Are you doing things for God or are you doing the things of God? Does it seem odd to you that churches are always building new church buildings, buying sound systems, or starting programs they can't seem to afford. Every Sunday they spend more and more time grinding out offerings and perverting scripture to crank out the bucks for these projects.Then they insist God told them to do it.
What we need to understand is there is the permissible, and the perfect will of God. It is possible to do programs or ministries that WE have invented to do. Don't get me wrong God will bless it as far as he can. You can't give a cup of cold water in his name and lose your blessing. I believe that ministries that the Lord is truly behind and leading you into, and that are in the perfect will of God, will be supernaturally financed by God. There will be no need for begging, whining, or sending out appeal letters for money. Where the Lord leads the Lord provides.
I know of a teaching ministry who began his ministry with rather odd instructions from God. He was told to send out all his teaching tapes for free, pay for tape duplication, buy the postage and the envelopes, and never let another human being know of any need he may have. God said he would be his source. All of this he started with 10 dollars in his pocket and no source of income in sight at the time. He was told to go to God for any need he may have. Today this man's ministry is worldwide on the internet and he still sends out no appeal letters nor does he take up offerings anywhere unless it comes from the pastor's prompting. He is well taken care of and God has done countless financial miracles. I believe this is a man who has heard from God. To me this is a God idea and the way we all ought to operate when we start out in ministry. The things God tells us to do are probably going to seem completely bizarre but because God is leading it will be blessed.
I know of a prophet who spent 12 years as a pastor who became very unsettled in his spirit. He said it was like taking a bath with your socks on. Something just wasn't right. Yet the church he was pastor of was providing him with a good living. One day he was in prayer when he heard the Lord say he never called him to be a pastor in the first place. The decision to become a pastor was his and not the Lord's. This man then went on to become one of the major prophets of our day. Kenneth Hagen is his name. It is very possible to get off track when it comes to hearing and moving in our call.
We can not always go by the written word. Paul was planning to go to Asia to preach. According to the written word in Paul's mind preaching everywhere was a good thing however the Holy Ghost forbade him to go to Asia at that time by way of a vision. The timing of God is pertinent and he has a perfect season for all things.
The Holy Spirit has the perfect plan and timing for us in all things we do if we will spend time to hear his instructions.
Tithing or God's Grace. Which Prospers You. Part 3
For years we have been taught that the way to prosper was by our giving. I submit to you it is by a deeper relationship with Jesus. Jesus will tell you what you need to do to prosper.
The fact of the matter is still that everything you hear on Christian television says that it is according to your tithing and how much we give which causes you to prosper." If you don't sew you won't reap " is what they try to say. The trouble is most of the scriptures they use are being lifted out of their setting making them say something that they are not at all talking about. They also use mostly old testament scriptures which were directed to servants of God who weren't born again. God treats his sons and daughters who have the nature of Christ in them a lot different than his old testament saints who had a death nature.
The first point you may want to consider is what Jesus said in Matthew 6 "look at the birds of the air; they don't sew or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they." He went on to say "look how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith." He then went on to say "seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
In case you haven't heard you are now a joint heir with Jesus. We are no longer under the supervision of the law. Paul spent most of his time in the new testament writing about this. You have access to all Jesus provided for you by way of the cross. When it comes to prosperity your foundational scripture should be 2Cor8:9 " For you know the GRACE of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty, might become rich."
So what is the problem? Why isn't the body of Christ prospering the way it should? Why are we forced to finance the gospel with garage sales and bake sales and Hollywood has all the money to pump out whatever level of garbage they want?
I submit to you that lack of money is not the problem at all. How can I say that? Well because the word of God is true. The scripture I mentioned above means Jesus came to provide your prosperity on the cross and he succeeded. He did it once and the work was complete. Notice it doesn't say according to your tithing you might become rich.
So why aren't most of us walking in this truth? I think the reason is we are just flat out IMMATURE! We don't seek his kingdom first. We don't pray and submit to God in the area of our finances. Most Christians are in debt up to their eyeballs. Sadly we wouldn't even consider attending a budgeting class and yet managing your finances with Godly restraint is totally biblical. Does your church even have a budgeting class? Probably not because most churches are spending money on what they think is a good idea instead of what God has lead them to do. As a result they are also in debt up to their EYEBALLS.
The truth is God cannot pour out finances on Christians because they would spend it totally on themselves in a heartbeat. Even if Jesus did show up on a white horse with the golden wallet and say " I have come my child to get you totally out of debt" within a year most Christians would be right back in the same mess. No God is not out of money. Christians can't be trusted. Christians have itching ears when it comes to prosperity doctrine. We still are looking for our prosperity. It's time we grew up isn't it.
Our attitude ought to be how can I prosper the kingdom today because I know my father has all my needs met. This takes a willingness in prayer to change your heart and it's motive.
The more you pray the more the Holy Spirit will point out what you need to change. The answer most likely is not that you need to give more money. The answer most probably is that you need a relationship with God where you can hear clearly his counsel to you. Then respond to areas he is talking to you about. Some of us need to love our spouses more. Some of us need to care about our brothers more. Some of need to forgive someone..etc. I think you get my drift here. It is all about relationship with Jesus if we are ever going to be like him. God bless you as you consider these thoughts.
The fact of the matter is still that everything you hear on Christian television says that it is according to your tithing and how much we give which causes you to prosper." If you don't sew you won't reap " is what they try to say. The trouble is most of the scriptures they use are being lifted out of their setting making them say something that they are not at all talking about. They also use mostly old testament scriptures which were directed to servants of God who weren't born again. God treats his sons and daughters who have the nature of Christ in them a lot different than his old testament saints who had a death nature.
The first point you may want to consider is what Jesus said in Matthew 6 "look at the birds of the air; they don't sew or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they." He went on to say "look how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith." He then went on to say "seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
In case you haven't heard you are now a joint heir with Jesus. We are no longer under the supervision of the law. Paul spent most of his time in the new testament writing about this. You have access to all Jesus provided for you by way of the cross. When it comes to prosperity your foundational scripture should be 2Cor8:9 " For you know the GRACE of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty, might become rich."
So what is the problem? Why isn't the body of Christ prospering the way it should? Why are we forced to finance the gospel with garage sales and bake sales and Hollywood has all the money to pump out whatever level of garbage they want?
I submit to you that lack of money is not the problem at all. How can I say that? Well because the word of God is true. The scripture I mentioned above means Jesus came to provide your prosperity on the cross and he succeeded. He did it once and the work was complete. Notice it doesn't say according to your tithing you might become rich.
So why aren't most of us walking in this truth? I think the reason is we are just flat out IMMATURE! We don't seek his kingdom first. We don't pray and submit to God in the area of our finances. Most Christians are in debt up to their eyeballs. Sadly we wouldn't even consider attending a budgeting class and yet managing your finances with Godly restraint is totally biblical. Does your church even have a budgeting class? Probably not because most churches are spending money on what they think is a good idea instead of what God has lead them to do. As a result they are also in debt up to their EYEBALLS.
The truth is God cannot pour out finances on Christians because they would spend it totally on themselves in a heartbeat. Even if Jesus did show up on a white horse with the golden wallet and say " I have come my child to get you totally out of debt" within a year most Christians would be right back in the same mess. No God is not out of money. Christians can't be trusted. Christians have itching ears when it comes to prosperity doctrine. We still are looking for our prosperity. It's time we grew up isn't it.
Our attitude ought to be how can I prosper the kingdom today because I know my father has all my needs met. This takes a willingness in prayer to change your heart and it's motive.
The more you pray the more the Holy Spirit will point out what you need to change. The answer most likely is not that you need to give more money. The answer most probably is that you need a relationship with God where you can hear clearly his counsel to you. Then respond to areas he is talking to you about. Some of us need to love our spouses more. Some of us need to care about our brothers more. Some of need to forgive someone..etc. I think you get my drift here. It is all about relationship with Jesus if we are ever going to be like him. God bless you as you consider these thoughts.
Internet Marketing. What Does And Doesn't Work? Part 2
Welcome back to our discussion on my experience of internet marketing. I will assume you read my first article and we will pick up where I left off. I only will talk about things I have tried personally.
Blogs And Blog Comments
As I have written before about blogs the spider engines love to crawl them for content and you stand a much better chance of achieving higher rankings with a blog than a traditional website. Blogs are a lot like forums and allow you to become part of a community of others blogs with similar niches.
Commenting on other blogs and asking intelligent questions is an effective way to build back links to your blog. Only market yourself this way when you can be the solution to a question or problem posed by another blogger.
Having a "my blog network" list right on your blog front page will attract other bloggers to be a part of your network. Posting frequently to your blog will have the search engines visiting often. Blogger.com even pings your posts automatically for you to alert search engines of new content.
Blasters
At one point I was faithfully blasting out ads to so called millions of opt in subscribers that were supposed to be out there hungry to join my program. That was until I was able to track hits to my affiliate link. I discovered that this yielded not even one hit after a week of blasting. Need I say more?
Free Classified Ads
Although some people say they have had good response from this method this has not been my experience. I got some response from people trying to sell me on the program or marketing method they were in but no real interest in my program.
Free For All Listings
A complete waste of time. Being found in these can actually hurt you in the search engines. Slap yourself if you are doing these presently and cease immediately.
Forum Marketing
I have had good success with forums as they allow you to have a signature box at the bottom of all your posts. To join these go to www.bigboards.com and you will find lots. Faithfully make a few posts to these with intelligent questions or comments daily and watch your hits to your links climb.
Article Marketing
Of course article marketing is the most effective way of building a web presence there is on the net. This is because people primarily use the internet for information. It took me years to discover this. It doesn't take long to learn how to write articles if you have a little motivation. Submitting articles to article directories is the wisest move you can make.
Concentrate on the big ones like Ezine Articles and Article Base. A lot of people are intimidated by this because they think they can't write. As the saying goes if you can make a grocery list you can write an article. Once you get going instead of submitting manually you can get some article submission software which allows you to submit much quicker. Writing is a learned skill and what you should do is get a mentor and you'll be off to the races in no time.
So I hope this helps you in your internet marketing. All comments or questions welcome.
Blogs And Blog Comments
As I have written before about blogs the spider engines love to crawl them for content and you stand a much better chance of achieving higher rankings with a blog than a traditional website. Blogs are a lot like forums and allow you to become part of a community of others blogs with similar niches.
Commenting on other blogs and asking intelligent questions is an effective way to build back links to your blog. Only market yourself this way when you can be the solution to a question or problem posed by another blogger.
Having a "my blog network" list right on your blog front page will attract other bloggers to be a part of your network. Posting frequently to your blog will have the search engines visiting often. Blogger.com even pings your posts automatically for you to alert search engines of new content.
Blasters
At one point I was faithfully blasting out ads to so called millions of opt in subscribers that were supposed to be out there hungry to join my program. That was until I was able to track hits to my affiliate link. I discovered that this yielded not even one hit after a week of blasting. Need I say more?
Free Classified Ads
Although some people say they have had good response from this method this has not been my experience. I got some response from people trying to sell me on the program or marketing method they were in but no real interest in my program.
Free For All Listings
A complete waste of time. Being found in these can actually hurt you in the search engines. Slap yourself if you are doing these presently and cease immediately.
Forum Marketing
I have had good success with forums as they allow you to have a signature box at the bottom of all your posts. To join these go to www.bigboards.com and you will find lots. Faithfully make a few posts to these with intelligent questions or comments daily and watch your hits to your links climb.
Article Marketing
Of course article marketing is the most effective way of building a web presence there is on the net. This is because people primarily use the internet for information. It took me years to discover this. It doesn't take long to learn how to write articles if you have a little motivation. Submitting articles to article directories is the wisest move you can make.
Concentrate on the big ones like Ezine Articles and Article Base. A lot of people are intimidated by this because they think they can't write. As the saying goes if you can make a grocery list you can write an article. Once you get going instead of submitting manually you can get some article submission software which allows you to submit much quicker. Writing is a learned skill and what you should do is get a mentor and you'll be off to the races in no time.
So I hope this helps you in your internet marketing. All comments or questions welcome.
Internet Marketing. What Does And Doesn't Work
Let's talk a little more about the experiences I have had with Internet marketing online. In the interest of saving you some of the anguish I have had trying some of these methods. I am assuming you have an affiliate program that has given you a link and you are wondering how to market it. The first thing you may want to do is buy a domain name and forward your affiliate program link to it. Even better if you have a blog. Marketing your blog url is liked much more by the search engine spiders.
Safe lists
One of the first things I tried was safe lists. These are little groups of people that agree to receive emails from each other about affiliate programs they are in. There are literally thousands of them out there one can join for free. It then becomes a game of "Hey you join my program" and then they reply with " No thanks, I have a program but hey you join mine". Well you get the point here. Unfortunately I can't say this is a very effective way to find sign ups for your program. Also you have to agree to receive email ads from others and everyday you wind up clearing off hundreds of emails from your email account. If you are smart you can collect email addresses from the ads you receive and strike up business friendships by inquiring about other people's programs. This takes longer but is much more effective than shooting out email ads about your program everyday.
Traffic Exchanges Manual And Autosurf
These are websites that show your site to others as you view other sites. This is real traffic to your site but I would say manual exchanges where a person actually has to be there and view your site are preferred. This ensures they at least view your site for a time. Trafficswarm is the most effective one I have found simply because of it's text ads,the size of it's overall network, and it's search engine aspect which I feel produces targeted hits. I have gotten sign ups from them in my programs.
I would say stay away from these autosurf sites where you can leave the room or take a nap and it surfs itself racking up credits for you. These autosurfs where you can earn money tend be scams and the site simply disappears when they have suckered enough people into buying. Then they open up under another name. DO NOT PUT ANY MONEY IN THESE! You may win for awhile but eventually you will lose it.
Pay Per Click Search Engines
Of course the biggest and most familiar is Google adwords. What you do is bid on keywords that are frequently searched in Google. Others are also wanting these keywords so the more you are willing to pay the closer to the first few pages you will wind up when a search is done. You only pay for actual clicks from actual visitors so these are targeted hits. It can be very expensive with Google or any of the big search engines so set your self a budget.
A better route to go may be with some of the smaller search engines. Why? Because they have sign up incentives. They will offer you free pay per click money to get you going with them. Bonuses range anywhere from $5 to $550 in click credit. Even though these search engines are not as familiar they still will produce targeted hits to your site although at a slower pace than the big guys. To find these simply do a search in Google and punch in "free pay per click money" or anything along those lines. Meteor surf, Search post and Mammoth search are a few that offer money that I have tried with favourable results. Using a keyword search tool first to figure out what people are searching is wise.
Internet marketing is a big topic so I intend to write another article on this in the future so stay tuned for part 2.
Safe lists
One of the first things I tried was safe lists. These are little groups of people that agree to receive emails from each other about affiliate programs they are in. There are literally thousands of them out there one can join for free. It then becomes a game of "Hey you join my program" and then they reply with " No thanks, I have a program but hey you join mine". Well you get the point here. Unfortunately I can't say this is a very effective way to find sign ups for your program. Also you have to agree to receive email ads from others and everyday you wind up clearing off hundreds of emails from your email account. If you are smart you can collect email addresses from the ads you receive and strike up business friendships by inquiring about other people's programs. This takes longer but is much more effective than shooting out email ads about your program everyday.
Traffic Exchanges Manual And Autosurf
These are websites that show your site to others as you view other sites. This is real traffic to your site but I would say manual exchanges where a person actually has to be there and view your site are preferred. This ensures they at least view your site for a time. Trafficswarm is the most effective one I have found simply because of it's text ads,the size of it's overall network, and it's search engine aspect which I feel produces targeted hits. I have gotten sign ups from them in my programs.
I would say stay away from these autosurf sites where you can leave the room or take a nap and it surfs itself racking up credits for you. These autosurfs where you can earn money tend be scams and the site simply disappears when they have suckered enough people into buying. Then they open up under another name. DO NOT PUT ANY MONEY IN THESE! You may win for awhile but eventually you will lose it.
Pay Per Click Search Engines
Of course the biggest and most familiar is Google adwords. What you do is bid on keywords that are frequently searched in Google. Others are also wanting these keywords so the more you are willing to pay the closer to the first few pages you will wind up when a search is done. You only pay for actual clicks from actual visitors so these are targeted hits. It can be very expensive with Google or any of the big search engines so set your self a budget.
A better route to go may be with some of the smaller search engines. Why? Because they have sign up incentives. They will offer you free pay per click money to get you going with them. Bonuses range anywhere from $5 to $550 in click credit. Even though these search engines are not as familiar they still will produce targeted hits to your site although at a slower pace than the big guys. To find these simply do a search in Google and punch in "free pay per click money" or anything along those lines. Meteor surf, Search post and Mammoth search are a few that offer money that I have tried with favourable results. Using a keyword search tool first to figure out what people are searching is wise.
Internet marketing is a big topic so I intend to write another article on this in the future so stay tuned for part 2.
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