So, as we begin to take a few moments here, let’s see how we walk in the Biblical balance, if you please, of how we handle the blessings of the Lord.  Genesis tells us, in the thirteenth chapter, that this great man, Abraham, who He cut covenant with; who He had confidence in, that would raise his children and his children’s children in the covenant promises, God saw fit to bless him and make him a rich man.  So, can you be rich and be trusted also with the covenant of God?  Can you be wealthy and still be faithful to God?  Yes, okay?  Don’t be afraid of money.  The money is not evil.  The heart that abuses it is evil.  So, Abraham was very rich the Scripture says.  In fact, we know that, because his nephew Lot had come with him, God was prospering him also.

There’s an interesting teaching, if you hang around with people that are blessed of God and that are faithful with that call on their lives, you will imbibe a spirit from them that will work on your behalf also.  You don’t get blessed just because you’re hanging with a blessed guy, but you can get blessed by imbibing the spirit of that man and walking out in that same faith.  God will deal and minister to you according to your faith.  “Be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God” (Hebrews 6:12).  Amen?  It’s a principle that we can see as we go in the Scripture.

But there was a problem there because of the abundance of their prosperity.  We all know the story.  There is more behind it, I believe personally, than just the fact that the land couldn’t contain them.  The problem was that there began to be strife.  Where did the strife begin?  Where did this schism there begin?  Because we’re prospering, the land now is limited, and now we begin to fight over every little patch of land so that we can get a little more prosperous.  I don’t believe it was Abraham’s men that were initiating this.  Why?  Because of the fruit of the lives that we see as they continue on.  Lot, at this very moment, already had his eyes on Sodom.  It was already in his heart.

He had no problem, when Abraham spoke to him and said, “Listen, you go ahead and choose first.”  Check your own heart right now.  When the man of God speaks to you and says, “You go ahead and choose first.”  “Okay, thanks, I’ll take it!”  Might be a wise thing to speak to the man of God and say, “The reason I’m blessed is because of you; you choose.  Everything I have, everything I know, I got from you.”  Amen?  Like that old statement we’ve heard people say over the years, we hear a guy say, “Well, I taught him everything he knows.”  Then the response being, “Yeah, I taught him everything he knows, but I didn’t teach him everything I know.”  The lesser is blessed of the greater.

So many of us have what we have because those before us have been faithful; amen?  Others have paid a price, and we’ve been blessed in the process of it.  Yes, through our own gifting and our own diligence that the Bible speaks of, but we’re going to see here in just a moment, everything you have God gave to you.  You didn’t get any of it on your own.  So, therefore, it is the Lord’s; amen?

If you’re ever going to be safe from what riches can do to destroy a man, you can protect yourself by never taking it as your own.  We’re stewards.  When God wants it, it’s His.  But Abraham was very rich, the Scripture said, and as they began to prosper, they outgrew that land, and there began to be conflict over it.  So, Abraham said, “You go ahead and choose.  I’ll just take whatever you don’t want.  I just want to be where God is; amen?  You go ahead and pick; I’ll take wherever God is.”  We’re so worried about other people getting ahead and getting opportunities, whatever it might be.  Let them get a head start!  My portion is God; amen?