“Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him” (Genesis 26:12). Wow, do Christians get excited when you talk about receiving 100-fold blessings! They understand fold does not refer to percent, but to times. For instance, 10% of $10 is one dollar. But tenfold of $10 is 10 x 10 = $100. Isaac received a 100-fold blessing the same year he sowed his seed. This is truly remarkable, but the principle behind his windfall is not a financial one, but rather a spiritual one, and it reveals why some do not receive the 100-fold return they expect.
Isaac was the sole heir of his father Abraham’s great riches. He also displayed a pattern of dishonesty that mirrored his father’s in the matter of intimidation: Abraham had taken his wife Sarah and all his servants into the land of Egypt because of famine in Canaan. Sarah was such a beauty, Abraham feared Pharoah’s men would kill him for her, so he lied and said she was his sister. She was his half-sister, but he left out the fact she was also his wife. To protect her, God sent a plague upon Pharaoh and his house, and after inquiry, Pharoah learned of Abraham’s deception and sent them away.
Years later, famine had come again to Canaan, and God told Isaac not to go to Egypt, but to Gerar, land of the Philistines. He also, fearing for his life, lied and said that Rebecca was his sister, because “she was fair to look upon.” Isaac and Rebecca kept up the deception until the day the king, Abimelech, looked out a window and saw them flirting with each other in a way a brother and sister would not. He called for Isaac, demanding why he lied about Rebecca being his sister when any of his men could have taken her sexually, bringing guilt upon his people. He charged the men not to touch Rebecca, or they would be put to death.
At this point in the biblical account, we are told: “THEN Isaac sowed and received in the same year a hundredfold.” THEN—AFTER he told the truth! After he stopped being deceptive and dishonest! After he had come clean! Then all the backed-up blessings of the Lord were released! “And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great” (Genesis 26:12-13).
There is a message here for us: If we want God to release exponential blessings on our lives, we must remove all deceptions, all lies—including half-truths and little white lies we have told or allowed people to assume to be true. Dishonesty blocks 100-fold blessings!
It is wrong for prosperity preachers to promise supporters great financial breakthroughs and miracles when they sow a particular seed into their ministries. They can’t guarantee this for people who are in disobedience. It doesn’t matter what prosperity preachers claim about the year of perfection and completion and jubilee (every year they come up with a new appellative) and promises of financial windfalls, etc., they have no authority to speak these things, because they are not biblically sound the way they present them.
They cannot promise an audience of millions of people that every one of them who sends a designated offering will receive such blessings, when they have no idea what their spiritual condition is. People who are in disobedience are not going to be blessed no matter how much they give or who they give to.
Furthermore, when people don’t know how to handle money, they will continue to be in financial distress no matter how much God blesses them. Even a faithful tither cannot tithe his way out of debt if he continues to spend more than he takes in. This is just common sense. And often when God blesses people with extra money, instead of using it to pay off debt, they spend it on other things. God has promised to supply all our needs—not our greeds.
Don’t Be A God-robber
Pay the tithes you owe the Lord; not just on your paychecks, but on all your monetary blessings: “Honor the Lord with your substance and with the firstfruits of all your increase: So shall your barns be filled with plenty” (Proverbs 3:9-10). The word honor is a financial term meaning to give. No matter how much seed you sow, or how much money you give, no preacher can bless you when there’s sin in your life, or if you are a “God-robber. We give in obedience to God’s Word, because the tithe belongs to Him. When it comes to God’s tithes, we either return them or steal them. Come clean, and God said, “I will open the windows of Heaven and pour out blessings you don’t have room to receive!” (Malachi 3:8-11).
It is when we give above our tithes that we express generosity and gratitude towards God. Giving is a matter of the heart, not just the pocketbook. Many have the wrong motive for giving. Although God has promised abundant blessings to those who give, we do not give to get.
Prosperity preachers present material gain as the motive for giving, but this is wrong. Material blessing is a reward for giving, but it should not be our motive. Jesus said in Luke 6:38: “Give, and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For the same measure that you give, it will be measured back to you.” This is how God blesses givers, and He does it so they can continue to give even more to His kingdom, but it must come from the heart. We are to give simply because we have an unselfish, liberal heart of gratitude toward God. This is the giving that God blesses abundantly.
One of the biblical pillars of giving and receiving blessings states: “Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver” (2Cor.9:7). Do you really want to pay tithes, or do you pay them because you feel you must? When you give, are you giving from a joyful heart, or because you hope to gain a financial reward?
The Gift of Giving
God actually gifts people with the gift of giving: In Romans 12:6-8, Paul outlined seven motivational gifts in the Church: “Having than gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.” Then he enumerated various gifts, including: “… he who gives, with liberality…”
Speaking of the gift of giving, he wrote in 2Cor.8:7: “Therefore, as you abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that you abound in this grace also [giving]…. Now therefore perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also of that which you have. For if first there be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man has, and not according to that he has not” (vv.11-12)
In order to receive the abundant blessings for giving, they must be given with a willing mind, not begrudgingly. This speaks to motive and corresponds to what we read earlier, God loves a cheerful giver. He wrote in 2Cor. 6:9: “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”
This is not a prosperity get-rich-quick scheme. We don’t give for the purpose of getting more money, but financial blessing is the byproduct of bountiful sowing from a willing mind and a cheerful heart.
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