Spirit of Generosity – Part 4 Lawson Perdue and Mark Hankins

Praise the Lord, friends, welcome to the broadcast. We’re gonna be talking about the blessing of giving. Did you know that you cannot beat God-giving? I’m telling you, there is no way in the world when you begin to understand the principles of the scripture and when you begin to believe them and use them in your life, that you can beat God giving. Just no way. It’ll come back to you multiplied. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re connected with us today, and it’s great to have Brother Mark with us. And we’re talking about the spirit of generosity.

Yeah.

And you know, I’ve got three really close friends, and I believe that you’re all some of the most generous people on the planet.

You get that from the Lord.

Hallelujah. One of them is Andrew Wommack, the other one is Jesse Duplantis, and the third one is you, praise God. You’re all mentors to me, you’ve all sown into my life. But you’re all tremendous generous people. And I don’t know if Andrew Wommack gets criticized for it, but I know that Jesse and you probably get criticized a little in this realm of finances, but many times people are criticizing because they really don’t understand-

Sure.

what the word of God says.

Yeah.

But when you understand God’s not trying to take something from you.

Sure.

He’s trying to get something from you.

Sure. Yeah.

Praise the Lord.

And so we’ve been looking at 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and 9, which is really a major part of Paul’s revelation.

Yes.

Wow. I love studying Paul’s letters and Paul’s epistles. in Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians. Amazing.

Yeah.

But when it comes to 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, you have two whole chapters on generosity.

Yes.

Two whole chapters on-

Amen.

the spirit of generosity or on giving. And Paul is commending these believers in 2 Corinthians 8, that he said, “You gave with great joy, and you said, please take the money even though you had deep needs yourself.” Right? Because a lot of times people think, if I have a need or if I’m struggling financially, then I don’t have to give. But Paul says, “Even in the middle of your own personal financial struggle, you gave generously.” Matter of fact, that’s one of the best ways to get out of a financial struggle.

Amen.

Is by not holding back, but being a tither, being a giver, being a sower, even in the middle of a financial challenge. He said in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, “This is what you did as believers.” He said, “So I’m gonna leave Titus there to teach you.”

Right.

In other words, if you don’t ever have any teaching on the subject, then you don’t have any faith to actually participate in the process.

Right.

And the process is this, Paul says that God would make all grace abound towards you. So you have all sufficiency in all things you can abound to every good work, God will give seed to the sower. And he said, “And your generosity is gonna cause many people to give thanksgiving to God.”

Amen. So your giving is not just a financial thing, it becomes a spiritual thing. In other words, your giving affects you not just financially, but spiritually.

Amen.

So he says, “Here, these believers”, He says, I’m gonna show you how to bound in this grace. Abound in disgrace also. And then he goes into 2 Corinthians chapter 9, and he says, you do it through sowing.

Right.

You know, I was listening to Dad Hagin on one of his messages, and somebody asked him. They said, Actually it was a pastor friend of mine, ask him, he said, “If you were looking for a leader in your church or your ministry, what would be the most important characteristic you would look for in a leader?” Well, most pastors would have a lot to say about that. But Dad Hagin, without blinking an eye, said generous. He said, “If I was looking for a leader, the most important thing I’d look for is someone who’s generous.” And then he said, “Because someone who’s not generous will shut down the move of the spirit of God.”

Yeah.

In other words, he says your generosity doesn’t just affect you financially, it affects you spiritually.

Amen.

And Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is.”

Amen.

In other words, your giving actually reflects your heart.

Amen.

And your giving also affects your heart. In other words, your generosity.

Amen. Another one of my favorite scriptures is Isaiah 32 in verse 8.

Yes.

Unusual scripture.

I love this scripture.

Because the King James uses the word liberal. We’re not gonna use that word liberal for political reasons, but we’re gonna use the word generous. ’cause other translations say a generous man, the generous person plans to be generous, and by his generosity shall he stand. In other words, he’s saying your generosity will affect how you stand.

Amen.

It will affect you, not only financially, but spiritually. And when you’re a generous person, you think of it and you take your giving serious. You’re like, I want to give, not just sparingly, but Paul said, if you so generously, there is a harvest that is guaranteed that will come back to you, to you and your children and your children’s children. The blessing of the Lord.

Amen.

So he is talking about accessing this grace, this grace, which is amazing grace, which is the favor and the blessing of God.

Amen. Praise God.

And he said, when you are a giver, he said, you are sowing and you actually can’t expect a harvest. So when you’re sowing, the sowing process, the Lord said, when you’re a sower, God gives seed to the sower.

Right.

So I said earlier that if you’ll get addicted to giving, God will support your habit.

Right.

God gives seed to the sower. When you’re a giver, God says, wow, that person is a giver. I’m gonna make sure they have money to give.

Amen.

Because, he says, when you’re a giver, when you’re a sower, he said, you’ll get some places faster by sowing than you will by saving.

Amen.

Aha! In other words, there’s some things you’ll receive from God faster by sowing for it than by saving for it. We always think, oh, I’m gonna save for it, it’s gonna take this much a month for so many years. But what happened if you were just a tither and a giver, and God opened the windows of heaven and poured out our blessing you don’t have room to receive it. So he said, this is amazing grace.

Amen. I gotta tell a story about this.

I know you. We have great stories. I’ve seen the blessing of the Lord in your life.

Years ago, Barbara and I were pastoring in Kit Carson, Colorado. It’s a very small town. And we had this church. God blessed us, we You know what? Between our outreach and our given, we gave about 50% of the money.

Wow.

That came into that church away. Now I’ve had pastors argue with me, and I’ve always tithed at least 10%.

Sure.

We’ve given at this church, just given, not the outreach. Our outreach is over 30% right now.

Yeah.

But we give between 10 and 27% away. And personally, Barbara and I have given about 30% of our money away. But we were in a place where we really needed to get another vehicle.

Sure.

And I was actually, had been at the government auction in Denver, we were trying to buy a van to give to a missionary, which we did. But while I was there, they had a bunch of Ford Tempos and they had 10, 12, 13, 14,000 miles on them.

Wow.

And they were selling for 45, $4600. And I said, now if one of those gets, And we were going through a challenging time, we needed a vehicle. But a Ford Tempo was kinda a little car for our family of five. But anyway, I bought one. I ended up buying this little Ford Tempo for $4,100, had 10 or 12,000 miles on it. But anyway, our family had grown, we had it a few years and used it some, but we went down to Lamar, Colorado, and they had this van, and it was a year old, probably about a $30,000 van, and they had it on sale for like $17,000. I mean, it had a few miles on it. And my wife really wanted to buy it, but we came home and we did the math, and there was no way, I just couldn’t, the payments wouldn’t fit in my budget.

Sure. Yeah.

But we came back and they said, “no, we won’t take 15,000.” I said, “Okay, I really didn’t want it anyway.” So we came home and my wife made it a matter of prayer. But anyway, you know, it was around Easter time.

Wow.

And a couple of weeks later, I sold a pen of cattle and they made 15,000.

Oh, wow.

And so I thought, I’m gonna buy that van and give it to my wife.

Wow.

’cause she really wanted it. And so I called them up and asked them if they had that van. They said, “We do”. So I wanted to give our car to Carrie Nordquist. She was gonna go to Bible school. She’s now Carrie Pickett. And she’s the director, her and her husband Mike, of Charis Bible College working with Andrew Wommack. I introduced her to Andrew and Charis years ago. She grew up in my church, praise God. We saw the call of God on her, so on and so forth. But anyway, I told Barbara, I said, “Hey, I’m going to the office.” And the banker knew what I was doing, and so he said, “Hey, that’s a great deal, that’s under wholesale.” And so he got me a ride to go down to Lamar. So I said, I’m walking. Don’t worry about me if I’m not in. You know, we didn’t have cell phones in those days. So I got this ride, we went down to Lamar and I picked up that van. They had it all ready to go. I wrote them a check, praise God.

Wow.

Came back. And when I got home, Barbara said, well, I got the car all washed, ready to give away.

Wow.

She didn’t even know, I didn’t even tell her, but she knew by the spirit. And we gave that car to Carrie. And we had paid 4,100. She got Bible school, trashed the thing, destroyed it within a couple of weeks of going to Bible school. Her daddy sold it. I’d driven it for a few years, paid $4,100. He got $6,800. The insurance, The insurance actually totaled it, gave him 6,800. He bought her a cheaper car. But that money that she got for that car paid for her Bible college for both years.

Wow.

So it was a great investment in the gospel. But you know what? It didn’t look like we had enough, but our given made room for our living.

Amazing. Yeah, it’s very true. It’s a law of sowing and reaping. It’s a spiritual law. In other words, your seed is guaranteed. In other words, when you sow generously, God said, you will reap generously.

Yes, sir.

Now, you know, my grandfather, my dad was a pastor and he’s in heaven, my grandfather, he’s of course in heaven, but he was a pioneer pastor in East Texas. And when he started, it was the days of depression. So they didn’t have much money and people sometimes would tithe and give with cows and chickens and stuff.

Hey.

So his car broke down. He needed another car, not necessarily a new car, a good car. So he’d started saving up his money. So my dad told me the story. He said so my grandpa saved up about $300 and he was gonna give him a better car. And he said a missionary came in and he decided to give that $300 to missions. And my dad said, “Everybody’s mad at him. But a few weeks later, somebody gave him a better car than he could have ever bought.”

Amen.

And then everybody’s happy again. In other words, something supernatural happened because he said, I’m gonna take my giving first. Your giving will affect your living.

Amen. I’m gonna come back after the break and tell you another story of God’s generous grace.

Amen.

Make sure you watch this offer. This is a great offer. And this is a great place to sow seed. I want you to pray about it. But if you need prayer about anything, just give us a call on the break. We’ll be right back after a short prayer. Friends, I am so glad that you are watching today. We’ve been talking about the spirit of generosity. I have my good friend, Mark Hankins with me, who has a tremendous revelation in the area of finances. And for any new partner that gives any partnership of any amount in the United States of America, we’ll send this book to you, God’s Extravagant Generosity, free of charge.

God has rewards for us if you are willing to do a mild amount of suffering on his behalf, to love someone who no one else wants to love. It might be that that person comes to know Jesus. Maybe you don’t see these things happen here, but you know, we’re doing it for him. Amen?

Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. And I said I’d share another story.

Yeah.

I was just thinking about the grace of God and the grace connected to giving. You know, I gave that car away.

Sure.

And we got that van. But years later, we moved here to Colorado Springs. And I had a little S-10 Chevy truck. And I had had somebody, actually, my wife wanted to get it. This is another dish. She wanted another car ’cause I had this old diesel pickup then, and she had this van. And that diesel pickup was hard to start, hard to stop.

Yeah.

And if I left her with it and took the van and went somewhere, she didn’t like it. It was rather rough.

Yeah.

Different challenges. So she wanted another vehicle, and I said, “Honey, we really don’t have money to pay insurance on three vehicles, and I really don’t wanna do that right now.” So she said, “I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m just gonna pray and believe God to give us a car.” And this family from Lamar, Colorado called us up within week and they said, “Hey, we’d like to give you this car.” And they kind of apologized. I said, now listen, It was a Honda Prelude. They’d have it a few years, but they bought it new.

Sure.

But it set in the sun, the sun had kind of eaten the paint in the back seats, but I just covered them up with a blanket, you know? But it was a Honda Prelude with 80,000 original miles, and I had driven it for a few years, looked like the Grapes of Wrath, but it worked. And it was a third car, and I got insurance on three cars for less than two. So it-

Excuse me.

It ended up being a good deal. And I knew it was the blessing of God.

Sure.

So they gave that to us. But years later, Barbara, she said, you need to believe God. And I got this truck and I paid like $7,500 for a truck, a little S-10 Chevy four cylinder truck with 7,000 miles. I bought it from a police officer in Denver, and it was a great deal. But I’d driven that for a few years, and then we moved here to Colorado Springs. And one night going home from a church service, I was going up the hill and it had rained, and then it froze. And then it started sleeting and I was going down the hill and I had kind of bald tires on one side of it, and it started going like this fishtail down the hill. And I was praying, command it in Jesus, got to the bottom of the hill and it hit the curb and rolled and smashed into a light pole, and it totaled it. And I didn’t have insurance on it.

Oh.

But do you know what God did? God paid for my vehicle, and somebody bought me a vehicle.

Wow.

And everyone I’ve had since then-

Wow.

has been paid for.

Wow.

So you just can’t beat God-given, and it might take a while for your seed to come up.

Wow. Sure.

But you wanna be generous in your giving.

Yeah.

Because you never know when it’s gonna come or how it’s gonna come. But God is not gonna be outdone.

God’s able to make all grace abound. So you have all sufficiency in all things.

Amen.

May abound to every good work. In other words, he’s saying,

Amen.

Your generosity in sowing and giving actually accesses God’s grace. And that grace is always amazing grace-

Amen.

in the blessing of the Lord.

So I told you about my grandpa and how that he is a pastor, and his car broke, and so he was gonna get him another vehicle. So he had $300 maybe saved up and a missionary to Africa came, and he just wanted to give. And so he gave all that money so he didn’t have any money for a car. So my dad said my grandma was mad at him, and the kids are mad at him because now they didn’t have no money and no car. And so he was pastoring a little church out in the country, and he gave that money. And within a few weeks, somebody gave him a better car he ever could have bought or afford.

Amen.

But that’s not the end of the story. My grandpa, he loved missions, he loved Africa.

Right.

And he loved missions and he gave to missions, but he never preached outside of Texas. I am his grandson, and I preach all over the world. I just got back from Nigeria-

Amen.

from West Africa. The point is that your giving will not just affect you financially, it will affect your children and your grandchildren.

Amen.

In other words, that blessing from my grandpa’s generosity, even though he blessed a missionary to Africa and he never went, now I preach all over the world.

Amen.

East Africa, South Africa, West Africa, India. Come in, I preach Vietnam, I preach South America. I preach everywhere.

Praise God. Think about the amazing grace that will come to your children and your grandchildren when you’re a generous giver.

Amen. You know, I’ve had that same thing. You know, my grandparents, they gave to Rex Humbard and Oral Roberts. My grandfather was a Baptist, my grandmother was a Methodist. Now she got born again.

Wow.

Her brother went to the same church, never got born again, but I led him to Christ. Actually, my pastor led him to Christ. I led his son to Christ-

Yeah.

years later. But my pastor led him to Christ when he was up in his seventies.

Wow.

But they were great people. They loved God.

Wow.

Now they gave to Oral Roberts. Of course they knew he was spirit-filled.

Sure.

They gave it to Rex Humbard. A lot of people didn’t know that Rex was spirit-filled. And Lester Sumrall ministered for Rex Humbard in different things. And he was a spirit-filled man, baptizing the Holy Spirit. In fact, if you’re not baptizing the Holy Spirit and never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, I encourage you to call in at the end of this broadcast.

Wow.

Or you can call during the broadcast, we have trained prayer ministers. But we see lots of people baptized in the Holy Spirit. But my grandparents sowed seed into those ministries.

Wow.

And I believe that I have reaped the harvest.

Yes, you did.

And my family. I have three sons, and Mark, they are all supernaturally blessed.

Sure.

Aaron, my oldest, is pastoring with me. Him and his wife are tremendous givers.

Wow.

They’re really, really blessed. Yes, they are.

But Andrew, my middle son, you know, he’s in Billy Billy Epperhart son’s church in Denver, Colorado.

Yeah.

And he brought a check. It was a six figure check.

Wow. He’s a giver.

Yeah, he’s very generous and he’s very blessed. And he’s always thought in a big way. In fact, he’s helped my thinking. But Andrew’s a very blessed. He said his pastor cried when he brought that check to him. But you know, Peter, my youngest son he’s in corporate business. He works for 3G Capital.

Wow.

He’s the chief operating officer.

Wow.

A large corporation

Sure.

In all of the Americas. And he’s only 32 years old.

Wow.

It’s supernatural. And you know what?

That’s blessing. This blessing, you can’t, It goes from generation to generation.

Yeah, it’s true.

I’ll tell you one thing I do not believe in. I do not believe in generational curses.

No.

That was something in the Old Testament.

Yeah.

But when God is your father and you’re born again, you cannot inherit a generational curse from God, your Father. So don’t believe those lies.

Amen. But I do believe in generational blessing.

Sure.

And Psalm one 12 talks about this. In fact, after I was in one of your meetings in about 1998, I began to speak Psalm 112, the first eight verses.

Yeah.

Psalm 115.

Sure. It’s amazing.

Verse 9 through verse 16.

Amazing.

In Deuteronomy 28, the blessings, the first 14 verses, I prayed those and personalized them. And I did that for a period of about six months, like every day. And it was amazing how my life changed.

Wow. Praise the Lord. That is amazing. Because when you read in the Book of Acts, Acts chapter 10, it talked about a man by the name of Cornelius. And it says Cornelius, even though he was not saved, he was not a Christian, he was a giver.

Yeah.

And so the Bible says, interesting, his prayers and his giving, generosity, came up before God.

Right.

Think about that. In other words, he’s hungry for God, but he’s also a very generous giver who came up before God. And God said, we’re going to do something at his house. So he sent angels on assignment, and then he sent Peter on assignment with these visions to go to Cornelius’s house, and Cornelius and his whole family were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Think about that. It was what? His prayers, but not just his praying,

His giving.

His generosity.

Yes.

So God notices generosity, because God’s the biggest giver. He’s the source of all of our supply, and he’s the biggest giver.

Amen.

So he loves generous givers. Actually, you could say it this way. My best friends, I have a lot of friends. We think. I have a lot of friends. We use that term loosely. Not necessarily on Facebook. But anyway, we have thousands of friends. But my best friends are generous givers.

Amen.

In other words, God’s favorite, he loves a cheerful giver.

Amen.

Hilarious, generous giver. In other words, when you’re giving, it comes up before God. And Paul even told the Philippians, you gave once, you gave again, and your giving came up before God like worship. In other words, you can worship God without singing.

Amen.

You can worship God by being a tither and a giver. Actually, Hebrews 7 says that when you tithe, Jesus receives it in heaven.

That’s the number one reason that I tithe. That cranks my tractor.

And that’s the New Testament. People say, “Well, I don’t have to tithe.” Well, Jesus talked about tithe in Matthew 23:23, the Apostle Paul talked about tithing in Hebrew Chapter 7. Actually, Abraham was apparently the first tither, and he’s the father of faith. So when you’re in faith, you get the blessing of Abraham, and Abraham was a tither. So when you tithe,

Amen.

He says, Abraham tithe to Melchizedek, but now, when you tithe, that goes up before Jesus, our high priest, it leaves your hand and goes into God’s hand. But someone said it this way, a good friend of mine named Mike Murdock. He said, “What you’re giving, it may leave your hand, but it will never leave your life.”

Amen.

In other words, your giving, your tithing, your generosity, goes up before God. And he says, “And it witnesses that Jesus is alive.” So, you know, the bumper sticker says, honk if you love Jesus. We say, don’t honk if you love Jesus, tithe if you love Jesus. In other words, anybody can be a honky, be a tither. In other words, when you’re a tither, you’re saying, my first income, the first fruit to all my money, goes to the kingdom of God and to the gospel. Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrection, and tithing is the first fruit of your income. So when you tithe and give, you’re saying, I believe Jesus is alive, and I give to the gospel of Christ. In other words, when you’re a tither, God said, I will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing you don’t have room enough to receive. But he added this, your tithes and your offerings. In other words, you don’t stop with tithing, you start with tithing. Actually, generosity begins after you tithe.

Yeah, some people struggle with tithing even.

Yeah.

But you know, if you’re one of those that’s struggling with tithe, and I love what you’re saying, we are the seed of Abraham.

Yeah.

The Bible calls us the seed. And Abraham tithed and gave to Melchizedek, the priest king of Salem or Jerusalem, the city of peace, a type of Christ. But he did that about 500 years before Moses and the law.

Yeah.

And so well over 400 anyway.

Sure.

So if Abraham did that and initiated it, and we’re the seed of Abraham, did you know? And we say, Abraham’s blessings are mine, and they truly are.

Sure.

If you read Galatians Chapter 3, you can’t get away from it. And see people withhold because they don’t see the blessing.

Yeah.

They see it as leaving their life instead of increasing their life.

True.

So again, if you’re here, if you wanna become a partner, if you wanna receive prayer, give us a call today. We wanna receive those calls, blessings.

We’d like to invite you to join us as we share this message of grace, faith, and righteousness with countless others by becoming a regular monthly partner with Grace for Today. When you become a new partner, we’d like to send you a copy of Mark Hankins book entitled, “How to Receive God’s Generosity” free of Charge. To become a monthly partner, go to our website, charischristiancenter.com.

Great to have you with us today. And I want to invite you to attend services with us at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. The atmosphere is amazing. Recently in one service, I had people from 10 nations in several states, they watch us on a regular basis online. And they said, this is amazing. So if you can’t come physically, come and attend online at Charis Christian Center or YouTube. Blessings. Only two requirements to get every prayer answer. “If you abide in me, take up residence”, Jesus said, “in me, and let my word take up residence in you. If you do that, he said, you will ask what you will.” Guess what? If you do that, you’re not gonna be asking for the wrong thing. If you do that, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.

Thanks for watching Grace for today. This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000. Or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give You can write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace for Today.