James H. Hooks

If we believe that God owns all including the earth and fullness thereof, every fowl of the air, fish of the sea, animal life, every human,every soul, all the silver and Gold, then we do not own anything. That means that what we have is given to us by God to care for until He comes. Why we believe it is because God tells us He owns all.

If God owns all the silver and Gold then He distributes it to us. His desire is to share it with His children. He is telling us to please put ourselves in a position so He can release it to us. How do we do that? We place ourselves in position when we give to His cause. It is our giving that causes God to give to us in a portion based upon what we give. His cause is one that edifies the church of ministering to others.

What stops Him from releasing to us?

1. If we actually consider what we have as ours we are reluctant to give and therefore withhold from giving. We need to understand that when we withhold from giving to God what is His, He will divide what we have and what we give to Him, He  will be multiply. Which would you want to have done in your life?

2. We do not believe God will follow through with His word that if we tithe He will open up the gates of heaven and pour out blessings that we will not have room to receive. Our giving starts after the tithe and we do not believe that He will give back, good measure, pressed down, shaken together.

3. We do not appreciate what He has already given us.

This is the area I wish to emphasize for this blog. If we do not appreciate what God has already given us He knows that we will never appreciate what we are asking for. Instead of recognizing and thanking God for what He has already given us :
we express our discontent by finding something wrong with it, feel that we got the short end of the stick, complain that God has blessed others more than ourselves or want something because someone else has it and we want it, or we just want something better that what He has given us.

If we do not learn to appreciate what God has already given us we have no business asking Him for something else. We approach God with THAKSGIVING, then let our request be placed before Him.

Appreciation or gratitude has nothing to do with what we have or do not have, it is a condition of our hearts and our souls. When we learn to appreciate what God has given us, thank Him for it, that is the first step toward asking Him for something different. God wants us to have nice thing but only if the things do not come between us and Him. If they do, things become our God. God says, you should have no other god’s before Him

No matter how much we make, how much we have they can never provide us with peace and happiness. Learning to appreciate what we have is learning how to prosper right where we are. What I have found in my travels is the people that have the least are the most appreciative.

I would suggest beginning each day with a sincere heart felt prayer. God, thank you for all that you have given me, not because I deserve it but because you love me and I want you to know how much I appreciate it.