This is probably going to be controversial. Any time “the Bible” and “money” show up together, all kinds of feathers get ruffled.

But you know what? I’m tired of God’s people not having enough money. And I’m willing to stir up a hornet’s nest if necessary and even shake you up a little bit if I can provoke you to do something big for the Kingdom.

I know that we’re all trying to have a good heart and not be greedy. I get it. I really do.

But after appearing recently on Christian television, my office has been flooded with phone calls and website inquiries. Time after time, my staff and I have spoken with people who have a desire to do something big. They’ve got ideas. They’ve got “million dollar ideas,” even.

Some of them want to support missions efforts — overseas and at home. Some of them want to fund other ministry efforts, including feeding the hungry or creating financially strong private schools so that options other than State-run Godless education will be available.

But nearly every one of these people lacked one thing.

Yep. You guessed it… the money to get it done.

I’m tired of it! I’m absolutely finished with God’s people — the ones inhabited by the very Creator of all things — not having enough to do what He’s called them to do. He’s placed destiny in their hearts… and we as the Body of Christ haven’t trained them to go get the resources that it takes to fulfill their God-given destinies.

So… to start things off, I’ve just created and released a free e-Book.

But consider yourself warned: it is controversial. It will shake up your thinking.

Go get your copy. There’s a $10 free gift inside. No strings attached.

In our last message, we talked about how God hides things from us… for us. But what about the times when God Himself seems to be hiding?

Where is God in my darkness?

He made darkness His secret hiding place; as His pavilion (His canopy) round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. (Psalms 18:11 AMP)

If you’ve walked with God any length of time at all, you’ve had seasons where this seemed to be the case. Where is God in my situation?

What I love about this passage is that the psalmist penned these words after witnessing first-hand how God delivered him from his enemies. Reading this verse in its context, you discover that God hid Himself in the darkness while bringing victory over enemies to pass in David’s life.

Are You in Distress?

It seems like so many of the Psalms were written in and about difficult times. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that David spent an enormous amount of time under threat from enemies. And in some ways, it can be hard for us to identify with David. Today, most of us — at least in the Western world — don’t have enemies that chase after us hoping to take our lives.

But we do face real enemies. There are real enemies that work to steal and to kill your dreams. Perhaps your #1 enemy is on this list:

• debt
• financial lack
• poverty mindset
• apparent lack of abilities, skills or training
• sickness
• relational challenges

Whatever enemy is staring you down today, consider David’s words:

In my distress [when seemingly closed in] I called upon the Lord and cried to my God; He heard my voice out of His temple (heavenly dwelling place), and my cry came before Him, into His [very] ears…. The Lord also thundered from the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, amid hailstones and coals of fire…. He reached from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy and from those who hated and abhorred me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted and came upon me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my stay and support. He brought me forth also into a large place; He was delivering me because He was pleased with me and delighted in me. (Psalms 18:6, 13, 16-19 AMP)

These words may seem poetic… or somehow disconnected from reality, but remember that David, “spoke the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.”

If David were somehow able to reach out to you today in your distress, I believe he would tell you to place your trust wholly and completely in the Lord. He would tell you from his personal experience about battling a lion, about challenging Goliath, about supernaturally dodging Saul’s spear, about miraculously overcoming enemies that he would be the first to admit were too strong for him.

Listen, friend. I don’t know how God will deliver you from your distress and from your enemies today. You don’t either. In fact, if you knew how He would do it, I’m convinced He would come up with some other way to do it just to keep you guessing.

But remember this: God hides in the darkness of your darkest night. Why He doesn’t just show Himself to us is a mystery that I’ll probably ask Him about when I see Him face to face. Perhaps He chooses to do it because He knows that for us to make it in this life, we must walk by faith. But know that in the darkness — when it seems as though your deliverance is furthest away — He Himself is escorting your answer to You. He personally goes to war against your enemies.

Many people give up in the darkness… and in so doing, they disconnect themselves from their help when it’s most critical… and when it is closest. Place your trust in Him. Rely upon him completely. Allow Him to speak to you and to work in you. You’ll have a story of your own to tell when your enemies have been completely eradicated. And I can’t wait to hear it!

“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children….” (Proverbs 13:22a NKJV)

Off and on for the past few years, I’ve returned to this subject in my personal study.  Whether ministering from the pulpit or working with entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the context of business, the idea that we — as Christians — struggle more than most with money has come up again and again.

Looking at my own church experience, I can see that there are a number of factors that have affected me personally.  It has been a journey in and of itself to reconcile my own thinking with what I’ve come to understand from the Word of God.

But… reaching beyond myself, I’ve discovered that many people struggle with many of the same issues.  And there are others that I’ve found are working to limit the effectiveness of God’s people that had not been a part of my own experience.

The most dangerous ones, of course, are the ones that affect us without us being aware of them. For example, confusing wealth with money is a common misunderstanding. What exactly is it that we are pursuing in business anyway?

All of this has led me to work on something that I’m excited to be announcing very soon.  It is intended to address all of this — and much more — head-on.  Watch this space for updates!

Have you ever noticed that pursuing your dreams takes money?

We’ve talked previously in this setting about the notion that God is ultimately the giver of dreams (Psalm 37:4) and how that I believe that when we’re talking about these dreams that are rooted in the deepest places of our hearts, God gives them to us. By this, of course, I mean that He places them there to begin with! He then challenges us to engage the process of seeing them come to fruition. Not that He leaves us on our own (thankfully!)… but nevertheless, the process requires our involvement. But when it comes to the Source of these dreams… it is He!

Nevertheless, there are few things in life that can be accomplished without significant financial resources. This is true no matter what sort of dream you have. Even if your dream were purely, let’s say, to have healthy relationships with your family — your spouse, your kids, etc. — it would be severely hindered if you were impoverished. Lacking financial resources causes us to have to think constantly about where the money is coming from to pay the next bill… to get another job, to work harder and longer… all the while neglecting the people most important to us.

Is money the “be-all, end-all” goal? No way. However, none of us should apologize for turning a profit in business nor for bringing significant financial resources into our lives.

Some have argued that it is “selfish” to want to have abundance.

I would argue quite the opposite. If you are barely getting by, how can you pay for your neighbor’s kid to go to college? How can you buy a new car for that relative in need? How can you build a homeless shelter or create a camp for kids with illnesses?

Our poverty-minded thinking that has said, “I’ll be O.K. if I just have enough to pay my bills and put a little away for a rainy day,” has left us crippled and enslaved. You can’t be and do what God has called you to do without having more than enough financially.

Certainly, if we have hang-ups with greed, we need to address those as the heart issues they really are. But we must deal with them and move on!

There’s a great discussion on this subject going on over at Michael Pink’s blog. Check it out.

In the meantime, I’m going to leave you with a quote from former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher:

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions – he had money, too.