The Sheep's Responsibility

Psalms 23:2, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he  leadeth me beside the still waters." (KJV)

There is an African proverb that says, "You can take the beast to the river, but you cannot make it drink from the river". And David being a former shepherd knows quite well about this. This is why he could not make the mistake of saying, "God makes me eat from green pastures" or "God makes me drink from still waters". Because he knew that the work of a shepherd is not to make the sheep eat, the work of a shepherd is to lead the sheep to where they may eat and drink and then let them choose whether they will eat or not.
David says, "He makes me lie in green pastures"; our God is a God of abundance, He is a God of more than enough. This is why, He provides enough for you to eat and to lie on.
This calls for an entrepreneurial mind. Paul says, "He gives food to the eater and seed to the sower". This is so because, what one will receive and call food, is the same thing another will receive and call seed. The one that eats will soon be going to the toilet, but he that sows will soon be expecting a harvest.

The difference between those who progress and those who are stagnant is not in what they have received, but in what they do with what they receive.
Someone recently told me that, "If you know how to do something, don't do it for free".
Joseph used the abundance of food in Egypt in the time of drought, to make the whole of Egypt belong to Pharaoh. But the same abundance of food, made the Egyptians lose all they had to Pharaoh.
Abundance of food is what made Jacob buy the birthright of the firstborn from Esau, and the availability of the same food is what made Esau lose his birthright to Jacob.
When Jesus multiplied bread in the wilderness, the multitude ate until they wasted, but Jesus on the two recorded instances of such a miracle, told his disciples to collect the wasted fragments. The first time they collected 12 baskets. The second time they collected 7 baskets.

So, what were they supposed to do with these baskets of bread? Many people will tell me, "eat it!", these are the people with the "eater mentality". But I believe that Jesus had a "sower mentality", and He was commanding them to collect them, so that they may sow what others wasted.
In Matthew 16 from verse 5, Jesus noted that the disciples were starting to get careless and He told them, not to be like the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They had discovered that Jesus could multiply bread from a few loaves. So, they didn't care much about carrying bread.
Therefore, Jesus asked them, "Didn't you notice that I commanded you to pick fragments after every multiplication?"
Whatever Jesus was asking them to pick was a seed for the next miracle! But they did not notice it!!
The first time they collected 12 baskets, they should have counted it as 12 baskets of seed. Because they missed the opportunity, the next time the seed reduced and it became seven baskets, and the people fed also reduced from five thousand to four thousand men.
Whenever you miss an opportunity to treat a seed as a seed, the harvest of the next season is affected! If Jesus could multiply five loaves of bread, to feed five thousand, what could He do with 12 baskets of bread??

The problem with the disciples as Jesus pointed out is that they had began to be puffed up like a leavened bread, just like the Pharisees and the Scribes. The Pharisees and the scribes thought that their keeping of the law was enough to buy them a ticket anywhere, even into heaven, they were wrong. The disciples also had started developing a mentality that because they were near Jesus, they needed not invest for the future, they were wrong.
And we too in this generation may fall victims of the same predicament. Every time God gives you an abundance, it is not for you to eat and waste what is left of it. Every time you receive something, you are supposed to divide it to at least four parts.
And please note that I have not said, "four equal parts", I have said, just "four parts". It is upon you to decide the quantity of each part.

First and foremost, should be God's divinded. You should treat God as a business partner in your life. This way you will never be in a dilemma whether God is with you in something or not, if you always pay Him His divinded. Many people call this tithe, they call it ten percent. But I teach my disciples that, we are under grace not under law.
However, some have taken this, "being under grace" to mean that they should give God nothing. Which is wrong, being under grace means, that, you have a God given ability to do more than those who were under the law could. Therefore, if they were only obligated to give God ten percent, then, a person under the grace SHOULD feel obligated to give God more than just ten percent. But they should not do away with the ten percent, that would make them worse than those who were under the law. Instead, they should take ten percent as the Lowest they can give God.

The second part, should be for investment. This is what I call a seed. It should either be kept safe or in a place of accumulation. When the guy who was given one talent came before the ruler, he was asked, "Would it not have been better if you had taken it to the banks?"
This tells me that if what God has given you proves to be very small in your eyes, one of the options is to take it to the bank.
The third portion is for personal use. I don't need to explain this, we all have needs and bills, and most probably until this sermon, we have been using everything we got as this portion.
The forth portion is for charity. I must emphasize here that Charity is not giving to God, Charity is actually lending to God!
Many people ask me, "Pastor, instead of Giving my tithe in church, to the pastor, what if I go to a charity home and donate it there". By so doing, you will not be paying God His stakes as a partner in your life, you will actually be giving God a loan! Which He should pay. The Bible says, "Whoever gives to the poor lends to God", it also says elsewhere that, "God is a debtor to NO ONE,  He pays promptly and fast."

This morning, I did not come as a money expert, I am just speaking what the Spirit of God is leading my heart to tell His people. That many of us have been lying in green pastures and walking beside still waters, but we have been doing nothing about it. We have been walking with Jesus, and Jesus keeps multiplying bread and fish and none of us is doing the math of what a business empire we could create with the wasted fragments.
Imagine this, The first time, Jesus had to look for bread to multiply. After people had eaten, He told the disciples to collect what was left, expecting that NEXT time, He will not need to beg a boy to let go of his lunch box! But come next time, Jesus had to still frantically look for bread to multiply! Dear disciples, don't you get it??
This is the frustration that we are taking God through dear brethren, that every time God wants to bless you, He has to start from zero all over again, yet, He blessed you just a few days ago.

Let me end by saying this, every fruit has a seed in it, so that after you have eaten the fruit you may plant the seed! May someone capture this revelation... or if I may use the words of John at Patmos or Jesus once in a while, "May he who has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit of God is saying". Yes, He said, "ears to hear", because I have discovered that some ears are for mere decoration and to make some heads look normal, but there are those who have ears to hear.
Shalom and keep the faith.



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