Series: The Blessed Life
Week 1: A Heart of Generosity
Acts 20:35. The challenge is, so many people today think of being more blessed as getting more, when the reality is to really experience the blessed life, we must be generous and be blessed as we give more.
TRUTH: THE KEY TO THE BLESSED LIFE IS A HEART OF GENEROSITY.
Proverbs 11:24-25 The key to the blessed life is always a generous heart.
2 Corinthians 9:6-8, 11 Cheerful in the Greek, it actually means hilarious: “Wow! We get to give! We are so blessed that we get to give!” When you are generous, on the other side of generosity, here are the blessings promised to you verse 8. Verse 11: If you limit the blessings of God to finances, you are way underestimating the blessings of God.
Here is a question that I want you to think about: knowing it is more blessed to give than receive, why aren’t more people more generous? Or another way of saying it is, why are not more people more blessed?
THREE MINDSETS
THE BAG: NOT ENOUGH. Haggai 1:6
You feel like you are living with a bag with holes in it, and as much as you’d like to be generous, you don’t feel like you can because it seems like everything that goes in the bag goes out. There is not enough. I wish I could be generous; but, I just don’t feel like I have enough.
The problem with this thinking is we put our faith in what was in the bag. We have a scarcity mindset. We don’t see God as a generous God, we don’t seem Him as blessing. We have to trust what was in the bag. There’s not enough in the bag, We’d love to be more generous, but there is not enough in the bag! We trust what is in the bag! We would love to give but the bag has holes in it! We have got to buy ______. Things are tight, the economy is tight! I am worried about my job! I would love to give, but I don’t feel like I can! We would love to give, but we can’t because we have got the bag mindset.
2) THE BASKET: MORE THAN ENOUGH. Deuteronomy 28:4-6
This is the person who believes that God is an abundant God and we can trust him. We have got more than enough, because God is an abundant God and we can give freely. LUKE 6:38. There were 2 kinds of people who would fill baskets: the day laborers and the poor. Jesus is describing how the poor would be blessed by the master of the field. God is the God of abundance. God will provide more blessings so that our basket is overflowing. The attitude of the boy with the lunch that Jesus used to feed the 5,000: “God is a good God, if God has need of this I will just give it.” When Jesus blessed what was given, it was multiplied. 12 baskets of leftovers: When we give, it will be given unto us.
3) THE BARN: INFINITELY MORE THAN ENOUGH. Deuteronomy 28:8
This is the one who knows that God is infinitely more than enough.
HOW MUCH CAN GOD BLESS YOU WITH?
God wants to know how much he can bless you with. Luke 16:10-11
Proverbs 3:9-10 shows us how God is actually watching and testing us. The beauty of the tithe is that it teaches us to trust God. It teaches us that God can do more with 90% that is blessed, than 100% that is not blessed.
Luke 12:16-19 Problem is we think everything in the barn is for us.
Luke 12:20-21 God was not angry at this man because he was blessed. God is the one who blessed him. God was angry at him because he didn’t know how to be blessed. He thought that all of the blessings were for him. This was a guy that had ‘barn blessings’ with a ‘bag mindset’.
Unfortunately, the reason you & I are not more blessed is because we still actually believe it is more blessed to receive than it is to give.
TRUTH: THE KEY TO THE BLESSED LIFE IS A HEART OF GENEROSITY.