Why produce more if it only multiplies your misery?

Money is an amplifier, not the music.

The music is the tune that plays in your heart.

Scripture does not teach that money is evil. It highlights that the love of money opens the door to all kinds of trouble. However, the Good Book does point to the unredeemed and unhealed heart being evil and prone to deception. That is where the music plays, for good or for bad. All issues of life flow from the heart and the boundaries we choose are first drawn inwardly.

Work on your heart.

Work on developing your inner man or woman, not just your income.

Peaceful Profits & Joyful Riches

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Here we are live again, by God’s grace, and today I want to talk about peaceful profits and joyful riches and ask the question just just to kind of talk about some stuff around money, talk around some stuff about hang ups that we might have, talk around the subject of honesty and and growth and expansion and moving in and becoming all that we can be in in God and in his purposes and calling and maybe some of the roadblocks that stand between us moving from where we feel or think we are now to where we know we can go and who we know we can become.

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And I the question I asked when I was writing this morning is why produce more if it only multiplies your misery? Because at the end of the day, multiplication of money specifically is an amplifier. It’s not the music. The music is the tune that’s playing in your heart. And Scripture doesn’t necessarily teach that money is evil, but it does highlight the danger that the love of money can lead to and troublesome doors

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that kind of idolatry can can bring into your household and into your heart.

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And so but but that you know, whereas the Bible doesn’t say money is evil, the Bible does point to the heart as being prone to deception. It points to the heart as being a place that will either produce good fruit or bad according to its own nature. And this is really in the heart is where the music plays. The things outside of ourselves act merely as amplifiers for what’s on the inside. All the issues of life, the scriptures tell us, flow from the heart and the boundaries, which is another translation of that word issues.

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The boundaries are drawn inwardly before they are kind of manifest outwardly, and so it behoves us to work hard on our heart. Now, we might be working hard in our business. We might be working hard to increase our income, etc. But really the real work, the work of the real building work and the place where multiplication will finally flow is going to be the work that we do on the inner man. And of course, you know, that’s easy to say when when you’ve crossed that line and you are no longer kind of fighting to survive.

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You know, these kind of philosophical sounding questions become a much more kind of your in the arena of that. But when you’re just fighting to break through and get your first kind of crack of the whip in this prosperity game, we might think, man, that’s so easy for you to say, so easy for you to talk about. And, you know, I can’t deny that over these past years, God has been good to us. God has been great to learn.

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And I and we still feel as though we’re just at the beginning of the journey. But I can promise you that we all face challenges. You know, it doesn’t matter where you are on the journey. Most of us are like the rest of us. And I’m just going to kind of be very honest and very open with you today because I believe it can be beneficial. Say I’m you know, presently we own no house. We have no savings to speak of.

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I spent the majority of my life absolutely terrified of the money conversation, and I’ve only really been in this money game for a few short years. You just need to ask some of the people who knew me back in the day and they will tell you that I am the most unlikely candidate to even be speaking about this subject heads really true. You know, I still feel inadequate and insecure around successful people. I wrestle with a small picture of myself and an inflated picture of others.

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I push hard and experience resistance. Both from within myself, my own belief system, and from without, you know, with some of the challenges that we face in trying to realise some of the things that we carry on the inside, you know, I’m I’m honestly very often fearful to ask for or accept help. And that’s a weakness. You know, I don’t really know often the value that I bring to the table, I diminish the value in my own eyes that I bring to the table, especially in situations where I’ve got some kind of exalted view of what others are carrying compared to little old me.

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I tussle with fear of the future financially. And I feel sometimes that I take one step forward and two back as I seek to move forward and seek to grow and expand and become and help more people. And like, honestly, I’m not complaining. I’m not even confessing here. I’m just trying to be real because, you know, I’m a flat out sick of this culture, of pretending I’m tired of all the parade that that happens online at these various platforms and sales pages and wherever else that they’re kind of I’m like, I’ve got to admit, I’m fairly jaded with it all.

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Really just tired of all of that. You know, I really crave truth. I crave reality. I crave honesty. I crave the company of men and women who’ve been touched by the Holy Ghost in a deep and real way. I just and, you know, it’s very difficult if we can’t be real with ourselves and with others and we fall into the trap of trying to present this glossy charade instead of this charred but beautiful masterpiece that God is chiselling.

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You know you know, if we if we if we’re afraid to turn up as our whole self, how do we have a hope of finding happiness and contentment? And, you know, you may ask this like, how is this relevant to me, man? That’s your issues. You know, why empty the laundry basket like this? Because I found that facts are very persistent things and they will fight against the truth tooth and nail. I’m a faith man, brought up in a faith movement, passionate, passionately believe in the scriptures and positive confession and the power of your words.

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I believe in all of that with absolutely no conviction and and action. We actively practise these things. But I think the positive confession is in the law of attraction. Is miss a key component sometimes, and that is that the facts need to be opened before the truth can really be received and lived out. You know, confessing the destination might be powerful, but for the Internet, for the GPS to work, you really do have to have a grip on your present location, locate yourself first and then launch towards that more attractive future with the words of your mouth.

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But don’t deny the realities of what you’re having to deal with in a Jesus. Put it this way. I mean, he had such a such an eloquent way to just like boil things down to their essence. He said, repent, own the facts and believe, reach for and receive the truth in an expanding into all that we can be and becoming our biggest and most audacious self is preceded by a clear and unapologetic appreciation of where we are right now.

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Facts are facts. You know, I’d base that neither good nor bad. They just are. The effects of those facts, however, can provoke behaviours that lead to good or bad results. And so I’m not suggesting that you lay a guilt trip on yourself. Jesus didn’t say feel guilty and believe. He said repent and believe. Just locate your facts. Locating your facts is a means. Shine the light on areas where you’re present, sinking attitudes and actions and not measuring up to your full stature in Christ, where you can look and you can see this is the man or the woman that I want to become and am becoming.

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And this is where I am right now. And in recognising where I am right now, I can begin to deal with those things. I can begin to bring them to the light, you know. And again, I’m not I’m not suggesting that public confessional is really the right forum for you to open the laundry room up in a I’ve lifted the lid and exposed some of my kind of heartworms today for a reason. You know, you got to choose your time.

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You got to choose the right people in the right place for honest, laid, bare reality. We need friends that we can be real with. We need people close to us that we can be honest with, you know, and it’s it’s not really, you know, the the friendliest and acquaintance lists on the various social platforms. They are not the place really for this manner of conversation to take place, you know, but contentment and peace.

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Cannot hide behind like a fig tree life, you know, at the end of the day, at some point in some place, and there has to be a forum for us to kind of just be our naked self and expose ourselves to conversations where the winds will blow hard, you know, and where we will allow truth to prevail. And that expansion and productivity and increase and income and blessing and strength and ministry and effectiveness will come as a result, not of all of the outward things that sometimes we think are going to be the key that opens the door.

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But they’re going to flow from the heart. They’re going to come. You know, the man who built his house on the rock is the man whose house stood. You know, the character that’s built when we dig deep and put roots way down into the ground where we dig deep foundations. That’s hard work. That’s that’s not easy work, that’s not light work, it’s not often not light hearted work, you know, there’s a time to laugh and there’s a time to cry.

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There’s a time for us to recognise where we’re at as much as there’s a time for us to recognise where we want to be and where we want to go and to deal with those things appropriately in our hearts in a very real way, both firstly before God and then also with others. So we can so we’re not left in this vulnerable place thinking that we are the only one having these thoughts where the only one he wrestles with, these very prevalent, very normal, very ordinary things, if we would recognise them.

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You know, and, you know, the heaviest loads that we carry really are the unspoken ones and fears seek out the shadows in our life so they can speak to us when no one is looking, if we bring them to the light and just let those that let those suckers fry in the glare of reality, you know, I God is good. You don’t have a spirit of fear. You have a spirit of power, love, sound, mind know you’re worth my worth is and value is not based on any estimation other than gods.

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And he gave his very best to redeem us and by us back to himself. You know, seriously, you were not on the bargain aisle. You were not in that in like the over sell by date part with the yellow sticker on like marked down. He gave his best for you. You know, you and I, we bring tremendous value to every relationship. You are an asset to others and an encouragement for them to break out and become all that they were created to be.

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Your God is their reward. And he sees in secret all that you say. And he is no man’s debtor and he owes you nothing. His treasures are storing up in heaven and when necessary, when needed, when requested, will pour through the windows into your hands, through your faithfulness to his cause and his covenant. And is calling, you know, this this house, my house, your house. Life and business are being built on foundations that are dug deep and hard.

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We cannot stay on the surface sands and present this inch thin persona to the world in our day. I refuse to stay small in my own eyes. I refuse to accept the testimony of anything other than the truth. And he, my king, Jesus, is the way, the truth and the life. And he is far more committed to my prosperity and my peace than even I am. Proverbs says this. The blessing of the Lord make us rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.

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There are many very prosperous men and women who are magnificently miserable, and we do not want to be one of those people. We want to be joyfully rich, rich in every aspect of life, you know, but we want to be rich above all of these natural things. And we want that. Yes, we do. You know, the scriptures say that these things will be added to you if you will seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, his way of being and doing, you know, let peace fill your account, let righteousness be your reward and with it as an overflow, all that you can imagine and more will be added.

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I believe that. And I’m seeking to live that out in whatever way I can. I’m facing I’m facing all of the same challenges that many of you might be facing in your own exploration and desire to expand. I’m just like moving forward as hard and as real as I possibly can and as scared and as sincerely as I possibly can. But I believe that God wants to bring us to a place of rich fulfilment. Fullness of joy, abundant grace.

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And that part of that journey. Is owning our facts, locating the areas where we need him to come in and bring healing, where we need to come, where locating those patterns of thinking, where he needs to come in and give them some more flexibility, open them up to his truth and his reality and his greatness and his ability. And so father in Jesus name, I pray God, as we’ve looked at productivity this month, I pray above all else, Lord, as we seek to prosper, as we seek to expand, as we seek to become and grow into the full stature of Christ.

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Lord. That we would know you more deeply and that you would connect us with the people that we can be very honest with and very real with. So we can walk this journey together, Lord, toward your you’re just just to to experience and to manifest more of your goodness wherever we go. In Jesus name. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com.

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Have a great day.