Imparting Success To The Next Generation – Part 8 Lawson and Barbara Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’re with us today. I have my wife Barbara here, and we are teaching on imparting success to the next generation. We’re specifically teaching about how to succeed in a practical trade and how to encourage our children. And today we’re talking about financial management. Did you know there are over 2000 scriptures on riches, wealth, and abundance? Don’t miss this program. Blessings. Friends, it’s so good to have you here. I’ve got Barbara here. We’re sharing from her book “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” And we’ve been talking all this week about the third aspect of really helping our kids be successful. We talked last week about loving God and loving the word, and then we talked secondly about loving our family. And now we’re talking about a practical trade. And you brought out so beautifully that we’re not only spirit. And Christians make a mistake that they focus just on the spiritual things, but they tend sometimes to neglect education. They tend to neglect physical exercise. So we not only need to be successful spiritually, but also emotionally and physically and financially. So we’ve been talking about this practical trade. All this week we talked about children need training in their gifts and talents. We talked about a need for boundaries and discipline. We talked about how teaching children to be extraordinary, dare to be different. But today the first thing we’re gonna talk about is how to have a good work ethic. And so this is something that was just ingrained in me from my father. I mean, his favorite scripture was 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 10. And it’s, “If a man does not work, neither should he eat.” And my dad would say, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” I mean, and I believe that was his favorite scripture. And once in a while I’d ask him, “Daddy, why are we doing all this? Jesus is gonna come back.” And he’d say, “Son, the Bible says, ‘Occupy till I come.’ Get to work.” And now I literally love to work, and I taught all of our children and they have a good work ethic. And it was interesting, we had our oldest granddaughter, Paisley, at our house, and she was three or four years old and I had her out there at the hose watering the trees. And you took a picture of it and one of the boys commented back and you texted it to him and said, “Dad’s starting them early.”

 

  Well, actually it was when our oldest granddaughter was only two years old.

 

  And you were watering the trees and bushes and then you started having her help. And what’s so cute, what reveals in this picture is, she just has this big smile on her face because, in other words, you are really giving her a place to be a part and giving her responsibility. And even as a two year old, she could tell this. “This is great. I’m needed, I have a part to play too.” And of course all of our children are raising our grandchildren with those good ethics too. It’s so sad, again, in the world and in the culture, they act like to have a job or work is a curse. And we know that it is actually a blessing to have a job, a blessing to get up and work and contribute in your home or in the businesses or in the church or… Wherever your job is, it is a blessing. And how do I know that? Because when God made man in his image, one of the first things he did after he created Adam in his image was he placed him in the garden and gave him a job to take care of the garden and to name everything, name all the animals. But God blessed Adam with a job.

 

  And he did that before he gave him a wife. And this is so important. Young ladies, listen to me, if you wanna marry someone, make sure they not only love God more than they love you, but make sure they got a job and they know how to work. It’s very important. Hallelujah.

 

  Amen. Well, again, we’re talking about worth ethic. And we mentioned this in yesterday’s program, that basically both our fathers were very similar. Both our fathers really had a strong work ethic, didn’t ever expect people to pander to them or give them, they just both got up and worked and worked hard. I know your father was an amazing person, a business person starting in the horse industry. But my father put himself through college just working really hard. And so both of us grew up with parents, but particular fathers who did not allow us to sleep in. I grew up in the city, you grew up out in the country, so there was a lot of responsibilities. But you know even in the city, there are plenty of chores to do. I was always expected to help my mother around the house. And then, not only that, I was expected to help my father outside with the yard. And even when I was a senior, before my senior year, I went and spent my summer with my grandparents. My grandfather was having some health challenges and I was sent there to do their yard. And I mean, they had rose gardens, they had vegetable–

 

  They had two acres in the middle of an orchard in Paonia, Colorado.

 

  Yes, they had vegetable gardens. And I had to use a rotor tiller and I had never done that. That was really funny. That thing just jerked me all over. But I was expected to do chores and help whether in my home or another family member or someone in the community. If somebody needed help, both of us were taught, “You get up and work, help at home, but help your neighbors too.”

 

  Yeah, and it’s not that we have to do this, we get to do this.

 

  I remember I was so excited as a young man that I got to start driving tractor when I was just 13 years old and I was a little skinny kid. And it wasn’t one of these tractors with a cab, it was a John Deere 3020, no cab. And we had a 15-foot Krause one way that we had a half section. That’s a half mile wide and a mile long. And we would just farm every other year. We only farmed half of that, so a quarter section of it. But I would go round, and as soon as I made one round on my own, as soon as I turned four corners, my dad, he jumped off the tractor and he said, “Son, I’ll be back at dark to pick you up. Keep this thing going around the field.” And the dirt would come over me and I would actually, my face would turn black with the dirt and the bugs and the heat. But I would get up early. I learned. It wasn’t very long and I was making maybe $3 an hour at that time working for my grandfather. But I would keep that tractor going around that field and I would work early, work late.

 

  Wouldn’t a neighbor say something about how you beat them in the morning?

 

  I had a neighbor one time and he came out, I think, at 4:30 AM to see if he could beat me to the field. And he was up in his sixties, and he worked for this very wealthy man that had a lot of land. And he was farming a quarter, that’s 160 acres, half mile by half mile, right next to the quarter we had. He said, “I got out there at 4:30 AM and you’re already going around the field.”

 

  I wanna bring something out that it really grieves my heart. I’m just thinking about you just shared something that you did when you were 13, that your father dropped you off in the morning, or that you would start driving tractor and then they would come at the end of the day when it was dark, and I think about how many people, especially our children and teenagers, spend so much time wasting time, energy, and creative imagination, just playing all these handheld games or games on TV. To me, it is very destructive and really just ruins people’s creative imaginations. And so we’re talking about work ethic, but we also want our children to have that time to be creative. And you really need to limit, not only for children, but even for adults, we need to limit our time on social media, on TV, and don’t let something distract or rob you from being creative or having the joy of working. And so again, your father loved 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “If anyone will not work, neither shall he not eat.” And I loved it. You had a mentor who lived out in an agriculture area and had lots of farmland, he raised his family. But I don’t know how these people ended up with him, but there’d be people that would want free handouts that would come through this little town and they would want free handouts, want someone to provide shelter for them. And I remember he would allow some of these young single men to come stay with him, but they wouldn’t stay long because basically he said, “If you’re going to eat at my table, you’re gonna work like I work.”

 

  “In my field.”

 

  “You’re gonna work in my field.” And they didn’t like his work ethic, so they didn’t stay long. And so I love this next scripture, honey. I really see it. And we’ve been told that people see this in our life, that Proverbs 10:4 says, “A slack hand will make one poor, but a diligent hand, or being diligent, will make one rich.”

 

  Amen. Now, you talked about my mentor that was Irvin Mitchell, he was a great friend to me. Irvin had a eighth-grade education, ended up, he told me later in his life, he said, “Lawson, I’m having a hard time keeping my net worth to under 10 million.” And I said, “You better keep giving praise God.” And he gave a lot to his family, gave a lot to different people, he gave a lot to missions. Irvin loved God and he came into a relationship with God later in life, but he really did love God. But he was a very diligent person. You talk about some of my friends, Jesse Duplantis is a very good friend of me. Jesse Duplantis is very successful and is very prosperous. And people a lot of times will criticize Jesse for his prosperity and the blessing. Listen, you shouldn’t criticize somebody till you walked a mile in their shoes. But Jesse started working when he was seven or eight years old at a grocery store. And he worked hard as a young man. And he was already prospering before he went into ministry, before he ever got born again. He’s very, very diligent. Even now, he’ll talk about going to Hawaii and then flying to another island and preaching for somebody while he is on vacation. He really don’t take many vacations, to be honest with you. He takes some time off. But Jesse works and people criticize him for having a jet. You don’t know how many meetings that man preaches, and he couldn’t get there without a jet. And sometimes people are so critical and somebody in the world will have a jet, they think nothing of it. But somebody in the church, Dr. Lester Sumrall was my mentor, a very hard worker. Lester Sumrall would preach over 300 meetings a year outside of his own church and be in his own church every Sunday. 50 out of 52 Sundays a year, he would preached in his own church. And he preached five or six nights a week sometimes.

 

  Yeah, you’re talking about being diligent, like what we just read in Proverbs 10:4. But there’s another couple, hon, in our church here, they usually come to first service and they just celebrated their anniversary. Was it 60 years, their wedding anniversary? And we had the pleasure and joy of eating out with them to celebrate their anniversary. And it was so funny ’cause everywhere we drove by, they grew up here in Colorado Springs. But everywhere we went by, he’s like, “Yeah, when I was a kid or when I was a teenager, I worked there. Yeah, I washed dishes at that restaurant and I swept over here.” But you know what, he was just talking about all these jobs. Now he is an–

 

  They got married in their teens. I think Ronnie was just a teenager. Bob might have been 20 or something. But man, they are amazing, amazing people. And God bless you, Bob and Ronnie, if you happen to be watching this. They’re really, really special. But another one of my mentors we didn’t talk about is Andrew Wommack. And I remember when Andrew started out preaching. I met him, he’d actually been going a few years. He had almost nothing. He lived in an apartment. He would get up at four o’clock and record radio programs in a closet in his little apartment. And they had kids. He’d lined that thing with foam that would suck up the sound, and that’s how he started on radio. And at that point in time when I first met Andrew, he was holding six Bible studies a week. And we would start every night, Monday through Saturday, at 7:00 PM and he would go between… They would go from 7:00 to 10:00, almost to midnight sometimes. And I have this banker friend that knows Andrew just a little bit longer than I did. And when Andrew bought the property at Woodland Park, it was Ron Waller. And Ron, actually his bank loaned him the money. Ron’s dad used to be on Andrew’s board. Ron was from Walsh, Colorado and his dad was a banker and owned interest in several banks in southern Colorado. But his dad was on. And Ron said, “This is amazing to see.” He knew him, we called him Andy back in those days. He said, “We knew Andy when, if we didn’t take up a offering at Bible study, he didn’t have enough gas to get home.” And he built this… First building there was over $30 million and he paid for it cash. He said, “It’s just amazing that Andy started with…” He had to take up offering at Bible study or he didn’t have gas to get out of town. And now he built a building that cost over 30 million. Now he’s working on a project. Praise God. Andrew’s like 75 years old this year, I think. And working on a project, maybe 74, but it’s gonna cost a billion dollars, is what his manager Billy Epperhart thinks. But thank God, and you know what, you get good mentors in your life, and if you get good mentors, they’ll teach you good things. And one of them is a good work ethic, and you don’t wanna miss out on that. And I love to work, and it’s not that I have to do it, I get to do this, so thank God for his goodness. Stay tuned. We’ll be back right after a short break. Blessings. Hey everyone, I’ve just finished reading the final script for my wife Barbara’s book on “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” It’s a fantastic tried and proven thing that Barbara has proved in our lives on how we can teach our children to succeed. Andrew Wommack wrote the foreword. You don’t wanna miss it. You’ll be blessed. Thanks so much. Ministry shouldn’t just be at church. Ministry should start at the church, but we should be equipping you to do ministry. Amen? James said, “I dare you to pray,” he said this yesterday, “in the Holy Spirit for about three hours a day for a period of time and then go to Walmart and see if you don’t have something to tell somebody.” Amen. Friends, we’re back. And praise God. We’re talking about teaching your children to be successful in a practical trade. We’ve been talking about a work ethic. You have some great things down here, Barbara, about time management. It’s so important. Psalm 90, verse 12 says, “Teach us, Lord, to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” And Aaron, our oldest son actually said this. He’s a musician, he said, “Dad.” And he made this decision before he was a senior in college. But he said, “Most musicians are poor managers of their time, they’re poor managers of their money, and they’re just poor people. But I’ve decided I’m gonna be a good manager of my time, I’ll be a good manager of my money, and I’m going to be a millionaire.” And Aaron’s what, 36, gonna be 37 soon. Aaron’s a millionaire. His net worth. Doesn’t mean he has a lot of spending money, but praise God he’s blessed because he made a decision. You can make a decision to believe the Word of God and the promises will work in your life. Amen? Just believe God, it works. Amen? Praise God. Do you wanna share on that or do you wanna jump into the next point on financial management?

 

  Well, I’m just gonna look at Ephesians 5, 15 through 17. It just says, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” We need to understand what the will of the Lord is for our lives. We know we are to tell others about Jesus, but understand what God created you to do. And again, just talking about work ethic. But another thing that you did a great job in raising our children, and I know you do a great job here as senior pastor, is financial management. People, just because you have money or when you work, you don’t need to go spend it all. I love your mentor used to say, “See how long you can go without spending a dime.” But I wanna bring something out. When our children, we always had them do chores around the home. While we lived out at Kit Carson, we actually had large animals they had to to help with. But when we moved here to the city as they were teenagers to start and pioneer our second church, they began to work for other people. And you opened up a savings account for them that we taught our children to give, save, and live on the risk. But in saying that, we taught our children, just because you get a paycheck doesn’t mean you go just spend it all and blow it all. So it’s really important that we empower our children to have good financial management. Sometimes we talk a lot about this, a lot of people are so emotional.

 

  Yeah. I wrote a book on “Provision: Releasing Supernatural Increase in Your Life,” and one thing that I teach in that book, and I’ve got a lot of different things, I believe it’s a great book. You can get it CharisChristianCenter.com, you can get it here at church, you can get it on Amazon. And when I talk about this book, I talk about four pillars to financial success. I talk about what you believe, what you give, a good work ethic that we just talked about, and I talk about stewardship. And stewardship is a principle of the Word of God. And it amazes me how many people are just really poor stewards of what God has given them. So we don’t want to be poor stewards, we wanna be good stewards of our time, good stewards of our ability, good stewards of our family, good stewards of everything, really, that God has given us.

 

  I like that you’re talking about stewardship, ’cause a lot of times people would put this stigma. I’ve heard some of our extended families say, “Well, when I worked and now I’m retired, I just don’t get much retirement because I did this job and it never paid much.” And I really like it, you’ve told me about an uncle and aunt that you had, and how he was a school teacher and they were just very diligent and he left his wife very, very blessed. And they were just diligent with what they had. And so just such an amazing testimony, again, of being a steward of what you have and…

 

  Yeah. You know what, I believe that… I kind wondered, when you and I were getting married, I was making $800 a month and I’d been given $200 a month to the church, $80 tithe and $120 offering, and built in the building fund. They had a building fund at that time. And I thought, “I wonder how I’m gonna make it.” And my pastor made a statement to me, my pastor Kenny Davis from Lamar, Colorado. He said, “Lawson,” he said, “you’re a giver, and you’re always gonna have enough.” And you know what? I found that’s been the truth in my life. And so you know what, I didn’t quit giving, I kept giving my $200 a month to the church and I took on a $300 house payment, how times have changed. But I took that on when we got married. We had a double-wide trailer when we started out. But at the same point in time, did you know what, God changed the way that I got paid. And I made like $5 an hour then. And I started getting paid commission on horses that I sold. And here’s the thing, you believed God. You didn’t whine, you didn’t complain. You believed God. And if you wanted something, you told God. You didn’t necessarily tell me. You might’ve told me something. I said, “Well, we gotta do this,” and so you’d believe God. I remember one time you said, “Well, I’d like to have this.” There was a dining room table for our first anniversary and it was a great deal, they were having a sale on it. And you said, “Well, I’d like to have that.” And I said, “Well, if you believe God and I sell one horse this weekend.” And I had two different people coming to look at horses, and they were very fairly expensive horses. “And if I sell one horse this weekend, I’ll buy you that table.” Well, I didn’t sell one, I sold three. And that was a great, great deal. And we bought that. That table was on sale for $1,700 and I actually bought it for $1,100 out the door from Mr. Tidswell in Lamar, Colorado at Tidswell’s. And he asked me back then, I was like 20 years old, he said, “Who taught you how to do this, negotiate?” And I said, “My granddad.” He said, “I’m gonna hate to see you when you’re his age.” So praise God Jesse Duplantis is like that. Jesse Duplantis just got a new… I talked to him the other day, he got a new 7X Falcon. It’s fantastic. I love to see the people of God blessed. And some people criticize Jesse, but it’s a new used one. It’s probably a third or a fourth the price of a brand new one. But he can fly anywhere in the world one stop. And he’s got a bunch of international trips coming up, preaching the gospel, sharing the good news of Jesus all over the world. I just think it’s fantastic when God blesses his people that way.

 

  I want, again, just to bring out where we’re talking about financial management, I just barely touched on how we taught our children to give, save, and invest, but you call this the Joseph principle and I want you just to share a little bit about this.

 

  Yeah, this is one thing that I teach in… Again, you can get my book, “Provision: Releasing Supernatural Increase in Your Life.” But in Joseph, when I talk about management, and a lot of financial managers actually teach this in the world. They teach a 10-10-80 program. And you give the first 10%, you save the next 10%, or invest it, and you live off 80%. And I taught this to all of our children, Aaron, Andrew, and Peter, to give the first 10%, to save or invest the next 10%, and to live off 80%. And you know what? If you’ll discipline yourself to do that, you will grow wealthy. And I believe that anybody in the world can prosper. It doesn’t matter where you’re at. I’ve seen people in Nepal that practice this principle, one of the poorest countries in the world, where people migrate to India for better conditions, and they have prospered. I’ve seen people all over the world. Now, prosperity looks different in different places. I saw Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho’s church, what for a long time was supposed to be the largest church in the world. But he started preaching in a tent. But I went to his church when he had seven sanctuaries in one square block in Seoul, Korea. They didn’t have to drive. A lot of people ride bus, ride a motorcycle. And I went to the largest sanctuary to a service there when I was with Dr. Shirley on a mission trip. We were returning from Nepal, and actually there was seven doors to that main sanctuary. And over every door, it said this, in 3 John 3:2, “Beloved, I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.” Some people call this the American gospel, the prosperity gospel. Well, you ought read what the Bible says about prosperity, about riches or wealth, about finances, and practice them because God wants you to prosper. And a lot of times, I’ll be honest with you, the people that criticize us for preaching this, they actually make more salary and benefits than what we do. And so that’s just how it is. So you have one more scripture, Proverbs chapter 11, verse 24 and 25. Read that. We got a short minute before we go off air today.

 

  Well, I love this and I have seen this work firsthand. Again, this is Proverbs 11: 24 and 25. “There is one who scatters, yet increases more, and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich and he who waters will also be watered himself.” I love this. It says this in The Passion. “Those who live to bless others will have blessings heaped upon them. And the one who pours out his life to pour out blessings will be saturated with favor.” In other words, the liberal soul will be made rich.

 

  Amen. So I wanna encourage you, if you’re watching today, to pray and consider partnering with Charis Christian Center or just partner with us, “Grace for Today,” our television outreach ministry, Charis Christian Center. There is an anointing on this ministry for increase. And we’ve had a lot of people come and partner with us, and they have prospered more and more. And I believe that God wants you to prosper more and more. And just like that scripture says, “There is he who scatters and increase.” I thank God, we partner with over 35 ministries every month and we give to over 60 ministries every year. We sell millions of dollars in the body of Christ. And you know what? It’s come back to us, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Men are giving to our bosom. I believe this is good soil. I believe it’s good ground. I don’t want to pressure anybody, I don’t wanna twist your arm, but I wanna let you hear from God. And I believe if you sow a seed and become a partner of Charis Christian Center, you’ll be blessed. You can do that by giving us a call. You can also check that out on our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. I want to thank you so much, say a great big thank you to our partners who are helping us share the gospel, the good message of Jesus all around the world. And if you need prayer today for healing, for salvation, for provision, for a family member, whatever it may be, a relationship, give us a call today. We have trained prayer ministers waiting to minister to you.

 

  It is important to keep God first, family second, and our ministry third. In a busy world, it is essential that we understand and act upon these priorities. Raising kids to love the Word, value family, and live with purpose will bring them great success. Get your copy of Barbara’s new book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” for $15.99. Go to CharisChristianCenter.com and order yours today.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends. I want to invite you to church this coming Sunday morning. Whether you’re in Colorado Springs or whether you’re wherever you are at, if you’re in Colorado Springs, you can see us Sunday morning at 8:30 or 10:30 AM live. But you can also watch us with our livestream congregation at 8:30 or 10:30 AM, or you can go to our website and get it anytime at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

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