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 Giving is the Key to Everything

 

GIVING THE KEY TO EVERYTHING BY JACK HAYFORD   plus perhaps Sowing in Famine

 

      [This was prophetically written by Jack Hayford about twenty years ago!] Banks fail, Investments fall apart. Job markets are insecure and can change overnight. Changes suddenly take place. Accidents happen. It's impossible ever to be secure on earth's terms. We must recognize Him as our ultimate Provider, no matter what we have. We will never be able to save enough, invest enough, plan enough or in any way build up enough of human adequacy. We'll have learned that His promises and presence are our only sure support for the future.

       In his outstanding book, "Giving the Key to Everything,” Jack Hayford shows us how we can indeed be “secure,” not on earth’s terms, but on God’s.

        
Quotations from His Book and Comments by John Chappell

     Before the fall of man, God gave Adam and his wife stewardship over all creation. “… Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it: have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1; 27-28).

      After this, God said, in effect, “I only ask one thing of you; that you honor the fact that a certain portion of creation is Mine and Mine alone.” That’s essentially what God said when He told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17).

      We usually think of that prohibition as only being to “eat or not to eat.” But the issue was deeper. It was an issue of recognized rights. It involved man understanding and accepting that a small portion of all that he had within his reach was reserved—it belonged to the Lord. The Lord said, “Everything else is yours, but this is Mine.”   

      We are dealing with the same issue when we discuss the tithe—God’s claim to 10% of our income. And that’s why I call tithing “the starting place” for our learning to give—because it relates so directly to our knowing and honoring the difference between what is God’s and what is ours.               

        “And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s. It is holy to the Lord (Lev.27:430).”

      P. 101 … Adam and Eve took God’s portion, thereby not only losing what they thought they

would gain, but what they already had as well. … To see the divine claim on 10 per cent of our income and to surrender it in worship, faithfully, is to find life’s financial starting place and life’s essential beginning point of blessing once we’re in Christ.

 
By John Chappell …We need:

1. A “stewardship” paradigm (mindset) of giving everything as a way of life, and

2. A revelation that, as we are led by the Spirit in giving, we cannot outgive God.

4. To have a  total commitment to God, which involves radical obedience.

5. We need to know that giving financially and in other ways, as the Spirit leads, increases our love for those to whom we give—to God, our church, our children, our spouse . . . Vice Versa, when we “take” (win-lose) financially or withhold what we should give, it reduces our love for the person, the church, the group, the country, the race, and even for mankind. Giving closes many doors through which Satan can attack us.]

 
 
Jack Hayford continues:

     We are all afraid at times to ask God what we should give because … We know what God might say and we don't want to hear it. We rebel against God's highest plan of giving for us.

     Knowing Jesus' giving and letting Him teach us how to give like He does, is to find all there is to life. . . Everything. …We should live to give, and give to live.

 

(Myth) False paradigm: … Giving anything to God is to be left with less. Correct paradigm: Spirit-led giving will result in your having more not less.

 

In Malachi 3:6-12 God tells the people to return to Him (from a life of committing sins of many types). They ask how should they return, and he doesn't say:

 
1. Get on your knees and pray.
2. Or Read the bible
3. Or go to the temple more often or
4. Sanctify a fast . . .
 

Rather, he starts talking to them about their money--about tithing. This is God's starting place--to see God's divine claim on 10% of our income and to surrender it in worship, faithfully!

 

This is life's financial starting place and life's essential beginning point of blessing once we're in Christ.

 

We are ingrained with a selfish desire to control our lives with a fearful reticence to give. It is important to see our human resistance to tithing as another expression of our fallen nature.

 

Tithing (10% of our income or other financial increases) is the starting place of our giving because it relates so directly to our knowing the difference between what is God's and what is ours. Lev. 27:30.

 
God is a giving God, not a taker, and He wants to make us in His image.
 

From tithing (10%) our finances, the windows of heaven are openings from which all (not just financial) of life's blessings flow.  When the windows of heaven are open over your,

1. Home, there is joy and happiness in your home.

2. Business there is prosperity in your business.

3. Mind there is peace and confidence in your mind.

4. Body and soul, there is health and contentment.

5. Finances, there is a Holy Spirit anointed flow of financial blessings in your life.

 

Jack Hayford made the statement, "I cannot remember EVER hearing a person oppose tithing who was committed to faith in the present stream of the Holy Spirit's miraculous works!"

 

***We must recognize Him as our ultimate Provider, no matter what we have. We will never be able to save enough, invest enough, plan enough or in any way build up enough of human adequacy. We'll have learned that His promises and presence are our only sure support for the future.

 
 

P. 100 Jack Hayford, “The Key to Everything”

 

     Isn’t this an awesome revelation God gave Jack Hayford!

 

      Before the fall of man, God gave Adam and his wife stewardship over all creation. “… Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it: have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1; 27-28).

 

      After this, God said, in effect, “I only ask one thing of you; that you honor the fact that a certain portion of creation is Mine and Mine alone.” That’s essentially what God said when He told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17).

 

      We usually think of that prohibition as only being to “eat or not to eat.” But the issue was deeper. It was an issue of recognized rights. It involved man understanding and accepting that a small portion of all that he had within his reach was reserved—it belonged to the Lord. The Lord said, "Everything else is yours, but this is Mine.”

   

      We are dealing with the same issue when we discuss the tithe—God’s claim to 10% of our income. And that’s why I call tithing “the starting place” for our learning to give—because it relates so directly to our knowing and honoring the difference between what is God’s and what is ours.

    

        “And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord’s. It is holy to the Lord (Lev.27:430).”

 

P. 101 … Adam and Eve took God’s portion, thereby not only losing what they thought they would gain, but what they already had as well. … To see the divine claim on 10 per cent of our income and to surrender it in worship, faithfully, is to find life’s financial starting place and life’s essential beginning point of blessing once we’re in Christ.