Aug 21, '08 2:44 AM

This, my friends, is the absolute best day of your life!

Better get ready to see the Lord in action in front of your eyes!  That's Right!  On your behalf!  To meet your needs!  To bring healing to your house!  To bring deliverance to those suffering from oppression!  To bring salvation to your family!  To bring provision for every need!

Ready or not, here He comes!

Got that cup of coffee poured, yet?  Brother!  What an aroma we have here in the office today!  Mmmmmm ..... Mmmmmm ..... MMMMMM!!  Rich and DeAngela Warren are worship leaders and an integral part of our worship team here at River Worship Center.  They went out this weekend and picked up some organic Ethiopian Coffee and brought it to us.  Hey!  This is good stuff!

Sorry about not posting this past week.  Della and I flew to Chicago and rented a car, then drove to Madison, Wisconsin (and later to Milwaukee) to spend some time with relatives and cousins we haven't seen in many years.  At the same time, we took advantage of the opportunity to minister and share with some of them on a personal basis and declare healing.  My cousin, Lowell, had knee-replacement surgery and there were some complications that put him in rather serious condition.  We laid hands on him and are expecting his full recovery.  Your agreement with us concerning his total healing will be really appreciated.

In our last Coffee Break, I commented about Mary Ellen's receiving a gemstone that was dropped or placed in her lap by an angel.  As already noted, some folks have questioned why such things would take place with gemstones that no one can sell or use for monetary gain.  I feel bad for people who only see these kinds of signs and wonders from a money standpoint.  That's bad, folks!  Trying to reduce what God does and/or how the Holy Spirit manifests Himself in order to draw attention to something He is doing and then to reduce that or oversimplify it to simple financial terms or values is an example of what I've been sharing in the past three Coffee Breaks on the Spirit of Poverty.

OK?  Hmmmm...that may have come out a bit awkwardly, so let's put it like this.

The Spirit of Poverty and Avarice does not want believers to see the whole picture.  It does not want people to see or understand the promises of God.  It does not want folks to see their future in the Kingdom.  This spirit is out to rob you of the glory, the joy, the excitement and -- most of all -- the peace that comes with the presence of the Lord.

Manifestations like these unusual gemstones (a gemologist in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho tested one of them and found it to be harder than diamonds with a brilliance and clarity off the charts) are prophetic symbols.  Each of the stones which have appeared so far -- and they have appeared in many different places around the world -- match the stones in the breastplate of the High Priest (Exodus 28:15-20).  They also match the stones and the colors described by John as part of the foundations of the walls of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:19-20).

Do I understand the significance of all these stones, their colors, their placement, and why God chose these particular stones?  Not yet, but I will.

If we are unable to see and understand things in the Spirit and attempt to relegate everything the Lord does to "what I get out of it" or "what it's worth to me," we have definitely been overtaken by a Spirit of Poverty and Avarice.  This spirit can't see beyond money -- either the abundance of it, or the lack of it.  Its entire focus is money.

Kingdom Economics certainly have money and finances as an integral part and function.  God's economy, however, goes so far beyond it that to oversimplify and compress His economic structure to money and whether you have lots of it or not enough of it cheats the believer out of the Blessing of Abraham.

Let's not forget.  The economic system(s) of this world stems from Babylon.  It is founded in strife and confusion.  This system is based in doubt, fear and unbelief.  It is founded in need.  It is rooted in greed.

AND, it is the polar opposite of everything God promises to those whose heart's desire and prayer is, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done in earth as it is in Heaven."  (Matthew 6:10)

Understand?  We're the implementers of God's Will in the earth.  We're the ones who bring to pass His Kingdom authority and rulership in the earth.  We're the ones who carry the Blessing of Abraham.  And we're the ones with whom the Lord is displaying His Glory.

We've spent days now talking about influence of the Spirit of Poverty in the lives of people, and how it contradicts everything that God says to us.  It's time for us to take a look at the Blessing of Abraham, why Abraham was blessed in such stupendous ways, and why the Blessing of the Lord has ever since and for all time been referred to as "The Blessing of Abraham."

Some of you are aware of the experience I had many years ago when the Lord took me to Heaven for three days.  I'm not going to go into any detail today concerning that event other than to relate that while standing at the Gate prior to entering Heaven, the Lord said to me, "Is there anyone you'd like to meet and talk to while you are here?"  At this point in my life, having already been through the Scriptures from cover to cover at least nine or ten times, I was very familiar with the people in the Bible and I quickly rattled off a list of those I wanted to meet.

Among those I met and spent time with was Abraham.  He was not a man who appeared to be 175 years old.  In fact, he appeared as a man in the prime of life, perhaps 40 years of age, muscular, fit in every way.  It isn't necessary for me to go into every detail of my conversation with him, but the things he said and shared concerning his obedience to the Lord, and how he was able to respond despite the fact that he had no proof text in his life (especially while with his father in Ur of the Chaldees) to even believe that there was a real God brought revelation and drew a vivid picture for me.

I saw a man whose integrity towards God was unassailable.  I saw a man whose faith in God and whose trust in God set a standard for all of God's people for centuries and millennia to come.

Let me try to draw the picture for you.

Abraham (he was still known in those days as Abram) was a man of roughly 50 years of age the first time God called him.  [We also see Stephen telling us this part of the story in Acts 7.]  You realize, of course, that his father, Terah, was a Babylonian high priest and a maker of idols.

Living in and under the Babylonian culture of life and system of economics, there was absolutely no basis for faith in any part of his life.  All of the gods were gods of wood or stone or brass.  They were lifeless creations of the hand of man -- and in this case, Abraham's father, Terah.  They couldn't talk or respond when addressed.  They couldn't generate life.  They couldn't make the crops to grow.  They couldn't multiply one's flocks or herds.  They couldn't heal the sick.  They couldn't do anything!

In the midst of this faithless environment, Abraham grew sick and tired of the gods.  He was disgusted with the religion and religious practices that surrounded him.  The idols his father made nauseated him.  Just being around people who fawned over and pandered to these gods of wood, stone and brass made him want to pewk.  Throughout the years, he'd come to the place personally where he refused to participate in the worship practices.  He'd had enough of dead religion, and Ur of the Chaldees personified that death.

It was in the midst of his labors (Abraham had become keeper of many of his father's various business enterprises, his flocks and herds, his fields, etc.) one day that he heard an audible voice speaking to him.  As he looked around for the speaker, no one was present.  He was by himself.

"Abram," the Voice said, addressing him by name.  The Voice penetrated his whole being.  It was a Voice filled with authority, yet a Voice that commanded peace and spilled over with love.  "Get out of this country!  Come away from your family and all of your relatives.  I want you to come with me into a land and a country that I will show you."

Wow!  That Voice gripped his whole being.  This was no human voice: this was the voice of God!  He'd never heard anything like it in his life.  He didn't have to guess at who the speaker was.  This was the sound of areal supreme being -- not the pretense of some mythical god coming out of the mouth of some phony priest who pretended to be speaking for it.

It stirred him.  It galvanized him.  It also brought a flood of thoughts and a certain amount of self-satisfaction in his prior rejection of the dead idols his family and friends all worshiped.  For the first time in his life, he felt some justification and vindication.  Abraham had frequently criticized his family for their adoration of, and subjugation to pieces of wood and stone and brass, treating them as though there were some life or power in these inanimate objects.

He just had to share this with his father.  This was too good!  Not since the days of his ancestor, Noah, had there been any record of a real God who actually talked to people and directed their lives.  Noah was still alive, and in fact would live for another ten years before dying at the age of 950 years.  But Noah's stories about talking to God had become a dim, distant memory; and to most of the inhabitants in this part of the world, Noah's experiences were more myth than reality.

Terah was more than a little shaken by Abraham's recital of hearing the Voice of God.  The fact that the Voice of God instructed Abraham to leave him and the rest of the relatives filled Terah with fear.  Is there going to be another disaster like the Great Flood?  Is the reason this God is instructing my son to leave me because for some reason He intends for my son to survive some calamity that will befall the rest of us?

Fear -- the Fear of Death -- is a powerful motivating force.  People who worship false gods -- or no God, for that matter -- are ruled by both the Fear of Death, and the Fear of Evil.  Both families of fear had long contaminated Terah and his household, and he wasn't about to be the one left behind if there was some real God who was alive and directing the footsteps of his son.

Terah didn't wait for Abraham to begin packing up his wife, his household and possessions.  As the family patriarch, he asserted his authority commanding the entire family to pack up bag and baggage and head to the north and west of Ur.  In a journey that would take weeks and months, Terah moved the entire family a distance of some 660 miles (as the crow flies) to territory then occupied and ruled by the Hittites.

These were a people that Terah would be comfortable with.  They were his kind of people.  They worshiped the same false gods that Terah had always served, and Baal and Ashteroth were their primary deities.  The fact that Abraham had heard the voice of a real God, and that God had given him specific direction scared Terah into action, but not into repentance and turning from his false gods.  Terah's influence would be felt in this new territory, and the country or region would be named after Terah's son, Haran.

His near-lifelong occupation as a Babylonian priest and functionary of a system that had become the modus operandi of every nation of the then-occupied earth made him a reverenced and respected leader.  His son, Haran, was quickly becoming as recognized as his father.  Naming that region of the world after Haran was a means by which the occupants of the land could honor both Terah and Haran.

In the process of the move, although Terah had organized and directed the move, Abraham was that much closer to the land God was taking him to.  Abraham's obedience was still only partial, but the fact that there was any obedience at all was accepted by God.  Abraham would be in a holding pattern for roughly 25 years until Terah died.  He would not hear the voice of God again at all during those 25 years, but the day would come when the Lord would speak to him the second time, and repeat the original command.

This is probably a good place to take a break in this narrative.  We will continue with the picture of the Blessing of Abraham and why God's Blessing upon us is referred to in that way in a few days in our next Coffee Break.

Inner wealth and prosperity is established by giving.  Your bills cannot live when you give.  Giving announces to God that you trust Him, and not your money.

The Blessing of the Lord: it makes rich and He adds no painful toil and sorrow!  (Proverbs 10:22)  Be blessed!