Break Out!: 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life (7 page)

Jesus knew right where the treasure was. God knows the inventions that have not yet been created. He knows the ideas that will be successful. He knows the properties and the real estate that will be valuable. He may not cause you to strike oil, but He can give you one idea that will catapult you to a new level.

This is what happened to Truett Cathy. In 1946, he and his brother opened a little restaurant, the Dwarf Grill, south of downtown Atlanta. He noticed that hamburgers were the rage. But one day God gave him an idea. He thought if people like hamburgers, maybe they’d like chicken sandwiches, too.

So instead of just making sandwiches with beef patties, he offered boneless chicken breast sandwiches to his customers, too. They were so popular, he opened his first shopping mall fast food restaurant in 1967, and called it Chick-fil-A. Today, there are more than 1,700 Chick-fil-As in thirty-nine states. The Cathys give millions of dollars to help people around the world—an explosive blessing.

God has all kinds of inventions just waiting to be released. He knows everything that will ever be created. He has new businesses He is just waiting to trust people with; new books just waiting to be written, new technology, new medicine, new procedures. Get out of a rut, enlarge your vision, and start thanking God for the explosive blessings coming your way.

If you will be faithful with what you have and prove to God that you can be trusted, then God will show you the hidden riches found in secret places. God will give you ideas, dreams, visions, good breaks, and the right connections to take you to a level you never thought possible. It’s time to rise up and be the head and not the tail. It’s time for us to lend and not borrow. In these coming days there will be a transfer of wealth. There will be a major shifting in finances and resources. God will do unusual things.

Lakewood Church is a $400 million facility that we bought for about $20 million. After we renovated it, our investment in the church was still less than a fourth of what it would have cost new. That’s a shifting of wealth.

For many years we were on the other side of Houston, in wood buildings, then metal buildings. The roads weren’t big enough. The parking lots were not adequate. At times we were looked down on, seen as second-class, but one day we came in to an explosive blessing that blasted us to a new level.

We saw the exceeding greatness of God’s favor. God has given us the premier facility in the fourth largest city in America. That’s what God is doing today. He’s stepping it up a notch. We were never created to be second class and just barely get by. The Scripture says we are supposed to reign in life as kings.

You may not be there yet, but don’t settle where you are. Get ready for God to do something new. He’s about to release buildings, contracts, ideas, favor, influence that will catapult His people to new levels. He is about to open up doors wider than you thought possible, just as He did for our church. You need to make room for explosive blessings in your thinking. Get ready for them. God is about to release hidden treasure for you.

A friend of mine who attends Lakewood started his business with just one employee—himself. Within a few years he had a whole floor in a downtown high-rise for his business. Recently he was awarded a contract to build one of the largest refineries in all of China, a multi-billion-dollar project.

“Joel, I was the least likely one to get it,” he said.

He explained that there were much larger competitors with much more influence. The competition included well-established companies that had been in business for decades, but somehow God caused his company to stand out. Now my friend is seen as one of the leaders in the field. His company is part of the shift of wealth to God’s people, who will further the kingdom.

God will cause you to stand out just like my friend. He can cause contracts to come your way. You may seem the least likely for a promotion in the natural, but with the blessing of God on your life the odds dramatically
change. You and God are a majority. You need to get ready for this shift. It will be an explosion of God’s goodness, a sudden, widespread increase.

That means something that goes far and beyond anything you’ve ever seen. What is that? It’s the immeasurable, limitless, surpassing greatness of God’s favor.

Proverbs 13:22 talks about this shift. It says: “The wealth of the ungodly will eventually find its way into the hands of the righteous for whom it has been laid up.”

God has already stored up businesses, contracts, buildings, increase, promotions, and ideas. They already have your name on them, and if you’ll just keep being your best, blessing others, honoring God, and dreaming big, then eventually they will find their way into your hands, the hands of the righteous.

Something is looking for you right now—not bad breaks, not lack, not depression, not defeat. You are the righteous. Increase is looking for you. Favor is looking for you. Promotion is looking for you. Contracts are looking for you. Good ideas are looking for you. God says the wealth of the ungodly will eventually find its way into the hands of the godly.

The building where our church is located was used for sports purposes and concerts for thirty years. It was called the Summit at first, and then later the Compaq Center. But I believe if you peeled those names back thirty years ago when it was first built, you would have seen the name Lakewood Church already there. The stadium eventually found its way into our hands. You don’t know the amazing things that God has already put your name on. They’re already laid up for you.

Somebody else may have started them. Maybe somebody else did the hard work, but God says eventually they will find the way into your hands. You have some “eventually”s in your future. You know what an “eventually” is? It’s an explosive blessing: Unexpectedly a business falls into your hands. Maybe it’s a real estate deal that could only be God’s doing, or an extraordinary contract comes to you even though you weren’t the most qualified.

Your “eventually” may be an inheritance from someone you didn’t know or a restructuring at the office, or you suddenly rise from working
for a company to running it. God is saying: “I’m shifting things from the hands of those who are not concerned about Me, from those who don’t walk in integrity or those who don’t care for others to the hands of people I can trust with furthering My kingdom.”

I believe that’s you and me. Get ready for the surpassing greatness of God’s favor. It will be favor like you’ve never seen before: Favor that takes you beyond previous limitation. Favor that blasts you to a new level.

The psalmist David said, “What would have happened to me if I would not have believed I would see the goodness of God?” I’m asking you to believe that God has amazing things in store. Believe that you can break out of what’s holding you back and become everything God created you to be. Incredible power is released when we believe.

One day after a Lakewood service I talked to a young couple who said they had been trying to have a baby for six years. The mother had been through a couple of miscarriages and for some reason just couldn’t carry a baby full term. They went to specialists and tried everything medically, with no success. Finally they just turned it over to God and said, “Our hopes and dreams are in your hands. We trust you. We know you’re in complete control.”

Years earlier the young lady’s sister had a dream and she saw the couple from our church with the most beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed little boy you can imagine. They believed that was a sign from God.

On Mother’s Day, 2009, the couple came to a service celebrating Lakewood’s fiftieth anniversary. I talked that day about the year of jubilee and how everything that has our name on it is coming back in. I made the statement, “The business that has your name on it is coming in, the good health that has your name on it is coming in,” and then I said specifically, “The baby who has your name is coming in.”

They couple looked at each other in amazement. They knew I’d said that exactly for them. I went on to talk about how God is accelerating things and it will happen faster than we think. The whole time they were letting the seed take root.

That’s the key: The only promises that will come alive in your life and end up becoming realities are the promises where you rise up and say, “Yes, that’s for me.” You have to get in agreement with God and let it take root.

I can speak faith and victory over your future for a lifetime, but it won’t do any good if you just sit back and think, “Well I don’t think this will happen. I’ve had a lot of bad breaks, and I just don’t see how I’ll ever rise higher.”

If you make excuses and talk yourself out of it, then that promise will not take root. But when the soil of your heart is fertile, you have expectancy in your spirit. If you hear the promise that God has blessings in your future, then you’ll rise up like that couple at Lakewood did and say, “That’s for me. Lord, I believe. I release my faith for explosive blessings, for the immeasurable, limitless, surpassing greatness of your favor.”

That’s what allows God to do great things.

The couple went out after the service knowing that the baby with their name was coming in. They knew it was going to happen quicker than they thought. Four hours later, as they were celebrating Mother’s Day with their family, their office manager called and asked if they would be interested in adopting a baby boy to be born in July.

They knew that was the hand of God. Eight weeks later they were in the hospital room when the little boy was born. He was a beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed baby, just like his new mother’s sister had seen in the dream. The couple who had wanted a child so much were the first to put their arms around the baby.

The dad even cut the newborn’s umbilical cord. They named their son Asher, after Jacob’s son in the Old Testament. One meaning of that name is “gift from God.” In Scripture, David asked what would have happened if he had not believed. I wonder what would have happened had this couple not released their faith. Maybe they wouldn’t have received that phone call asking if they wanted to adopt the baby boy.

I’m convinced there are times when we don’t see God’s amazing hand at work, because we don’t activate our faith by believing. We let our mind talk us out of it. We think of all the reasons why it won’t happen. I’m asking you to be a believer and not a doubter. Let this seed take root. God has explosive blessings in your future. He is about to release another level of His favor in your life. He is going to give you the desires of your heart.

Things you’ve been praying about for years are about to come to pass. Situations that have been stuck for a long time are about to break loose.
There is promotion and increase in your future like you’ve never dreamed of. It will not happen in an ordinary way, or the way you had planned. God will do it in an extraordinary way so you know it’s His doing.

This is the generation for the surpassing greatness of God’s favor. It will be above and beyond what you’ve seen before. A pastor friend of mine was planning to build a $40 million sanctuary. He was raising the funds and drawing up the plans. One day, out of the blue, the mayor in his town called and said the developers of a huge casino near his church had gone bankrupt before finishing it. The casino had more than forty acres of parking. The completed building could contain four football fields inside. It was just a few miles from his existing church.

The mayor asked my friend if he was interested in purchasing the huge casino. The pastor thought the price would be $50 million or more. The mayor said, “No, you can purchase it for under two million dollars.”

The owner of a production company heard that the pastor was considering buying the casino property for his sanctuary. He told the pastor that he had a giant screen used for concerts and sporting events that would be wonderful for the new church. The screen was more than 150 feet long. It cost $3 million new. But the company owner said he would sell it to the pastor for $50,000.

Everything fell into place. Instead of building his own facility, a much bigger and better building dropped into his hands. That’s a part of the shift, the transfer. Somebody else built it, somebody else paid for it, but at the right time the building found its way into the hands of the godly.

Right now, something is looking for you. Something already has your name on it. As long as you’re doing your best to honor God and you have a heart to help others, an explosive blessing will find its way into your hands.

God knows where the hidden treasure is. He knows where to find the property, the contracts, the ideas, and the good breaks you need to fulfill your destiny. You may be stuck in a rut, thinking that you’ve gone as far as you can go. But God is saying, “Where you are is not permanent. I have explosive blessings coming your way. Blessings that will blast you to a new level. Favor that will take you beyond previous limitations.”

E
ven though God has amazing things in your future, He is limited by your capacity to receive. It’s as if you have a one-gallon bucket, yet I have fifty gallons to give you. The problem is not with the supply. The problem is you don’t have the capacity to receive. If you trade in that small container and get something bigger, then I can give you more.

It’s the same way with God. If you think you’ve reached your limits—whether it’s because of a bad economy, your health is poor, or you can’t afford the house you want—God has the ability and resources to help you, but your container is too small.

You have to enlarge your vision and make room for the new things God wants to do. You attitude should be: “The economy may be down, but I know God is still on the Throne. I know He has promotion and increase already lined up for me. His favor surrounds me like a shield. Goodness and mercy are following me. This will be a great year.”

When you change your thinking like that, you enlarge your capacity to receive. Then you will see the goodness of God in new ways. Some people go around with a small cup, so to speak. They’re not expecting much; maybe it’s because they’ve struggled for many years.