We are very excited about our Easter online service.  Please use your Facebook to encourage those you are hooked up with to watch the service.  We have had excellent response to the services on line.  Please help us to make tomorrow the best day ever.  PB

Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 102

April 11;   2 Corinthians 8:9;   157/260(I);   ‘Poverty to Plenty’

 2 Corinthians 8:9 You know how full of love and kindness our Lord Jesus Christ was. Though he was very rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.    

 You are loved.  The Lord Jesus Christ, before time began lived in heaven with His Father.  We cannot comprehend the beauty and the majesty of His heavenly home.  After Adam and Eve were created and placed on the earth, something went horribly wrong – sin.  The Trinity, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit had to do something to rescue humanity.  The sin of Adam cursed the earth.  Poverty was part of the curse.  It was never the will of the Father that His greatest creation, mankind, would be destitute and in need.  The Lord Jesus, with riches in heaven beyond comprehension, left it all and came to earth as a Man.  Jesus was born in a manger.  He never accumulated earthly riches and lived meagerly.  After living a sinless life, He was mocked, humiliated and crucified.  He took upon Himself all of the results of the curse, poverty, sickness and death.  Legally, the Church, Born Again believers, have been redeemed from the curse Adam brought upon the earth.  This fulfills this verse.  He was rich beyond imagination and became poor on the cross.  The other part of this verse also was fulfilled, but it is not automatic.  We legally have the right to ‘be rich’ (have a full supply), but in order for this to happen, we must obey the Biblical financial principles, the tithe and offerings.  The earth is still cursed, Christians are not.  By obeying God’s Word on giving, we receive the blessings this verse teaches is ours.  Contrary to what religion teaches, the Lord desires that we would prosper financially.  What the Lord is against is greed and money being more important than the Lord.