God’s Generosity

Genesis 14

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

This has to be encouraging for us, to know that 4,000 years ago God spoke to another man the way he
spoke to Jim and Judy. You’ll see it there in Genesis 12:1; “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from
your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.'” That’s
the same thing that he said to them, and it’s the only way to get us to have faith in him and in
what Jesus has done. Because our kindred are dear, and our friends here in the body are dear, but,
really, however good they are, we always have a tendency to put our faith in them, and God knows
that. The only way to release us into faith, [Smith] Wigglesworth says, is to exercise faith. And
the only way he can get us to exercise faith is to put us in places where we can depend on him
alone.

So he usually does this, loved ones, whether it’s me coming from Ireland, or you going somewhere
else; he usually knows that he has to send us forth away from our kindred, away from the people that
we can depend on so that we have faith in him and what he has done in Jesus’ resurrection. Then you
see the compensations in verse two. And it’s the same promise that will go with Jim and Judy, “And I
will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be
a blessing.” He will beget children in God and in Christ to them in Australia; he will keep his
promise, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the
families of the earth shall bless themselves.” So it’s much the same situation as they’re in, and
God will be faithful to them as he was to Abraham.

You’ll remember, he chose Abraham as the first man he decided to try to lead back to have faith in
himself instead of the world. Because that’s what we had all done; we had determined we’ll have
faith in the world and not in God and that’s how we all got into those troubles. You’ll remember
that it culminated in the tower of Babel where we were going to take over the whole universe and the
only way God could save it was to scatter us and split us into 70 different nations and into all
kinds of languages. Then God took this man Abraham, and started to try to lead him back into having
faith in God himself — in God alone. That’s why we’re studying Abraham’s life here in these Sunday
evenings; so that we may see how to live by faith ourselves.

So I’d ask you to turn to Genesis 13, loved ones, where I thought God was teaching us something
about the generosity of faith and you see it in verse 1, “So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his
wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb. Now Abram was very rich in cattle, in
silver and in gold” very rich — because he’d just finished obeying God and trusting God every inch
of the way — that’s why he was so rich. No! He was just out of a scrape. Look at the previous
chapter, 12:18, “So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did you
not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my
wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and be gone.’ And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning
him; and they sent him on his way, with his wife and all that he had.” That was it — and we have a
tendency to think he was lucky to get out of that with his life. I mean, God had every right to
crunch him — he lied! He had refused to trust God. God had every right to strip him bare — that’s
what I would have done. And here it is; he’s rich in cattle and silver and in gold.

I think that’s why we live such poverty-stricken lives, because there’s only one in the universe

thinks that way and that’s Satan. Satan’s the only one that thinks, “You crud — you deserve to get
what’s coming to you.” God doesn’t think that way at all. God knows he has put us all into his son
and changed us, so he treats us as being his dear son. He wouldn’t for a moment turn around to
Christ and crack him across the face, because it’s his beloved son. It’s his son whom he loves, who
pleases him. He gives to him generously.

That’s the way God is, loved ones. You’ll see it in Psalm 103:10. It’s just so strong and plain, “He
does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities. For as the
heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far
as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father pities
his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we
are dust.”

It is incredible, but throughout this life, God will keep dealing with you that way. He’ll keep
being generous to you and he’ll keep giving you things and enriching you, because as far as he’s
concerned, the only thing that needed to be done to change you, he has done in his son, Jesus. He
knows it’s done and he knows the moment you believe it and have faith in it, that moment it will be
manifested in your life. So he continues to treat you in the light of what he’s done in Jesus, and
he keeps giving you things. If you say, “Well, how come I think I’ve experienced scarcity in my life
very often — I think I’ve experienced in my life very often that God is kind of condemning me or
taking it out of me?” Really I hate to say it because you’ll laugh at it because it’s that American
slang but — we’re dum-dums — we are — because we believe that God is going to deal with us in
that way of scarcity, and there is only one in the universe that deals with us that way — that’s
Satan. It is unto us according to our faith — that’s why. We do something wrong, and we believe the
lie of Satan that it should be taken out on us because we’ve done something wrong.

So for weeks, often months or years, we live under Satan’s thrawl because we believe, “We’re lucky
we got out of that scrape with our lives. We should have ourselves beaten to death.” There is only
one who wants to deal with us like that, and because we believe that, we link ourselves up with
Satan and “behold it is unto us according to our faith.” That’s it. But actually what we read about
Abram is what is normal; God continues his steadfast love – continues — whatever you do. And if you
are able to believe that, it actually will be unto you according to your faith. He is generous, you
must admit, generous beyond any understanding of ours, because who of us here do not know of many
great religious leaders, and certainly we know of many ordinary people like ourselves, who have
lived in all kinds of ways and have lead dreadful lives, and yet somehow God has continued to be
generous to them. The fact is that he continues to be generous and he continues to be generous to
us if we can only believe him.

Now loved ones, it’s there again in Ephesians 2:4 and its put so bluntly that it’s impossible to
miss it. They’re such dear verses that they are verses I’ve memorized. “But God who is rich in
mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses”
and of course, that’s really before the foundation of the world, you realize that – “even when we
were dead through our trespasses, made us alive” at that very moment, “together with Christ” when he
raised Christ up before the foundation of the world, he made us alive too, “(by grace you have been
saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that
in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in
Christ Jesus.” That’s why he was able to do it with Abraham; he did that before Abraham made any
move towards God. He did that before you made any repentance at all, or any confession; when we were
dead in our trespasses, he raised us up with Jesus and started to treat us as his own son. So it’s

God’s own love that comes and keeps coming even in the midst of scrapes.

Now that’s no reason to get into the scrapes, and that’s what we should look at. If you look back at
Genesis 13, it will bring it home to you, because many of us waste a lot of precious time in this
world because we’ve only got this lifetime to do that. I mean, after this lifetime is over, if we
haven’t believed God, then he can do nothing for us, but during this lifetime, he’s continually
giving this to us. Genesis 13:3, “And he journeyed on from Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place
where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an
altar at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.” You may say, “Well, what’s
remarkable about that”? Its that he was exactly at that spot I don’t know how long before, maybe
years. Look back to Genesis 12:7, “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants, I
will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. Thence he
removed to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai
on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.”

Been there! And that’s what happens too many of us. If you say what had happened in the meantime —
he did a detour. He did a detour. And he did a detour the way many of us do a detour; he first
believed God when God said he would make him a great nation. He believed him. Then God, as he so
often does, allowed a little natural disaster to occur to strengthen his faith. God said, “You
believe me, and not the things you can see? You trust in me and not the world, put your faith in my
power, because of what I have done in my son Jesus, to give you all that is needed and to overcome
your difficulties? You believe me? All right, here’s a little famine.” And that’s how it started.
That’s the way it starts with us; we should expect a little famine.

We should see, loved ones, that in this fallen world, everything is not going to go smoothly. And
indeed, God has worked that into his plan to make us like Jesus. He allows little things to come
into our lives to check if we are really having faith in him. If you say to me, “Oh, you mean he
just wants to see? No, he wants to strengthen our faith by its exercise, so he allows little things
to come in like the recession, or like losing our job, to strengthen our faith. It’s vital at that
moment to realize that, and to keep having faith in God.

Now, of course, Abram didn’t do that, you remember, if you look at Genesis 12:10, “Now there was a
famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the
land.” It wasn’t even going to Egypt that was so bad, though you wonder if he would have had to do
that if he had put his faith in God, but it wasn’t even that; it was that he started to tackle this
problem on his own, and that’s what we do. We have faith in God for awhile and then something
occurs and Satan lies and says, “God doesn’t know about this, so you’ll have to get this back in
line so you can get your life on track again.” And we say, “All right, we better take this thing
into our own hands. We better do something about it.” And as soon as you do that, you begin to fear.
That’s right, because you and I aren’t God. And actually the circumstances are too big for us so
anything, a little wind, even a little breeze that comes into our lives, will blow us away we’re so
weak. But for a moment, because we have been trusting God, we kind of get uppity and we say, “Good,
we’re really moving now in faith in God and this thing is going to take us off track, good, we’ll
deal with it ourselves.” As soon as we try to do that, fear comes in; we begin to be afraid that we
can’t handle it.

That’s what happens in verse 11 “When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, ‘I
know that you are a woman beautiful to behold; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say” that’s
the way it goes, isn’t it? When they see you, they will say, ‘We fear all kinds of things that

haven’t happened, all kinds of things that may never happen, but we try to imagine the worst case
situation.’ Loved ones, it’s not faith, and we separate ourselves from God. What we need to do is
that as we move towards a situation that looks threatening, we need to look it square in the face
and say, “Father, I know that you dealt with this and Jesus, your son, destroyed it; you remade it
and I have nothing to fear. You will transform it as I walk into it with faith.” The moment you
step back from that, and say, “No, this could happen or that could happen.” The moment you start
saying, “If my bank account goes down a little further, if that bill comes in at the wrong time, if
this happens in my job”, you are already in Satan’s control. You are already listening to him about
all the lions, all the giants in the Promised Land instead of looking at the Father, saying,
“Father, I know you have prepared me for this and I know you have prepared this for me. You have
prepared my way and you have moved ahead of me and you have dealt with this situation. I continue to
have quiet faith in you.

But old Abram did what we so often do. In verse 12 he said that, “when the Egyptians see you, they
will say ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live.” Then, of course,
you resort to your own devices which are always more sin; “I have to lie about this. How will I get
around this? I’ve got an idea.” Verse 13, “Say you are my sister that it may go well with me” after
all, you are kind of my half sister so it is kind of true so say you are my sister and they will
make it well with me because I want me to be okay.” And as soon as you go into fear you get
preoccupied with yourself, “and that my life may be spared on your account.” Doesn’t matter, sister,
what you suffer as long as my life is spared. So you get into it fast, don’t you — once you let
fear come in, bingo! It grows big and everybody grows small and you’re the only one that counts and
then it’s all you –manipulating every situation and everybody for your benefit. Don’t even touch
fear. Fear is not faith.

You can see Abram had no need to fear. When you think of how good God was to him, even despite all
of this, what need had he to fear, even when he was doing this? And, of course, you remember the way
it went. “When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw.” It happened exactly as he said; he believed
Satan so Satan, a prince of this world, was able to bring it about. And that’s what we do — it’s
our fears that open our faith in Satan and open the way for Satan to bring this about — do you see
that? It’s not just the power of positive thinking. You know those people who say, “Oh, if you think
you are inferior you’ll be inferior”, it’s not that. It’s actually that you think you are inferior,
and you put your faith in Satan who has sent that thought into your mind, and you open your way up
to Satan’s power. It’s actually spiritual powers that bring those things about; it’s not just “its
Satan. That’s his trick, you know; he loves to say, “Oh, it’s just that you’re thinking wrong. Just
change your thinking and it will be different.” He likes to cover up his tracks and make you think
it’s just something human. It’s not; when you think those things and you move in fear, you begin to
put your faith in one who is out to destroy you and that opens the way so he actually is able to
manipulate the circumstances — whereas the opposite is true — do you see that? If you believe that
Jesus worked all things according to the council of his will and that in Jesus’ death and
resurrection, God transformed all the circumstances that you are in, even at this moment, and that
you will be in next week; if you believe that, “it is unto you according to your faith.” But of
course, this way it happened the way he believed.

Verse 14, “When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw the woman was very beautiful and when the
princes of Pharoah saw her, they praised her to Pharoah and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s
house” so he took her as his wife. “And for her sake, he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep,
oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants and she-asses and camels.” Any you think — why? Why
didn’t God just take all those from him? Well, that’s us and Satan. That’s us; that’s the way we

would deal. But God does not deal with us according to our sins and it’s amazing that God’s
steadfast love continued — do you see that? He’s always working to bring us back into faith in
himself, not working to punish us, but working to bring us back into faith in him and you can see it
in verse 17,
“But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh.” I mean, we would say why didn’t he afflict Abram?

But he “afflicted Pharoah and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife” because
he was determined to try to bring home to Abram “You are not walking in faith in me; there’s
something wrong.” “So Pharoah called Abram, and said, ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did
you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for
my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.’ And Pharoah gave men orders concerning
him; and they set him on his way, with his wife and all that he had.” That was the detour and
Abraham had sense enough, after all of that, he had sense enough to see “God has not dealt with me
according to my sins nor rewarded me according to my iniquities. So Father, I am coming right back
to where I missed you; I’m coming right back to that spot between Bethel and Ai and I’m going to
build that altar to you.” Verse 4, “Abram called on the name of the Lord” in other words he said
“I’m going to call on you, Lord, and I’m back where you had me before.”

That’s the important thing: if you get into a detour or get into a scrape, make a quick adjustment;
get back quickly to God. Don’t say, “I need to be punished for this — God should take it out on me
for this.” Don’t say that. That’s Satan — Satan is trying to get into you with that. God’s
steadfast love is forever; as far as the east is from the west. He has already removed your
transgressions from you and he has no interest or desire to punish you — he did all that in Jesus.
Now he wants you to believe that and to live as his child.

So immediately get back fast — okay, you did blow it — you were wrong; then get back to the place
where you were with God and say, “Father, I’m sorry and I confess it now. Lord, I know your
steadfast love is coming towards me and now I have faith in you.” Faith is what God wants you to do,
not think of yourself as beaten or deserving to be punished. The best thing you can do to God is to
have faith in him — to get up and start walking in faith and that’s what Abraham did. And it’s
probably because of that that God continued to deal with him so generously.

The account goes on in verse 5. God is so kindly, isn’t he? He thought, “Oh, so you have faith in
me? All right, now let’s strengthen that a little.” So he gives him a gentle little thing, another
kind of opportunity for self defense. “And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and
tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together; for their possessions were
so great that they could not dwell together.” It’s interesting that that’s just incidentally one of
the reasons why God holds back some of the benefits of Christ’s atonement — he could actually make
us all millionaires. Sometimes he holds them back in a kindly way because the more you have
sometimes spoils your unity. And when you have too much, sometimes then you can’t dwell together any
longer, so we need to be trusting of what God is giving to us –all of the benefits — because we
have all things in him and we can have everything this minute. So we have to thank him for the
things that he kindly holds back from us as well as the many things he gives us.

Verse 7 “and there was strife between the herdsman of Abram’s cattle and the herdsman of Lot’s
cattle. At that time, the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelt in the land.” Now do you remember who
Abram was? You find that I think back in Chapter 12:5, “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his
brother’s son.” Lot was Abram’s nephew. So it’s good to remember that if you turn back to chapter
13:8 –Abram was the older one — he was actually Lot’s uncle, and so he was the senior. So there’s

strife and the little nephew’s herdsman don’t get along with the uncle’s herdsman and it was pretty
plain what should be done there according to pecking order and seniority. Yet it is interesting that
Abram had learned some of his lesson; he knew that all things were his. He knew that the Father had
given him all things.

Loved ones, we need to see that. Do you realize that we are in Jesus by God’s mighty act and
everything is ours for the receiving? That’s true in him. It might be good for you to see it in 1
Corinthians 3:21. “So let no one boast of men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or
Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours;”

God is saying “I’ve given you all things; you are in my son and I’ve given you all things. “And you
are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.” And Abram knew that.

You remember how Jesus said he knew it? You remember when we looked up that amazing verse in John
8:56 Jesus says, ‘You’re father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad.
The Jews then said to him, ‘You’re not yet fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to
them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” Abraham, by revelation of the Holy
Spirit, had seen Jesus and knew what Jesus had done for him and knew that he had been destroyed in
Jesus and raised up in Jesus and that he, therefore, had all things given to him that God was giving
to his son. So he knew that all things were his so now look back to Genesis 13; he had absolute
faith that all things were his anyway so when his nephew objected, he didn’t say, “Okay, I want this
part of the land; you can have that stuff — it isn’t very good.” It’s interesting; he didn’t take
advantage of his position. Faith doesn’t.

Genesis 13:8, “Then Abram said to Lot, ‘Let there be no strife between you and me.” Such a different
Abram from the one that’s telling his wife to lie “Let there be no strife between you and me, and
between your herdsman and my herdsman; for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you?”
Imagine — this was the Abram that took advantage of the half-sister relationship with his wife to
swing the truth a little — no more of that. He had plenty of justification. He could have said,
“Look, I’m the uncle. I’m the senior guy here. You get rid of your people and move off and I will
take this land” but not at all. Verse 9, “Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from
me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I
will go to the left.” That’s it.

When you have faith in God, you don’t have to grab; you’re generous — there’s a generosity of faith
in your life. You’re not grabbing to make sure you get the best place or the best car or the best
seat or the best girl or the best guy or the best life or the best food. You sit back because your
faith isn’t in the world and in the things you can manipulate out of it. It’s in the Father and you
know the Father, it’s in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all,
will he not also give us all things with him?”
When you live that way day by day, there comes a generosity into your life and a freedom from trying
to grab for yourself. There’s a generosity that comes from faith when you realize, ‘”Wait a minute
— God didn’t spare his own son. Well, if he didn’t spare his own son, will he not give me all
things together with him? Will he not work all things according to his will, whatever happens here
in this situation?”

Loved ones, that’s it; when you move in faith in God, you move in freedom from self defense and

freedom from fear. When somebody has a choice to make, you say, “You take it — whatever you leave,
God, I know knows about it and he’s coming to transform it anyway.” Actually, Abram was getting all
the bad land. That is, on the surface he was getting the bad land. And you will see how faith in
God protects you because you will see the shadows beginning to grow as the verses go on. Verse 10,
“And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the
garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar.” And so all of it looked good
to his eyes and he was grabbing it. Of course, you see the shadows beginning to gather, don’t you?
This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You suddenly begin to sense that what he saw
looked good to his natural eyes, yet really had danger in it, and so it had.

“So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley, and Lot journeyed east; thus they separated from
each other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelt among the cities of the valley and
moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.”
You feel the thunder clouds beginning to gather.
Loved ones, every time you move in faith in the Father, he will move you, despite the appearances,
into a bright and warm and sunlit upland. And every time you move in fear; in grabbing things for
yourself and trying to trust what you can get hold of, you will move into darkened places that will
end up Sodom and Gomorrah’s for you.

Always move in faith. Believe God. Believe that he will look after you and take care of you. Because
the beauty of it is, as you move that way, God then confirms himself to you. Every time you go out
on a limb in faith in God, he will confirm things to you. He’ll give you grace beyond anything every
time you go out. That’s why I urge you to do things like going out into the neighborhood — do
something — put yourself out on a limb in faith in God and he will confirm things in your heart.
Many of us have never heard God speak because we have never done one thing in our lives in faith for
him. We’ve always depended on ourselves, depended on our job, depended on other people.

Just go out once for God and he will speak to you and that is what happened in verse 14, The Lord
again spoke to Abram so God became real to him again because Abram had taken the right action of
faith. “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Lift up your eyes, and look from
the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward.” Of course, if you
express the generosity of faith, God expresses all his generosity for you. “For all the land which
you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as a dust
of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted.
Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”

And that’s what happens; you hear God speak to you if you will move forward in faith. And, loved
ones, that’s true; so if you are sitting here tonight and you think, “God has not spoken to me like
that” do you understand that Abram went out and looked up and an impression came to his heart from
God. He sensed God saying; “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and
southward and eastward and westward.” See, it was that way. It wasn’t just God coming up and
saying, “I’m God. See my name on my forehead.” It was the same way as those moments when you hear
God speak within you and you sense that it is God. That’s what happened; he had a sure sense, an
impression in his heart that God was saying, “All the land which you see, I will give to you and
your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if one can
count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length
and the breadth of the land for I will give it to you.”

I don’t want to take Jim’s [Raymo] illustration from him. But he was up in the California hills
running and he saw a lovely little house being built and here they [Jim and his wife] were planning
to go abroad. His father in law had said to him, “Are you building a wee nest — a little nest for
Judy and a little home for the children?” And he hadn’t much of an answer for that. Then he went
out running into the hills and saw this couple — they were standing back looking at their house in
the hills, a lovely setting, just a young couple getting their nice home. And it came to him in a
voice, well, he didn’t say it was a voice –rather it was an impression that he could never question
from that moment; “You look after my house and I will look after your house. You provide a house for
me and I will provide a house for you.” Now that’s what this was [for Abram]; an impression of God
that you cannot question it’s so real, and that will come to each of us, loved ones. God will speak
in our lives if we will act practically in faith, if we will live, practically, by faith in God.
“So Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he
built an altar to the Lord.” He got back to that place with God, where he had been.

So are you in a detour or are you on track? If you are in a detour, come on back right away,
immediately. If you are lying under the feeling that you don’t deserve anything from God, then see
that God does not deal with you according to your sins nor reward you according to your iniquities.
In our businesses, because we are facing some things there, it came home to me; if God doesn’t deal
with you according to your sins, and he doesn’t reward you according to your iniquities, then he
certainly doesn’t deal with you according to your mistakes, or reward you according to your errors.
That’s plain. If he transcends our sins and our iniquities, he certainly transcends our mistakes and
our errors.

So pull yourself out of that — reject Satan’s lie. There’s only one person out to take it out on
you and that is Satan, and if you believe him, it will be unto you according to your faith. As far
as the Father is concerned, he’s the kind of God that makes Abram rich in silver and gold and cattle
immediately after the dear guy has lied and has failed to have faith in God. And God will continue
to do that with each one of us, generously, until the end, always endeavoring to draw us back by
faith in him.

The only reason bad things happen in our lives is because we believe Satan’s lie that we deserve
those things. That’s it, loved ones. So change tonight. Change tonight. Rise into faith tonight.
Build an altar to God here, tonight. If it makes it easier for you to go into the prayer room after
service and make that altar, do that. Make a definite act. Or if it’s easy just to sit and bow your
head, or go to the back of the room do that. Make a definite act. Or if it’s easier to come up and
kneel at the altar, do it. Make an altar and make things right with God and say, “Father, I’m sorry
for not having faith in you. Now Lord, I come back to the place where I left you and I build an
altar here and I put my faith in you, Lord, and I’m going to go forward into this week with full
faith and no fear for your glory.”

Let us pray.

Dear Lord, we thank you for the sheer truth of it all and the reality of it all. And Father, we
thank you, that you have already done everything in Jesus, to make things right with us and to make

us right with you. Father, we are simply to believe that and open our hearts to you and have faith
that you are now giving us all that we need and that you are keeping your promise that you will
supply every need of ours, from your riches in Christ Jesus.

And Lord we can look forward to this week as a week that will be a charmed week, a week when we will
live a charmed life; protected and provided for by the world that has been destroyed in Jesus and
raised up new and that will work the way you meant it to work for those of us who have faith in you.
Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you, Lord. We give ourselves to you, to rest in faith and to
trust you.

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit be with us now and evermore. Amen.