Unlocking God’s Blessing

0:00:00     Hey, you have to hear the More Faith More Life podcast coming up, because it’s going to teach you how to honor God that opens the heavens and opens the presence of God to you. Hello, everybody. Welcome again to more faith, more Life podcast. We’re going to talk about our last episode of honoring God and what it does for us today. We’re going to talk about honoring God and how it opens the windows of heaven. It opens heaven, the bread from heaven, to come down and opens up divine intervention.

0:00:31     And we have to be honest about that. We have to be transparent about that, that people go to church, whether they go to church or don’t go to church, they’re a believer in God, they believe in Jesus. Maybe they have a Bible, they read it occasionally, maybe they pray occasionally, or maybe they go to church every single week. But the difference is we’re finding that people are not encountering God, they’re encountering religion.

0:00:55     And we want to help change that, because what we have today is we have superficial rituals, we go to church, we know exactly what’s going to happen all the time, and they’re just, every service is about the same and same timing and everything, and yet our services are void of spiritual substance. And here’s what. The way I describe it and the way actually the book of Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. Let me read this to you.

0:01:23     Oh, that one of you. This is God’s opinion of their religion and their meetings. Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors. What? What? This is God talking so that you would not light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you, says the Lord. I will accept no offering. My name will be great among the nations. So what are they talking about? Okay, so they’re having, they’re doing their religious stuff, but he calls it useless fire, because it wasn’t causing his name to be great among the nations or among our nation.

0:02:02     I mean, our churches. Now, the name of God is a cuss word, and Jesus is used in a negative sense in movies and by all kinds of people. They say, you know, non-Christians say the name Jesus more than Christians do. Yeah. And, and so God’s after, he says, I want, my name should be great in this country, the United States of America, my country and your country, wherever you’re from, God’s name should be great in your nation. We should have a great name. He should have great reputation, because we, as the church, as the believers, as the Bible, believe in people, the people that believe in Jesus, we should have set a standard, but instead that people begin to see how great he is. But instead, we light useless fires. And God says, I’m not pleased with that. In fact, he said, I just assume you close the church down or close the temple down, close the doors, rather than these useless fires that do not connect or transform.

0:02:58     They do not connect people to the living God, and they don’t transform us. And so now then we just have spiritual rituals that we do. And, you know, we notice if you look at statistics generally around our country and the world is, in today’s world, people are becoming disillusioned with religion and leaving church in great numbers, leaving churches, leaving religion in great numbers. And it kind of fools us a little bit. We hear megachurch here, and they’ve got 20,000 members, you know, well, okay.

0:03:35     You know, they come through, they have multiple services, and they say 10,000 people attended this week. That’s all the services put together. But that doesn’t matter, really. But it gives us the idea, well, oh, no, church is great, but actually, people are leaving churches and they’re leaving because they’re not connecting to God. It’s a useless fire. Okay. So I came to church and it was okay. And we had some, met some new people and made some friends, and they have a home group, and we get together and knit together or something, and we read a book together, book club or whatever on during the week, and. And we sing some good songs. And maybe, you know, once in a while, somebody raised their hand to God, but.

0:04:15     But all of a sudden we go, like, I’m not. I don’t have time to invest in something useless. I don’t. And I know you don’t. And our world is just moving too fast. But you do have time to invest in transforming your mind and your life, renewing your mind, getting the weight, the worry, the fear, changing the outlook of how you see the whole world. This is what the Holy Spirit does to people of God who want to serve God with their whole heart.

0:04:45     And so the beginning of that for me has been years ago, changing everything and saying, no, I have to not let this be about me. I need to learn how to honor God and honor God. Cause God says, I don’t want a useless fire. I want my name to be great and honored among other people among the nations. And that wasn’t happening in their day. It’s not happening in our day. We know that. Or else people, you know, would have a different opinion of God in our country, even if they don’t go to church, have anything to do with God.

0:05:19     But among God’s own people who claim to be God’s people. It’s pretty useless. It’s pretty dull and dead and there’s nothing really going on. People are not hearing God. God’s not interacting with us much. I’m not saying not at all. There are places where he is, but just generally across the board, it’s just church as usual. It’s a useless fire where we go and hear a sermon about ourselves, about humans, about human relationships and interacting and how we can be better people.

0:05:52     And we might hear a scripture or two and maybe not. There might be a scripture read and then kind of takes off on, I was going to say psychology, but I. On therapy, personal therapy, and we kind of, like I’m getting now, oh, this meant a lot to me today because I saw myself and I know why I do what I do, and I know I’m loved and I know I should have been more forgiving, but I haven’t, but I’m going to be now.

0:06:17     But so the subject, we walk away and it’s been all about me and all about us and all about humans and where’s the God in it? And so it’s in, God calls it useless fire. And that’s pretty strong. And I think religion in America is pretty much useless fire. It’s not everywhere, but it’s mostly. And so God wants to change that to where his reputation is. This is a God that changes things, changes people, changes the course of the river in our lives, changes our minds, changes our feelings.

0:06:52     Right? Some people, you can’t, you know, they’re all about their feelings. You know, they’re constantly getting their feelings hurt. Wouldn’t you like to become so strong that you can’t be hurt, not even your feelings. You just, you know, life is so good, you know, it really needs to be really tough to hurt your feelings instead of you’re constantly getting your feelings hurt. They hurt all I hear all the time, they hurt my feelings, they hurt my feelings. And kids are really big on that, aren’t they? Kids are always, well, they hurt my feelings. They hurt my feelings.

0:07:23     Like, that’s the biggest crime in our life is, you know, the worst thing you can do to somebody is hurt their feelings. Huh? That’s not even practical living. And so we want to get to where God is. We’re starting to have divine intervention in our services of our churches. How do we get there? Give God what he asks for. Give God what he wants. He wants honor of his name. He wants honor to be restored. He doesn’t want to be a cuss word anymore.

0:07:54     And Jesus doesn’t want to just be used by movie stars in movies, the name of Jesus, and not ever hear it in churches today or very, very, very little. So it’s, you know, when you start setting your sights on, okay, I’m going to start figuring out how to honor God. If that’s what he wants, then that’s what he’s going to get. And what it does is it opens heaven’s door, it opens divine intervention, it opens help, it opens prosperity, it opens health, it opens strength, it opens joy, because that’s what he wants.

0:08:34     And when we begin to realize, oh, I can’t make this about honoring me all the time. I can’t make this about me all the time. And so sermons need to change. Sermons can’t be about us. You can imagine trying to get some preachers today to say, okay, go preach, but you can’t mention us one time. All you can do is talk about God. Your whole sermon has to be about him, His kingdom, Jesus, scriptures, whatever.

0:09:01     And you can’t once talk about our feelings or how we feel or we’re victims, or you can make it, or just leave us out of a sermon one time and see if you can actually preach. Right. Cause what we need is we need meaningful change, and we need meaningful change in our country. We cannot unify our country by laws. We cannot. By allowing one group to dominate another group, we cannot change laws and say, you can’t use these words.

0:09:31     You can’t say these things because this group is dominating now, whatever it is, the only way to do it is people need a spiritual revival. They have to have meaningful relationship. Encounter the living God. If you encounter the living God and I encounter the living God, we may not agree on everything, but we are going to be able to live in peace together. Because the goal is I want to encounter God, and I don’t want to do anything that makes me lose that encounter. I don’t want to lose divine intervention.

0:10:00     I don’t want to lose an open heaven where bread is coming down from heaven, the voice is coming out of heaven. The presence of God overwhelming my presence. I feel his presence is stronger in me than my own presence. Everybody can notice themselves, but who can really notice God all the time and getting this into your life? So we need to have honor driven churches and families, you know, a father, mother, single mom, single dad, whatever, looks and says, you know what? My kids don’t honor God.

0:10:34     They have no interest in God at all during the week, and they don’t honor God. And if I do try to do it, they hate it. All they want to do is play games and watch movies and stuff or whatever. I have to get some honor in this. I have to get them to recognize that the blessings of God and the divine intervention and when we need God most is we do that by setting a precedent of we are a family that honors God now.

0:11:00     True. How do you do that? There’s some simple, simple ways. Obviously talking good about him, even talking about him occasionally reading a scripture, having a prayer. Just take a moment and pray together, 1 minute. Even if that’s all you can get out of your kids, right? And then go to church. Start there. The church is God’s institution, as many are trying to take it away and not have the gathering of the group anymore.

0:11:25     That’s never been God’s will. Church means a group gathering. It means the gathering of people. It’s not an individual. You can’t be a church. It has to be the congregation meeting together. The assembly of people is the church. But the assembly of the people is not just the assembly of the people. Cause you can do that on the street, you can do that at a ballgame. It has to be the assembly of the people who love God with all their heart, who want to honor God, who are set on living for somebody else besides themselves and putting somebody else’s feelings, if we can use that word, and you’ll find then the door of heaven will open.

0:12:04     So you need to go to church because that’s God’s institution. When you get there, what are you going to do? Doze off? Fall asleep? Look at your watch, think of everything else that’s going on. Or you look down the line and say, we are going to be a singing family. Once the songs start, I’m assuming your church does some music. Once the music starts, we’re the singing family. We pay attention. We put our heart into it. And all the people around us might look at us like, what are you singing so loud for? I’m not singing loud, I’m just singing. You hear? Why are you singing so soft?

0:12:40     Right? We’re going to sing with some energy. We’re going to love God with our heart, soul, mind, strength. Strength. We’re going to put some strength in this relationship. Everybody that’s married knows it’s going to go haywire on you if you never put any strength into your relationship. If you’re just blasé all the time in your marriage relationship, you’re going to have a bad marriage, right? Well, you’re going to have a bad relationship with God. If it’s blasé, poor me, all about me. How do I feel? God’s far away.

0:13:09     I don’t know what he’s thinking. Anyway, put some strength into it. When you pray, pray with some strength. Pray with some interest. When you sing at church, when you go to church, when it’s offering time, give like you mean it and want to do it. You want to be generous to the kingdom of God. You want to honor God with your wealth, honor God with your worship. Right? Honor God with your prayers. Honor God with just paying attention, showing some interest.

0:13:37     Look down the line. If your kids are sitting there in church with you. I know a lot of them go to their own services now, but they’re in our church. Part of the service, some of it from age six up or whatever, is with us. And how do they look? Are they playing on their phone? Do we really need to bring. Does it really honor God to take Barbie to church? Huh? Does Barbie need to attend church? Oh, well, they can’t pay attention. Yes, they can.

0:14:06     The Hebrew fathers taught their children to love God. Not whether they felt like it or not, but love God. After you start putting effort into love, you will feel it. You will feel it. And so learning all these things and just paying attention during the sermon, right? Take notes, maybe, or turn off your phone or stop texting during the sermon and show that. Do things that honor God. Now why would you do that? Well, first, it’s the right thing to do.

0:14:36     We are here on earth to do that because God was so dishonored by Lucifer, who became Satan, the devil, who was thrown out into the earth. Now here we are. Are we going to play his game? Are we going to be as dishonorable as Satan was to God and Lucifer was to God before he became Satan? Or are we going to change this thing and bring honor to God? Restore God’s honor. And what it does is heaven begins to open for you and your children.

0:15:02     I didn’t have trouble with my kids explaining this to them because I said you like things. You like to be blessed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You like to. You like new things. You like clothes, like to have a car some time, whatever. Listen, if we will be a family that honors God, God will honor us back and he’ll bless us and help us. But we’re not doing it to get the blessing. We’re doing it because He deserves honor. And I am in a world that does not honor God unless I do it.

0:15:29     Unless I do it. And I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it. And we’re going to do it, and let’s do it as a family and get a God centered family, a God centered honoring church where we honor God with our wealth and our praise. We’re happy to be there. It’s the most important hour, shall we say it, since most churches are an hour long. It’s the most important hour of your week, because what you do during that hour is going to affect what God does the rest of the hours.

0:15:56     Yeah. And you need to learn to honor God. It’s a great lifestyle, teaching him to bless God, to minister unto the Lord. You know what that, you know, the priests would come in and they ministered unto the Lord, and they did stuff unto God. And we, as believers, it calls us, we’re priests, you know, and Peter would say, we’re priests, you know, the living God, a holy priesthood. And so I got to serve the Lord. I got to minister unto the Lord. I got to give the Lord attention, got to talk to him a little bit. And it’s so easy to do offerings. Giving money is so easy.

0:16:30     I mean, you give money all the time for stuff you want. You buy stuff you don’t need with money that you have. And it was the dumbest thing. You did spend that money on it, but you did it. You had it when you wanted it to do that dumb thing or to, you know, waste it on something else. Oh, save some for God. Come on. It’s honorable because money is so powerful in our culture. To give God, some of it means so much to him, and it opens the door to blessing, honoring us back, recognizing, hearing our prayers, drawing close to us. If we draw nigh to him. Right. Get close to God, God will get close to you. Who doesn’t want God close to him, right? So I’m telling you, all these things because it’s.

0:17:16     Churches have their fires are so useless. The fire is supposed to change us, transform us. It’s, you know, to fill us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Fire get the fire in you. Where is the church that’s fired up? That’s not nominal, that’s not more like just kind of a social club. Nice. Just nice people. Nice people that believe in God, all right, but that’s not what the church was in the first century. The first century were nice people. Yeah. Who believed in God and terrified demons and terrified the enemies of God and terrified the wicked and terrified dull, dead religion that had fallen into the trap of no longer bearing fruit.

0:18:00     And they did all the religious stuff, but they didn’t bear fruit of people being transformed, changed. That’s who we’re supposed to be. It’s not just we hope to go to heaven when we die, but we are transformed now, experiencing the kingdom of God now. We don’t have to wait to the sweep by and bye. No. To enter into the presence of God and experience him today. You can do that. It’s got to be your choice. You got to just wake up and see this, that people are leaving the church because of useless fires. And you know what?

0:18:33     If you’re not careful, you might be next. Might just become useless to you. Or you can get on the bandwagon with people like me and pastors like me around the country says, no, sir, no, sir. I’m going to serve the Lord with my whole heart. I’m going to put the kingdom of God first. I’m going to find ways to honor God through prayer, worship, just saying good things about him, sharing good things and giving him my money, giving him my time.

0:18:59     Because what else is there? You know, when all this is over, this is all there’s going to be. Jesus is it. I mean, the way, the truth, the life. There’s nothing left over, right? This is it. He’s it, and I’m not it. And as long as I try to be it, then I’m going to lose on my end. I’m going to lose on my end. I’m not going to get to live life to the fullest. Jesus came that we might have life to the fullest measure, but we have to do it his way. You have to be interested in him. And you can do this.

0:19:26     You can do this. Come on, man, you can do this. Come on. Wife, husband, woman, you know, professional school teacher, home with the kids, whatever, you can do this. It will change the future of your life if you’ll do things the way God intended it to be. Where he’s on the throne, he’s in the center, and we are servants surrounding him, worshiping him, declaring his holiness, his greatness and loving every minute of it. Instead of a useless fire, we are people set on fire and people come to watch us burn.

0:20:02     Well, I hope you got this series, The Mandate of Honor. It’s simple, it’s easy. Take it seriously. It will change your life forever. I hope I did a good job of doing this out of these multiple sermons and service and times together on More Faith, More Life. So till next time, check us out (https://www.morefaithmorelife.com), tell your friends, till next time, we’ll hit something new and we’ll see you then. Bye.