the middle of a rough time. I know he love me. And I can go on to the end. Everything gonna be all right. Look a little rough right now, but he love me, he love me. His love too deep to let me fail right now. It's too high, by golly, to let me stay broke. His love is working on favor right now, and favor ain't fair so don't come asking me why he did this for you and didn't do this for me.
Honey, there's an experience of his love waiting on you somewhere. He love me and I know it. Sometimes when you're in the midst of stuff, you might not know all of the scriptures. Sometime it do you good just to get up walkin' and say, "God loves me and I know it. Oh, God, I thank you you love me. I know it. I believe your love, Lord. I release my faith in your love right now, Lord. Father, I thank you that you love me, hallelujah. Yeah, I heard what the doctor said, but I know you love me, Lord. Thank you, Lord, I receive your love, I believe your love".