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If you donвЂ™t have that, obviously you donвЂ™t have enough faith. It plays right into the hands of the world itвЂ™s the me, me, me вЂ“ the next plasma TV, the next car, the next big thing. At one end you can have people getting the extreme prosperity thing in their heads and we can end up thinking itвЂ™s all about us. God is a God of balance and when we look at our lives, what we see is that we go through times of blessing, where thereвЂ™s joy and everything seems to be going well and we all go through difficult times.

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He was full of GodвЂ™s wisdom.Дo you see the problem? You go to either end of the spectrum and you take teaching about GodвЂ™s blessing to the extreme and you know, I think you end up with the wrong answer. Yet King Solomon was still GodвЂ™s anointed leader over Israel. I read about King Solomon, he was very wealthy. And then I go to the Bible and I read about Abraham, who was GodвЂ™s chosen man he was very wealthy. Then I looked at this end of the spectrum вЂ“ you have to be a pauper to serve God. He believed that it was wrong for him to have money. And this man was being very critical of a Christian leader who just happened to have a nice house in a nice area. India by and large, is a country of extremes вЂ“ there is the very rich and thereвЂ™s a large, large number of very, very poor people. I was talking to a man in India recently. The Bible says, вЂњThe love of money is the root of all evilвЂќ, but money itself isnвЂ™t evil. In fact, we just had a phone call, just the other evening, in the middle of the night, someone responding to a program, saying, вЂњmoney is evilвЂќ. The other end of the spectrum is you have to be poor to serve God. Is that where that should end up? I mean is that what GodвЂ™s blessing is all about? Now the problem that I have with that end of the spectrum is that when I take that and I hold it in one hand and I hold the cross of Christ in the other вЂ“ when I look at Jesus, this Jesus that gave up everything for me this Jesus who was nailed to a cross, beaten and bruised and brutalised, not even with the clothes on His back вЂ“ and I compare those two things, you know something, this end of the spectrum over here, jars with that, donвЂ™t you think? And it leads to some of the worst excesses вЂ“ the tele-evangelists pressuring people for money and flying around in their private jets. And you know something, lots of Christians believe that.

In effect it kind of reduces God down to some sort of sugar daddy: itвЂ™s all about me, I am at centre stage вЂ“ I name it and I claim it.

God wants to bless me, therefore, I should believe Him for the new Mercedes convertible, more money and a bigger house and a big diamond ring. On the one end, it goes something like this. There seems to be a couple of extreme positions on this whole subject of GodвЂ™s blessing вЂ“ two opposite ends of the spectrum, if you like. Why is that important? Because I see so much misunderstanding about God and His heart and where He stands on blessing us. ThereвЂ™s some really important teaching going to happen over these next four weeks on the subject of GodвЂ™s blessing.

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It is just great to be with you again this week and we are starting a new series that IвЂ™ve called вЂњBlessed to be a BlessingвЂќ. If God is a God of blessing вЂ“ then what about all the suffering we go through? And anyway, if God does bless, does that just mean a new car and a bigger house? Does God want to Bless Me?

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