Financial Freedom

Many people think of financial freedom as a high-paying job or position, being independently wealthy, getting a big inheritance, or winning the lotto. God defines prosperity a different way, having all you need to do all that God has called you to do (2 Corinthians 9:8). There are those teachers of the Word of God who preach prosperity but fail to talk about the purpose of prosperity, which is to extend God's covenant on the earth (Deuteronomy 8:18). In December of 2008 God began to speak to my heart through a teaching by John Sheasby called "The Grace of Giving" found under the Media tab at www.liberatedliving.com. This is a powerful word of grace that began to challenge much of my way of viewing money and how I lived. The Lord got a hold of me at the end of 2008, we were coming to the end of a year and our support was drying up. I was in tremendous fear about money and the future. I knew that living the way I had been living had led us to where we were financially. I began to see that the increase for seeing greater provision did not come from getting more support but through sowing seed (money, time, anointing, and gifts). I remember my first step was to ask God for seed, I was walking into the nature center at Rocky Mountain National Park and found a quarter. My wife laughed at me and said maybe you could have asked God for a bigger seed. With some embarrassment I later dropped the quarter into the offering plate at church. In a few weeks we got a check into our support account for $1,000. Now I will confess we also sowed a seed of $100 into a friends ministry. So either we saw a 4000 time return or 10 time return but either way you slice it that is multiplication. You could say this was just a coincidence but God took 4 other $100 seeds and multiplied them with a 10 fold increase. Now try to say that is coincidence. The even more exciting transformation is not the finances but my heart change. I now look forward to sowing seed and actually look for opportunities to be generous. On of the great blessings of the year was taking friends and family out to a Chinese dinner on Christmas Eve, I tell you that dinner was so wonderful as I got to enjoy blessing those dear people. Also as we came to the end of the year we had a deficit in our financial support (we raise support like missionaries) of approximately one month of salary. I was in and out of faith, fear, unbelief, striving, and ultimately back to faith. The Lord not only met our deficit but gave us nearly double what we needed to wipe out the deficit. Instead of starting off the year with a deficit we had more than enough. As I look over our finances I discovered that while our income had not gone up we had given a whopping 16%. At the end of this year we have been able to bless our family, extended family, friends, and those in need. I now have a greater understanding of who God is, He is generous by nature. The ultimate generosity was the gift of His Son which no one deserved or earned. I pray that this testimony not only encourages you but empowers you by His grace to step into supernatural increase in the area of giving and receiving. I forgot to mention that 2009 was a year of famine for most and most ministries had to downsize and cut their budgets. Since God did this for me, it means that He will do similar work in your life. Ask God today to give you seed to sow and begin to take your journey into His goodness and grace. I have already been excited about the seed God is bringing for us to sow in 2010, which I believe is going to be a year of incredible breakthrough. Won't you join us on this journey.

In His Grace,
Bret