INTRODUCTION

When it comes to money, God promises that if you do not without your tithe or your offerings then he will prosper you and protect your money.

A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

During the week of June 25th, my church hosted another church from out of state to train them on outreach and evangelism. We had many events planned to give them a broad taste of different forms of reaching the people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of these events was ministering to the children at the Boys and Girls Club of America. We had brought in a wide variety of things to do including face painting, games, worship and food. The main goal was to show the children and any parents who came out that Jesus loves them no matter what the world does to them and it was an amazing success.

On the way home, my family and I decided to get pizza for dinner because it was cheap and easy. We had taken out some money from the bank and got our pizza. While there, my wife helped out another couple by trading their one hundred dollar bill for five twenties because the pizza place did not take hundred dollar bills. After we paid for the pizza, my wife put the money in her pocket and we took the pizza home. We enjoyed our dinner.

Later that night, my wife went to empty her pockets and the money was missing. She immediately did a search to find the money and came up empty. She began to be positive that the money that she put in her pocket, and shoved to the bottom of the pocket, while in the pizza place must have fallen out and therefore be on the floor of the pizza place. I told my wife that even if that was true, God had promised to protect our money and that we would not accept that the enemy could just steal from us at will because we know that we are not under his will, but God’s. I even told my wife that if God needed to take the money from the floor of the pizza place and transport it into our hands, then he would do that for us.

We prayed.

I felt in my spirit that I should check the car. I took the dog out for a walk as I went and checked on my wife’s side of the car. As I opened the door, laying right there in the door frame was the money waiting for me. Now, you have to realize that my wife had placed the money in her pocket in the pizza place. The fact that it was in the car was really not possible. Furthermore, where the money was in the door frame of the car was not possible by just falling out of my wife’s pocket because the simple fact of her exiting the car as we got home would have had the money fall onto the ground. From there it was several hours before I went out and only God knows what would have happened to that money if it had fallen on the ground.

The only answer was that God placed the money there from wherever it had fallen out because he was protecting our money.

SCRIPTURE

The enemy tried to steal from us, but we are tithers and God promises here in Malachi that he would protect the money of those who tithe.

God watches over his word and is quick to perform it if we stand on his promises in faith. Which is what we did in this situation and God honored that by returning the money to us.

CONCLUSION

God is awesome in his love and care for us. Put your trust and faith in him and he will be quick to perform the promises in his word for you.

Until Next Time,

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.

INTRODUCTION

God protest his people in ways that are beyond any means for which we could do ourselves.

TO CATCH A THIEF

During the week of June 25th, my church hosted another church from out of state to train them on outreach and evangelism. We had many events planned to give them a broad taste of different forms of reaching the people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of these events was inner city evangelism, where we took some of the team into public housing in the city of Fort Worth and went around talking about and sharing Jesus Christ. Many became citizens of heaven that day accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

I was on the inner city evangelism team. We had broken down into smaller teams of two or three and were out and about sharing the message of Jesus when a Wrecker (flat bed tow truck) came and loaded up my car to haul it away and impound it. Obviously, neither I or any of our teams were still on that street when this had happened. In fact, we were on the next street over. The enemy had decided that he was going to take my car from me.

My Pastor was speaking with some people when out of the corner of his eye he noticed the Wrecker going by and immediately recognized my car on its back. Quickly, and because my pastor is in good shape, he took off and chased down the Wrecker. He jumped up on the side of the vehicle and said hello to a very shocked driver. My Pastor said, “This is my friend’s car.” He explained that we were down sharing the love of Jesus and asked if the man could leave the car with my Pastor. The driver agreed that he could leave the car, but that he would put it back where he found it.

My cell phone rang and my Pastor was on the line. I had assumed he wanted an update or perhaps was calling to tell me it was about time to head back in, but to my surprise I was wrong. He told me how I almost lost my car and that the driver said he was replacing it where he found it and I should head right over them to be sure that was what was happening.

That is exactly what I did.

As I walked up to where I had parked the car, the driver was just about finished replacing it. I asked him if I had parked it illegally and he told me that he had a call to come and get it and was not sure what the reason was. I was happy to get my car back and after it was off of the Wrecker drove it to a place where my Pastor could keep an eye on it until we had finished sharing with everyone in the complex.

SCRIPTURE

Don’t get me wrong, my Pastor knows what car I drive. He knows the color, the make and most likely knows the model. However, for him to have seen the car on a flat bed wrecker out of the corner of his eye while speaking with someone else was God moving to protect me while I was doing his will.

The enemy tried to steal from me, but God prevented it because I was walking in his will and the enemy can not touch me.

CONCLUSION

When we walk out God’s will, God makes sure to keep us safe.

Until Next Time,

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes things look bleak even insurmountable. But we have to remember that God has promised to take care of us and our needs. This is one account of God’s amazing provision.

GODLY PROVISION

In the middle of the pregnancy for our third child (see Sent From God Part IV), we ran into some money issues. I had been out of work for over nine months due to 9/11 and the collapse of the telecommunications industry. We were relying on God and on a very big faith walk for everything including the pregnancy and in the middle of all of this God did another miracle because he is always faithful to provide.

At the end of August 2002, we did not have any money as unemployment had run out. We did not have the rent for September let alone any way of paying for our bills. We did the only thing we could. We prayed and informed out church at the time to pray for us. We also called our Home Fellowship Group leader asking him to inform the group to pray for us.

Later that very day, there was a knock on our door. The Home Fellowship Group Leader had come out to pray for us and to surprise us with the hand of God. Unknown to us, the leader did not call the group to just ask them to pray for us, but to ask them to make an offering for us. All total, we were handed a check for a little over two thousand dollars to help us provide for our rent and the rest of our needs.

My wife and I were floored. We had asked for God to provide for our rent, but he provided for so much more. Then, because God is awesome, about one week later God provided me with a good job and the money covered our needs until I began to get paychecks again.

Praise God!

SCRIPTURE

God promises to supply our needs and he is ever faithful to perform his word for you life.

CONCLUSION

God wants to provide for you. Put your trust in him today.

Until Next Time,

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.

INTRODUCTION

God can make the impossible possible especially when it comes to how he wants to bless us. After we had lost our third child (Sent From God Part III), which followed the blessing of how God gave us two daughters (Sent From God Part I and Sent From God Part II), God did something simply amazing.

SENT FROM GOD PART IV

After having lost our third child during pregnancy, the doctors began to tell us that my wife’s system was shutting down. In fact, they had told us that we would not have any more children. This was a shock and it hurt, but we were already blessed with two great kids and decided that if this is God’s will then we will accept it. And for the two years we did just that. We happily accepted God’s decision and focused solely on raising our two girls.

God, however, had something different in mind.

Early 2002, my wife had stopped having her monthly cycle and we became worried that she was at risk for cancer. However, we had no money because Pat had been laid off in 2001 and there simply was no work following the events of 9/11 and the collapse of telecommunications industry. This meant that we did not have any insurance and a doctor’s visit was out of the question. As my wife’s condition did not get any better, we did find a clinic and they prescribed Provera for her to take, which she did in the beginning of May.

June 1st, 2002, my wife and I were at wits end. For the last ten days, my wife was sick tossing everything she ate and then some. She was supposed to start the Provera again and take it for ten days, but something in our spirits did not seem right about this. Added to this, I was beginning to feel as impossible as it was that my wife was acting pregnant. This feeling was so strong that we argued over getting the home pregnancy test, which I eventually won (or perhaps I only think I won). My wife conceded that we would at least rule pregnancy out as the cause.

Delighted in having won an argument, even if I only thought I did, I ran out and picked up a home pregnancy test. I picked up the dual package because there was an attached coupon that made it cheaper then the single package and we could always give the other test to someone.

I raced home.

Vicky began the test and told me to time three minutes. As it turned out, we didn’t need that much time. Immediately, the test showed positive (that we were pregnant). We were shocked. We were not sure if we should believe the test even though we have never had one be incorrect. We decided to use the second test in the morning just to be sure. We went to bed not able to sleep wondering and praying about what a pregnancy would mean.

The next morning was a Sunday, and again the test showed a positive result. We were pregnant. God had produced a little miracle inside Vicky that was defying all the doctors’ prognosis. Immediately we were filled with joy and horror at the same time.

In addition to all of this, we were faced with an impossible decision. Should we tell anyone? Vicky had lost the last baby she was pregnant with and we were not sure what was going to happen. Further, without the hormone, we knew that the baby would not last.

So we prayed again and harder.

My wife and I were filled with the presence and love of God surrounding us and telling us that this baby was going to happen. First, we told our daughters (who were now 8 and 6 years old) about it and they went through the roof with excitement and were praising God. All of us were happy as well and scared; however, we trusted that God had is under control and that there will be many more miracles on this road to come and we were not wrong on that on.

Immediately we were faced with problems. To begin with, the clinic we went to for the Provera, which my wife was not taking, did not handle pregnancies. They told us to go to our doctor however our doctor as well as any other doctor in the area told us they wanted a minimum of five hundred dollars up front which we did not have. This was further complicated by the fact that social services denied our claim for help for the pregnancy stating my unemployment check was too much and we were over the limit. A family of soon to be five making barely a thousand dollars a month and we didn’t qualify for any help. And if this was not enough, Texas has a public health clinic that will help people who do not have the means and they would help us, but could not see us until October, and that was not seeing a doctor, just a preliminary examine. With all of these, we explained my wife’s condition and the need to be on the hormone and none were sympathetic to our need.

Again, we prayed. We prayed a lot through this pregnancy.

As much as we felt like we were being shunned by every possible place of help, God had not left us in the cold. In the church we attended at that time, there was a man who was an herbalist and holistic healer. In our prayer time, my wife had received from the Lord that we should call the healer and we did. He immediately saw my wife and helped her get the hormone she needed by natural means. Furthermore, he did not require us to pay him up front. Instead he placed it all on account and then wound up writing it off. This meant that all his help was free which is what we needed at the time. It was also God providing for us.

In our weakness, we held our breathe during the tenth week of her pregnancy because it was the week that we lost the last child. This time was very different from that time and we had assurances and promises from God as well as his manifested provision. However, with all of this, we were still weak during the tenth week, and God was good to fill us and continue to provide for us even in our weakness.

The holistic healer could only take us so far and I began to be concerned about where God was going to take this pregnancy issue. As God would have it, he placed a midwife in our life. When she discovered that we did not have any type of care for the baby, she immediately saw us. She never even asked us for payment, but just saw us and checked out my wife. We got to hear the heartbeat, which lifted our spirits immensely. Even though this was our fourth child (third to hear the heartbeat on), hearing your babies heart never gets old. The midwife was able to come any fears we had by giving my wife a clean bill of health, which we should have known because God was moving mightily in this whole situation.

Now, if all of this was not enough of a miracle, God kept providing. The midwife gave us a number to a place where we could get a free sonogram. Yes, you heard me correctly, a free sonogram. As God would have, there is a school near where we lived that needed patients to practice on for the sonogram. And as long as we did not mind an audience and a few students trying the equipment out, we could have the sonogram totally for free. We just about past out with excitement and praise to God when we found this out. Obviously, we went to the school and not only got a great report had a great time. In fact, they told us that most people are uneasy about having an audience, which is understandable, but we were just so thankful for God’s provision that we were totally at ease during the examine.

God is so good, as I was driving to the school to have the sonogram done, I got a call from a company I had interviewed with offering me a job and asking me if I could start on Monday (it was Friday). I told them a resounding yes. We had two mighty reasons to praise God that day and God continued to provide.

God began to accelerate everything from this point forward. Now that I was working and had insurance, which not only would cover the pregnancy started the day I started work. We were able to get into a doctor, which we needed because of my wife’s tendency to have difficult births and the midwife’s unavailability for the birth itself. But God provided and we were back under the care of an OBGYN, a women’s doctor.

Things continued to progress into the beginning of December. There was some conjecture with the doctor on the due date. We knew that my wife was not pregnant at the beginning of May and therefore projected a due date of about the end of January. The doctor went by the sonogram she did which showed a possible due date as the end of December. While this had been a little bit of concern, we had really gotten to the point in this faith walk that we just knew that God had it under control and we didn’t worry about it.

December 14th, my wife and I returned from our evening walk. Her pants were wet and I told her that I believed it was her water breaking. She told me that it was not and it was too early to have our baby. We had a slightly heated argument about this, but I finally got her to call the doctor. The doctor had us go directly to the hospital and they confirmed that my wife’s water had indeed broken and everything began.

December 15th, after about twenty hours of labor, God blessed us with a son and we marvel at the blessings of God every time we look into our son’s eyes.

SCRIPTURE

At every step and every turn through this pregnancy, God was exceeding abundantly above what we asked for because he loves us.

CONCLUSION

God was there for us and he will be there for you. Put your trust in him and let him take care of everything for you.

Until Next Time,

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.