How To Double Your Income

HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR INCOME

By

Dr. Jerry Falwell

I. FOUNDATION: THINGS ON WHICH TO BUILD

A. Relationship To God.

The beginning point in all stewardship campaigns is relationship, i.e., person’s relationship to God. "Ye must be born again" (Jn. 3:3).

1. We cannot buy a good relationship to God. "Forasmuch as ye know that you were not redeemed by corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by traditional from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you" (I Peter 1:18-20).

2. Sin broke the relationship between people and God. "As by one man sinned in the world, and death by sin; and so death is passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12).

3. Because of our sin, there is judgment and punishment. "It is appointed once unto men to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

B. Sacrifice Demanded.

The broken relationship between people and God demands a sacrifice. God gave people an example of bringing a sacrifice.

1. "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them (Genesis 3:21).

2. Because people offended God, they have to bring a sacrifice to get back into God’s favor. A sacrifice of time or things were not enough to get back into God’s favor. "Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord . . . but unto Cain and his offering he (God) had not respect" (Genesis 4:3-5).

3. A blood sacrifice is a symbol of death and life. "Almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22).

4. The sacrifice by Jesus Christ for us took away our sin and the sin of the world. "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

C. Today’s Sacrifice. We don’t bring sacrifices to get saved, we bring sacrifices because we have been saved. We give to God the following:

1. TIME. We give to God our time which involves time in prayer, time in Bible study, time in attending worship services, time in Christian service, time in service to our fellow man and time in other projects.

2. TALENT. We give our talent, which is our gifts or abilities. Many people call these our spiritual gifts that have been given to us by God. We give our talent to God by teaching Sunday School, soul-winning, singing in the choir, being an usher, directing Sunday School, working on a bus route, cutting the grass at church, taking a meal to a shut-in, passing out tracts, intercessory prayer or many other ways to serving God.

3. TEMPLE. We give our temple to God which is our physical body. "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost who is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s" (I Corinthians 6:19, 20). At another place in I Corinthians Paul talks about the sanctity of the temple. While some think this refers to the local church, it also refers to all believers who are in the body, i.e., the church "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (I Corinthians 3:16,17). We are to live to God, by magnifying him in our body. This involves negative separation from sin so that we do not defile the temple. This also involves positive separation to God by the things we do with our body that will glorify Jesus Christ.

4. TESTIMONY. We believe in Lifestyle Evangelism which is influencing others to Jesus Christ by our good testimony. When we don’t have an opportunity for personal evangelism, we can plant the seed of the Gospel in the minds of unsaved people by our good testimony.

5. TREASURES. We should give our money to God. "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse". "Though you have scorned my laws from earliest time, yet you may still return to me," says the Lord of hosts. "Come and I will forgive you." "But you say, `We have never even gone away!’ "Will a man rob God? Surely not! And yet you have robbed me. "`What do you mean? When we have robbed you?" "You have robbed me of the tithes and offerings due to me" (Malachi 3:7-8 LB).