Tree of Life Blog

One of my favourite accounts in the Bible is the woman with the issue of blood. After 12 years of non-stop bleeding, she heard of Jesus, and she said if I touch His garment I will be made whole, then she fought her way through the crowd, encountered Jesus, touched His garment and was made whole.

Now I have preached on that many times over, mostly about the power of saying and doing what we believe, but also in terms of persistence and fighting our way to Jesus. I have also preached that we need to see ourselves like Jesus, with healing power coming from us as people touch us. 

But recently, I saw this account from a whole different angle, and it’s not obvious at first. At first, this account is one of the most positive examples of faith in Scripture – she heard the Word, said the Word, did the Word and received her miracle. In case there is any doubt how she received her miracle, Jesus Himself says “Your faith has made you whole” to her. But while meditating on that, I had a revelation – her faith made her whole. Touching the clothes of Jesus did not heal her, her faith did.

But her faith was limited! It limited God, it put God in a box. She said if I touch His clothes I will be healed, and she touched His clothes and was healed. But she limited God – she set the circumstances on her own healing. She did not believe she could be healed without touching his clothes. If somehow the crowd had been larger, or she had been weaker, she would not have touched Jesus’ clothes and would not have been healed. Not because Jesus is not the healer, but because she put God in a box – she gave a limit to her faith.  She added terms and conditions to her receiving from God that were not originally there!

And that is something so many of us do, regularly. We establish how we will receive from God and then – not because of God – but because of our unbelief – we restrict how God acts. We add terms and conditions to our healing, to our prosperity, to our winning, and if we keep to the terms and conditions we invented, we believe and we receive. If we don’t, we feel condemned, we feel incapable of receiving, so we don’t believe and we don’t receive!

When Andrew Wommack came to our church to preach in 2022, many people were healed. Those people could have been healed in their local church, they could have been healed in a house group, they could have been healed in their living room, but they said – and I know people were saying this because I heard them – if Andrew Wommack lays hands on me, I know I will be healed. They said it, in faith, Andrew Wommack laid hands on them, and they were healed. Healed by faith. But their faith was mixed with their limits on God, and they could have been healed in many different ways. They set terms and conditions the same reason the woman with the issue of blood did – their superstitions, their religious traditions, their ignorance of God’s Word!

If you read Matthew 14.34-36, you find there was a group of people who started touching the hem of Jesus’ garment to receive their healing. They heard that ladies’ testimony, did what she did, and received their healing. They had faith, but that faith was actually limiting God – according to their faith, they could only be healed touching the hem of Jesus’ clothes. Now everyone who touched the hem of His clothes was healed, but the implication is that the people who could not touch the hem of His clothes were not healed – why? Because they had limited God to working through the hem only. They had added terms and conditions, those who kept the terms were healed, those who didn’t were not, but all of them could have been healed – Jesus is that good and that powerful.

Many Christians limit God’s power by adding terms and conditions to His promises that were never there in the first place. They think He can only work in big meetings, He can only heal in conferences. I have heard people tell me that God can only heal in America – we have gone back to the Catholic practice of pilgrimage and why? Because of our unbelief.

The woman with the issue of blood added an unnecessary condition to her healing! And sadly, so many Christians have added unnecessary conditions to receiving their healing, their prosperity, their freedom! They feel that to receive from God they need to break a generational curse, get a specific preacher to lay hands on them, be in a particular place. That kind of thinking limits God, puts Him in a box, reduces His ability and power, and opens the door for satan to get involved. If you are looking for reasons why you are not healed, the devil has a box of them for you – he will explain to you from circumstances why you do not deserve to be healed, or free, or out of debt.

My precious friend, Richard Waller, went to a healing meeting to get a specific preacher to lay hands on him for healing, but the meeting was so busy, that the worship leader laid hands on him. I know many people who in the same circumstances would never have received their healing, because they have limited God to one vessel, one way, one plan. Thankfully Richard was spiritual enough to see beyond that and see that healing comes from God’s Word and we don’t have to add our superstitious ideas to it.

A lot of the conditions we add to receiving from God are from the Old Testament, because we don’t realize we live in the New Testament. We look at curses and try to break them so we can be healed or prosperous, and it works because we believe it works, but the truth is that we are redeemed from the curse of the law (Galatians 3.13) and the blessings of Abraham comes from faith (Galatians 3.14). All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ (2 Cor. 1.20) so stop limiting them by adding terms and conditions to them that Jesus never added.

We, even in faith churches, even in grace churches, have added our terms and conditions to God’s promises. They still work because we believe they work, and people still receive their healing. But you could receive your healing without that preacher, without that conference. We are seeing healings every weekend in local church. I heard one preacher say that pastors can not see as many healings as teachers and evangelists. I don’t care who you are, that’s adding terms and conditions to God’s Word that are simply not there.

You can touch the hem of His garment and be healed, or you can not touch the hem of His garment and still be healed. Your faith makes you whole.

Selah.

Smith Wigglesworth would get the congregations he was preaching at to sing over and over two simple words “only believe” . Only believe! Jesus once opened His mouth and deliberately and carefully said: “all things are possible, if we believe”. That’s not a whimsical statement, Jesus is not whimsical. It’s truth. It’s real, deep, life-changing truth. When we believe in God, and how big He is, and what He can do, and what He is capable of, then we can in every single promise in the Bible. It really is that simple.

When Jesus said that, a man had just challenged him. A man with a demonized son. The boy was on the ground convulsing, nine apostles had tried to cast the demon out but he was still as sick. Jesus turned not to them or the boy, but to the father. The father told him the boy’s predicament ending his outline with “if you can do anything, Jesus, have some mercy on my boy and heal him”. 

You see that sounds like a logical and powerful statement, what the father said, and I have heard people pray like that to God, praying things like “if you can help, please show some kindness, Lord, have mercy and heal my auntie, my mum, my son, my cousin, my friend”. It all sounds very spiritual, but it actually comes from a place of unbelief.

To ask God “if you can” is unbelief in how big God’s power is. To ask God to have compassion and mercy on you is unbelief in how big God’s love is. The father in this situation is making the same mistake many of us have made in the past, we think Jesus is looking at our mess, our pain, our sickness, our poverty, our shame, our impotence, and is standing aloof trying to decide whether to help or not. That is not the case. The father wasn’t sure Jesus could heal His son, and very unsure whether Jesus would. That’s the definition of unbelief. The father needed to be in a Smith Wigglesworth meeting and sing over and over “Only believe!”

That father, just like us, was waiting for Jesus to make a move. That’s not it. Jesus is waiting for you to believe the Word. Jesus is waiting for you to believe how big He is. Jesus is waiting for you to believe how big His love for you is. Jesus is waiting for you to make a move to believe HIS WORD!

It’s not CAN GOD. God CAN! It’s can you believe! Because if you can believe, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. All things in the Greek means all things. Everything is possible when you realize how big God is. 

Jesus was telling this father, and you need to hear Him right now – I am capable, I am willing. My power is big enough, my love is big enough. But my big enough needs your faith that I am big enough to bring my big enough into your situation. Only believe! Only believe!

I know people who have gone to healing meetings that I have run not out of faith, not out of a revelation of how big God is, but out of sheer desperation – it can’t hurt to go, and I hope somehow something happens. They would like to believe in healing, but don’t. They are unbelieving believers! 

But then a non-Christian comes along to the same meeting, and doesn’t ever plan on living for God, but somehow due to their lack of religion, when they hear the Word preached with power, they believe that God can heal them and because they only believe they receive their healing. All it takes is believing how big God is. These people were not believing in their works, they had none, they just believed God was big and good and loved them and would heal them. Others wanted to be healed as much, even more, but did not believe. They doubted if God could and if God would.

And most people, especially Christians, struggle with the would. Most churches have taught clearly that God can do anything, but they have not taught clearly that God is love and wants everyone well and everyone wealthy. People limit God through their unbelief, they limit God because of their lack of realization of how loving God is. They do not “only believe!”

Today, make a decision to believe God is good and God loves you and God can and God will. God is willing, now you have to believing. Believe! Only believe! AMEN!

God is big, and wonderful, and glorious and everything God does is big, wonderful and glorious, and God made you, so you have value. A painting by a master painter is inherently worth more than a painting by someone with no artistic talent. God is a master creator and He created you and you have value.

You do not act like God is big by lying on the ground weeping and confessing that you are a worm. You need to value yourself. It’s hard sometimes to do this as the world does not value people! So, we gravitate to forming our worth based on our behaviour. We take a long time to get something right, we feel that we are useless. We fail at something, or make a mistake, we feel unloved and small and inferior. I remember a couple of times while learning to drive, I thought I would never master it. It, if I was not careful, could have seriously stopped me valuing myself, and I had to pull myself together after some of my lessons and remind myself how loved I was!

Listen to me – your value is a reflection of the ability of your Maker, not a reflection of what tasks you can and cannot do well! A lot of people decide they are useless and worthless at school as they fail to do some academic task well. You are graded and marked and compared to your peers, and sometimes even ridiculed if you fail. You play sports and are laughed at if you kick the ball the wrong way, or fail to make a pass. You finish some of your school days feeling rejected, dejected and an outsider.

This is a common experience to most people – so you stop trying, stop leaving your comfort zone, you stop trying new things, you stop dreaming and stop being creative. It’s so sad when this happens to people, but there is a a remedy.

Also realize this – not only are you not a reflection of your ability to perform certain tasks, you are not a reflection of who other people say you are. When I started in ministry, I knew from an encounter with Jesus that what I was doing would change the world. But when I told people that, their general reaction was to laugh and mock. I was told at Bible College my goals were unrealistic, I have been told all the reason why I cannot plant churches all over Europe, Africa and Asia. I have met some people who, some in kindness, and others out of spite and jealousy, want to assault my sense of self-value, and stop me dreaming big. (The kind people want to ensure I don’t get disappointed, and the spiteful people want to ensure they don’t get disappointed that someone like me excels! But listen, that kindness never gets results, it is ultimately not kind to tell someone to dream small or settle. Even if someone launches out into something they cannot handle yet, by trying they develop and learn, they will especially learn that God loves them!

God does love you and He wants you to succeed, but He also knows that at times you will fail. You will fail to believe, fail to speak faith, fail to act in faith, and even then He still loves you. God loves those who try and fail. God is pleased when you try and fail, but those who draw back and don’t even try – that’s what does not please Him (see Hebrews 10.38).

Your sense of self-worth is not in your actions or ability, and it certainly is not in the opinions of others. Learn to realize how big God is and realize how big what He wants to do in your life is by stopping caring about your past success rate, stop caring about the opinions of others, stop caring about looking like an idiot, and just spend enough time with God that listening to Him will be the easiest thing to do in the world. That doing what He says is the easiest thing in the world.

Some of you reading this blog post are sick, and you know that Jesus has healed you at the cross, but you have never spoke healing or acted healed because you care more about your past, or what other people think, than God’s Word. Don’t stay sick because you are scared of the opinions of others! Learn to value yourself the way God values you!

You see if you LIMIT you then you LIMIT what God can do through you. One of the most common ways people limit God is they decide, based on their past experience, based on the opinion of others, what God can do through them. They limit how many miracles they can see, they limit what kinds of healings they can see, they limit what kind of ministry they have, they limit how much money they can receive. Not based on the Word of God, so nothing to do with faith, but based on what they see about themselves and what they hear others say about themselves and the fear of losing face – the timidity of the concern of the opinions of others.

I challenge you all today to read the Bible again, especially the gospels and start to see yourself doing the works of Jesus. Stop limiting what God can do through you and you will stop limiting God. Selah.

One of the things I have been trying to do everywhere I minister is just get people to accept the Bible is God’s Word and believe it and receive it. I remember as a young man, a brand-new Christian, reading the Bible, especially the gospels over and over and getting so excited about this new Christ-life I was going to be living. But I couldn’t seem to find any other Christians who just took God’s Word at face value. Eventually I got a copy of a Word of Faith magazine and read an article on prayer by Kenneth Hagin. I actually started to cry as I found someone who treated the Word of God like a Haynes manual and just believed it, did it and lived it.

Why is it so many Christians struggle with just reading the Word, seeing a promise, thinking it, and accepting that this is for them and will be part of their life? Why is it so many Christians twist and explain away the power and bigness of God in the Bible? Why is it that so many people do not read the Bible like a Haynes manual?

The answer is that most people have been programmed by the world to have teeny tiny thoughts. We don’t expect great and amazing things to happen to us. We expect our lives to be average, mediocre, mostly bad things happen, we don’t get breaks and so we limit God because we limit what God can do for us and in us and through us in our imagination. That is the big deal for so many people. Most people dream big on occasion, but then never go on to see those dreams in reality because in our heart of hearts we don’t see ourselves as a business leader, as a great dad, as a miracle-worker, as a man of peace. We don’t see ourselves as it, so we never end up doing it.

The ability to dream big and expect your life to be awesome and amazing is called hope. Faith is the substance of what we hope for. If you do not have the ability to dream big and create immense images in your mind about your life according to God’s Word, you cannot operate in faith because faith only gives substance to hope. Real hope – not the airy-fairy “I hope so” most people talk about, which means they are waiting for something to fall from the sky and it never does. No – you need an image of a bright immense future in your heart and you need to hold on to that image, and never let go until it appears right in front of you and you are living it.

The problem is that most of us do not have that much space in our minds for hopeful thoughts. We are too busy criticizing others who don’t look or act or behave like us (the smallest of all thoughts), we are too busy worrying (which has its roots in fear), and we are just embalmed in unbelief because we honour the world and the world system so much. So many people have lost their battle for healing because “the doctor says” means more to them than “God says”!

This process of not expecting much out of life and thinking small is programmed into us, most of us from when we were children! We are all born with enough of the image of God in us, even though we are born in sin, to be creative. Children can dream big. But that gets programmed out of us by parents, by school, by peers, and sadly by church too. A study I read says that most of our creativity is programmed out of us by the time we are eight years old. That is tragic! What happens is that the world expects us all to grow up and live in the real world. But this world is not the real world, the spiritual world is the real world. But our society does not like dreamers, and the British society especially hates anyone who thinks they are awesome and good things will happen to them!

Even when I was in Bible College, lecturers told us “none of you will be great, the best you can hope for is to survive” – maybe we should have lecturers who have been great in the kingdom rather than people who have just done Bible College then go straight back into teaching? Maybe that would lead to more fruit. Because even Bible College students with years of intense study inside them seem not to expect much out of life. They haven’t broke the programming yet. They still think about all the obstacles and all the things they cannot do.

Last night, while I was drifting off to sleep under African skies, God asked me to double the giving of Tree of Life. Just for reference we are a very generous church. We give a lot away to world mission and support a lot of ministries. I haven’t even given the implications a second thought because thoughts of this world do not dominate me any more. My self-image is not fragile. I do not see myself running out of money, I do not see myself failing, so I don’t limit what I will do for God.

Most people are not walking like that though. If God told you to double your giving, most people’s first thought is well, I will fail and go under. You can only see problems not opportunities. I know Christians whose self-image and hope level is so weak they cannot even tithe! Those people need emergency surgery on their thinking!

When you got born again, all of heaven is placed inside you. But if we do not re-programme the way we think, it is stuck inside us. We have to think big. We have to stop thinking small. Thinking small stops us even trying. We get saved, but are still just as negative, cynical, petty, and useless as before we get saved unless we change the way we think! Many Christians are cynical even to God’s promises! Many Christians don’t even trust God because they think so small, they don’t think God’s Word means what it says because their small thoughts are so important to them.

Listen very carefully this is what you need to know: the only limits to what God can do in your life – the only limits to God’s promises – are in your thinking. That’s the only place they are. So, you don’t need to scream and shout, you don’t need hands laid on you – you need to change the way you think. You need to renew your mind. You need your soul to prosper. You need to think big and stop thinking small. This is the only thing holding you back. I am not holding you back, your background is not holding you back, your education levels are not holding you back, your nationality and ethnicity, your gender, your past mistakes – NONE OF THAT IS HOLDING YOU BACK. The only way you limit the work of God in your life – the only reason you are sick, poor, selfish, carnal, petty, broke, struggling with habits, not winning in life is because of the way you think. Understand this and deal with this and you will be able to enter the winning realm.

Start reading the Word and start thinking it. If the Word says it is right, it is. Believe it is, think it is. If the Word says it is wrong, it is. Believe it is, think it is. If the Word says you can do it, you can. If the Word says you can have it, you can. If the Word says you are more than a conqueror, get conquering. If the Word says you are the head not the tail, be the head. Stop limiting God by the small images in your mind.

This is not something that you can break in a day, trust me – developing the way you think takes years, takes a long time, but if you start today you will be one step closer today. It’s that simple. Don’t leave it another day, nothing else can change your life other than you stop thinking small.

The fact that most Christians are living in the wilderness with Moses rather than a land flowing with milk and honey, and enjoying all of God’s promises with Joshua has become a cliche, but that does not stop it being true. Most Christians are thankfully not in a literal wilderness walking around in circles getting sand in their sandals, but most Christians are struggling with things they should not be struggling with.

Christians struggling with chronic illnesses and pain, Christians in debt, Christians still committing the same sins and the same bad attitudes they had a decade ago! These things are Christians in the wilderness, they are Christians who are not living like God is big. They have lost their dreams, lost their goals, and lost any heart’s desire for more. They have limited their lives by limiting God and not living like God is big. For these Christians, walking in health, walking in wealth, walking in peace, walking holy – it seems as likely as the walls of Jericho just suddenly falling down. And because they have no vision or desire for it, they never move towards their promises and their dreams and their destiny!

The children of Israel were slaves who had been freed from slavery but still thinks like slaves. Sadly, too many Christians – although totally liberated from slavery by Jesus, our Jubilee, live more like slaves than children in the promised land. Getting born again and getting a transformed and righteous spirit is not enough to walk in God’s best, you have to change the way you think, renew your mind as Paul says, prosper your soul as John says, save your soul as James says, so that you can live like God is big, live in God’s best, live in your dreams, stop limiting God and walk in victory, health, abundance, peace, holiness and wisdom! It is more than possible – but it involves more than the new birth.

The new birth sets you free from slavery to satan, this world and the flesh, but it is renewing your mind to dream big dreams, to hold immense images that gives us access to our land of promises. But like the Israelites, if we do not work on our thinking, if we never reach a place where we actually believe God can get us into the land of promises, then we will never end up there!

I read Don’t Limit God every month, and the book, by Andrew Wommack, is based on Psalm 78.41, and it says “Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel”. What they did in the wilderness was refuse to believe that the promise was for them. They did not believe that God could bring them into their land of promises. They did not believe in God, not really. They limited God and thought He was too small to get them where they wanted to be, so they just kept walking around the wilderness and never got to their land of promises!

Now make sure you do not read over this and not let it sink in. They limited God. That meant they had the power to limit God’s power. They could turn off the tap of God’s power through the way they thought. Now, you are exactly the same. You can turn off the tap of God’s power by the way you think! You need to think great, big thoughts, especially when it comes to God’s love and God’s power and God’s ability to get you where you need to be!

To tempt God means to fail to believe what He says. To not accept His Word. That’s amazing that anyone would do that, especially after seeing the Red Sea split in two and walking right through it, especially after having manna every day, especially after watching water come from a rock, especially after their clothes and shoes did not wear out. I need new knee wraps for the gym, I noticed this morning the straps were nearly worn out. Imagine nothing wearing out for forty years! They saw all these miracles but did not believe God was capable of getting them into their promised land. Many Christians believe God can help them in their pit and in their wilderness and in their mess – but they genuinely do not believe that God can get them out of their pit or desert and into the land of promises. They believe God can help them make the house payments, but not that God can totally get them out of debt. They believe that God can help them manage their pain, but not that God can eradicate their pain. Churches believe God can pay their rent, but not find them a brand new building to worship in. Why? Because their thinking doesn’t go there, their imagination doesn’t go their, so they presume God is lying rather than change the way they think.

Many Christians have a God who they believe can provide food every day – not good food, not amazing food, but enough – just enough. But a God who can empower you to knock down city walls, slaughter giants, take land, change geography, get you houses, get you harvests you did not sow for – they do not believe that, so they limit God, so all these things never come close to them. Don’t be that person. Don’t glibly say that you believe God can do anything, if those dreams of living in the land of His promises, living in abundance, living with no debt, having more than one house, having a car paid in full, having complete health – no need to wear glasses or use a stick – are not flowing through your imagination daily. Because if the images are not in your mind, you are limiting God because you are not truly believing He can and will do it.

So many Christians are living at this level and it breaks my heart. They live their whole lives and never enter into their land of promises until they get to Heaven. I’m really glad they got to Heaven, but what a wasted potential, living their entire life on planet Earth going through trouble you never have to go through, in mental anguish you never needed to have, fighting battles you never needed to fight!

The Spirit of the Lord anointed Jesus so you could be free from captivity, healed, unoppressed, unoffended, rich and happy! That is the truth and the truth will set you free – if you know it. But we actually sadly have charismatic churches and evangelical churches telling Christians we are supposed to go to the wilderness, supposed to have wilderness experiences, supposed to spend time in the valley. It’s not Christianity that kind of thinking, it’s voodoo, it’s spooky, and it absolutely is not the life Jesus came to bring us. This is a big question because there is so much bad teaching about, but let me make this very clear: God has never organized for someone to go through a wilderness to teach them something or train them or humiliate them. God never planned for the children of Israel to wander around in the desert for 40 years either – remember they limited God. It’s on them, and your wilderness experiences are not a badge of honour, they are proof that your thinking is so small, you are limiting God. Stop blaming God for your wilderness experiences, and definitely stop thanking God for them, and start renewing your mind, start developing a prosperous soul, and get into your land of promises.

The Bible is so clear on this fact. The Scripture never once says: They could not enter in to the promised land because God had planned a wilderness experience for them so they could grow and develop and become humble. No, Hebrews 3.19 says they could not enter in (to the promised land) because of their unbelief.

It was unbelief that gave the Israelites a wilderness experience, and it is unbelief that gives people them today. So, deal with your unbelief, stop limited God and join us in the promised land.

This is such a serious issue, that the Bible actually uses the word “fear” when it comes to how we should think:

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it (Hebrews 4.1)

In the next few weeks, I will blog on how to change the way you think, but the first step to renew your mind is to realize your thinking is not where it should be on this issue. I want everyone reading this to have a holy, godly, reverent fear. There is a promise given to all of us that we will walk in victory, overcome our enemies, be healthy, be rich, be in abundance, have peace of mind, have a ministry, have a place in the body of Christ, be holy and pure, kind, helpful – there is a land of promises for all of us. Do not be casual about this, let a reverence hit you – you can limit God, you can miss your time, you can come short of your destiny.

The word “come short” in the Greek is hystereo, and it means that when there is a race, it’s actually more than coming last, it’s failing to even complete the course and cross the finish line. It means to lack what you need to win and is normally translated lack in the New Testament, it means to fail to complete a goal. Jesus tells the rich young ruler he only lacks one thing (Mark 10.21), which is the same word. It also is used by Luke to describe the poverty of the prodigal son (Luke 15.14). Jesus told His disciples that when they went on mission trips for him they lacked nothing – Jesus gave them everything they needed to complete their race.

You have everything you need to complete your race and walk in the light of everyone of God’s promises, to live pure, to have a glorious prayer life, to have a glorious life, to own your own home, to own your own car, to walk in freedom and peace and love. To be part of a church full of the Word, full of the Spirit, full of the nations and filled with love. To do everything God has designed and crafted you to do! So, please, please, please, have some fear about this. Take it very seriously. Do what you have to do, buy the books you need, be in church this week, go to a better church with more Word in it, get our app at www.tree.church/app and listen to what I have been teaching on this subject, read the same book over one hundred times like I have, get up an hour early and pray in tongues… whatever it takes don’t put this off.

Selah.

At the end of the parable of the talents, the man with the one talent who buried it had his talent taken off of him! Then the “unprofitable servant” has to be cast into “outer darkness”! The word unprofitable means useless. Not tithing will always lead you into being useless.

I recently had to buy a new smart watch – you know the kind of watch that counts your steps and heart rate and all those other things – because the one I had would not charge any more. You could plug it into the charger and it would be fine – the screen worked, the heart rate monitor worked, the step counter (presumably) worked.

But the second I unplugged it from the charger, it just switched off. I checked with a few people who know about these things, and it is virtually impossible to replace the batteries in the device I had. This watch though mostly functional, pretty, and expensive – was now utterly useless to me because I could only use it while attached to the wall! That made it useless. I threw it in the bin.

Don’t be a useless servant. Don’t be useless to Jesus. Tithe! You have been redeemed and rescued by Jesus at the most remarkable cost to Himself, and you have been given a mission to change the world, but if you do not tithe you are incapable of the basics of the Christian life – hearing God, listening to the Word, sowing seed, being consistent, accepting Jesus as your High Priest, being faithful in money. I have seen more Christians fail to enter their destiny and become unprofitable because of failure to tithe than anything else, by a huge majority this is the number one reason that I see people fail their ministry.

Grace! Do not become one of the useless Christians. Do not become useless to your church, your destiny, your Lord and Saviour. Tithe!

I have had to deal with more than one situation as a pastor where someone in one of the churches I am responsible for has been cheated of money. A conman has come into their lives and persuaded them to invest and the whole thing has been a total sham, a fraud. On the wider level, people such as Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi, Frank Abagnale, have become famous for their ability to con others.

I travel a lot overseas (I am in Albania today, penning this from my hotel room by the sea), and many countries have to deal with this all the time, both on an individual and national level, to the place where it makes people paranoid. The idea that everyone with money is trying to con them stops people investing in what are really genuinely good deals. Just the suspicion that someone might be cheating you will cause you to withdraw from giving.

Now satan takes advantage of this concern about being conned and presents God as a conman – or if the people are too “spiritual” to ever believe God is the conman, satan will try and convince them that the pastor is the conman. That somehow the pastor is cheating them to get their money.

This idea that the pastor is sleeping Monday to Saturday and you are giving 10% of your income to the church is hard to shift. It will clog up your ability to give freely until you establish in your heart that God is not a conman, and the church is not a conman and that tithing increases you and works in your benefit. In the parable of the talents, in Matthew 25.26, Jesus calls the man who does not invest “wicked”. That is a word that means you have things the wrong way around. To presume that God is a conman and tithing is a con is wicked – it is twisted, it is having things the wrong way around.

Tithing is one of the key foundations of a mature and stable Christian life and one of the biggest indications of one. Not doing it because you presume God or the church is stealing from you is wicked, and you should avoid being wicked by getting your heart right and becoming a committed, consistent tither today!