subject: Adam And Eve [print this page] You remember Eve back in the garden? Eve and Adam, man they had it going on, a perfect relationship. How many married people do we have here? If you"re married can you imagine a perfect marriage? Are you guys married? Can you imagine that? I can"t imagine that. Because I"m self-centered and so are you guys. God said, "Enjoy one another. Have a wonderful time in the garden, but don"t touch the tree in the middle of the garden." God always keeps a portion for himself. "Don"t jack," God said, "with my tree."
What did Satan do? "Hey, Eve. Hey, girl, you eat the fruit from that tree, you can become like God." And we have the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life going on. What did Eve do? She chose a curse upon her life. What does the curse mean? Well, she chose to live outside the zone. She chose not to be blessable. That"s what a curse means. And she ate God"s portion.
Could it be that some of you here are eating the tithe? Are you eating God"s portion? God"s blessed you. He"s blessed me. He"s blessed our socks off and back, yet so often we eat the tithe. We eat his portion and due to that fact, we"re under a curse. We"re not blessable. So how can we say, "God bless my family? God bless my business. God bless my finances. God bless my emotions. God bless my relationships." We can"t do it because we"re not blessable, because we"re not trusting him with what is his.
In Malachi 3 God says this, he says to the Israelites, "Hey guys and gals you"re robbing me." Now how would you like someone to rob you in business?Ed Young says that God is in business with all of us. I mean he"s the ultimate business partner. We cannot even talk about how to become a Christian without talking about financial terms. Jesus paid the price on the cross for your sins and mine. He bought us back. Jesus, because he loves us so much, he did that. He was God"s firstfruits.
So God tells us to give our best to him, to bring it to him. God is a God who wants to pour out his favor upon our lives, yet so often many of us, we come to God with our firstfruits, and we have a vice grip around our cantaloupe. And we look at it and we think about placing it in God"s hands, but we say, "This smells good. I"m going to do with it what I want to do. I will lean on my own understanding." And here"s what we do""we take it away and we eat his portion.
