Be a blessing

0:00Welcome to Life Point with your host, Pastor Tom Dordey. Good morning again today. I hope that this day fried you well. I hope you got some great plans to be at Difference Maker today. I hope that you will allow God to do mighty things in your life. I want to talk about being a blessing today because so many of you are a blessing to me. So many of you out there have blessed my life. The other day, earlier in the week, I was sharing about all the blessings and the people God have put into my life. And I am just so honored to have so many friends that have just been a blessing in so many ways. And I just thank you for being a blessing. And may God bless us today as we look through his word and talk about some things that would help us bless others' lives. Our Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, I call upon

1:01you. Lord, as you look down upon us from heaven, and you see our hearts and our minds, and you know all about us. I pray God you would work in us, and Lord you would use us for your glory. And we would recognize what a blessing you are to us, and how you work in our lives and lead us in guidance. And God, thank you for the many listeners. All the faithful listeners. Lord, the number of friends that I have from the past that listen, and number of people, most people that I have no idea who they are that they even listen until one day I run across something. They tell me, Lord, I'm so thankful for them. I'm so thankful they listen to Christian radio, and they put up with my craziness and who I am. To God, I'm thankful that they love you, and help us to love you with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our might. I love you.

2:01I give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen. You know what I just grew up? I was so blessed at the end with my folks taught me about the importance of blessing and giving, and about giving a fact. They taught me to tie when I was a young child. I think I've told you this before. They'd give me maybe ten dimes, and dad'd say, guess what? How much does God get of that? Well, dad, he gets ten cents, and he said, yes, you're right. He gets the first tenth of everything. He taught me that, and I live that principle from when I was a kid, growing up as working in cherry fields or working in a gas station. I tie from the very beginning of my life, and God has always blessed it. So I've got to ask, sometimes this is not a tie, but I'll start out this way. It says, do you need more money? Do you want the abundance of God to overflow? Do you want a partner with God when he's doing great things?

3:02Do you want to experience a joy of giving? You know, then practice being a blessing. The blessing principle involves tithing, and Malachi 3 says, bring the whole tie into his storehouse, that there may be food in the house. Test me in this, he says. And if you do, I will throw up in the floodgates of heaven, and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough work. And folks, I can tell you, that's the way it's been in my life. It's been its way. And many of my friends' lives, I can give you story after story how my friends have followed God's leading and giving. I had this one friend of mine, and he would always give, I mean, massive amounts of money. God blessed him. But he says, he satan has never hurt me. It hasn't hurt me. It's just God's always blessed me, over and over again. You know, God is our provider. God Abraham came to know God is Jehovah Jairah, meaning God, my provider, Abraham actually became one of the most wealthy and prosperous men of ancient times.

4:06You don't give to be prosperous. You don't give to get. You give because you love people. You give your life, of your blessings, of your life, because you love people. You want to bless people's lives. You want to touch their lives. Man, my mom and dad, they gave of their lives as far as inviting people that didn't have things in, and those outcasts, they loved them. They were a blessing to them. And God blessed them over and over and over again. You know what? As I've said before, out of Samuel, honor God and He will honor you, I believe that with all my heart, soul and mind. I've been so blessed at Cloverdale Church of God. We have so many people that follow through with blessing the other day. We took up just a offering, told people they wanted to donate towards the Spokane fires because we had a church in Spokane, going church.

5:08In fact, one of my mentors started this church there and built it up. The Spokane fires came within 50 feet of the church, almost burning it up. Six of the people immediately had their homes burned up. Another 20 as I'm doing this message today are on the cusp of losing their homes. So we just threw it out to anybody who wanted to donate money to help this church and help these families. And man, the money just came in. People just donated to help. You know, and what happens is not only does it help them, but I'm telling you what, it blesses us because we have been faithful to what God has laid us to do. I remember many times in my ministry that how God has laid on my heart that I need to give this or that to this cause. And seems like every single time God would show me by something He would do that I did

6:10the right thing. Sometimes we don't want to ask because we're selfish and we don't want to give. I tell you what, when you really want to grow as you push yourself, you give beyond. For if you will give, God will take care of you. You know, you'll have overflowing measure, press down, shaking together, and you know, you have to make room for more. Looked 638. And that's like giving of your time. I got friends. I got a friend of mine. His name is Warren and he will do whatever it takes to help somebody. If somebody is in trouble or somebody is in need, he will go the extra mile in helping them. He will just do what it takes. In fact, he doesn't understand sometimes when people aren't helping others because he really feels that God's calling. And he's fulfilled that calling his life. You know, and that's what, you know, my folks taught me the idea of, you know, how can you bless someone? Maybe you can bless someone by going out and mowing their lawn. They can't mow their lawn very well and you can mow their lawn or you can't go the store

7:14or they can't move the store and you can go the store for them or you can take them to the doctor's point. But I have friends. Now and again, I take to the doctor because I know that they need help and you know what? Why not? Try to be a blessing to someone because you love God and you love them. And I look back on my life and I think, Lord, I should be blessing every day to somebody because you have so blessed me over and over again. You show me your hand daily and we want to follow the hand of God. So I want you to think about right now. How can you bless somebody? What is it you can do? Is it a phone call? Is it an email? Is it a card? Is it a gift card? Is it a dozen cookies you're going to drop by somebody's house? Whatever it is. My friend, I got a great friend named Todd, he married a wonderful lady named Angie. She is always making meals for people and even for her friend group, which is me and others,

8:19she makes the most incredible food. Oh my goodness. Just this week she made us chicken. Just chicken thighs and some kind of oriental sauce and a bunch of garnish. It's just unbelievable. And just, but she's always doing it. Won't let us bring anything and just just gives and gives and gives. And that's her husband, Todd. You know, he was an owner of 11 pop of Murphy's and he owned a lot of him right here. And just recently, has sold most of them and they own the Euro Shaq for a while, nine Euro Shaqs and sold those, but he would take, he would take pizzas to different organizations and help them out and provide for them. I know down to the Boise Bible College, he provided for them a number of times and over at different places, he would just bring pizzas and he just love to give. And now after 21 years, he's finally saying goodbye to the business and going to enjoy

9:20some retirement at a young age, not even 60 yet. He's my, he's a motor, my very best friends in the world and his wife Angie there, but they just there, they understand the principle. He's actually this day, helping a friend of mine that is trying to get some help on a house that he's doing and he's volunteered to go over and paint for him and see that's a blessing principle. People that are incredible blessings and you can be a blessing to anyone. You could be a blessing to those you work with or you could be a blessing to those where you stop in. I stopped in a Dutch bro this morning. You got to, got to sugar free caramel latte. You could be a blessing to those people. You know, you can show them you love them and sometimes you can give them a little extra. You know, I have no problem giving Dutch bro a tip because my daughter worked for four years for them and I know how she made her money and so it's easy to tip those kids in there and especially those that are worked so hard.

10:22But you know, there's so many different ways in our lives that we can show the love of God. We can show them by being compassionate with praying for somebody. I have some friends that said that son's going through a major colon surgery. Just recently went through that and you know, I was able to pray with them and try to encourage them because that's tough. That's tough stuff. But people need us. You know, remember that old song, people need the Lord, people need the Lord, people need the Lord through other people too to be helped by other people, the love of God working in you to help someone else. So let's put our minds together and think about what it is we can do to help somebody. No matter what your situation is, maybe you're living with a bunch of people in a home or something like that. What can you do for one of those people? What can you do for one of those in your neighborhood? What can you do for the associates?

11:23Maybe your daughter works for or what is it that you can do? There's something you can do that can reach out and touch your life. I want to be a difference. I want you to be a difference. I want the world to be a difference. I want to remember that old movie, Pay It Forward. It was such a great principle. Pay It Forward. Pay the love of Jesus forward that people's lives will be touched and their lives will be changed and pretty soon they'll pay it forward and we'll start seeing the world change because Jesus is in the center of it in getting first place. We're glad. Life point is a ministry of the Cloverdale Church of God. If you would like a copy of today's broadcast or would like more information about the church, please call us at 208-362-1,700 or right to Cloverdale Church of God. 37-55 South Cloverdale Road, Voice I-Daho 837-09.

12:27You may also visit us at our website www.cloverdalechurch.org. Thank you for listening and have a blessed day.