TD Jakes - Positioning Yourself to Prosper (09/18/2018)
Using John 3:16 as the foundation for giving, the preacher teaches that true biblical prosperity flows from being a lover of God rather than a luster after things; God, the ultimate lover, gave His Son, and lovers give freely without sweat or manipulation, positioning themselves with an anointed giving spirit and a renewed mindset of entitlement to dwell in Eden-like abundance and leave an inheritance for generations.
Positioning Yourself to Prosper
Greetings in the precious name of Jesus Christ our King. I am so excited to share this series with you. Thousands generations. Get ready to be blessed as we go into the Word of God and show you how to, as the message says, position yourself to prosper. You have to be positioned right. If you are not positioned right, you cannot receive the abundance that God has for you. Right place, right time, right season, right mentality. There is a right way to step into your destiny and purpose. That is what venturing is all about. That is what our calling is all about.
Cannot nobody show you how to prosper that has not prospered. Cannot nobody show you how to be healed if they are not healthy. There are some things I want to show you to position to prosper so you can leave an inheritance for your children's children. They should not have to go through everything we went through. It ought to be better for them than it is for us. Let me show you how to make that thing happen so that your descendants can be blessed. Now, to the Word of God.
Giving Is for Lovers Only
Giving is for lovers only. I am getting into the heart of giving. I am getting into the spirit of giving. It is for lovers only. When I get through teaching, not only will you get a release about tithing. Many of you have the ministry of giving. But it has been so spoken against and you have been so criticized, people have forced you back into a shell. And like Jeremiah, you backslid in your ministry and living in a prison and the gift is not operating in your life.
Because every time you gave, somebody said, child, you go too far. People making a fool out of you. You let those people use you. And they negate the fact when you were giving you were happier. You were more blessed. You were feeling better. They talked you into a prison, into a stingy prison of ineffectiveness and now you have got to break out of that in order for God to flow in your life.
You are anointed to give. Somebody say I am anointed to give. Wait a minute. You cannot be anointed to receive and not be anointed to give. See, if I said I am anointed to receive you say woo yes Lord I am anointed to receive. That goes back to some of that mentality that stops you from flowing. I am anointed to give. When you say to God I am anointed to give and I am a child of giving, then you and God start working together to be a point in the earth that He flows through. A point in the earth He flows through.
See, the problem with the Dead Sea is it has no outlet. When you have no outlet you become filled with salt and nothing grows there. If everybody in this room, if some kind of way, you had no outlet. I do not mean to be gross but you had no outlet and you kept eating. I will not go any further than that.
God So Loved... That He Gave
John 3:16 I know you know it but I want you to get it because it is important. When you have it, say amen. Read it out loud, please. Does not that seem like a crazy scripture to use to teach giving from? It is not your normal, you know, bring all the tithes into the storehouse that there might be meat in My house and prove Me herewith. Not any of that.
Give and it shall be given unto you good measure pressed down and shaken together. It is the scripture about salvation. The principle behind salvation you need to understand that God is so into finances that the term He uses to save you is called redemption. Redemption is about money. It is to buy back. I redeemed you. Out of the marketplace. Instead of using money God uses the blood of Jesus but you were redeemed through financial transaction.
He bought you back. You have been bought. And He has the title and He owns you and your body is not your own. You are the temple of the Holy Ghost. You have the Holy Spirit which was the earnest on the purchased possession according to the book of Ephesians—the earnest, the down payment on the purchased possession. He bought you. Know you not you were bought not with silver and gold but the precious blood of Jesus. God was doing business on the cross. God was doing business on the cross. That is how you got redeemed. Are you with me so far?
Now, this I think is notable. For God, the infinite One, God is the infinite One. So to the infinite degree, loved the infinite compassion that He gave the infinite gift. His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. He so loved what? He so loved the world. Let me get that in. The world. The infinite confusion.
Lovers vs. Lusters
How much did He love them? He so loved them to the infinite degree that He gave the infinite expression. God is a lover. See, when I say love, you think about sex, because you have been taught by the world. God is a lover. He has loved you the Bible says with an everlasting love. Paul said Paul commended His love towards us while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He is a lover.
And the first thing He teaches us about loving is giving. God so loved the world that He shouted. O, God so loved the world that He danced. God so loved the world that He got slain in the spirit. No. God so loved the world that He gave. There is a correlation between loving and giving. Do not tell me that you love anybody that you will not give anything to. Love will make you give. Loving and giving—there is a correlation between the two.
Whether it is a child painting a picture to give to its mother or a mother baking biscuits to feed a child, love is about giving. From the bedroom to the church house, there is a correlation between loving and giving. Love makes you want to give. If you give up under any other stimulus, the giving is ineffective. Because sooner or later when people start giving you things to manipulate you, you pretty soon begin to detect the difference between manipulation and the romance of a relationship.
What God wants is to teach us that there is a difference, and I want you to get this down between lovers and lusters. There is a difference between lovers and lusters. Now, when people ask me, am I a prosperity preacher, I always tell them I am not. Because one of the things—and I am not criticizing other people in their ministries. I am glad for whatever they do and they brought revelation into the body.
I think when you teach people magic offerings and magic this and that and you do not teach economic empowerment and teach them how to open up businesses and teach them how to save and teach them how to invest and the whole spectrum, you have a real problem there. I do not want to raise a church full of lusters. Who start lusting for the things God gives rather than loving the God who gave the things.
There is a difference between a luster and a lover. Love gives. Lust takes. Lust is focused on self-gratification. James 1:14 you can just jot this down. James 1:14 says every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.
Motives Matter at the Judgment Seat
The problem with us, we read things into where it limits our revelation. We read the word lust, we always think about sex. You can lust for things. Let me give you another word for lust that will help you to see it. When you lust for things generally we call it envy. And so, you can see somebody with things and envy them and lust for what they have and start giving or tithing for a while to see if you can get what they have. And then if you do not get it in a few weeks, you stop. Because believe it or not, lust always runs out. Come on now. Lust always gets bored.
Eventually sooner or later you say, okay, that is enough. That is enough of you. That is why a lot of marriages do not work. They are built on lust. And when the fascination of the lust relationship with the individual ends, there is nothing to hold the marriage together because it is not founded on love.
If you decide to teach this and use this, this is what the judgment seat of Christ is for the church. The judgment seat of Christ is not to weigh the deeds you did as much as it is to weigh the reasons that you did them. The judgment seat of Christ is not about whether or not you are saved or not but where God gets down into the motives.
On the foundation no man laid except Jesus Christ and upon this foundation some built wood, stubble and hay and some gold and silver. Some did the right things but they did them for the wrong reasons. And God, who searches the heart and is not impressed by the action, but the attitude behind it, then evaluates you and blesses or curses you, not by the size of the gift but by the size of the heart that gave the gift. Are you following what I am saying to you?
Dwelling in Eden-Like Abundance
So one of the hard questions you have to ask yourself, do not take the easy way, are you a luster? Or a lover? I believe that God wants us to live in a place of love. In a state of love. More than just a geographical location but a state of love and well-being. I believe that. When you look at the Garden of Eden you look at God's plan for man. God's plan for man is revealed in the Garden of Eden.
God's plan for man is for you to walk in a state of perpetual blessings. God set up this system. God set up the Garden of Eden. The devil did not have anything to do with it. It was not greedy preachers who did it or carnal manipulation of men. God set up the Garden of Eden so you would have a picture of what He would do in your life if you would obey His Word.
And in Eden they had all of their needs met without sweat. All of their needs met without sweat. If every blessing you get is a blessing you work for, you are still not hearing what I am saying. God wants to bring you into a place where blessings come from you, grows up all around you. You are dwelling in a place of love. Abundance comes to you.
You are not just eating what you work for, you are getting blessings from unexpected places. God just touches people. God just opens doors. You have passive and aggressive streams of income coming from all directions. When Adam was asleep fresh vegetation fresh fruit and crops was growing up all around him so when he woke up in the morning he was never too far from what he was hungry for.
The Spirit of Entitlement and No-Sweat Blessings
This is not about flamboyance and success and opulence. It is about God supplying all of your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Listen. I do not want my children to be in want. How many people have children in here? Do you know how it bothers you when your children have a need or they are in trouble, I mean really in trouble. Not an extra Nintendo. Do not you think it bothers the heart of God when you do not have your needs met?
God wants you to dwell in a perpetual state of Eden because He designed, God designed Adam's environment. What environment has God designed for you that you are not living in? Not only to receive this, you have to understand. You need a certain spirit. This might challenge you a little bit but just flow with me. Flow with me. You need a certain spirit of entitlement.
Adam had to think himself special in order to dwell in the special place. He had to feel like he had a right to be there. He could not be walking around, I guess, I do not need all this. Since the Lord did give it, I guess I will go in. He had to feel, this is where I live. The fish live in the water. The birds live in the air. This is where I live. I dwell in the place of abundance. Glory to God.
See, if you do not go in head first we have to get rid of stinking thinking so you are ready to receive what God has for you. People that do not think they are supposed to have it either do not get it or sabotage it when they do get it. Lay your hands on your head. Say give me a new mind.
If the people who were selling the house had known 60 days earlier there was gas up under that land, they would have never sold me the house or given me the mineral rights but I own the house and the rights to everything up under it. Hey. Hey. I am telling you, God will open up the windows of heaven and pour you out blessings. You will not have room enough to receive. Touch somebody, say no sweat. Did not work for it. Did not earn it. Could not take credit for it. When you walk in divine favor with God, you will just stumble up into stuff. You do not even know how you got there yourself.