Missionary Abraham Thomas: Transforming Lives with Wisdom for Asia

Music.

Thanks for listening to the Generations Church podcast. Today,

we are privileged to hear from missionary Abraham Thomas.

Abraham is the founder of Wisdom for Asia. He was born and raised in a ministry

family in Kerala, South India.

After coming to Christ, his parents were instrumental in planting over 100 churches

throughout the southern region of Kerala and Tamil Nadu in India.

We know you will be blessed as he brings a ministry update and today's message.

And now, Pastor Abraham Thomas.

Amen. First of all, I just want to say thank you to Pastor Jeff and Jennifer

and the family for inviting me to be here and opening your church and giving

me access to your people.

Every time a man of God given access to the pulpit, I feel it privilege and

honor and never take it lightly.

So thank you, Pastor, and God bless you. And he told you the story of how we met and everything.

Ever since, we have a kindred spirit. And I care about your church.

Many times, missionaries come and they want something for their ministry.

But I come here not for that.

I came here to bless you. Amen?

And that is always my thing. And so that's how God leads and guides us.

And so anyway, you heard about our ministry. This is what, since 2003,

my wife and I engaged in this ministry.

Most of the time, I'm gone from home, and many times I come back.

My sons are like two inches longer and taller, and I have a 23-year-old.

One time, I came back from the—I went to the mission field, and he was shorter

than me, and I came back, and he's taller than me.

Now he's six seven and he's

yeah god blessed him with a job at american airlines

so he is working there and serving the lord

as well and i have an 80 year old and so that is here we go the little one and

he said i think he's going to be a preacher as well he has all the characteristics

of a preacher even he non you know non-stop talking so he's there so he is in third grade,

In between, we had a baby girl. She has been with Jesus now.

And so we lost her to the eternity.

And so that's our family.

Since 2012, I was traveling nonstop to India. And so far, we have completed 203 water wells there.

And yeah, so yes. And so we are grateful for that.

And now we are working in Sri Lanka, God is doing. So this morning, we have very short time.

I'm going to just share some of what God is doing. And your pastor has been so faithful.

Every time I see my phone dings and I see this, an offering coming through,

I was like, whoa, Pastor Jeff, you know, how did he do that?

And so, but then I just stand there and pray, God, I know what he's going through in his church,

but he is faithful and he loves our ministry and he sends this offering to me

and to our ministry and I just pray for you and I pray for you and I know what's

happening behind the scene, you know?

So, I just want to say thank you for investing in our ministry.

So, you're here. When you put a tithe and offering to this ministry,

a portion of that goes into our ministry.

Make us the hands and feet of your church to the other parts of the world. Amen?

So, where you cannot go. Some of you may have never seen what's happening there.

But you know what? when you come to the heaven at the end that day,

when God just gives rewards to everybody, hey, your name is in there too.

Amen? So I wanted to share the next few moments, what God is doing through our

ministry in the various parts of the world. Is that okay?

So today it's like a just a get to know kind of thing, right?

Because you've been sending money and you don't know where you're sending the money to.

So now I came here in person to show you some I have thousands of pictures,

thousands of scenarios to show you, but we don't have time.

We're not serving barbecue today, right? I know. So we don't have barbecue.

So next time, hopefully we need to do that.

We need to have a family meal together. Then we'll share the gospel too. Yeah? Is that good?

All right. So we'll work on that next time. Amen? So this morning,

next few moments, don't worry about it.

Don't think about the family or home stuff. Just be here. Amen?

Is that okay? Okay. Let's all put all our, you know, issues and problems and everything.

The guy who's sitting right next to you don't like it. Don't worry about it, you know.

All right. Oh, God bless you all. Thank you so much. Here we go.

This is my beautiful family.

Now, my older son's name is Joshua. The little one's Jensen. My wife is Daisy.

Continue to pray for my family. You know, as I travel a lot,

my wife to take on all the responsibilities,

but she's a, she's a true, I mean, she's a true leader and she also has a job

and she deals with, you know, 60, 65 people in her work.

And so she's pretty, pretty busy with her life. But she supports our ministry very much.

So whenever you think about it, how many of you eat three times a day? How many of you eat?

Yeah, a few people. That's good. The other people are probably lying.

I don't know. Okay, anyway. So all those who are truthful people,

whenever you eat a meal, just to say a prayer for Thomas' family. Is that okay?

May God bless his food and bless Thomas' family. Can you do that?

Amen. God bless you all. Thank you so much. And so this is the place that we

work, that is the Asian continent.

And so God gave me a passion for this place. I was born and brought up in India.

We are not so rich or anything, very poor. My dad was a pastor.

We didn't have a house. We stayed inside the church.

And so my dad partitioned a portion of the church, and that's where we slept.

I used to sleep right next to the podium. So that is our thing.

Foodie was not there. Clothes all hand-me-down clothes, kind of someone gives us.

And sometimes it has holes and things like that. And I always wear a holy flip-flop, holy flip-flop.

You know what I'm saying? It's not holy, but it has holes in it.

You know, and so that kind of deal.

So walk several kilometers to the school and come back, and that is our thing.

We didn't have water wells, not toilets and things. So that's how I grew up.

And my dad struggled a lot, but he planted over 100 churches in India, okay?

So that is our background and everything.

But anyway, when I was here, 1998, I came to the United States.

And so from there, God gave me this passion to go to the 58 countries.

That's what I thought. But there was actually 47 countries or something,

then territories and, you know, halfway approved countries and things like that there.

And so I came to find out. So God gave me the passion for that.

When he gave me passion, I didn't know anything about this place.

Then I started to inquire more about this place.

And this is what it is. It's like 47, 49 countries, recognized countries in this region, okay?

And as you can look at it, it's 49 countries.

They are diverse countries, completely different group of people.

And about 4.7 billion people in that region, okay?

And as you can see, there's like Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism,

and then everybody else. There's a lot of other different kinds of people.

And then atheists consist of, that is the makeup of that country.

So do you see the challenge?

You can reach Hindus easier than Buddhists and Islam, Muslim people.

Buddhist people don't believe in God at all. So then how do you introduce God

to them? That is a challenge.

Hindus believe 333 million gods and goddesses.

Right? So that's how, so everything, everything. So it's easier.

Okay, Jesus is another God.

But then there's a group of people never heard the name of Jesus,

and they don't even know what Jesus can do for them. So that is the makeup.

And many of these places are hostile to Christian people and Christian missionaries, okay?

So when God called me to this place, I have no idea what I'm getting into.

But over the years, God equipped me, gave me that strength to go into these places.

About 2,300 languages spoken in this region.

2,300 languages. Okay? And then thousands of dialects over there as well.

Then about 2,000 tribes.

Now, you know, here people are independent. So we can share the gospel with

someone. They can accept.

Nothing happens. But in India or in other countries, it is, I don't know,

how many of you have seen bamboo growing in a place? Have you ever seen bamboo?

Maybe it's any military people overseas and gone.

You know, it's just like a bamboo tree. I don't know if you've ever seen it.

The bamboo tree never grows by itself.

As soon as it grows, another shoot comes, another shoot comes.

They are intertwined and connected, the whole thing. So you cannot uproot a bamboo tree.

You can only cut it, take it out, you know.

So the people there are connected, so connected to the family.

So it's not about individual will. Even if you want to come,

your uncle and your auntie won't allow you to become a Christian.

Does that make sense to you? So if you become a Christian, that means you're

excommunicated from that whole family, sometimes the whole tribe.

That means you have to leave that village and then go somewhere else.

That's it. So that is the price people in this region are paying.

That's why I just brought that up. 2,000 tribes.

It's a different group of people there. So they're working. So that is the place

that we are working. working in the... So I wanted to show you that this is

the main three places that I've been gone.

Mongolia is a Buddhist nation, very tough people, very tough region to work.

I've been there for several times, did a lot of work in that place, helped the pastors.

India has become one of our major focus in the last several years,

because that's my native country.

I travel, I can easily travel and go and do ministry. But recently,

it has been very hostile.

We cannot send money, and they're tracking down all the things,

a lot of hostile people in various regions.

So that work has been tough. And then recently, God opened the door for us to go to Sri Lanka.

Fairly okay. They don't have issue. We can send money. We can build churches

and things like that. So that's happening.

And then now God is opening us to go to a place a little bit more southern part of, that is Cambodia.

Cambodia, and then hopefully I'm planning to be in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.

So that's a region that we are praying for. But this October,

if God willing, I would love to go to Cambodia.

So you pray for me. It's a Buddhist nation. The most concentrated Buddhists,

the people, they are in Cambodia.

But for some reason, they are not that hostile to the Christianity.

And we can still do a lot of work. People are very poor.

They don't even have houses and they don't even have clean water.

Children are sold into sex slaveries all over the places.

The guy that I'm connected with, his father and mother, they were alcoholics

and drug. first father passed away, then several children, mom could not take

on this responsibility. So she committed suicide.

And then the whole children got alone.

And then what happened? The older sister got all the responsibility of these younger siblings.

And so that lady could not handle what she did. She could not feed them.

So she started to sell herself and make money out of that. And then the one

of the middle child, he was so disgusted by that and all this stuff.

He started to move away from home.

And somehow he got connected with a school.

So he wanted to study English in a medium school. So somehow they connected

to a church. And that changed his life completely.

So he went there to learn English.

But God changed his heart. And he became a Christian. Now, he and his family

is helping a lot of people.

So that is a ministry that I'm connected with. And so we are working on the

details of going there and doing it.

So I'll ask you just to hear a few minutes through my video and my explanation.

And, you know, what are you doing? What is the vision of Wisdom for Asia?

That's what I want to share a little bit. Our vision is transforming lives with the wisdom of God.

And you may ask, what is the wisdom of God? Is it some kind of ideas?

No. The Word of God is the wisdom of God. Amen?

So every problem that we have on this earth, there's a solution.

That solution never came from human beings because human problems cannot be

solved by human intellect, right?

So that has to have somebody else. So that's where the Word of God comes.

Every problem in your life is a wisdom problem, okay?

There is no marriage problem, only wisdom problem. There is no financial problem,

only wisdom problem, okay?

So anytime, don't pray for your marriage.

Pray for God's wisdom in that marriage.

Don't pray for there's no work problem. There's only wisdom problem, okay?

So whatever the problem that you are going through, Bible has an answer for it.

Bible has a solution for it, okay? We all come to church with a problem.

We all come to church broken.

You know, some people say church is for the saints. No, no.

Church is for the broken people, okay? Church is a hospital.

You understand that? Church is a hospital. But God doesn't want you to be a perpetual sick person.

You can come to church broken, beaten up, poor, everything is gone and completely out of shape.

But God doesn't keep you that way for the rest of your life.

If you come to church and if you take it seriously, the solution the Word of

God is providing for you, then what you do is you see changes in you. Amen?

Because the Word of God has the power to change any person, every person.

My father was an alcoholic and completely out of shape with his temperament.

The anger flows through our family.

The profanity flows through our family. It was crazy.

But the day my dad has an encounter with God, everything started to change.

He was going down that trajectory. That trajectory changed.

He started to go upwards.

Amen? That doesn't mean that he became a saint overnight, but there was a significant

change happened in his life from that day onwards.

He became sane. He started to become a reasonable person.

Profanity was gone. God gave him heavenly language so that he doesn't have to

speak profanity. You understand that?

Now he has hope. Now he has solution.

So now then he started to read the Word of God, study the Word of God.

He sat under the leadership of a pastor for a long time, served him.

That changed him. You know why? A person with a fifth grade education planted 100 churches in India.

Think about that, amen? Not only that he planted a Bible college,

that Bible college produced so many pastors, and they are better than my dad.

They have bigger churches than my dad, amen? They're good speakers than my dad.

This is how God changes a person.

But you have to be viable in the hand of God, amen?

So every Sunday you come here, bring a pen, bring a paper, bring your notebook,

Bible, and say, God, today, do something in me. Change me, God.

Look, today, pastor said, he may speak all kind of different things,

but there's a one sentence.

Take that home. Work that in your life, right? And then you change. Then what happens?

Your life started to go into a different trajectory.

Amen? Changes. Your thinking changes. Your demeanor changes.

Amen? And then you are, that shows up in your life.

That shows up in your family. That shows up with your children.

In your workplace, they say, wow, this guy, what happened to him?

Last time he was like responsible, crazy, but now look at him.

Something is happening to him. Amen? So what I'm trying to say is,

the wisdom of God has all the solutions.

So my My passion is share the wisdom found in the Word of God to those nations.

Amen. And see people's lives being transformed.

Amen. So the Water Well Project, all the things that we do, only one thing at

the end of the day, I want to see things changes.

I have so many people that I know the story.

Very poor. They came to church like a bastard, completely gone. No money, nothing poor.

But then they come to church, learn the word of God, and that they understand

the whole thing. Now they're making money and they're living in a nice house.

They have a nice car to drive. How? Why that happened?

Because they started to apply the principles of God in their lives.

Next time I come, I'll talk about the principles of Christ and the person of Christ.

How the gospel has two sides and how we embrace each of the sides and how that

blesses you. Okay? Is that okay?

I'm already inviting myself here.

Okay. Okay, so how do we do this? How do we transform lives with the wisdom

of God? Three ways that we do.

That is leadership training, humanitarian works, and building churches.

Okay, that mission is outreach. So we engage with the leaders in that area.

Then we mobilize them to do charitable work.

So various kinds of programs that we do. And then that leads into connecting

with a pastor, empowering that pastor, bringing these people and connecting them to that pastor.

So then they will continue to do the preaching of the gospel and reaching out

to the people. So these are the three ways that we do.

So then that brought us into, at the end of the day, it's all about loving people.

Amen. Gestered, reflecting the God's love in a tangible way to them.

Amen. I love people. I don't care. They are like what kind of,

you know, ethnicity or how they look or, you know, how they smell good.

I don't just hug the people who smell good.

Okay. I hug everybody, the whole people, this gentleman right there.

He is like the guy I was holding onto.

He's a tribal guy recently chased out of his home and everything,

lost everything because of Christ, because of his commitment to Christ.

And then I heard the story. I mean, I just went out and just hugged him.

He doesn't smell good or anything, but I just hugged him, loved on him.

I think I put that mark into his life that he always think about that. That's all we can do.

In here, it's all about people.

Amen? It's all about people loving people the way they are.

Let them, every shake hand, every hug, every conversation, let them feel the

love of Jesus coming out of you, oozing out of you.

Amen? So that is what is all about, loving people, all different colors,

style, belief system, doesn't matter.

We are here to love people. Love is the finest commandment. That is the bottom.

That is how we do. That is our assignment.

That's why what we do. Otherwise, Pastor Jeff and his wife can go and find a

good church there, serve in that church, get a salary, have a good life.

But why does he plant a church and stay here? The love for his people, the love for this place.

Amen. There's something through that God wants to do in this place that mega

churches cannot do, that he is appointing this couple to do that work.

So because of that, yeah, amen, because of that, the enemy is going to come

and stop them at every point.

They will come after their children. They will come after their health.

They will come after their mental health, their finances, discourages them, and make them to quit.

You know why? Because there are people out here who are drug addicts,

alcoholics, believing and thinking in different things.

God, the devil doesn't want them to change their mindset. They want them to live in that way.

But here we are, a couple with the mandate from the Lord to just come.

Because the mega church may not be able to influence them.

God, because we all have an assignment to a person, to a specific place. Amen?

Until I show up, that person will not be delivered.

Until I show up, that person will live in his sin and have no connection with the Lord.

And God will send me miles to travel to a place to just open that door,

give them that breakthrough. If I don't show up.

They won't be delivered. Amen. If you don't show up in your village,

in your city, in your neighborhood, if you don't show up, those people cannot come to Christ.

You have an assignment. Amen. Hallelujah.

Are you enjoying so far? Will you invite me back again? Is that okay?

Hallelujah. I thank God for that. Amen. So basically our ministry is all about,

it's like almost like a bridge, like bringing resources to the places it's needed.

Amen? So connecting. So we are not here to hold on to anything.

Our ministry won't save up anything, okay? Our ministries are passing through

ministry. We get the resources, I empty them.

And then God give me more resources, I just empty them again, right?

So we are a bridge that brings hope and healing and restoration.

That's what we are in the business of, okay? Bringing the hope and the healing and the restoration.

How many of you know that restoration is a part of ministry,

part of the gospel, amen? You cannot be lost forever.

Our God is a God of restoration, amen? If you come to the Lord God,

you know, here's the deal.

I'm gonna give you nuggets in between, okay? Is that okay? All right.

See, God has no control over your decisions. You understand that?

Everybody says, God is in control. Really?

Really? Is God is in control? If God is in control, there won't be murder.

If God is in control, no missionaries will be persecuted.

If God is in control, all God's children will have money.

If God is in control, our world won't be the way that we are seeing right now, right?

But God is not in control of everything. Then now the question is.

What is God is in control of, okay? God created us an independent human beings, unique.

We have the opportunity to make our own decisions, okay?

That's what the Bible says. If, if, if, if.

That means if you obey, you have a choice. You can make a choice.

So we have a free will. We always have.

God will never interfere that. He can nudge you.

He can encourage you. The Holy Spirit can illuminate you. He can divert.

But at the end of the day, if you choose to go, God say you go.

If you make that decision, choose to make the decision, God say you go.

That's what the story of the prodigal son. He just chose to leave the father's house.

So our decision is our responsibility.

You can make decision. You can choose God or you can choose the devil.

Amen? So decision-making has a very good importance in the Bible.

So now, what isn't God is in control of? God is in control of the consequences

of the decisions you made.

Okay? That gives us hope. Because if you mess up completely,

then you can say, God, I completely messed up.

Yeah, of course there's a consequences, but God can always come through there and heal you.

How many of the prostitutes came to the Lord?

They have HIV and things like that or different kinds of diseases,

but God can come and heal them completely and then restore their ears and bring them back.

How many of the alcoholics completely burned down and they're indistinct and

they're, you know, liver is

shot and all this stuff, but God gave them another chance in their lives.

And they become preachers of the gospel, completely changed their lives.

Yes, God is in control of the consequences of your decisions,

not the decisions you make.

This is why we have to be rooted and founded in the word of God.

The wisdom has to go into our head.

The wisdom has to go into our heart and then say, before you make a choice, is it good? Is it okay?

Is it praiseworthy?

Can I do this thing? What kind of a consequence? That is what wisdom is going to bring to you. Amen.

So our ministry is in the healing and restoration.

So that's what I have seen in the last year. So many stories I can tell you,

but I'm just going to go keep going here.

So then, so we have done several work in India, just like bringing the resources.

One of the thing is the water well, as you see, and now we have completed 203

water wells and two of them are in Sri Lanka.

The rest of them, 201 is in India, bringing about 70,000 people clean drinking water.

Can you imagine? Every lady is here in this church. Can you imagine getting

up in the morning, early morning, okay?

And then you're carrying five, six pots.

You and your daughter and probably your mother-in-law, if she's good.

And then whoever is there, they all are walking straight in a line,

going into two kilometers, three kilometers, you're going, okay?

And then you're finding a little, little stream.

You're sitting down there and washing all the pots from the last night. They are the next to it.

And then you're trying to get the water a little bit, little bit into this with

a little cloth as a filter.

You're pouring the water in it. And then somebody's standing there and stacking

all this thing on your head, all

the spots on your head. and then you're walking back home to cook food.

I know American ladies will quit.

This is it, you know. So man goes and marries women just to bring water.

So a man can have multiple wives in certain tribes so that they can get more

water. So that is a situation.

So that's why water is a human right. That's why we help the people.

The children, we love children.

We have been helping children a lot.

The largest outreach we did, we gave almost 900 backpacks in one school, in one school.

And that was done in such an orderly fashion.

The people said, how you guys did that? So I said, that's what we do.

We do everything in excellence.

There was no fight and there's no mob coming through. And that picture is like, it was like crazy.

So this is the recent picture. So at the beginning of the year in Sri Lanka,

we helped one school with 500 backpacks. It was wonderful.

The government ministers were there. All different kinds of people were there.

So it was a really cool experience.

And then helping other pastors also means giving equipment, a sound system to

pastors to preach, bikes.

Legs, recently in Sri Lanka, we bought these three, we call tuk-tuks,

you know, three-wheelers for pastors to travel around.

Those lady pastors, they are the only pastors in a prominent city in Sri Lanka.

It's a Buddhist people. They worked there for the 15 years.

Everybody came after them. There are male pastors went up there,

they failed and closed the shop and they left.

Left but these two ladies are there they don't get married they

said we don't want to get married but they are in a

one of the most sinful city and most like

a stronghold of buddhism right there in the middle right there they've been

working so hard and i said i heard their stories men chasing them people coming

attacking them and i was like you know i'm going to buy you i don't know how

to drive you to go and learn it you know so we make sure that she learned the

auto rickshaw now she's is riding it.

She doesn't have to stand in the side of the road to catch a bus or anything like that.

Nobody's harassing her. So we make sure that these people are safe and we are

supporting them every month.

The guy in the middle, that pastor runs an old age home and we support him.

The guy on the left, he works in a slum.

We support him as well. So this is how we empower the pastors.

And then the churches that we talked about, we built 13 churches in India.

The 14th one is now currently happening in Sri Lanka.

So all these things, through all these things, what we are doing,

equipping and empowering native ministers and believers to reach the community

with the message of the kingdom of God. So that's what we are doing.

I know that I cannot stay there, but I have to do it. So now,

when you do this, you know, this involves a lot of money, right?

Now the next question, Pastor, where do you get the money from, right?

I don't have a big church to support me or big businessman writing off thousands of dollars.

It's not. It is a very small group of people. They are caught by this message.

They understand. They know me for so many years, like some of them 25 years,

some of them 30 years. Some of them know me from my childhood.

They know that. So they know what I do and they invest into our thing.

So transformation and empowerment through generosity.

Generosity of so many various people. Like your church being generous to our ministry.

So generosity. So think about this. Your church right here, you being generous

so that you have done so many outreaches here, right?

To helping people, providing food for people, backpack school projects.

All these things done through your generosity.

What if you don't release that funds?

What if you don't release that amount with the Lord? You cannot do anything.

Anywhere you go in the world, if there's something tangible has been done,

if you look behind it, there's a generous person behind it. Amen?

There's a generous person behind it. That is why they helped, the people God helped.

So I wanted to share a little bit about the generosity.

I wanted to take you to a church that is discussed in the Bible.

If you ever want to learn, there's two chapters in the Bible.

I really recommend if you can read it. That is 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and 2 Corinthians chapter 9.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention 2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

I want you to read it. It is a really cool chapter.

One of the places that they discussed about a specific church,

a church in Macedonia that is in the Asian region.

So that church, the Apostle Paul is talking about this particular church.

You may think these people are well, worse in finances, very good people.

Now, listen and look at this, how Paul is describing about these people.

Beloved ones, we must tell you about the grace of God.

So Paul is talking about the Macedonian church, about them to the church in Corinth, all right?

He's saying, beloved ones, we must tell you about the grace of God poured upon

the churches of Macedonia.

So these churches, God's grace come upon them, poured out on them, okay?

Unmerited love of God came upon them. Then it describes about these people,

how these people look like.

For even during a season of severe difficulty, tremendous suffering, and extreme poverty.

This church, it is not a wealthy church.

This is not like some very high class church.

This church was going through severe difficulty. tremendous suffering, and extreme poverty.

But then their super abundant joy overflowed into an act of extravagant generosity.

Okay. Even though these people were going through this extreme difficult situation,

something was happening inside of them.

Okay. They're not happiness.

Happiness is what's happening. It is based on what's happening outside.

But there's something that world cannot touch. something

the devil cannot touch something was happening

inside of them that was the overflow of

the joy of the lord hallelujah you can

overcome suffering you can overcome anything in your life if the joy of the

lord is flowing over your life amen so this people have joy that joy turned

into extreme generosity then he said for i can verify that they spontaneously gave Boom.

They just, boom. The joy of the Lord forced them, helped them, inspired them to give,

spontaneously gave, not only according to their means, but far beyond what they could afford.

So let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the generosity is nothing to do with the finances.

The generosity is everything to do with your heart, the condition of your heart.

You know what? You will never see a grumpy, grouchy, you know,

a person always like this being generous. Have you ever seen that?

Eh? Take the money.

Here's an offering. Have you ever seen that? Unhappy people never give. Never give.

So if you are not a generous person, you have to check. Don't worry about your

bank account, but you need to check your joy level.

But the happy people, have you seen that? Generous people are always happy people.

You will never see them complaining about anything. They never see that they

may not even have food in their home.

They don't even know how to pay the rent next day. But they're happy.

They're joyful. fool. You won't even do it. They will give you the last bit

in your hand. Take it. You know why?

They know their source is not the government.

They know their source is not the EFT. They know their source is nobody,

no human being, but their source is God.

Hallelujah. And they know that their God is able to take care of them.

They know that our God will come through in the nick of a time.

Then they know that their God will never let them down.

That is our God. Many people are going through the layoff situation.

You know what? Don't be afraid.

That is good for you. God is about to position you in a good place, in a better place.

Put your trust in God. Don't put your trust in Donald Trump.

Don't put your trust in Kamala Harris.

Don't put your trust in any political system.

Put your trust in your king. In your king.

He is able to sustain you. He is your Jehovah Jireh. He is your Jehovah Rapha.

He is everything for you. He is your father. He will take good care of you.

Amen. So putting God first, let the joy gets inside of you. Check your condition.

Listen, look at your heart.

I know the time just went off. Let me just keep going. Let me talk to you about

the church in Corinth. That is happening, verse number 8, 7.

So he said, church in Corinth, you do well.

You're excellent in every respect, unstoppable faith, powerful preaching,

revelation knowledge, your passionate devotion.

But one thing I wanted to encourage you, be excellent in the grace-filled generosity as well.

You know what? You do all this good stuff. but excel in the generosity.

Let me give you this word. Proverbs chapter 11, verse 24 and 25.

Proverbs 11:24

It is one of the powerful scriptures that I ever seen.

And this is called the principle of the kingdom.

The kingdom of God is an ultra kingdom, like, you know, upside down kingdom.

It has nothing to do with the kingdoms of this world. Everything is in the kingdom

of God is completely opposite of what we do here. Amen.

If you want to be the first in the kingdom of God, you have to be the last person.

Amen. If you wanted to accumulate wealth or get blessing, you have to give.

But the world teaches, no. If you wanted to be wealthy, you keep it.

You keep it. You keep it and you save it. But in the kingdom of God, no.

You invest it. Amen. You give and then you will be blessed. Amen.

So here this scripture, Proverbs 11, 24 and 25.

The world of the generous gets larger and larger.

The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

Pastor, this is all I have. If I give this, do you know how much social security

income? I don't have any money. I don't. No.

If you want to get out of that loop, that has to happen right here in the mind bum.

I came to America with the mindset, every white person has money and they have

to give it to me. Yeah, I shouldn't be giving to anybody.

For me, giving money to a white person, unthinkable.

Why would I do that? And especially personally a pastor, dress nicely?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't give. But you know what?

God broke that mindset completely. And he said, your giving gives you a prosperity.

Your giving brings your blessing. That is a mindset.

If you have a God that you believe that is in heaven, and he's a living God,

and they believe the same God, if

God can bless them, The same God is your father, but he can bless you too.

Oh, when I got that, I started to invest in pastors.

I started to invest in giving. Take it. Here we go. Here's an offering. Here's an offering.

Every time I started to give, God started to enlarge my territory.

I couldn't go to India. I have to get credit card debt every time I do ministry. I came home.

That changed in 2014 completely.

My credit card debt was accumulating higher. See, you can never do God's ministry

with the credit card debt.

That means credit card company is your funder. They are your Lord,

not your Savior, Jesus Christ.

I said, no, I don't want credit card company to be my Lord and Savior.

I stopped it. I started to invest it. Every time I get an opportunity, I started to give.

Then we decided we don't put our money into our ministry. Our tithe goes to

the church that we belongs to.

That decision in 2014 completely changed our ministry.

From that time onwards, God provided everything we needed for my family.

And God gave everything for my ministry. separately.

And ever since, our ministry income

started to grow. So I don't go to any church to preach to get money.

You understand that? Why? I broke that mindset of a poor mindset,

poverty mentality that I brought from India. I broke it.

And I said, God, you are my source.

You are my giver. Everything I needed is in you.

Provide that for me. And then he gives me wisdom. He gives me understanding.

He gives me personal relationship.

He teaches me a lot of good things that I learn it. I practice it.

And then blessing comes.

The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed.

Those who help others will be helped. Let me complete with here.

Three things. Man holds.

Satan steals, but God gives.

Man holds. Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me. More, more. Like a cat.

It's all mine. It's all mine. It's all mine. Holds. Oh, what are we going to

do tomorrow? The recession is happening.

Oh, we're going to go down. This is all we have. Hold, hold, hold.

Satan comes and say, you know what? Whatever you have, it's mine.

Take it by force. but just God is opposite of everything.

God gives.

For God so loved the world.

He hoarded it, stole it.

He gave. The best example, the prime example of giving is found on the cross of Calvary.

He just gave everything so that he can redeem us.

He gave. He invested in so he can redeem. That is the gospel.

Amen? That is the gospel.

If you put God first, somebody can play.

If you put God first, yes, I'm just done. If you put God first, you will be blessed.

When you put God first, everything else will land in its place.

If I ask you, everybody here, the number one thing that you will say,

Pastor, I'm financially struggling.

God has a solution for it. Or Pastor, I'm struggling relationship-wise.

God has a solution for it.

If I can summarize that solution, that comes down to one thing. put God first.

Take yourself out of the controlling seat. Take yourself out of the driver's seat.

Let God, invite God to be there. What does that look like in day-to-day life?

You wake up, first thing, you don't open the phone.

Rather, you just have a conversation with the Lord.

In the morning, you wake up, God, thank you so much for giving me another day.

Thank you so much for giving me this breath. I thank you. I praise you. Lead me today.

Guide me today. Advise me. If you're a businessman, ask the Lord.

Please advise me how to make profit. Please advise me how to lead my employees.

If you're a teacher, ask the Lord. That is where your day starts.

That is what means God is in control of your life.

You're not. And then you ask the Lord, take care of my family, finances.

That is what putting God first. What is putting God first in the financial area?

As soon as you get the first check, as soon as you get your paycheck,

or somebody blesses you, you don't take that whole money and put it in the bank and spend it out.

The first thing you do is take the 10%. The first 10%. Not the last one.

Not the middle one. on the first 10%. Anytime anybody gives me something,

immediately I open my phone and I send the 10% to wherever that we are investing

our church, whatever, we pay the tithe.

First, I honor God. I say, God, I thank you for this increase.

Now I'm releasing the first 10%. Then God gave me an inspiration to give three times.

So two more times of the tithe. So I start I start to put 30% belong to the Lord.

Then I look at my thing, man, I don't have it. But at the end of the day,

everything balances out.

And then God opened a new doors for me, new finance. Then I'm still keep giving.

Some people say, oh, if God give me a little bit more, I only have this much.

But if God give me more, I'll give. No, whatever you do with your little one,

$1, that's the same thing you will do with a million dollars.

Amen. So be faithful in that $1.

Even if you're only making $100 a month, put that $10 to the Lord and test him.

Test him for it. This is an Indian guy coming from a poverty-ridden land coming and telling you this.

If this worked for me, it will work for you.

It will work for you. Pastor, I want a fixed income.

No, no, no, no. The Bible says God will cause the people to give into your bosom.

Pressed down, shaken together, running over, and then what the Bible says,

God will cause men to give it to you.

Hallelujah. Did you hear that? Your boss will come. Yeah, we were just making a salary adjustment.

And we saw that you are in this side of the scale. So we wanted to lift you

up. Okay, here's the $3,000 more.

What? And you're walking into a hotel and restaurant and sitting there and eating.

And then when somebody comes and says, you know what? Your bill is already paid for. What?

Has it happened to you? Huh. Pastor, why are you speaking about the money?

Hey, that's where we are struggling, right?

But God can do that, change that for you. My prayer for this church is that

God's grace will flow to you.

I'm not saying that you're going to be wealthy, healthy. I'm not talking about that.

But you know what? There's a certain kind of dignity that we all need to take

care of our things and take care of the work of the Lord.

And you guys are not just taking care of you. If you put God's work first and

say, God, through my life, I wanted to see someone getting saved,

someone getting restored,

someone getting God's blessing, and I'm giving as a seed myself to the Lord.

In this church, Macedonia, they gave themselves to the Lord.

They gave themselves to the Lord. Today, I wanted to ask you,

I know you come into church, but you haven't made a commitment to the Lord.

Completely, 100%, to serve Him. Fully given yourself to the Lord.

You just come to church and go.

If that's you, today you need to change that.

Give yourself completely to the Lord. Accept His forgiveness in your life.

Ask Him to come in your life. As the Lord and Savior, and let Him change everything.

Would you please close your eyes and let's pray.

Thank you, Jesus. Father God, I bless each and every one of the people here.

Thank you for allowing us to hear the word from you.

Father, I pray that these scriptures, these words will resonate in their heart,

and they will see the fruit that's coming into their life in the days to come.

Father, this evening, this afternoon, I am opening the door for someone to come

and accept you as their personal Savior and Lord.

Sister and brother, if that's you, you've been living your life,

but you know Christ, but you are not living for him.

You're not completely sold out for Christ.

You know what he did for you, but you don't want to commit to him.

If that's you, would you please raise your hands? Let me pray with you, pray for you.

If that's you, but pastor, I just, I'm just like like coming to church,

just regular Christianity. That's it.

But I am not deeply getting into the Lord.

If that's you, please raise your hand. Let me pray for you.

Everybody else, pastor, I haven't. I see one hand. I will be praying for you, sister.

But everybody else, pastor, I am afraid to give tithe because I don't know it

will happen. I will be able to make it through the month.

Would you please pray for me that I will not have any kind of fear in honoring

God with my tithe and offering.

That I will have the grace of God flow to me.

I will have the grace of God flow to me. So that I will become a generous person,

a happy person, a joyful person.

Pastor, I am very afraid of tithing continuously. Would you please pray for me?

If that is you, please raise your hand.

Let me pray for you. Don't worry about anybody. anybody this is not

a religious church this is a family if you are

fighting a fear of how I'm going to make it

through if I give my tithe then let me

know I'll pray for yes sister I'm going to pray for you how anybody else wanted

to raise their hand pastor I wanted to get rid of the fear that I want to become

a regular tither in this church anybody hallelujah yes sister I see that I see

that hand, brother. Thank you. I see the sister.

I see the hand. Yes, I see the divine boldness.

You cannot be afraid and live in the kingdom of God. No, you have to be bold like a lion.

Okay, don't be afraid of anything. If you're dealing with that issue, I need to pray for you.

Cast that fear out of you so that you will know that my God will supply all

my needs according to his riches.

Father, this morning, I pray for the young lady that said she wants to follow

Christ completely, 100% given to you.

I bless her in Jesus' mighty name.

Father, continue to make yourself known to her. Let the joy of the Lord come

in her heart in Jesus' mighty name.

Father, release her from every kind of demonic oppression in Jesus' mighty name.

That everything that is battling against our future, I cancel it in Jesus' name.

Let Jesus be the Lord and Savior and the guide of our life.

Lord, I pray for the other family members who raise their hands here,

that they are afraid of releasing the 10 percent.

They're afraid of the financial. Lord, I pray right now in the mighty name of

Jesus, I cancel that fear.

I rebuke that spirit of fear out of them.

Starting today, they will have a divine boldness and encouragement to trust you.

Trusting you become the new thing in their life, and they will test it out this

week, next week, next month.

Father, make yourself real to them in the financial area, in the financial area.

Let them know that you are an all-sufficient God.

You are a Jehovah Jireh, and he will always ways come through for them.

Starting today, they will become titers and they will never look back and they

will go from faith to faith, glory to glory.

Lord, I pray for the entire church here, everyone who is struggling and everyone

who is struggling with the finances, family problems, issues, personal problems.

I pray that Lord God, you come and comfort them.

Lord, if anybody here has lost their job, I pray you put them in the right place

to work for them, work for them to work, and honor them, and let this week become

the week of miracles for many people.

Lord, I release a new season for this church, a new season.

Father, I pray that our people, supposed to be members of this church,

I release them from the north, from the west, from the east, from the south.

Let them come and find, stumble upon the website, stumble upon pastor.

They just somehow come in contact with one of the people of this church and

let them find their purpose in this church.

Let them find you in this church.

So in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, I bless this church.

The rest of the season will be the best of your season.

In Jesus' mighty name.

Music.

Church podcast. Be sure to check back next week as Pastor Jeff continues our

study on the book of James.

If you'd like more information about Generations Church, feel free to get in

touch with us at info at generationschurch.us or head over to our website,

generationschurch.us.

Thanks for listening.

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