BALANCED, PART 2: "READING THE FINE PRINT" | DR. MIKE WOODS, SR. | RADAH CHURCH | 12 APR 26 (PM)

Yes, God. No one else like you, Lord. There is no one else like you. Last time. There is no— there is no one else like you. Come on, just lift your voice in this building if you believe there's no one else like him, no one else like Jesus. Come on, just open your mouth and give him the fruit of your lips. Come on, in this room, minister to him so he will minister to you. It's an exchange. There is none like you.

No one else can touch my heart, my heart like you do. I can search, I can search for all eternity, Lord. And 5.

There is none like you. Come on, sing it again. There is none, there is none like you. Come on, sing it. No one else can touch, no one else can touch, no one else can touch my heart. Come on, sing.

I can search, I can search for eternity, Lord, and find there is none like you.

Come on, the worshipers are worshiping. Lift your voice in this room. We give you the glory, God. We give you all the honor. Beside you there is no other. You alone are God. You alone are God. And we worship and adore you, Jesus. We bless your great and high name, God. You're the eternal, only wise God. Your ways are past finding out. You have declared by yourself that you are God. And so when we worship you, we just affirm what you've already declared. You're God, and we give you the glory. No one else, no one else can my heart.

I can search, I can search for all eternity, Lord, and find there is none, there is none like you. Like you.

We bless your name, Godfather. We thank Thank you for your anointing. Thank you for the anointing that destroys yokes and removes burdens. Father, let the light, the illumination, and the intelligence of the Holy Ghost fill this room tonight. Do something man cannot do. Saturate the walls, charge the atmosphere, and let your Shekinah glory be revealed. God, we believe there is none like you nowhere. You alone are God, and we declare tonight you are God alone, and we worship you, and we bless you, and we honor you. God, thank you that as we open the word tonight, we will experience the light, the illumination, and the intelligence of the Holy Ghost. Have your way in this place. There is none, there is none like you. There is none, there is none, there is none. Thank you, Jesus. There is none. Oh, there is none.

There is none.

Come on, sing. There is none.

There is none.

Nobody, nowhere. Amasi.

There is none.

There is none.

There is none.

Not Buddha, not Muhammad. There is none. Not Krishna! There's none! E shakatata bande osaya ne?

There is none!

Oh there is none! Oh there is none! O tabababa mande osaya—there is none!

Oh there is none!

Et abatatabaseya! But there is none! Hey Jesus! There is none like you, none like you, none like you, not like you.

There is no— nobody like you, Jesus.

Nobody like you, Jesus. There is none, there is none, there is none, there is none. Hey, shatta tabataia! Searched all over, couldn't find nobody. Oh, there is nothing There is none.

There is none.

There is none. There is none. Oh, there is none in all the earth. There is none. Not even in the heavens. There is none.

There is none, living or dead.

There is none. There There's none like you! There— there is nothing... Oh, ohh, there is none like you! Like you?

No one else can do what only God does for us. We thank him that he has done it all again today by sending his son Jesus Christ to die on our behalf so we could be saved from sin forevermore.

And I want everyone who believes this morning just lift up your hands right now if they're able because my prayer will not stop until every person here lifts their hand high enough to see me properly.

Lift way above head height or even over shoulder level. Let's pray together.

Father of heaven, Lord Jesus, let no man boast about himself but through thee alone shall men become wise. For without Thee was I wretched; thou hast redeemed me out of death into life everlasting.

Hallelujah! Thank You, Holy Spirit. In Your presence may He never cease till His coming back at last. Amen. Can somebody shout hallelujah?!

Oohhh, oooohhhh, there ain't none!

There isn't another name worthy of praise except Thy Name! But then why would anyone say amen when nobody knows Him yet!? Because some people don't know how much They love Me anymore! Some have forgotten My goodness.

So many things go wrong around Them, and still somehow find reasons to complain against Me! Why did Thou send Come on, lift your voice. Come on, Zion, lift your voice. Hallelujah, Jesus. He's the true and living God, and ain't nobody God but God. We give you the glory. Hallelujah. We give you the honor, Jesus. We welcome you here, God. We welcome you here. So we thank you, Lord, for what you are going to say to us tonight. Open our ears to hear what the Spirit will say to the church. Yeah. And we'll give your name the praise. Yeah. And all the glory and honor shall be thine. Thank you for balance. And we receive it in our lives now. In Jesus' name, amen. Clap your hands and bless the Lord. Mario, you can cue that video and then we're going to share this word tonight. Hallelujah! That's a big question. Are you balanced? Right. Glory to God. Hallelujah. We're going to continue what we started this morning. Y'all glad to be back in church? Don't, don't lift your hand, don't, because I don't want you to lie. You glad? But I'm glad. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Amen. So this is part 2, glory to God, of this teaching that I told you The Lord interrupted my desire, what I thought I was going to teach this morning, and gave me a whole 6-part series last night. So somebody say balance. Balance. All right, and tonight we're going to talk about reading the fine print. But before we do, I want you to go to Proverbs 11:1. I want to just kind of review what we talked about this morning. The Bible says a false balance— say a false balance. Is an abomination to the Lord, but a Jesuit is his delight. So a false balance, that's a pseudo, a balance that's fake, a balance that's not true, a balance that's not aligned. And we learned this morning, glory to God, that balance— somebody say this one, say balance is the ability, is the ability to be aligned, be aligned with what God sees, perceives, and desires for my life. So it's having objectives that align with God, right? And we learned, uh, that there were in this category of abomination other things that God calls abomination. He calls lying with another man an abomination if you're a man. He calls women lying with each other abomination. He calls sowing discord abomination. He calls feet that are swift to run to mischief abomination. The reality is abomination deals with that which is distasteful, detestable. It's saying to God, I don't care what you say, I'm going to do what I want to do. Are y'all hearing me? He said being out of balance, and you know you should be in balance, is an abomination to God. Living too far this way, being super deep, super spiritual with no balance in your natural life— your spirituality should culminate. Are y'all hearing me? With balance that shows up in the world. Say that with me. Say, my spirituality should go beyond church. It should culminate with balance that shows up in the world. Now watch this, because the church, we have to be relevant to the world and not weird. Okay, I'm gonna say it again. We gotta be relevant and not weird. So many times people in the world are turned off from the church because we show up like weirdos, and we shouldn't. We should be different, but we shouldn't be weird. We shouldn't be unapproachable. Watch this, you shouldn't be hard to figure out if you saved from somebody that's not saved. Okay, somebody shouldn't be walking on eggshells with you because you walk in this religious arrogance like you're better than them. Are y'all with me? We have a tendency to look down on people who are not quote unquote as spiritual as we think we are. Okay, are y'all with me? God says this is an abomination because we got to show up in the world. And I gave you an example, glory to God. And I said, and this was really true, you cannot— and I think I got it in— yeah, you cannot follow Jesus and remain out of balance financially. So I had to teach about balance this morning before we started talking about the money, because at the end of the day, you got to view this as balance. You can't have holy hands all your life and empty pockets. That's not the will of God. Well, I ain't gonna let you be around me and be like that because that's not God's will. Are y'all hearing this? Well, Apostle Lepore, you're Howard, you're always— I told y'all this morning he wasn't talking about you. But if you tell me you following Jesus, you should be in balance financially, like, like on the opening video. You shouldn't be in the red all the time because you maxed out your credit cards. Because you overspend, because you misprioritize your money, because you live for the audience of people and not the audience of God. That's a lack of balance. You just got to have them red bottoms, like I said this morning, and then you don't pay your rent. That's out of balance. Oh, wait a minute, how about you spend your tithe? Which doesn't even belong to you, the Bible says you're cursed. See, there's no balance there. And you can't tell me you're effectively following Jesus if you're out of balance financially. Are y'all with me? All right, I close this morning talking about money and mastership. The reality is you have to choose Jesus as your master. You can't serve God and money. P.T. Barnum, who in the 1800s founded with the Ringling Brothers, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. When I was growing up, I went to the circus. That's a real circus. I don't know this ghetto circus they got now. Y'all ever been to the black circus? It ain't the same as Ringling Brothers. I'm just gonna tell you right now, some that might be an elephant, but it ain't really an elephant. Y'all hearing this? I'm just saying, Barnum and Bailey started real circus. It was, it was top-notch. But reality is, he said this, which— and he was one of the first billionaires to ever exist. And he said money is a terrible master because it— watch this— it never cares about you. As a master, money don't care about you. Matter of fact, when it sees you're irresponsible toward it, it's trying to get away from you as quickly as possible. But money is an excellent servant. And this is what I close with this morning. Money should be serving us, not the other way around. You know what? We work for money every day. We put them 80 hours in every 2 weeks like clockwork so we can get money. Are y'all hearing me? Because most of the time we're serving money, and we, we placed out— we've allowed a system to place value on us You know, when you accept a salary or hourly rate, you're saying, I'm worth this $40 an hour, that's what I'm worth. And guess what? You're worth more than that. You are more than $100 grand a year. You just have to discover who God says you are and discover your purpose. I gave you this morning 3 laws of balance. I'm just reviewing, and we're gonna get into this. Once I get in, we're going home. I told you, number one, if you're going to balance something, you need a reference point. So I'm going to use my water bottle and we're going to balance it in my hand. And see, my reference point is the top of the bottle. Long as I keep looking at that, this bottle stays balanced. But notice when, when I take my eyes off it, when I break focus, it starts moving. But watch this, the second part of this, I have to have Consistent corrections, constant corrections. I'm making corrections to make sure it stays up, it stays balanced. Are y'all with me? So if you want to stay balanced in your life, you got to constantly be corrected. So you have to be mature to accept correction, because guess what? None of us know everything. We're ever learning and coming to the knowledge of truth. Thirdly, you got to have a clear objective. My objective is to keep this bottle from hitting the floor and staying in the palm of my hand. And I got my hand fixed a certain way. I got my focus in the right place where it will not. This is how you got to be with your money. You got to know where your money is going. Matter of fact, I'm gonna challenge you this week: follow your money. Some of y'all ain't followed y'all money in a long time. You know why? Because we don't even have attachment to physical money. So now we just walk up to something we want and tap, and, and you probably don't even think how much you're spending. Some people have subscriptions that they pay for every month that don't even know when they come out your account. You don't know if they took it out 3 or 4 times. Because you know, you just know your Netflix still working. But you, have you really just checked? I mean, you got to follow your finances. Are y'all with me? So here we go, let's get in it tonight. So we're going to talk about this objective, reading the fine print. Here's the objective. Go to the next slide, Mario. Your financial objective should be to honor God with his stuff. You don't own nothing. Everything you have is his. Are y'all with me? I'm just gonna help you tonight. You ain't got nothing. I don't have nothing. Everything we have belongs to him. So the objective financially, every time you get some money, should be, how do I honor God with this money? How do I honor God with these finances? Uh, is it really honoring God if I buy a pair of Louboutins and can't afford them? Are y'all with me? Am I honoring God when I don't pay the bills that are due, and I take my money and go do something else with it. Man, I'm telling you, if the cell phone company, the light phone— light bill company, if the gas company— salvation was based on how some church folk pay their bills, they never get saved because they see how we steward what God has given us. I don't— I get if you can't pay a bill and you ain't got the money, but what I have a problem with, the irresponsibility. You got it and just act like the bill ain't there. I remember one time, true story, I went to the mailbox. I was, I was a kid, brought the mail to my mama. She went through them, she said, them bills, boy, go take them, put that back in there. That's, that's not a good practice, right, to teach your child to put the bills back in there? Because guess what, them bills still had to be paid. And you know, growing up, and I know my mom got a real testimony, so I know she don't mind me telling this stuff. Growing up, I, I didn't know what she was doing because, you know, sometimes Yeah, she would— she— the bills be paid, everything be good. But then when I got older and went to apply, at one time I went to apply for a Georgia Power account and they said, we can't turn you on because you had some lights in your name in '78. I said, do you realize in '78 I was 9? Ain't no way you had— I had lights in my name. Did I talk to my mama? She said, oh boy, you— we were going through, I had to put them in your name or you would have been in the dark. I, I was mad, but she was like— but I'm like, Mama, I can't get no lights because you need to pay this old bill. Y'all hear me? Okay, so, so our goal should be to honor God in how we steward our Don't put no utilities in your children name. Go to Luke 9:23 and 24. Let's go, we go. Let's, let's get into this tonight. We're gonna read the fine print. Glory to God. Then he said to them all, say all, if anyone desires to come after me or follow me, it's up there, Mario. That scripture ain't there? Okay, all right, we good. I'm gonna read it then. Then he said to them all, if anyone desires to follow me— say follow me. That word follow means to come after and imitate. So if anyone wants to imitate Jesus now as a Christian a kingdom citizen, you should desire to imitate your King. Not the pastor, not the preacher. You get saved to be like Jesus. Are y'all with me? How many want to follow him? Got about 4. Okay, y'all want to follow him, imitate him? This is the key. He says, first of all, deny yourself. Oh boy, that's not easy for most because we are trained to love ourselves. And God says, if you want to imitate me Reject yourself. Reject your dreams. Reject your desires. Reject anything that arises in your flesh that doesn't align with me. He stopped there. He said, now, after you deny yourself— because you're not going to even do this next part unless you deny yourself— he said, take up his— your cross. And follow me. Take up your cross. That's death. That's crucifixion. He said, not only do I die for you, but I need you to die for me. If you want to imitate me, you got to die to your flesh. I think I taught this on Good Friday. There, there has to be a death to death. You have to lay the things you desire on the cross. And follow him every day. That ain't easy, man, because all of us have proclivities and idiosyncratic ways that we would love to follow that bring us pleasure, things we would like to see fulfilled in our life. But you need to have a crucifix set up in your mind, because watch this, there are thoughts that exalt itself against the knowledge of God. You ain't even got to be thinking it, but it'll come out of nowhere. Oh, y'all ain't got to say much. See, I know y'all flew to church from heaven tonight, or your chariot brought you to the service. Some of y'all left heaven to come tonight, I understand, and your chariot outside waiting to carry you back to heaven after you leave. But some of us are human, because watch this, when you get saved Your spirit gets saved. You're a trichotomy— your body, soul, spirit. So you get saved, your spirit man gets saved. Now it needs to influence your soul. Are y'all hearing me? That's what the Bible said, you're saved to the saving of your soul. So he saved the spirit, and now that soul, which is where your intellect your touch, your taste, your feeling, what you see, your passions, your will is in your soul. So now you got to bring that soul under the control of the hand of God. And if you're not careful, if you don't kill the soul daily, the flesh, the carnality, the old man those thoughts will creep up, and you got to bring them to captivity and kill them immediately. He said bring every thought into captivity. Watch this, that word captivity, if you look it up in the Greek, it means bring it to a point of death. Kill it. Don't just lock it up, kill it. Give it a life sentence. Give it the electric chair. Because if it keeps coming back, you'll end up acting on it. That's why you got to be careful even before you go to sleep, because the enemy will creep into your dreams. I don't know who this is for. You'll be dreaming about stuff you have no business dreaming. You're dreaming about— you, you, you got— you and you, you, you doing stuff you have no business doing, and you wake up be trying to figure out why you enjoyed the dream so much. Because that stuff ain't dead, it's still in you. Maybe not in here, maybe live, okay, maybe live. But the reality is, if you want to follow him, you got to deny yourself, even in your finances. That's the hardest part because you worked for your money. This is my money. I'm not gonna give up my money and let God control it. Are y'all hearing me? Listen to what Jesus said. He said, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What a parable! What, what a revelation on how valuable death of pleasure can be. I gain life by dying to things I desire. Here, even when it comes to my finances. So here's a question: if you had to sum up your financial objectives/goals in one statement, what would it be? I'm give you a moment to think about that. My overall financial goal is to— what, what do you want to do with the money that you have and the money 'Cause I believe money's coming to everyone under the sound of my voice. I believe that's why God's got me teaching this, because he wants you to have some balance when you get it. Amen. So what is your overall financial goal? You ain't got to tell me, but I wish you can think about that. Because the reality is there are people on the outside that'll look and say, okay, well, my financial goal is to, you know, make all the money I can. That's some people go to get all the money they can, never spend none, but just make all they can. But guess what? That's not gonna make you happy, right? It's not gonna make you balanced, and you won't even be content with that. Watch this. I know some millionaires, multi-millionaires even, that went bankrupt. They had all that money went bankrupt because they weren't satisfied with what they had. Greed crept in and they start overindulging in life. I mean, if you are a millionaire, 7 figures, the average millionaire lives on 17% of his income. 17%. Of a million dollars is $170,000. Are y'all hearing me? So he lives off $170,000 a year because the mindset is to produce another million and to produce another after that. But if you got a million and you balling out, renting jets, staying at 5-star hotels buying clothes that you really can't afford. You think you can because you got a million. This is why— oh my God, this is a staggering number— 69% of professional athletes who leave athletics end up broke. Almost 70%. They don't have millions of dollars come through their hands. But they had— didn't have the mindset to maintain it. So making it ain't enough. Say the word. Say making it ain't enough. There's some people, God will be to spend all they can. That's fun, but it ain't balanced. It's fun, but it has no longevity. You will never leave an inheritance to your children's children with that mindset. Then there's some people who won't spend a dime. They'll save it all. And I call these people hoarders, because your money ain't designed for that neither. Your money's not designed for you to save all of it. Watch this. Money has purpose. I'm going, I'm going to— we're about to redefine prayer. Money really has purpose. Can I submit to you— I said I hit it this morning— but money is already looking for you. Many times it's delayed because you're not in purpose. God has already assigned the money to a purpose, to an assignment that heaven wants to fund. Somebody say purpose money. So many times the delay of the manifestation of financial stability comes through the lack of a revelation on what your goal is. You want to really know what your real goal should be? Discover the purpose of the money. It's already a purpose for it. Good God. And then there's somebody probably saying, well, I know, preacher man, you want me to say my goal for my finances is to give all I can. Nope, that's not my desire, because that could be irresponsible as well. Because I heard a false prophet I ran past this clip. God told— he was talking to this guy. He said, God told me to tell you, get $20,000 in your account and then don't pay your bills. And he just went in order, so just give this to God. That is irresponsible. Why would you tell someone— God would not tell you to tell someone to empty their account just so he can give an offering and he get half of it because that's the deal he probably made with the church. That's ridiculous. And how gullible people are that they actually respond to that kind of foolishness because somebody said God said it. God didn't say that. The reality is that's not balanced. Even when it comes to your giving, it shouldn't be under pressure. The Bible said you should freely give. Freely you have received, freely give. So you shouldn't be pressured. No one should have to twist your arm to give an offering. And when you got balance— watch this— giving becomes easy because you know your job now is to honor God with your money. Not just when you give to the church, but in everything you do. God's gonna bless you because you're honoring him through discipline. Are we here tonight? Wow. Okay, so let's look at the fine print. First of all, just put the first one on there, Mario. God owns everything. This is fine print, including your bank account, including your money, including your investments, including your land, including your house. He owns everything. I want to help your mentality tonight. If you give it all to him, you'll never lack anything. Somebody said Apostle told us bring all the money to church. I didn't tell you that. I said you need to honor him with everything that's yours. It belongs to him. Too many of us go to church and we don't realize that. We think that what's mine is mine, and what's the Lord's is the Lord's, and the Lord gonna give me some more. Well, he don't give you no more until you recognize that what you have is his. Psalm 24:1, the earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof, them and they that dwell therein. So nothing you have— your car is not yours. You're managing God's stuff. That's why you got to have balance, because it's not yours, it's his. Can y'all agree with that? Just in case you can't, number 2: God is transcendent. So this positions God, right? His transcendence says he is above us. He is God by himself. You look at— and I'll be thinking about the etymology of the word God, G-O-D. Why couldn't they choose a bigger word for such an amazing God? But they really had to come to this conclusion because when you say God, you're saying there is none higher, there is none bigger. He is worthy to be served. The theocracy of God says that I owe God everything and he owes me nothing. The Godness of God says I should serve him without thought. If I really know he's God and he's real, I shouldn't have to consider whether I serve him. So people who don't choose God don't know him. That's why the Hebrew writer says it is impossible for those who have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been once enlightened to fall away. It's impossible for you to go back on God if you really tasted him. Yeah, I don't care how hard life get. An angel can come and preach another gospel because I know God for real. I'm never turning back. If God never blesses me again, his transcendence has been revealed. Can I submit to you the church has become, or has been excellent— not become, they are still doing it, they just become better at it— at introducing people to God in a way that they only recognize him. But can I tell you something? That is so delusional. There, people are under strong delusion because God can never be recognized He has to be revealed. Hashem Adonai. You can go through the motions of stuff that look like God, and that's why you got people who don't believe in God, because in that regard, the church has failed to introduce them to a transcendent God that is for real bigger than you and I. He real. And we have to teach people how to get a revelation of him. He's above us. That's transcendence. I don't have time. I could take you through, uh, probably 60 scriptures right now that prove his transcendence. He's bigger than us, and it's lofty of you and I to think that we'll ever be as big as him. But that ought to give you perspective. If you're serving a transcendent God who owns everything, when you get something, you ought to want to give it back to him in honor. Again, whether it's your— you ought to give your children back. God knows he can have mine. Listen, sometimes I'd be like, Lord Jesus, Just take them, you can have them, Jesus. But you gotta give everything back to God. Everything. It'll keep you humble. 'Cause you realize you ain't got nothing except he provided. Third thing, God is also imminent. I love this part. Even though he's bigger than everything and everybody, he's imminent. His imminence, not imminence. Which is royal, his eminence, which is his ability— although he's transcendent, he chooses to come down to our level and deal with us. He transcended but says, I'm imminent enough to have relationship with you. I'm transcendent enough to be sovereign, but I'm imminent enough to be relational. Good God, which means I'm touchable. To be imminent means I'm live and active in your life. I am basically— is what he's saying— one prayer, one phone call away. Think about that. You serve a God that's God enough to create heaven and earth. That's his transcendence. But he's imminent enough to help you solve your issue. Okay, last one. God is 100% invested in blessing us. This is fine print, and if you, if you remember this fine print, the rest of this is easy. Because God, when he showed up in your life, he was already vested in blessing you. The scripture says you are blessed to be a blessing. So he wants me blessed so I can bless other people. He's vested in it because he can't lie. When that doesn't happen, the fallacy is not in God, it's in us. If we ever find ourselves where we're not blessed enough to be a blessing, God has not failed, we have. Because he's 100% in. Somewhere we didn't honor him with everything. It was balance that blocked the blessing. Imbalance that blocked the blessing. That's when you get over in that category, the poor you held you always, because the imbalance pushes you into that poverty arena. It takes you out of royalty. Are y'all hearing this? Say that when we say, God is 100% invested in blessing me. So to know then and to understand the proper objective of your money, your finances, Here's the first piece we're going to cover tonight. You need to know how God views your stuff. Put that up there, Mario. I think I got that slide for them. It's the one directly after that, son. There you go. You know how God looks at your stuff. We read in Luke this parable that Jesus was teaching, Luke 9. But I want to share with you a story real quick from the Old Testament, and we're going to be done. For years, when you studied the Old Text, the Israelites worshiped in a tent and they called it a tabernacle. This tent, this tabernacle housed the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God. First of all, let me say this: I never want to be where God was. I want to be where God is. I'm gonna say that one more time. I don't ever want to be where God was. I want to be where God is, whether it's in a tent. If God there, I'm there. Whether it's in a corner in my bedroom, I want to be where God is. You should never settle for ikavad. Ikavad— ik means departed, kavod, glory— means the glory is gone. You should never settle for what the glory has left. You should always want to be where God is. I just, I just wanted to interject that because many a times we will settle for the imbalance and say, okay, God, you used to be here, maybe you'll come back. And God's always already telling you, I'm gone, I'm out, or this ain't for you anymore. Are y'all hearing this? You got to be bold enough to transition and move when the cloud moves. The Bible says whenever the cloud moved, Israel moved. The cloud represents the glory, it represents the presence. There are people who try to summons the cloud back into places where God says, no, I'm not coming back. Back. Some marriages, the glory is gone. Oh yeah, okay, I'm not gonna touch that tonight. It's for somebody watching. Let me touch it. The man been cheating for 10 years. Are y'all hearing me? He been abusing you verbally, physically for 10 years. The glory is gone. Religion tells you to stay because you shouldn't get a divorce because of religious reasons. No, you want to be where God is. There's some women waiting for a man to come back. Dude went to get a loaf of bread 10 years ago. He ain't coming back. I'm just saying, the reality is you want to be where God is. Say that, women. Say, I need to be where God is. I was talking to someone last week who lives in Mississippi, and they kept saying, Apostle, I know I need to come to Atlanta. I need to sit in the ministry. I need to sit under you because I know I've been stuck because I just been staying here thinking things were going to change for me. I said, well, I'm glad you know that, but it's one thing to talk about it, and the more you keep delaying and putting it off, you're going to keep having the same issue because God already gave you the instruction to move. Watch this. Every assignment has geography. It has a place. Connected to the assignment. And in that place, the glory comes. I gotta go. So, so, so, so, yeah, okay, let me go. David, then, in this particular text I'm about to read in 2 Chronicles 29, he was sitting in his castle, his fine house, and watch this, he realized And I'm gonna read starting verse 10 in a moment. You're going too fast, Mario. Slow down in Jesus' name. I'm gonna read in a minute. I appreciate the proactiveness. Stay with me. He realizes he lives in a mansion, but God dwells in a tent. Interesting. I'm living in this big castle with fine furnishings, but God is showing up in a tent. So he said, I can't have this, I'm gonna build God a temple. Guess what God says? Nope, Solomon's gonna build it. You can't build it because your life ain't right. Are y'all hearing this? You just doing it because you feel guilty right now. So watch this, we shouldn't do things because we see a need. Being balanced means I'm in alignment with what God has said. He told him no. So David says, okay, I can't build it. What I am going to do is design it, and we're going to raise the money for it. If you, if you read the entire chapter 29, you'll see David gave out a treasury He gave out his personal wealth. But watch this, he didn't give a percentage. The Bible said he gave all he could with delight. Matter of fact, if you total up what David gave to God's house, he gave about $14 billion and hundreds of pounds of gold and silver. Then he turned around and called all the leaders and all the major families and asked them to contribute, and they gave wholeheartedly. The Bible says that the Queen of Sheba gave a one-of-a-kind offering, said that her offering was 10 times that of David. So this Black queen gave $140 billion. Are y'all hearing this? And as people were coming forward, David prayed. He explained the generosity and why wealth was important to building something for God. And this is where we discover a proper objective when it comes to managing money. Here we go, verse 10. Here we go. Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation. It don't matter how much money you got, blessing the Lord is never optional. He blessed the Lord, which means— watch this— the word blessed is barak, which means he rocked back and forth in homage and worship unto a king. David was the king, but he worshiped the Lord. I'm going somewhere with this. Be careful when you go into places of worship and the people that are in charge, they don't worship. Very imbalanced when you worship is going on and the preacher is like this. Are y'all hearing me? Chilling, watching everybody. I can't do that. You can't take me up in the presence and I sit there with my legs crossed. Are y'all hearing this? Okay, y'all ain't like y'all ain't never seen that at the church. Y'all done seen that worship going on. Yeah, they'd be in the office having a party. The devil is a liar. Leaders ought to bless the Lord before the people. Amen. Amen. We should be examples of giving thanks to God. Oh, this is balance, man. He said, saying, praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Listen, let me tell you something. If you want to see balance in your life and in your house, learn instead of sending the bills back to the mailbox like my mama. Get them bills and lay your hands on them. Say, blessed be God. Begin to bless the Lord for his ability to help you pay them bills. Are y'all hearing this? You, you got the Bible said the blessed God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Blessed be God. You got to learn to declare the blessing over the Lord where there's lack, when there's shortage. Instead of panicking, bless the Lord, because from everlasting to everlasting, he's the Father. Are y'all with me? Verse 11: Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power So watch this, he was a billionaire and took the, whoo, focus off of him and realized, with all I got, you're the greatness. You wanna keep being blessed? Keep putting him in the position of honor over the stuff you have. Okay, he had billions. You may have hundreds of thousands and you're gonna get millions and billions, But how are you gonna act when you get it? My Lord, will you still be a radical worshiper and praiser? It's amazing that people can be so hungry and gung-ho for God while they're going through. But what happens when you come out? Because people say, I need this to change, so they go after God because they want him to change it. But when he changes it, can you still declare, oh Lord, you are the great one, the power and the glory belong to you, the victory belongs to you, and the majesty belongs to you? In other words, I get no glory. See, let me tell you something, you gotta— this is the fine print— you gotta decide now who's gonna get the glory when the blessings show up. And you can fool yourself and you can fool other people perhaps, but the reality is God knows your heart. Have you given all your stuff to him? Have you decided he's the king of everything? Watch what he says: for all that is in heaven and in earth is thine. Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. So two things here. One, everything belongs to God. Look at verse 12. Here's the second thing: both riches and honor come of thee, right? You reign over all, and in thy hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great and to give strength. So blessings belong to God, and all blessings come from God. To. Are y'all getting this? Our wealth and our honor comes from him. This is how you use your stuff, as his. That's the objective that keeps you balanced. Nothing you ever will receive will be yours. You got to get all right with that, cuz some people got plans for their money already. Man, I'm going to Dubai for 30 days. You might have to wait a few years. And the crazy thing, some folks been calling me, talking about, well, do I want to buy some property in Dubai? And they selling it real cheap right now. And I'm really praying about that thing because I know this war is going to end. Oh, y'all ain't got to say nothing. I'm thinking about buying about 3, 4 houses right now because when this war is over, the value is going to shoot through the roof. But the reality is I want to do whatever I do so he can get the glory, so I can advance his kingdom. Let me keep reading, verse 12. No, notice he says, our wealth and our honor come from you. You're the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength. That also says that God distributes everything. Strength and power come from God. It says he does it unequally to all. So for anybody that will honor him with their stuff, God says, I will equally give out strength and power. This ain't reserved for just a special group. It's reserved for those that will honor God with everything. Verse 13: Now therefore, oh God, we give thanks and we praise your glorious name. That's why I'll be telling y'all all the time just to open your mouth and tell him thank you. You. You got to begin to rejoice and give thanks to God in his glorious name. Watch this, before the results. I'mma say it again, you got to rejoice before the results. That way it becomes natural. It's easy to praise him when things change if you do it now. Watch this, on the flip side, it becomes easy to give thanks when everything is good than it is when you're going through. You have to learn to press your way through whatever you're dealing with. I'm almost is done for real, yo. No matter what it looks like, you gotta press your way through. Say, I get