2072 Check Your Hands

0:00Congratulations! Your gift of a new day is here! Ready to live it big? You're listening to the Big Life Devotional Podcast! Now, here's Pamela to get you fired up for all God has available for you today! Well, good morning, beautiful! Welcome to a brand new day of life! Happy Friday, my friends! Let's get happy that it is Friday that you have a weekend of life coming up, and we have one last devotional together for this week. The title of today's episode of the Big Life Devotional Podcast is, check your hands. All things are under God's control. And he has the divine authority to allocate or re-allocate absolutely anything he wishes. Where does God send his blessings?

1:01To the hands where he will get the glory. Where does he open heaven's storehouses? Where his kingdom work is being accomplished. The question is, will he get the glory if his blessings go to your hands? Will his kingdom work be accomplished if the storehouses of heaven are open to you? It is easy to assume the opportunity to have more would allow you to honor God more. But sadly, humans have proven for generations that we simply don't fare well with easy, comfortable, abundant lives. It's like giving a brand new sports car to a 16-year-old that typically makes that teenager one thing dangerous. We are often dangerous when we are given more.

2:04We make life about the pursuit of more, showing off more, caring for our more, and then getting newer and better of our more. We forget that it's all under God's control and divine authority. And anything God has given, he can quickly take away. He can reallocate your blessings to a different set of hands so fast that your head spins. It might be yours today, but can you be trusted with it tomorrow? It might not be yours today, but God is always looking for where his blessings can go and bring him glory. In our study of the Book of Exodus, we see the Egyptians had become very wealthy. Pharaoh lived in absolute luxury.

3:04Y'all, I mean, a level of luxury we today don't even understand. Anything he wanted he could have, but Pharaoh continually refused the Lord. He denied the power of God's hand over and over again, and God allowed it. For a season, he allowed Egypt to accumulate wealth. He allowed an overflowing abundance in Pharaoh's palace. And all while God allowed it, never forget God was still in complete control of it. God had a plan for his resources. He had a plan for his blessings. He had a plan for his power. And no matter what the circumstances might look like, God's plan stood and it would unfold perfectly.

4:05So let's look at the plan and see how it applies to our lives today. Are you ready? First, God promises Moses in Exodus chapter 3 that he would transfer the wealth of Egypt to the Israelite slaves. Now that honestly just makes absolutely no sense at all. Okay, the Israelites had nothing of their own. They lived in poverty. They had no army to fight for the possession of anything. Egypt not only had all of the wealth, they had all the manpower to protect it. And yet God makes it very clear that his plan is to reallocate these blessings Egypt temporarily and ungratefully held to the desperate God-fearing Israelites. So after the plagues hit the Egyptians, we've been talking about that this week.

5:08God reveals to Moses in Exodus chapter 11 how his previous promise would take place. Remember, he makes the promise in chapter 3. Now he tells him how it's going to happen in chapter 11. He says, tell the Israelite men and women to ask their Egyptian neighbors for articles of silver and gold. Now the Lord had caused the Egyptians to look favorably on the people of Israel. Okay, so then the time comes for the Israelites to believe God's plan and actually do it. Now that's important. They had an active role to play. God had the plan, but they had a part and my sister, God always has a plan. But you always have a part two. Don't miss that. So Exodus chapter 12, they do what God instructed.

6:11The Israelites slaves ask their Egyptian owners for their treasure of wealth. And everything they asked for was given to them. They completely stripped the Egyptians of their wealth. There was no war. There was no battle. There was a divine reallocation of what always belonged to God. God said it would be given to the Israelites when they asked. So they asked and it was all given. Amazing, right? And right about now you might be thinking to yourself, gosh, it's about time I ask for a race or hey, I need to ask for even more in this situation. It's funny how human minds work, but God is not fooled.

7:14God knows who can be trusted and who can't be. He knows what more blessings would do to you. My mentor once shared a valuable piece of wisdom with me. He said, Pamela, more money only makes you more of who you already are. If you're already stressed, more money will actually make you more stressed. And I know if you're currently struggling to pay rent, you're thinking that can't possibly be true, but it's human nature and it's never wrong. If you're already greedy, more money will make you more greedy. If you're already self-conscious, more money will make you more self-conscious. If you're already wasteful, more money will make you even more wasteful. But if you're already generous, when you have so little, more money will make you more generous.

8:15If you're already at peace with little, you'll have even more peace when you have more. Money reveals the true hidden nature within us. It doesn't cure anything. It only magnifies everything. What if we worked harder on becoming a better person within instead of all the effort we put into chasing money and chasing beauty and chasing comforts and chasing applause? God has a plan for all that is His and remember, it's all His. His plan stands and it will never fail. If God can reallocate the wealth of Egypt to the Israelite slaves, then you better believe he can pour out a few blessings on you when you get your heart right and your hands open.

9:20I don't mean open hands as in gimme, gimme, gimme. I mean open hands as in God. It is all yours. I hold nothing back. I trust you fully. Now why would God's plan be to give the two million slaves the fortunes of the people who had held them captive for 400 years? What's God's plan and all of that? Was it for justice? Was it repayment? I mean, yes, perhaps. But it was bigger than that. You know, with God things are always bigger than they appear. Let me show you God's bigger picture in the promise. Flip forward several chapters to Exodus chapter 25. And you're going to see why God reallocated His fortunes and blessings from the Egyptians to the Israelites.

10:25The Lord said to Moses, Tell the people of Israel to bring me their sacred offerings, accept the contributions from all whose hearts are moved to offer them, accept gold, silver, bronze, stones, jewels, and then have the people of Israel build me a holy sanctuary so I can live among them. Now where exactly do you think these former slaves now living in the wilderness possibly get gold and silver and jewels? Oh yes, they had taken it with them when they left Egypt. They had followed God's instructions and asked for the wealth of Egypt. And now with open hands, they would offer it back to build a holy sanctuary for the Lord.

11:33The entire point of it all was so that God could be in close relationship with His people. He moved the wealth from the people who wouldn't honor Him to the people who would. He moved His blessings from a greedy ruler to a people who would give God the glory. This was the big picture plan of God's. He made the promise to Moses in chapter three. He gave the instructions for action in chapter 11. The people did what God said in chapter 12 and now in chapter 25, we see what God was doing all along. God's abundant resources, His treasures, His blessings were for the purpose of bringing His people closer to Him.

12:33And now the transferred wealth of Egypt was being used to build a sanctuary where the spirit of God would live and His people could seek Him. And this is actually what God is still up to today. He moves His blessings and reallocates His treasures to those who will give Him glory. He opens the storehouses of heaven to where His kingdom work will be prioritized. He opens the doors that will bring His people into a closer relationship with Him. He knows who He can trust and He knows who will be consumed by the blessings and make it all about them. I once had a successful business with a whole lot of money. It gives us ridiculous the amount of money I made in a month.

13:33But the funny thing was I spent more money than I made, the more I made, the more I spent. And I totally lost myself in the process. And God was crowded right out of my busy schedule. My entire life became about the show. My well-dressed little family was part of the show. The big house looked great in the show. And then God let it all come crashing down. Someone else now lives in the big house we built. Someone else now has the business I traded an entire season of my life for. Thank God He didn't let me stay in my self-absorbed success. Eventually it all came crashing down and we were wildly humbled. That's when God went to work on me. He re-aligned my priorities and taught me what was truly important.

14:34He allowed me to be broke. He allowed my formerly perfected body that I worked so hard on to go through menopause. He allowed me to be talked about. He allowed my heart to be broken and disappointed. And it left me with a will that desires his will above everything else and open hands that can be trusted. None of it is mine. It's all gods. And he holds the divine power and authority to allocate or re-allocate what is his at absolutely any time. Are these hands of mine perfect? Absolutely not. I still get it wrong a lot. And God is so patient with me to get my heart back in alignment with his,

15:37to pry my hands back open. And remember, it's not about me. It's not about what I can get. It's not about what I can do. It's not about how I look. It's not about what anybody else thinks about me. It is about the glory of God and his kingdom work. He has a plan. And his plan is to send what is his to the hands where he will get the glory. And his plan is to send his power to the places where his kingdom work will be done. He did it in Exodus and he's still doing it today. So check your hands, sis, because God certainly is. May I pray with you today? And if we focus more on what is happening in our hearts and what's going on with our hands,

16:40if we focus more on that than on what we can get, what we can build, and how we can look, and what everybody else thinks, oh my goodness, it takes care of so much, then God can trust us with what is his anyway, right? Then we get to be part of God's bigger picture and promise. That's what this journey is really about, right? All right, let's pray together. Hey, God, good morning. Thank you so much for waking us up and being right here with us today and speaking to us. Thank you for helping us see that it really is all yours. It's yours. God, any blessings we have are because of you. We did not do it under our own power. We weren't ever that good to earn it.

17:41God, it's yours. Help us to stay in alignment with your heart and your will. God, I pray that we can be trusted with your blessings, that we can be part of your kingdom work, and that we always give you the glory. Search our hearts, see where things have gotten twisted, check our hands, Lord, see where we're holding back, see where we're holding on, and thank you for your patience with us. Continue your work within us. We pray all these things in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus. Amen. All right, everybody, I have loved getting to share today and this week with you, thank you so much for making this part of your routine. What an honor this is. I love getting to hear from you all. I love hearing when you listen and where you're at and what God has been doing in your life.

18:44It just makes me so excited. Every time I check my messages, I'm so excited to hear from so many of you. I do pray that you have a beautiful day and an amazing weekend, and I'll meet you again on Monday. I love you wildly. Goodbye, everybody. You are created for a big life. We'll help you do it. Join us each weekday for a new big life devotional podcast. If you're ready to dive into the big life way of living, visit our website at biglifehq.com.