Living in the Fullness of the Blessing Page 2

  I believe when Paul wrote this, he saw you and me. I believe he was looking into the future and saw in the spirit a generation of believers who would be on planet Earth just before the appearing of Jesus and that group of people were going to experience God’s grace, God’s favor and God’s kindness beyond anything any other generation had ever experienced. I believe that’s our generation. I believe that’s you and me.

  IMMEASURABLE, LIMITLESS, AND

  SURPASSING

  The Amplified says, (Ephesians 2:7) He did this that He might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable (limitless, surpassing) riches of His free grace (His unmerited favor) in [His] kindness and goodness of heart toward us in Christ Jesus.

  Doesn’t that sound extravagant to you? Doesn’t that sound like the fullness of the blessing to you? And when is He going to do this? When they get to heaven? No. I believe He is intending to do this for a generation of people that are living on planet Earth who will dare to believe Him for it before the appearing of Jesus. I’m declaring by faith that I’m going to walk in the fullness of the blessing before the appearing of Jesus. How about you?

  IT’S A SURE THING

  I love what Paul said in Romans 15:29, And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing . . .

  I like a sure thing, don’t you?

  When God made His promises to Abraham (Hebrews 6:14) regarding that blessing, He said, Surely I will bless thee. Surely I will multiply thee. He didn’t say maybe, perhaps, there’s a strong possibility. He said “It’s a sure thing Abraham, I’m going to bless you.”

  Paul said, “I am sure that I am going to walk in this” (author’s paraphrase). And I’m saying by faith, I am sure that I am going to walk in the fullness of the blessing to the point that is immeasurable, limitless and surpassing anything I’ve ever experienced before. How about you?

  Stop and think about it. We have a better covenant founded upon better promises, and if we don’t go beyond what Abraham walked in, then what good is a new covenant? God wants us to go further than that. God wants us to surpass that.

  AN EXPLOSIVE PLACE

  It has come to an explosive place. It’s ready. I’m ready. Get ready. Saith the Lord.

  It’s come to an explosive place. Do you know what that sounds like to me? A quick work.

  I occasionally ride my motorcycle through Colorado, and I ride through many tunnels dug out of the mountains. Somebody had to carve through the rock to make those tunnels. How long do you suppose it would take to carve a tunnel with a hammer and a chisel? If that’s how they had to do it, then they might still be working on it.

  But if you want to get some stuff out of the way real quick, what do you do? You blow it up. One of the definitions for the word explosion is a sudden, widespread increase. And the words that the spirit of God chose I don’t think are a coincidence. Explosive.

  It goes right along with the word of God. In Haggai 2:6-8 it says, The silver is mine and the gold is mine, and I’m going to shake it lose (author’s paraphrase). The quickest way to get gold and silver out of the hands of the wicked is to just blast it out of there. When God said the wealth of the sinner’s been laid up for the just (Proverbs 13:22), He’s not talking about them coming and giving us $50 at a time over a period of 9,000 years.

  If the sinner still has it when we are supposed to have it before the appearing of Jesus, then the quickest way for God to get it out of their hands is shake it. And when you explode something, things get shaken. I am not talking about a physical explosion. I believe God is getting ready to cause a Spiritual explosion in the Earth called the blessing explosion.

  Like I said earlier, one of the definitions for the word explosion is a sudden, widespread increase. One of my favorite words in the Bible is suddenly. I’m willing to stand and having done all to stand, stand. And believe me, over the last 39 years, I have become an expert in the art of standing. I know how to stand. But, when God starts doing things suddenly, I get excited.

  CAN YOU IMAGINE?

  Can you imagine planting a seed and before you get it out of your hand, the harvest is already there? That is a sudden, widespread increase!

  “No, I can’t imagine that Jerry.” Well, then you’re going to have to do some stretching in your thinking.

  Why? Because not everybody in the body of Christ will experience living in the fullness of the blessing or the blessing explosion. Why? Because not everybody in the body of Christ will believe for it. Not everybody in the body of Christ will position themselves to receive it. And not everybody will be willing to stretch their thinking to the point that God can get it to them.

  One of the things that I love about Oral Roberts is that he will not allow you to think small. I mean he absolutely refuses to allow you to think small. If you talk small to Oral Roberts, he will turn his head and won’t even pay attention to you anymore.

  He has on his desk a plaque that says, “No small plans made here.”

  He asked me one time if he could go to Africa with me. I told him that I was going to be extremely busy and would not have much time to spend with him, but if he wanted to go that was fine.

  One of the reasons he wanted to go was because I was building a medical center, and his ministry was going to staff it with doctors and nurses who had graduated from Oral Roberts University.

  We were building this medical center in an area where there was nearly two million people without any medical facilities. I was going over there to ask the President of that nation for land to build it on. And so, Brother Roberts goes with me.

  Here we are sitting in this meeting with all these government officials, my staff, Brother Roberts, and me. They are addressing me and Oral Roberts. They are telling us how much they appreciate us coming and our project. I am listening just as attentively as I possibly can, and I look over and notice Oral Roberts has his head down and is writing on a napkin. He hasn’t looked up since they greeted us. I am wondering what the problem is but still paying attention. He is scribbling something on a napkin. He then folds it up, throws it away, and gets another napkin. And finally right in the middle of the official’s speech, Brother Roberts nudges me. I don’t know whether to look at him or not. He nudges me again, and I look over at him and he hands me this napkin. He says, “Do you know what this says?” I looked at it. I said, “Brother Roberts, I do not have a clue what that says.”

  I looked back to make sure that the official knew that I was paying attention. Brother Roberts nudged me again. He said, “That’s Oral Roberts spelled backwards.” That’s when I realized he’ was not impressed with what was being said.

  I said, “Brother Roberts, are we boring you here?”

  He said, “Quite frankly, yes.”

  I said, “Why? Aren’t you interested in what these people are saying?”

  He said, “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He said, “They think too small.”

  That trip taught me a something. I learned that when you are talking small, this man wouldn’t even listen to you. He’d just turn you off. He’d just act like you were not even in the room.

  That’s about the way you and I are going to have to get if we’re ever going to get into the fullness of the blessing. We’re going to have to stop hanging around small talking, small thinking people. And we’ve got to quit thinking small and talking small ourselves. You need to get around people that will stretch you. Don’t feel intimidated around big thinkers. Just don’t open your mouth and they’ll think you’re one of them.

  DON’T GET JEALOUS

  The dumbest thing I have ever heard of is when people get jealous over somebody else increasing. Instead of getting jealous, you should be rejoicing. Why? Because it proves that it can be done. So instead of getting jealous, rejoice and thank God with them. Use their experience to stretch your faith and believe that it can happen for you.

  God is calling you to a higher level. He is calling you to get out of y
our comfort zone and to stretch your thinking. He is calling you to live in the fullness of the blessing. Are you ready and willing to believe Him for it?

  CHAPTER 3

  Financial Leprosy

  And all debt will have to get up and leave you the same way leprosy left the lepers of old.

  Debt leaving us like it left the lepers of old. That is an interesting thought to me. I had never heard anything quite like that before.

  I asked the Lord, “Why did you make that kind of analogy?”

  He said, “Debt is financial sickness. It is financial leprosy.”

  But I still wondered why He would compare it to leprosy.

  He said, “Because it will eat away at your life. It will decay and destroy your life like leprosy. And just like the lepers of old, obviously they were restricted. They were confined. They couldn’t even live in the city. They couldn’t be around the rest of humanity which meant they had restrictions, confinements, and limitations.”

  And that is exactly what debt does to most people. It confines them. It limits them. It restricts them. And God called it financial leprosy.

  I got out my Bible and my Strong’s Concordance, and I looked up every scripture I could find on the subject of leprosy because I knew God had some revelation here. I knew He was not just playing with words.

  IT WAS IN THEM

  This is what I discovered. In nearly every reference to leprosy, the thing that interested me the most was it never said it was on them. It said it was in them.

  I don’t know why but always before, it seemed that when I would read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I would watch Jesus minister to the lepers, I would think that it was on them. Leprosy was on them. But it doesn’t say that. It says it was in them.

  When the plague of leprosy is in a man . . .

  – Leviticus 13:9

  I began to notice that every time Jesus ministered to a leper, it would say, and it departed out of them. It didn’t say it got off of them. Why? Because it wasn’t on them. It was in them.

  Now, it did affect their outward appearances. Leprosy could cause a part of your nose to be removed. It could cause a part of your ear to decay. It decayed the flesh.

  You have probably seen the movies where they have shown lepers. You know, where they have gauze over their faces because it’s hideous looking.

  Even though leprosy affected them outwardly, it was not on them. It was in them. And isn’t that what debt does? It can affect you outwardly, but it is not on you – it gets in you.

  I asked the Lord, “Now, Lord, how does this parallel with debt?”

  He said, “For most of my people, debt is not only on them; it’s in them. They are not only in debt. Debt is in them. ”

  I said, “How did it get there?”

  He said, “Training. Upbringing. Small thinking. Limiting themselves. Thinking that’s the only way they can get something done.”

  Let me remind you here that one of the blessings of Abraham is: Thou shalt lend to many and not borrow (Deuteronomy 28:12).

  I am not saying it is a sin to borrow. That’s not what I am saying at all.

  But what God is saying is that when the blessing is operating in you in its fullness, you won’t have to borrow. You will be the lender.

  YOU CAN DO THAT?

  When Carolyn and I first started out we were broke. We didn’t have any money. I didn’t know people paid cash for anything. My Mom and Dad borrowed money all their lives. That was the only way I knew. Debt was in me.

  I graduated from high school and the first thing my Dad did was introduce me to the Vice President of the bank. He introduced me and said, “My boy wants to go to college and I want to borrow the money for his tuition for his first semester.” And I signed the note. My Dad co-signed. I became a borrower. That’s where it started.

  Now, Carolyn grew up in a family that didn’t borrow money for anything. Her Daddy built their first house and paid cash as he went. When he first started, he had enough money to pour the foundation for the garage. So he did. And then he worked and worked until he had the money to buy the lumber to frame the garage. And then when he got enough money, he moved the family into the garage so he wouldn’t have to borrow money to build a house. Then when he got the money, he poured the foundation for the house. But then he got the money to frame it, and he did. Next, he got enough money to finish the house and they moved in – debt free.

  He paid for his cars the same way. Carolyn’s Mom and Dad never had debt on anything. And they tried to teach me when she and I got married. But no. It was going to take too long to do it that way. And you know, what I wanted, I wanted now. I didn’t want to wait.

  What was wrong? I didn’t just have debt on me, and I wasn’t just in debt. Debt was in me. It was the way I thought. I didn’t know you could do anything else other than borrow money. I didn’t know how to buy a car without debt. I didn’t even know how to buy a broom without debt. Here I was, newly married, trying to support a wife and go to college. I didn’t know how to do that without going into debt.

  While I was in college, I was called up for active duty. I was in the National Guard. It looked as though I was going to Vietnam. But Carolyn was praying. She was pregnant with our first child, and she was praying that I wouldn’t have to go. We thought my unit was going, but the governor of our state decided that he wanted our unit to train with the state police riot control. Thank God, I didn’t have to go and I stayed home.

  When all that was behind me, I told Carolyn, “I’m not going to school any more.” I said, “I am going to buy a new colored television set, and I’m going to sit around and watch football games for about two months before I even go back to work.”

  And that’s what I did. I went down and bought a television set for $13 a month for the rest of my life. Why? Because debt was in me. I was in debt and debt was in me!

  Notice God said, “I am gong to drive debt out of my people like leprosy out of the lepers of old.”

  ONE BIG PROJECT

  Now, that sounds like a big project to me. How is God going to do that? It’s going to take an explosion. It’s going to take a major shaking. But He’s God. And I am going to go ahead and stretch my mind and stretch my thoughts and stretch my thinking and get right up there on the same level with Him.

  How about you? Do you believe that God can supernaturally get you out of debt?

  Now, let’s be honest. You might be thinking, “Jerry, you don’t understand. I want to believe that I can live in the fullness of the blessing, but I just don’t know. I have so much debt and I am having a hard time believing that it can actually happen to me.”

  Well then let me ask you this question: Do you believe that Jesus is the Anointed One?

  The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed and broken down by calamity].

  – Luke 4:18, Amplified

  If you believe that He is the Anointed One, then there is not a devil in hell who can keep you from experiencing what God has for you. Isn’t that what Jesus told the people many times? He said things like: “If you can believe . . .” or

  “Be it unto thee according to thy faith . . .”

  All He encouraged the people to do was to “Believe what I am telling you and if you believe what I say, then you will become the recipient of deliverance, miracles, and change in your life.”

  But how does faith come? Faith comes when you continually hear the Word of God. Romans 10:17 says, So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

  Just think about how many times in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus said things like, “And again I say unto thee...” Why? Because faith comes when you hear and hear what God’s Word says.

  What does unbelief do? It prevents the
Anointed One from working in your life. Jesus couldn’t do anything mighty in His own home town because of their unbelief.

  And he marveled because of their unbelief . . .

  – Mark 6:6

  But notice how Jesus dealt with their unbelief.

  . . . and he went round about the villages, teaching.

  – Mark 6:6

  What did He do about it? He taught. Why did He teach? Because faith comes by hearing.

  So, if you are having trouble believing that you could ever live in the fullness of the blessing, then let me encourage you to spend more time in the Word. Go back and read it again. Get into the Word like never before. If you hear the Word enough, then you will come to the place where you have more faith in the Word and what God says about you than you have in your circumstances.