Joyce Meyer - Keeping God First

TOPICS: Priorities

Now, at first the title of my message was "Put God First," but something about it was bothering me. And this morning I thought, no, I'm gonna change it to, "Keeping God First". You know why? How many times do we decide to put God first but then the keeping him first becomes an issue because, in case you haven't noticed, the world is full of things to distract us. I'm sure you've experienced you make a decision that you're going to pray every morning, and study the word before you do anything else. And man, all of a sudden, it's nighttime and you don't even know what happened but that plan you made didn't work out.

Now, I want you to listen to me, more than anything, the devil will fight you about keeping God first in your time, in your finances, and in many, many, many different ways. And so, I feel like the Lord wants me to talk to you this morning about keeping God first. And for some of you, it may require making some adjustments. You see, here's the thing that you don't want to do. I found myself, many years ago, trying so hard to work God into my schedule. And finally one day the Lord said, "Why don't you just work your schedule around me". So, are you trying to find a place to put God into your schedule or would you be willing today to say, "God, from now on, you're gonna be first and I don't care what else has to go? I don't care what else has to go or what I have to change, what I have to make an adjustment in, I wanna keep you first in my life in everything".

Let me tell ya, being a Christian just does not work out right if God is a sideline in your life. And, you know, that's probably not the case with a lot of you because you wouldn't have taken the trouble to come out here on a Saturday morning. But I'm not just talking to you today. We're talking to millions of people all over the world through this wonderful technology today that we have called television. And I'm well aware that there are people who think you accidentally turned the program on, but it can be a life-changing moment for you today. There are also probably millions of people that I refer to, like I used to refer to myself, as a "Religious person". Well, Jesus didn't die so we could have a religion. He died so we could have a deep, intimate, personal relationship with him through Christ.

We need to learn how to do life with God. He doesn't want to just be part of your Sunday morning. He wants to be welcomed into and be a vital part of everything that you do. Hmm... Okay then, millions of people believe in Jesus and go to church on Sunday, but God is not first in their life. And I want to tell ya that he is a jealous God. He's jealous of you. He puts you first in his life. Do you know that? Every single one of you is first in God's thoughts.

You say, "Well, how can we all be first"? Because God is God and he can do that. And so, everything I'm saying today is not just to a bunch of people. It's to individuals. And once Jesus died on the cross an ascended on high, he sent the Holy Spirit who can be everywhere all the time with every person. So, God is omnipresent. He's here today but he's also in China, and Africa, and India, and Asia, and he can speak something different to every one of you all at the same time. People will come to these conferences and tell me things they got out of it and I don't even remember saying that. But see, God can speak to you.

And I want you to understand this today, you are on God's mind all the time. You are on God's mind all the time. He's always thinking about you. We could not even count the thoughts that God has toward us. They would be like little grains of sand on the beach. Before you ever arrived on planet earth, God made a plan for every single day of your life. He won't force you to walk in it, but he would like you to walk in it. He would like to guide you and lead you through life and literally, let me say it again, be involved in everything you do. In every decision you make, God wants to be part of it. That's what Jesus died for us to have, not just believe a certain doctrine, join a certain group, and go to church once a week, and hope we go to heaven when we die. That's pretty sad if that's all being a Christian means to us.

So, I wanna talk to you for a moment about the importance of remembering the things that God has done for you. There's some great warnings in the Bible about the dangers of forgetting God. And really, exactly what's wrong with our nation right now is not a money problem, it's a moral problem. If the morals are right, the money will be there. And I don't care how many panels of experts they put together to study the problems, they are not gonna find the answers because the answer is simply repent of your sins and return to God. And to be honest, in most of our lives, that's the bottom line answer. "Quit trying to do what you wanna do and start doing what I'm asking you to do".

America was built on the foundational principles of the Word of God. All of our laws are built on the Word of God. And you cannot remove God from a nation that was built on God and expect the nation to last and to work. Israel did that over, and over, and over, and over. And God is gracious and he always received them back, but they would do the same dumb thing again and again and every time they did, they had war, they had famine, they had all kinds of problems in their life. I don't know why anybody would not be able to see what is going on.

And I think one of the things we need to pray is that the blind will see and the deaf will hear. And I'm not talking physically. I'm talking about the blindness that's on our leaders that prevents them from seeing what the real problem is. All you have to do is look back to when they took the Ten Commandments off the walls in the schools. Well, you know, we can all sit and say, "Well, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do". Well, you know, we're not responsible for what everybody does, but we are responsible for what we do. Amen? Boy, we sure need God when we're desperate. Well, you know, we can't just go to God when we're desperate, that's not a walk with God.

Deuteronomy 8:19 and 20. I figure we might as well go out with a bang today, amen? "And if you forget the Lord your God", listen, I don't wanna forget God any day of my life. Now, you know, you grow in your walk with God. And I'm gonna tell you a few things about my life, not doing any of it to brag, just as an example to you. I will not put my feet on the floor in the morning until I talk to God. I don't wanna do that. I need him to get up and walk across the room, and you will too when you get old enough. Come on. Deuteronomy 8:19, "And if you forget the Lord your God and walk after other Gods and serve them and worship them".

Now, you know, we think sometimes other Gods is like being in some kind of false religion or bowing down to a statue of an idol. But let me tell ya something, we can turn anything into a God in our life because anything that we make more important than God becomes an idol to us. You can let the building of a house come before God. Matter of fact, I know a man, him and his wife were building a home and he was very involved. He was the general contractor. And so, in addition to his job, he was spending every waking moment with this house. During the building of that, he didn't have time to go to church and it ended up causing some tremendous problems in his relationship with God. He ended up getting involved with another woman at work and got a divorce. We cannot afford to take a vacation from God. Amen?

I know another woman who had this tremendous intercessory prayer ministry from God. And let me tell ya something, when you can get up and pray 4 or 5 hours every morning, that's a gift. That is a gift. I pray a lot, but I don't have that gift. And she was very faithful, and very diligent, and she was really enjoying it. And her family was gonna take a 2-week vacation so she decided during those 2 weeks that she wouldn't get up early and pray. She never could go back to it after that. The anointing lifted and she never could back to it after that. You can't take a vacation from God. Hello? You cannot take a vacation from God. Well, I can tell when you guys are sure and when you're not.

You say, "You mean to tell me that I need to spend time with God every day"? How about like about every 5 minutes? God is not for the emergencies in our life. He is our life. Are you awake out there? In him, Paul said, Paul said, "In him, I live, and move, and have my being". Well, so we can just keep trying to do a bunch of stuff without him and just fail time after time and hopefully we'll finally get it. That's what happened to me. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 8:19. "And if you forget the Lord your God and walk after other Gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish". Verse 20, "Like the nations which the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God".

He's speaking to nations. Amen? God not only talks to individuals, but he talks to nations. Now, one of the saddest scriptures in the Bible is Jeremiah 2:32 says, "My people have forgotten me days without number". Wow. Just imagine for a second, if we could even remotely imagine being God for a second, and all you have is love for all these people that you sent your only son to die for. You love them so much that you gave up your only son and watched him die a horrible death and now, they don't even have time to say, "Hi," for days without number. But I love that any key translation of Jeremiah 2:32, "Does a young woman forget to put on her Jewels"?

Have you ever not put your earrings on and went back home to get 'em? Look at that. I have too. Have you ever forgot your cell phone and went back home to get it? Says, "Will a bride forget to put on her wedding dress? But my people have forgotten me for more days than can even be counted". Okay, we said we'll go back home if we forget our earrings. We'll go back home if we forget our cell phone, but has anybody here ever forgotten to pray and thought, "I'm going back home to pray before I start this day"? I'm not seeing any hands. Mmm. This could possibly be the most valuable message that you have heard in a long, long time.

Now, you know, then people say, "Well, you know, when I pray, I don't hear anything. When I try to study, I don't understand". I wouldn't even be concerned about that if I were you. I think the important thing to God is that you give him the time. I don't care if you just go sit in a chair somewhere and go, "Duh". I mean, surely you can say, "I'm here because I can't make it through the day without you". Amen? Psalm 106:7, "Our fathers in Egypt understood not nor appreciated your miracles: they did not earnestly remember the multitude of your mercies nor imprint your loving-kindness on their hearts, but they were rebellious and provoked the Lord at the sea, even the Red Sea".

So, here's what happens, forgetting God leads first to unbelief and then it leads to rebellion. Well, I can see that clearly in our nation. When we started forgetting God, then we started to not believe. When I say, "We," I'm not talking about us as individuals. I'm talking about the "We" as a nation. For the life of me, I do not understand why if somebody doesn't want to believe in God, they think it's their mission to try to keep everybody else in the world from believing. I mean, that, this is like what's going on in the world today is so clearly the devil, but he does have to find somebody to work through. Then it leads to rebellion.

Now, that was my introduction, now let's start the message. You know, we all have these turning points in our life, places where you can say, "Man, when God revealed the meaning of that scripture to me, it was life-changing". How many of you can remember some of those plateaus in your walk with God? And one of those places for me was Psalm 27, verse 4 because I was a born-again, spirit-filled preacher, and I was unhappy. And to be honest, an unhappy Christian is kind of like an oxymoron. It's like, we oughta be the happiest people on the face of the earth. You know why? We're not going to hell.

You say, "Well, I've got this problem, and I've got that problem, and I've got some other problem". But you're not going to hell. And even if you kept your silly problem for another 30, 40 years, however long you're gonna live. Let me tell ya something, if you have to keep putting up with it, you can put up with it if that's what you have to do but you've got eternity time without end. So, come on now, let's just kind of get back our determination and say, "I'm not gonna float downstream with the rest of the world. I'm not gonna lose my faith. I'm not gonna not let God be first in my life. I want everything that God's got to give me". Amen?

"One thing have I asked of the Lord". While I was in that state of being unhappy, I really sincerely started seeking God. "One thing have I asked the Lord and that will I seek, inquire for, and insistently require". The word "Seek" is a very strong word. It means to crave, pursue, and go after with everything that you've got. You know how to seek a hot fudge sundae when you want one. I am seeking a pair of shoes today when this conference is over. I will find them. Matter of fact, I went in a shoe store the other day just to get some insoles for my shoes that somebody had told me about, and I saw a couple pair of shoes right at the front door that I liked. And I have been planning that into my schedule ever since I saw them. Come on. I will get those shoes. I even tried one of your similar shoe stores here in town and they didn't have those shoes.

So, now I'm gonna go home from this conference where I have worked very hard, and I am gonna slip by that shoe store and I am gonna get those shoes. I am seeking those shoes. I mean, come on, could we begin to seek God even like we do a pair of shoes? Could some of you guys get as excited about God as you do a football game? Just saying. "Well, brother, I'm not gonna go to church and act crazy like an emotional nut". Yeah? Well, I wish I had some video of you watching football. "Aaaah"! So, many years ago, God finally got this through to me and he simply said this, "Joyce, you cannot do this," and by this he meant life, ministry, whatever your "This" is. We're talking about your "This". Whether your "This" is raising four kids, whether your "This" is being a single parent. You cannot do "This" unless you put God first in your life. And that scripture says, we have to require him as a vital necessity in life. That means I can't do without him.

Now, it matters very little to me if you think I'm being radical and overboard because I can tell you that I know that I would have no reason at all to even put my feet on the floor any day of my life if I didn't have God to serve. Now, some of you are still young enough that you think, "Oh man, I gotta get married". "I gotta have kids". "I gotta climb the ladder of success". Well, that's good. Do all that. But if you do all that without God, you'll come to the end of it and you'll still be very dissatisfied. You're gonna be like a person roaming around in the wilderness seeing one mirage after another that you think has got the water that you need. "Well, this will make me happy. Well, this will make me happy. Well, this will make me happy".

Nothing is gonna make you happy, content, and satisfied. You may go and enjoy a vacation and you're happy while you're there, but who wants to just enjoy certain events and days in their life? I want to enjoy every single ordinary day of my life, every day, every moment. See, I used to consider this work, and I would think, "I'll be glad when my work is over so I can go do this". Uh-uh, I decided about 25-years-ago, if I'm gonna live up here, I'm having fun. Amen? Now, when God showed this scripture to me, he gave me an example. I had an uncle, at the time, who's since gone home to be with the Lord, and he had a pacemaker, and this was in the initial days of pacemakers, and he had to charge his pacemaker once a week, because if he didn't his heart would stop beating.

And so, I called my aunt, one day, and I said, "Dave and I would like to take you guys out for a steak dinner on Saturday. Can you go"? And she said, "No, honey. We can't go Saturday. Your uncle has to charge his pacemaker". I said, "Well, can't he do that another day"? C'mon, this is a great example because this is the way we are with God. You plan to spend time with God and a friend calls and asks you to go shopping, and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I can do that". So, you put God off till another day. C'mon, now, I'm talking to you this morning. And she got offended. She said, "Well, no, he can't do it another day. He would die". And God used that as an example, to get the point across to me, "You can't do this," whatever your this is, "If you're not gonna require me as vital".

Now, I'm not talking about being legalistic. I'm not gonna feel guilty if for some good, qualified reason, I can't follow my routine. I'm not suggesting legalism, but I am suggesting importance. I'm suggesting that you no longer try to work God into your schedule, but you work your schedule around God. And may I just make a very loving comment? Going to church cannot be considered your personal time with God. "Well, I go to church every week". Well, that's good. We need to go. We need to be accountable. We need to fellowship. We need to learn. But I'm gonna tell you something that is a bold statement. If you only have the choice of spending time with God or coming here to hear me, spend your time with God.

"Well, Joyce, you are my time with God". No! Do not put that off on me. I'm trying to lead you to God, not get you to ignore him and pay attention to me. And I hope you do watch my program every day. But what I'd like you to do is then, maybe, sit down somewhere with God say, "Now, I heard her, but now, I wanna hear you. I want you to tell me what you want me to get out of that". It doesn't always have to be a long time. Even if it's just a few minutes, get God into everything that you do and, look at me, stop trying to do about 95% of your life by yourself, and then, when you get in trouble go run to God and want a miracle.

Part 2
It's silly to say that we don't have time for God. And if we don't have time for him, then he's not first in our lives. Do you think about God and his goodness fair amount in your life? Do you take time to thank God for your blessings, even little ones, that you can get out of bed and walk to the bathroom? That you do have clean water being pumped into your house, hot or cold? Do we thank God that somebody loves us? That we have somebody to eat with? A lot of people that are married think, "Well, you know, they're not happy and they want somebody else".

You know, there's probably some lonely woman that would take your guy if you really don't want him. Might be happy just to have somebody to sit down and eat with. Can you say, without hesitation, that God is first in your life? Deuteronomy 6:4-6, "Hear, o Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord the only Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength. And these words which I am commanding you today shall be first in your own mind and your hearts". Deuteronomy 5:7, "You shall have no other Gods before me".

So we wanna seek God first. Now, the next first I wanna talk to you about is seeking God's will first. I wanna challenge you to really crave the will of God in your life. "Your will be done, but not mine". That's an awesome prayer to pray that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, "If you can remove this cup from me, please do". It kind of appears he didn't want to have to go through the death on the cross. But he quickly said, "Nevertheless". That's a good word. Nevertheless. It might go something like this for a single lady who's 50 and never been married, "God, I just really want to get married. Nevertheless... I can be happy with just you. Your will be done". "Lord, I really, really, really would love to have that promotion at work and I feel like I've worked hard and I've earned it. Nevertheless, I can be happy without it and I will be happy for whoever you give it to".

Uh oh, come on. We're diving in deep this morning. Nevertheless. Let's start putting a few more "Neverthelesses" in our prayers. God wants to know what we want, but he also wants to know that it's not the basis of our joy. "I just don't think I can be happy without this". Matthew 6:33, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God". Yeah! Let's see how many weird noises we can make today. "Seek ye first (aim at and strive after) first of all his kingdom and his righteousness (his way of doing and being right), and then all of these things will be added unto you". Don't you like "Added"? Seek God's ways and he provides all other things. Live to please the Lord. Make decisions that are pleasing to God. Don't live to please yourself. Don't even live to please other people.

Now, Paul did say that he made a lot of decisions in order to please other people so he would have an opportunity to lead them to Christ, but he wasn't talking about being a man-pleaser. Some of you have allowed yourself to be manipulated and controlled by the whims and the desires of other people, and you have gotten yourself in a real mess because you're now in the middle of having to do a bunch of things that you don't even feel like is God for your life. Sounds like they need this over here more than you do, so, I'm just gonna stay over here awhile. Well, so now you're in a fix. Well, what are you gonna do?

You know if you confront the situation, you might lose the person or start a war. Well, one thing's for sure. You may have made a mistake that got you into this mess, but you cannot stay in it or your whole life will be destroyed because you let other people use you. Can I give you a piece of advice? You will not walk in the will of God unless you are willing occasionally to make somebody mad. Maybe I oughta say that to somebody else, I don't know. You know, we make a lot of decisions 'cause we don't want people to be mad at us. And the problem is, is if they're gonna get mad at you because you don't decide what they want, then they probably don't care that much about you anyway. I mean, that's really probably the truth.

In the last 5 days, I've had to say, "No," to 3 requests. Two of those requests came from fairly close friends. And it's not easy, but I was in that trap for too long. "Well, can you do me a favor"? "Well, yeah, sure". But then I was killing myself physically, still had to do what I needed to do to take care of this ministry, 'cause that was my main responsibility. If you don't learn to say, "No," you will never walk in the will of God. And if I tell somebody I don't feel like God really, I mean, what I said to the one girl, I mean, she had a great response. I said, "You know what? I would love to come and help you and do that for you," but I gave her the reasons why and I said, "But it just wouldn't be a wise decision for me". And thankfully, she was spiritually mature enough to text me back and say, "Well, we would love to have you and I'm disappointed, but wisdom has to trump everything else".

Now, that's a true friend and somebody that I might do something for at another time in life. You say, "Well, okay, I'm already in that mess. What am I supposed to do"? Well, first thing, you need to pray and see what God says to you about how to get yourself out of this situation. And then you may just have to sit down with the person and say, "Listen, I've got a confession to make. I have a problem and I'm insecure, and so because I want a relationship with you, I have done many things that you wanted me to do that I did not feel right about. And God is dealing with me about this and I've gotta make some changes". You know, the way to adjust anything is to just tell the truth. That doesn't mean they're gonna like it. If they're not a believer, they certainly won't understand it. But you gotta break free from manipulation and control. We're to be led, guided, and controlled by the Holy Spirit, not by somebody else.

Live to please the Lord. Colossians 1:10, "That you may walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him and desiring to please him in all things". Ladies, I think we need to please God in the way we dress. You don't need to go to work and be a temptation to somebody else, especially not to somebody else's husband, amen? Mmm. Well, I could just get off in a ditch here and I've got a lot of things that I wanna do but... Colossians 3:4 says that he is our very life. Whoa, I love that. All right. What else do I wanna say to you here?

Now, you know, there's a lot of other things in the Bible that say that if we do this first, then God will do that. They're all kind of related to the principle of sowing and reaping. You don't reap 'til you sow. You can't. No farmer is gonna get upset because he sowed no seed and now doesn't have a harvest. Mm-hmm. So, here's just a few I found in the Bible. "Forgive others and you will be forgiven". Yep, that's a good one. Okay, now listen, we would be shocked to know how many people in this room today are mad at somebody. And you think you're justified in your anger.

Well, we may get angry, the feeling of anger is not sin, but staying angry and acting on the anger is sin. This particular issue is doing more damage to the body of Christ as a whole and to the power that we should have as a church than any other single thing: unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment. The Bible says, "Pray for your enemies and bless them". It doesn't say you have to like 'em. It doesn't say you have to have ooey gooey feelings when you get around them. Love is not a way we feel, it's a decision we make on how we're going to treat people and how we're going to talk about 'em.

And my gosh, all the people watching on TV today, Lord have mercy, how many people are you mad at? Well... You just, let me tell you something. Being mad at somebody is not gonna change 'em, it changes you. Doesn't change them, it changes you. It ruins your life. It poisons your life. "Well, bless God, I'm just not gonna let them get by with that". Well, God says if you will do things his way, he will be your vindicator. So, do you want your brand of justice or God's? See, here again, back to last night's message, we go by feelings. "But I feel, I feel, I feel". Well, get with God and pray until you can control those feelings. You're more than a feeling. Just because you feel something doesn't mean you have to be that way.

Mark 11, "For this reason I'm telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer," we're talking prayer power here, "Believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will get it". Verse 25, "And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone". Oh my gosh, "Anything against anyone". Anything against anyone. Anything. Little things, big things, things that you think you're justified in. "If you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop (leave it and let it go)". Pray for the person, put them in God's hands, walk away from the hatred, the bitterness, the resentment, and get about living your life. Okay, listen. "In order that your father also would forgive you your own failings and shortcomings".

You know, millions of people pray the Lord's prayer and they don't even understand what they're praying. "Father, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us". Do we really want God to forgive us the same way we forgive other people? Whew! Boy, this is time well spent today. Be merciful first and then you will receive mercy. My, my. See, when you sow a good seed, you're not only likely to get a harvest from God, but you'll also get a harvest from people. I believe if because we love God, we show mercy to people, and mercy always goes to people who don't deserve it. That's what mercy is. Mercy is kindness beyond anything that's even reasonable.

So, if you're waiting to find somebody that deserves mercy, you've got the whole wrong idea about mercy. Mercy is given to somebody who has not done what is right and you decide to just cut 'em a break. Maybe you decide to believe the best or to just drop it and let it go. How many times do you have to mention to your husband that he left his socks on the floor again? You could be merciful and pick them up, and then see what God does for you. Okay, moving on. I don't wanna get too personal here. Yeah, God has dealt with me even about things like that.

"Joyce, do you have to just keep mentioning it"? See, even if we forgive somebody, we want to mention to them that we did forgive them. Are you there? We don't want anybody to think they got by with anything. If I'm gonna be merciful, you're going to know I'm merciful and you are going to appreciate my mercy. Oh boy, it is so hard to just do what's right and keep your mouth shut. Now, here's something else the Bible tells us which is pretty valuable. It's another first. Don't ignore your own faults while pointing out the faults of others. "Really? Are you trying to tell me that I have more wrong with me than the person I'm criticizing"?

Matthew 7:5, "You hypocrite, first get the beam of timber out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the tiny speck out of your brother's eye". Oh my, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone". Only those who are perfected should criticize anybody else. Man, you guys are making me tired. First. Humble yourself under the mighty hand, and then God will help you. Pray first and then you will receive. Don't plan first, and then when you're out in the middle of doing what you wanna do, pray for God to make it work. No, first we pray about everything, acknowledging God in all of our ways, and he will direct our path. First. Give first and then you will receive. Hmm. Where were the claps on that for goodness sakes?

You don't have to get nervous. We've already received the offering. Luke 6:38, "Give and gifts will be given unto you". "Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will men give back into your bosom, for with the same measure you use when you deal out to others it will be dealt back to you again". First. Malachi 3:10-11, "Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse". Whoo! That's all the tithers that are clapping, by the way. "That there may be food in my house, and prove me now by it". God is saying, "I dare you to start tithing and bringing offerings and see what I'll do for you".

You say, "Well, wait a minute. Tithing is under the law. That's Old Testament". Okay, well, boy, I got a good answer for that. You wanna hear my answer? Even if it was under the law and they were giving 10%, what in the world should we be doing by grace? Okay, you wanna say tithing is under the law, then why don't you just forget 10% and do 20%? Breathe. We've got 5 more minutes. "Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse that there might be food in my house, and prove me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not," after you have first done this, "Open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, so great that you will not be able to contain it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sake. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sake".

The little boy gave his lunch, the last that he had, and went home with 12 baskets full of leftovers. There's nothing that says the little boy took 'em home, but I believe Jesus gave 'em to him. "That's all right, God, you are much greater than I am. I'll give you my little bit if you'll give me your leftovers".

How many of you would be happy with God's leftovers? Yeah, just throw me a little leftovers! Obey first and then experience radical, outrageous blessings in your life. Are you there? Obey first and then experience radical, outrageous blessings in your life. Believe first and then you will receive. "Well, I'm not gonna believe it unless I can see it". Well, then you'll never see it, 'cause that's the way God's economy is. First you believe in your heart and you keep a good confession while you're waiting, and then boy, suddenly! Come on, suddenly! All of a sudden, you can shout and holler, "It works, it works, it works, it works, it works"!