The two main areas in which God’s people and actually every class of people, usually need help, are in the areas of health and finance.
In this newsletter each month, we will look at how God has provided for everyone to live a life of blessing in each of these areas.
If you look in the Old Testament, you will see that God always blessed His people with prosperity and good health. Both of these blessings were included in the blessings that are listed as being for those who followed God and kept His commands.
We see throughout the Old Testament that God’s blessings upon his people included freedom from sickness and disease and freedom from lack. God has always wanted His people to have enough to be able to be a blessing to others.
For years, I was taught and believed, that anyone that had abundance must be people that were chasing money instead of following God.
During the early years of trying to “get into ministry” my family struggled. We were always “just getting by” and sometimes we only “got by” because my mother-in-law stepped in and helped us.
From the time I entered full-time ministry, we have always been blessed, meaning that my mother-in-law no longer had to come to our rescue. But even then, I did not have enough finances to be able to help people like I wanted. It is true that we often fed the hungry street-people that we saw. Even when we barely had any food and couldn’t see where any could possibly come from, we still shared whatever we had until it ran out. Then we would pray and God would always bring more. Several times He even brought us food (and diapers for two babies) while we were praying for it.
Someday I will write a book of all the testimonies we have from the time before we were in ministry.
As I said, we were always reaching out and trying to help people, even when we had little or nothing to help with. And God always came through for us. He is faithful who promised!
Even though God always met us at our point of need, we were not able to give like I wanted. It bothered me that I could not support missionaries or give money to help build a church or a bible school, whenever we saw the need. The best I could give was prayers.
I had seen so much wrong in how ministries dealt with finances that I had literally gone in the opposite direction. I had seen the excess of ministries and I had seen the methods they used to raise money and very honestly I wanted nothing to do with any of it. The problem was I didn’t see that I had avoided one ditch so hard that it caused me to fall into another ditch.
I was so afraid of money becoming a god (as I saw it had to other ministries) that I avoided it altogether. By doing that I had actually let money become a god in the opposite way.
There were times that I would not receive an offering on purpose. (Even today, if I talk about finances and I feel that someone may think that I’m trying to pull on their emotions, I won’t receive an offering.)
A god is anything that influences you to the point that it causes you to act or react in a certain way rather than obeying God.
By trying to keep money from becoming a god, I had actually let it become a god because I let it dictate how I acted.
Always remember, money will be either a god or a tool. It makes a good tool but a terrible god.
If money is your god, you will never have enough. But if it is a tool to advance the kingdom of God, you can always trust God to bring you what you need.
After we had been in ministry for a couple of years, we were having a Board of Directors meeting in Denver, Colorado at the home of one of our directors. Before the week long meeting was over, they all said they had something very important to talk to me about.
As I sat and listened, I heard the wisdom of God in their advice. They showed me from scripture and from our life experiences how I had gone from one ditch to another. Then they prayed for me to see finances the way God would have me to see it.
I had always read books on the life of George Muller. His faith to trust God for his daily needs as well as the daily needs of thousands of orphans had always impacted me. During the early days of my Christian life, I had decided to follow Muller’s example. I had decided to never tell anyone my needs except my Heavenly Father. I had decided to never ask anyone for a set amount of money (an honorarium) to preach or minister. It was Muller’s example that inspired me to believe God for our daily needs to be met. His methods of prayer greatly influenced me.
Recently I found a five year diary I had kept from the early days and I was amazed at what I read. Each day, there would be a short entry concerning our needs and each day there would be a small number written in the diary to indicate how God had answered our prayers. I would be almost ashamed to share with you how small the needs were. But it would show you that we trusted God for everything. I even found an entry that said I prayed for a haircut. The entry the next day shows that I received exactly the amount for a haircut and went to get one.
I am only relating this to you to remind you that He is faithful that promised. You can trust God.
Whatever, your need is, you can trust Him. Whether the need is financial or relational or physical, you can trust Him.
Last year, we moved into the area of television. I had never really wanted to be on television, mainly because I had always heard of how much money it takes to run a television ministry and because I had seen so many on television always using gimmicks to get people to give or using some emotional pull.
I knew that one day we would own a satellite television network because it was an area where things needed to change and the only way to change things is to get involved and do it right, thereby putting pressure on the others to change.
I hadn’t been thinking about television very seriously. While I was in Florida I went to the offices of Faith TV Africa. By the next day I had a contract to begin airing programs in Africa and Europe within 30 days. My media staff had never been involved with any form of television production. But by the due date, we had programs produced and sent in to the network broadcast facility. When we jumped in, we jumped in big. We went from no program to a daily program five days a week. The work load for my staff was pretty overwhelming but they pulled it off. It also included me being available to be there for recording and setting aside all the other things that daily pulled on me.
It also increased our monthly expenses by about $10,000.00. That may not seem like a lot to some but when you weren’t expecting it or budgeting for it, it can be a bit daunting. But I knew we were supposed to do it and we did. Immediately we began receiving an exponentially growing number of prayer requests. Again, my staff was overwhelmed but they rose to the challenge. At the same time, we lost 4 staff members, which was almost half of the total number. That meant that the rest of the staff also had to pick up the extra workload (which they did without grumbling). The same week the TV program was scheduled to start (which was the same time we had to start paying for it), our income increased by the exact same amount. He is faithful that promised! This all occurred during the month of October. We began broadcasting in November 2016. In May, 2017 (seven months later) while I was in Berlin, Germany, I was contacted by the management of Faith TV Africa and told that we were the number one program on their network. They also asked if I would be interested in being on the Board of directors for a new satellite network that they were going to launch in the United States called, “Faith USA”. I said I was interested and that I would discuss it further when I returned home. (This gave me time to pray.)
They also told me that if I joined, the initial “buy-in” would be $36,000.00. We have always had the amount we needed for our budget which included our church and office rent, employees payroll, and our missions/missionary support and benevolent donations.
But we never, at any time had $36,000.00 left over or lying around waiting to be used for something.
I knew that if we did this, it would be miraculous. I also knew that everything else we have ever done was miraculous. We’ve never been able to do anything we’ve done until we did it.
When praying about whether to do it or not, I felt an absolute peace about doing it.
When I returned home, I received the contract with the details of the agreement. By signing on, I would receive three daily time slots (all during prime time across the United States) and I would receive the authority to remove programs that were “objectionable to me”.
I knew that when I signed the contract I would have to immediately send in a check for $36,000.00.
I arrived back home on May 25th, the following Sunday (May 28th) I informed the congregation of the opportunity and my decision to move forward with it. The next day we received approximately $11,000 from 2 or 3 different individuals. I knew that God was behind the decision to move forward.
The week after I returned home I was scheduled to go to New York to participate in a Healing Conference. I didn’t think about signing the contract before I left. The conference was scheduled to begin on June 8th (Smith Wigglesworth’s birthday). That day during lunch I was at the hotel room when my daughter called and said that Faith TV needed the contract signed right then. I told her I didn’t have it. I told her it was there at the office in Dallas. She asked if I was going to sign it. I told her to sign my name and send it to them. She reminded me that she did not think we were in a position to do something this big at this time. I told her, this is the next step in my growth and I needed to do it to stretch my faith. She was not happy about the decision. But she signed my name and sent it in.
About an hour later, she called me and said, “I may have to eat my words.” I replied, “That’s why they should always be sweet. But why do you say that?” She said the mail had just arrived and in it was a check for $30,000.00. I told her that I was going to just raise my hands and worship God.
God brought in the total amount needed within one hour after I signed the contract committing to the project. One part of the contract that I had not shared with anyone was that each board member would be required to submit a Bank Letter of Credit for the amount of one year’s cost of broadcasting.
The monthly broadcast cost is $26,000.00 for Faith USA (and an additional $10,000. per month for Faith TV Africa). From a natural standpoint, there is no way I could get a letter stating that level of credit. I have never operated by credit. We pray, God brings the money and we do it. I signed the contract and paid the initial $36,000.00 and ignored the Bank Letter of Credit requirement. (I did not discuss it with anyone, not even Faith USA Management.)
Today I received a message stating that I was not required to submit a Letter of Credit. I didn’t even ask, but God knew and took care of it. He is faithful that promised!
Starting July 6, our program, “Dominion Life NOW!” will air 3 times daily on Dish Network Channel 269
Faith USA at 9 am, 2 pm, and 11 pm Eastern Standard Time.
After we signed with Faith USA, we received requests to air our program on 3 different networks also.
Mi Vina Channel (a Spanish language channel that broadcasts into every Spanish speaking country worldwide will broadcast our programs twice daily, 7 days a week for only $1500.00 (8:00 am & 7:00 pm – Honduras time) and Uplift TV which airs on Direct TV will air our program every Sunday at 2:30 pm CST for only $1400.00 per month. So for approximately $40,000.00 per month we will cover ¾ of the earth with the bible message that we have been proclaiming and that has trained and set so many free from sickness and disease.
One of the principles that we have always operated by is this:
Never make decisions based on money. Find the will of God and do it. As you head that way, HE brings the provision!
HE IS FAITHFUL THAT PROMISED!