In a recent series we learned How to Honor The Lord.  Three of the four are in this one verse.  It is in me to take some time to really challenge you from the Scriptures to Serve The Lord.  To actually get involved in the service of our God.  We asked the question, "How do you serve The Lord?"  What do you do for God?  Come to church, give in the offerings, pray, etc.  All of those are good things but they are not serving Him.

At the end of the message today I am going to ask everyone who considers FFC your Faith Family to serve on one of our nine essential teams.  Even if you are a regular visitor, I am asking everybody to be a part of one of these teams, and here is why.  It is NOT ok to NOT do anything for God.

One of our leaders in the Body of Christ recently has been preaching a series about tithing that has sent shockwaves throughout the church world.  About ten years ago this leader helped me see somethings in Scripture specifically concerning tithing that through continued study on the subject has led to what I believe is the key revelation on the subject for the entire Body of Christ.

However, how he is preaching the message series is a little bit different than I believe.  More significantly, it is a lot different than many of the other leading elders in the church world.  Even some of them have responded by doubling down on how they've been preaching it by addressing the issue this week in the churches they pastor.

But even prior to their response I had direction to go over with you once again what the Bible says about the subject, to give you the opportunity to understand tithing the right way.

Let me start by saying what I have been preaching for about the past ten years - There is NO direct commandment in the New Testament to a Christian to tithe.  We DON'T have to tithe, we get to tithe.

Now, in order to properly understand tithing we must first go back to where tithing began.

Those who honor God, God will honor.

Through this series we are learning how to honor God. There are four ways the Bible teaches us that we can honor The Lord.

Honor Him with your presence

Honor Him with your worship

Honor Him with your service

Honor Him with Your Substance

Who are the kings that Jesus is king of?  We’ve been talking about the king and the outlaw for 15 weeks now.  Jesus is the king and the devil and the fallen angels are outlaws in the earth. They are the reason bad things are still happening in the world around us.  Jesus did defeat them at the resurrection but He gave us the authority and the command to occupy till He comes.

So we are to be doing the works of Jesus. He came to undo what the devil did. So when we see the works of the devil… we should get involved.  Jesus cast out devils.  And you and I should be doing the same things.  But we’ve got to make sure that we know how to use the Name. You don’t want to run up against a devil and you don’t know how to answer the question “who are you?”

My assignment today is to show you the answer to the question.  Because you are the kings that He is king of. "I am a king that He is King of!"

Over the past several weeks for our prosperity message we've been talking about How to Honor the Lord.  I hope you know that we will not prosper financially if we are disrespectful to God.  First, we learned to honor Him with our presence.  It is disrespectful to God for you to not come to church every Sunday.

Secondly, we learned to honor Him with our worship.  What we say or sing about the Lord and with what we say or sing to the Lord.

But who are you?  Last week we learned how we are to take possession of what God has already given unto us.  You are to Use Your Key.  Jesus commanded us, "Occupy Til I Come."  We are to control and take possession by using the name of Jesus.  But who are you?

One thing we need to make sure of is that you know how to use your key the right way. This group tried it and it didn't work.

Jesus has already given you the keys you need to take possession of what already belongs to you.  It's not something that you need to get, but something you have already been given.  Say it out loud, "I have the keys of the Kingdom."

Tonight we begin the How-to part of this series.  The single most important relationship that a person will ever have in their life is their marriage relationship.  More important than their parents, children, pastor, friend, you name it.  As a result it is seriously important to know how to pray and to pray for your spouse.  We are about building strong marriages and this series is designed for that purpose.

In this series we want to teach you from the word of God how to build a strong marriage through prayer.  A prerequisite to this series is our series on How to Pray for a Loved One.  There are 7 Spirit Anointed Prayers that we taught and in praying for your spouse or future spouse you will want to pray for them.  In addition to these seven prayers there are some very specific things that you should pray.

Having done years of counseling there are systemically 5 areas in a marriage that a break down or failure in any one of these areas can ultimately lead to a divorce.  In marriage counseling we especially focus on four of the five, and in particular there is one area that is most important than the other four.

#1  Personal Relationship with God through Jesus

#2. Communication

#3. Money

#4. Sex

#5. Children

(Career, Extended Family, Friends, etc.)

Respectfully then, we are going to learn how to pray over each of these major components of marriage.

God says in 1 Samuel 2:30, "Those who honor Me, I will honor.  And those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."  So we started a new series a couple weeks ago to essentially learn how to honor The Lord the right way.  We preach prosperity but it is important for us to know that we are not going to prosper like God intends if we are in any way disrespectful to the Lord.

There are four ways to honor the Lord that the Bible teaches (presence, worship, service, substance).  #1 you honor Him with your presence.  I challenged you last week to make an adjustment in your heart and life overall, that come Sunday morning you will find yourself somewhere in a church.

The great supper in Luke 14:16 also refers to what The Lord prepares for us to eat spiritually each week at church.  He has invited you to attend every week and has sent me to extend the invitation to you.

I want to pick right up from where we left off last week. We were challenged in that message to Take Possession of what we don't have yet manifested. The problem with that is that the spiritual outlaws in this world are in possession of some of the money and things that God has given us.

Are you afraid of the giants that are in your land?

This whole series was and is designed to deemphasize and belittle the devil and the perception of his powers and abilities against you. So it is my assignment today to declare to you by God, Don't Be Afraid of the giants...