A Pauper Attitude

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 30th of July 2023, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start off in Malachi 3:10:

"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,"
Says the Lord of hosts,
"If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it."

Then we go straight to Matthew 7:7:

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." 

That is a beautiful scripture; the one in Malachi is also very special to me. The Lord says: "Test me." He doesn't say "Tempt Me" - "Test Me and see if I will not honour you." I want to tell you today that many of us have a pauper attitude when our Father owns all the cattle on a thousand hills, He owns all the hills, He owns the silver and the gold, and yet we are walking around with a begging bowl asking for scraps. As one man of God said, "Why ask for only a cupful when God owns the entire ocean?" A ray of light - why do we ask for a ray of light when Jesus holds the sun in His hands? 

I remember like it was yesterday when the Lord impressed upon me to hire a tent for a men's conference on the farm. We hired the biggest tent in the world, that's right! It could seat 30 thousand men inside, and we had 30 thousand men outside. I want to tell you a secret; when I thought about hiring that tent, we had precisely R500 in the ministry account - R500! That is about $50, not even, and that tent cost millions. It took 17 30-ton rigs to bring it to the farm. It took three weeks to erect, but do you know something? When I stood on that platform on that first night, we owed nobody.

We fed those 60,000 men; that's right, we fed them for the whole weekend. We killed 40 oxen for one meal. How did we do it? We did it by faith. We tested the Lord, heard a word from God, and did it. We took our tithe to the storehouse. Where is the storehouse? The storehouse is where you get your spiritual food from. The Lord says, "Test me and see if I will not honour you." 

I want to encourage you today to lift your eyes and ask God because He wants to bless you. He has more than you need and more than you will ever spend, but you must have the right heart and attitude. It is not for you but for Him and His people and the Kingdom of God.

Have a wonderful day,
Jesus bless you, goodbye.