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You bless what's blessing you, you help what's helping you, you pour into what's pouring into you. You don't need a degree to speak Hebrew to understand that this is the past. Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our King. I'm excited and delighted to have this opportunity to share the word of the Lord with you, and particularly this message. The thought has really been the substratum of many of the things that I have meditated on in recent days. The message is called "Feed What's Feeding You." If you would learn to focus on what's feeding you and give it your utmost attention, you'd be surprised how much further you can get along rather than focusing on things that have no intrinsic feeding value for you. How do you value what you've been given? How do you value the people you've been given, those portals of access that God has given you that feed you? Are you taking care of what's taking care of you? Take a look at this, and it'll bless you. "Feed what's feeding you." And then the Lord said to me, and I'll share it in short order. He gave it to me in long form, but I shared it in short order.
"Everything that I created, I created in a system of cycles. Everything that I created, I created in a system of cycles. And I designed it so that if they obey that one law of feeding what's feeding you, I would never have to create again." Watch this. He says, "I allowed the grass to grow up out of the ground with the promise that the grass would feed the ground that fed it. And as long as the grass feeds the ground that fed it, the cycle will go unbroken, and it will always reproduce again. If the ground starts giving more to the grass than the grass gives to the ground, they break the cycle, and everything goes black." He said, "You see the heavens, you see the rain coming down?" He said, "I fixed it the same way. I designed it to cycle. The cloud that bursts and gives the rain can afford to release it because, as the humidity comes, it goes back up, and the cycle goes again. What does it do? It's feeding what's feeding it. Are you hear what I'm saying?" You remember when Jesus passed by the fig tree and cursed the fig tree? What is this? Was it, did Jesus kill the tree 'cause He was hungry? I mean, you know, that's like going past KFC and they're closed, so I burned it down. "I bet you won't close up again, brother. Hungry up in here." That'd be kind of crazy. Did Jesus really just curse the fig tree 'cause He was hungry? No, He cursed the fig tree 'cause it broke the law.
He cursed the fig tree 'cause it broke the cycle. He cursed the fig tree because the fig tree was receiving and not giving. In another text, He said, "Why cumbereth the ground?" Why would you be in the ground and keep drawing and drawing and drawing and not expect to give nothing back to what's given to you? This is not benevolence; this is not generosity; this is sick. You learn cycles. You're giving to what's giving to you, and anytime you break the law, it will die. There will be a curse every time you break the law. If you marry somebody and they keep giving to you and you don't give anything back to them, I guarantee you the marriage is cursed because anytime you don't give to what's given to you, you will kill the source. "Do not muzzle the mouth of the ox." You can't keep working the ox and muzzling his mouth. Anything that feeds you, you must feed it. If you don't feed anything else, common sense says you feed what's feeding you. You bless what's blessing you, you help what's helping you, you pour into what's going into you. Oh, you don't need a degree to speak Hebrew to understand that everything operates that way. The fields, crops, the corn, the okra, everything operates by giving back to the thing that gave to it. The ground gave it to me; now I give it back to them. They give it to me; I give it to them. The cloud gives me rain; I give back humidity back to the cloud.
Everything is a circular system of reciprocity. Every relationship in your life where you violate that law is cursed. I've never understood why I got such a high off of a terrible situation. I don't mean it didn't hurt. I don't mean it didn't break my heart, but I got such a high out of taking care of my mother. I got such a high out of it. Of everything I've ever accomplished, I've been all over the world, got all kinds of trophies and grand even better than edited. Ah, the thing I'm most proud of is that I took care of my mother. To see that, above everything else, above everything else I've ever done in my life, it is by far the thing that I'm most proud of. And the reason I am so proud of it is that I got to prove to her that if the shoe were on the other foot, I would do for you what you did for me. That is a wonderful thing. So, I cleaned her sometimes and washed her sometimes and fed her sometimes, and when I didn't do it, I paid to have it done, to make sure that she was taken care of because when I was a baby, she washed me and cleaned me, and I threw up on her, I peed on her, and she still loved me anyway.
So, I told her, "That's alright, mama. Don't even worry about it. I got you," because I want to see what was feeding it. It says something about your character when you give back to something that gave to you. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. T.D. Jakes was driving down the road one day, and I saw a sign on the front area of the car, and it says, "Just teach." You're teaching your children how to treat you by how you treat your parents. Whatever you throw at your parents, your kids are gonna throw at you. You cannot show disrespect and reap honor. You cannot show hostility and reap love. You cannot show greed and reap prosperity. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Say you want friends? Show yourself friendly. You know why people don't like you? You're not nice. Let me just cut through it. Let me just cut through the drama. Let me tell you what everybody is trying to tell you, and they can't get across to you. The reason folk don't like you is because you're not nice. You've been manipulative and conniving, and they understand it, and they won't play around with it, and you don't need to go to school. You need to learn how to smile, shut your mouth, sit down in your seat, and be nice, and people will always come around nice people. I don't care how cute you are. If you are nasty, nasty will trump cute every time.
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Whatsoever you feed what's feeding you—your time, your talent—you invest it into what's feeding you. Some people are eating one place and sowing... You're not gonna talk to me. How in the world can you be eating over here and sowing over there? How can I be your wife, washing your drawers, changing your baby's cooking your food, and hoodie over there getting your money? You eat over here. Oh, you know, no. I'm gonna break it down. Don't say nothing. I'm gonna bring it worth. If anybody was gonna get a watch, it should have been me. If anybody was gonna get a ring, it should have been me. If anybody deserves to go out to dinner, it should have been me. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. If I give to you, why would you not give to me? Anytime you take in anything living, it has to be sown. Don't take on more than you're willing to feed, and don't expect me to gold sell 'cause you got tired. Now I got to reduce my value down to your comfort. How many people understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
So, the question is, how can you understand that about you and about your life and about your sacrifice and not understand that about your church? I'll sit. If I'm the one making your life better, if the dance and the drama and the stage or the book or the ministry pours into you, why would you call it robbery to feed what's feeding you? When you go to a restaurant, they don't ask you to pick up the check around the table, but they do expect you, if you ate, to pick up the check for what you ate. If I feed you, aren't you supposed to feed me? And if you don't, here comes the paddy wagon to pick you up because the restaurant will not be mocked. Still to come on The Potter's Touch, whatever you invest the most in will give the most back to you. "Give, and it shall be given unto you again, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over." Whatever you give yourself to, it will give itself back to you. If you practice well, you'll play well. If you give to him, it will give back to you. Why are you angry at things and people and jobs and businesses and churches that don't give back to you when you don't give anything?
Christ came so that you may have life and have it more abundantly. The mystery and the majesty is that you don't have to work for this. God's provision is never limited. Your river is dried up, but God said, "I already got a plan for you. I already have made provision for you." Now you can receive all that God has in store for you. For your gift of any size, you will receive "Feed What's Feeding You" on CD when you visit our website or call 1-800-BISHOP-2. "I'm gonna bless you according to your appetite. Let me find somebody that's hungry for what I have." And for your gift of $70 or more, you'll receive "Abundance Supply" on DVD. "Whatever little bit you got, you need to use it, and let God open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing." However, when your gift is $125 or more, you will receive "Abundance Supply" on DVD, a blessed mug, and notecard set. "I refuse to exist. I will not just exist. I will live. I didn't come to make you religious. I came to make you live." Plentiful blessings await you today, and God will provide in abundance supply. Are you trying to draw from something where you have little investment? If you sow sparingly... Oh, y'all got quiet. Only stay with me. Don't leave. See, when I was saying stuff you could use on your spouse in the car on the way home, you were about to dance out of here. So don't you drop now. You stay right here. Press with me right now. As long as you were shoveling that word at somebody else, you were about to fall over, telling Bishop, "That's right, Lord Jesus, God, I'd live." Wherever you're being fed, whether you're watching over the Internet, if this is not feeding you, don't you feed it. If Potter's House doesn't feed you, don't you feed it. If the books don't bless you, don't read it. If you don't enjoy the ministry, don't watch it. But if you're gonna sit up there and watch it week after week after week after week after week after week and tweet and talk and take the stuff and put it in your messages and talk about it at work and use it in your marriage, use it in your situation, don't get to the end of the broadcast and click off as if the transaction is over. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." You owe it, not to me, to God, that if God uses me or him or him, it doesn't matter who He uses to pour into your life, don't you sit up in the restaurant and eat and belch and wipe your mouth and get up and walk away like you got amnesia because when the fig tree did that, God cursed it, for it failed to produce on the level that it took. Let's talk about levels. You cannot draw 60 and produce 30. Simple. You cannot draw 60 percent and produce on a 30 percent level. Some people are better takers than givers. If you're going to draw, give on the level that you draw from because if you don't give on the level that you draw from, you will slow down the death, but the death will still occur because little by little, that depletion just happens. It doesn't happen as fast as a robber who stole everything, but it is a gradual decline until all of a sudden, it feels like people got tired of you.
They've not gotten tired of you; they've gotten tired of carrying something that's not giving back on the level that it's taking. This is God's Word. Let's read it again. Go back to your Bible because I want you to read this in your Bible. I want you to get this. I'm not worried about you shouting; you missed your chance. "Let every man bear his own burden." Nor even Paul is saying this. He's saying it to the early church because the majority of the church worked a secular job. And then he says, "Let him that receiveth teaching communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things." In God's perfect order, it was not God's will for the man of God to do anything except give himself over to prayer and study of the word. To relieve him of responsibilities is why the deacons were created, so that the apostles would be able to turn themselves fully over to the Word of God so that when you came to be fed, you would get a full meal without the restriction of them being distracted to take care of their own needs. So he said, "Let him that receiveth teaching communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things." Then, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked." God, and the reason if God is not mocked, and I want you to get this, I want you to get it as I said it, but I want to underline it again. God put in a system, a cycle, so delicate that man's tampering with one of God's systems breaks it down. A system, "Let there be light," and there was light, and it was good, and the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, "Bring forth," and herbs yielding seed after its own kind, each producing after his own kind. And God said it was good. That's not just creation, though. They're systems, circular systems, that once God put it in motion, as long as you don't mock Him, that system will go uninterrupted. "Give, and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together." As long as you don't violate it. As long as I throw you the ball, you can throw it back to me. As long as I pass it to you, you can pass it back to me. But I can't stop passing it and then say, "Why don't you give it back?" God is not mocked. The system... Now, I'll quickly close with this. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
What areas in your life are you underfunding and over expecting? What areas in your life are you underfunding and over expecting? Oh, are you expecting more out of a career than what you're willing to study for? Are you trying to get something out of the piano that you didn't put into it? Are you trying to get something out of ministry that you don't put into it? Do you realize you can't come once a month and get what you need? My tree died. It wasn't that I didn't feed it. I just didn't feed it often. I put it in the light when I was home. I gave it water when I got a chance, and little by little, the little green things just fell off, and I hated it because it didn't look good, and I had to hide it 'cause it looked bad. But the way it looked was a result of how I treated it. I was over expecting and underfunding. Wow. Don't take on more than what you can afford. Don't overextend yourself beyond your willingness to invest. Don't take five dogs, three cats, and a pool when you know you are not gonna take care of it. Don't have them and then complain 'cause you got to walk them. Common sense tells you that if you had it, you gotta take care of it.
Don't have a baby because of the baby daddy because the daddy may not stay, and you still got the baby. To those of you who didn't understand that, what that actually means is that a life filled with promiscuity and indiscretion ends up in total despair and degradation. It is wise for us to be contemplative before we make such decisions that end in ruin. "Let him that receiveth give back." We have a responsibility, and I'll close with this. Our generation has a responsibility. I am tired of hearing my generation talk about the younger generation. I'm sick of it. We talk about them and their antics and their foolishness and their ways as if they were not our kids. Whatever is wrong with them and whatever's right with them, they are our children. It happened while we were doing our thing, had gone about our business, and dropping it like it's hot, and because we left them to be raised by computers and they had nobody to love and nobody to talk to, had nobody to stand by them, that's why they didn't turn out like you did 'cause your mama put more into you then you put into your daughter. And if you want to change the outcome, you have to change the investment.
So shut up talking to me about these kids. They are our children, and they didn't get here by themselves. And because we were more interested in making money than we were making people, we left them home alone, and they figured it out the best way they could. And the only way to fix it is to go back and do your first works over and repair and say, "I know I wasn't there for you like I should have been, but I'm not gonna leave you in this mess by yourself. Mama made some mistakes, and Daddy did some crazy stuff, but I'm in this mess with you, and whatever it takes to work it out." So we owe it because this is the first generation in history that is biblically illiterate because this is the first generation of young people who never knew went to Sunday school, never went to Vacation Bible School, never went to the sunbeam choir, never were in the Tom Thumb weddings.
You know why? We didn't take them. Now they don't know anything about God, and we don't understand why. And before we die, that's why I want to build a youth center. That's why I want to educate our children. That's why I want to put them in classes and put some faith down in them because now that we got enough sense to come out of the strip club and finally admit that we are broke people, let's go back and parent them the way we should have done 20 years ago and raise up something so that we can put in them what mom and them put in us 'cause I don't want them to face the world without understanding what God is able to do. "Shall yes, lord." I hate to stop there. It's been a real joy to have the opportunity to share this word with you. I see so many people today; they're so busy trying to apprehend what's in front of them that they don't feed what's feeding them. They sacrifice so many portals that God has given you and the people that God has given you that feed you financially, spiritually, emotionally, every area of your life, are being sacrificed while you're snatching something you don't even have yet or taking care of somebody's business that's not even yours. You need to feed what's feeding you. Let's break this down into something you can really use in your daily life and stop sacrificing the many, many people and opportunities that God has given you and taking them for granted, trying to get to the next level.
Do what you do on the level you're on. You work your way to the next level. In fact, you need to work your way to Orlando, Florida, April 30th through May the second. I have got a conference; it's got your name on it. If you're a builder, you're a feeder, you're a thinker, you need to go to the conference, International Pastors and Leadership Conference, and let us pour into you so you can go and pour into other people and do what God has called you to do. Whether you're a pastor, a leader, elder, deacon, auxiliary leader, worship leader, no matter what your function is in the kingdom, you need to be there. Even if you're a leader that hasn't been recognized, haven't started the business yet, haven't opened up the company yet, haven't built the mission field yet, whatever it is, if it's brewing on the inside, we got to start feeding before you birth it. You can't start feeding the baby after the baby's born. It's got to be fed even while you're carrying it on the inside. Join me and the hosts of mission comfort. You have some months. Eakins gonna help you out. Don't miss it. Before I die in a cage, I want to run in the wild, to understand what it is to be free. They can hear that life-changing message and the education. You're frustrated about something that's just an incubator to take you to the next dimension. Now we're gonna grow and go to global missions. No more limits, no more boundaries.