Productivity

God has created you for fruitfulness or to be productive

Deuteronomy 8:18 …KEY SCRIPTURE

"And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”

Power (productive power) to get wealth.

•   Power to produce wealth – power to be productive
•   Productivity is the enabling power of God to extend his kingdom.

It might be through wealth- it might not

Romans 1:16

"I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God…"

God’s power is productive power.

It produces something that was not previously there.

Genesis 25:19-27

1.   VERSE 20-21

ISAAC CRIES OUT TO GOD FOR A CHILD

Barrenness

Most with a covenant relation with God had barrenness in their lives. It’s an interesting fact:

•   Abraham – Sarah was barren
•   Isaac’s – Rebecca was barren
•   Jacob – Rachel was barren
•   Zechariah – Elizabeth was barren

i.   When the devil identifies destiny in your lives, the primary thing he attacks is your productivity –your fruitfulness.
ii.   The devil knows you cannot fulfill destiny until you are productive.
iii.   It doesn’t matter how pregnant you are with destiny, nothing will happen until you are productive (bring forth).

That’s why there is a constant demand from heaven for you to be productive.

ISAAC CALLS OUT TO GOD

•   All these women or their husbands cried out to God.
•   If you want to birth something, you may have to cry out to God.
•   Through divine intervention, she conceived.

2.   THINGS ARE WELL BUT STRUGGLING

Verse 22

•   If all is well, why am I this way?
•   She couldn’t understand how God’s blessing could produce a conflict.
•   You may be struggling, but that doesn’t indicate that things are not well.
•   Ever asked the question “If all is well why am I like this.” Challenges I your life doesn’t mean something is wrong. It could mean you are carrying destiny, and about to produce ‘life’.

3.   VERSE 23 – TWO NATIONS – TWO PEOPLES

Within Rebekah there were two destinies.

ONE SHALL BE STRONGER THAN THE OTHER – OLDER SHALL SERVE THE YOUNGER

•   The older always speaks of what used to be, the previous, the past, the former.
•   The younger speaks of the present, the contemporary, the things God is doing today
•   The previous (past) will always be under the leadership of the present
•   The former will always be subservient to the contemporary
•   We often feel more comfortable with the older – familiar territory
•   The contemporary, we treat with suspicion

Haggai 2:9

“The glory of the latter house shall be greater than the former…”

Matthew 9:16-17

“Don’t put the new piece of cloth in the old garment don’t put new wine into old skins…”

VERSE 25 – Esau

VERSE 26 – Jacob

VERSE 27

Both boys grew. Growth is not always an endorsement that all is well.

•   Esau was a man of the field – a skillful hunter – could kill game.
•   Jacob was a mild man – lived in – tents stayed home and cooked

VERSE 29-34

•   Esau killed his game, but he still came home hungry.
•   He had the resources, (food) but he did not have the ability (power) to be productive.
•   He couldn’t convert his potential, so he stayed in lack.
•   He was in the vine, but couldn’t produce-fruit.

JACOB Lived in abundance – he had enough to give his brother.

•   The Esau’s of life pride themselves in their strength (consumer mentality).
•   The Jacob’s of life pride themselves in their wisdom (producer mentality).

Jacob hunts animals – but Jacob breeds them – got adequate supply in the back yard.

Proverbs 12:27

The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting, but diligence is man's precious possession.

LAZINESS IS NOT THAT YOU DON’T WORK HARD

LAZINESS IS THAT YOU DON’T PROCESS THE GAME AFTER YOU HAVE HUNTED

•   Esau hunts, but he doesn’t roast – DOES THE HARDEST PART.
•   Some people come to church – but they can’t get any results.

NATIONS

•   Esau nations work hard, yet they are hungry.
•   Jacob nations take what the Esau nations have produced, refine it process it, package it and sell it back to Esau nations

Most third world nations are extremely rich in gold, diamonds, platinum, coco palm, oil sugar cane, and coffee.

GHANA – Has the world’s largest resource of Cocoa but sends it to Europe and America who sell it back to them packaged.

NIGERIA – Is one of the world’s largest producers of palm oil – turned into cosmetics but Jacob nations.

KENYA – Coffee

MAURITIUS – Sugar cane – they import sugar from Europe

ESAU NEGOTIATED FROM A PLACE OF DISADVANTAGE

Whenever you negotiate from a place of weakness – a place of desperation.

Never negotiate from an empty stomach, when you are tired.

VERSE 31

•   Jacob say’s I will give you what you need today, if you give me what I need tomorrow – credit card syndrome.
•   Choosing righteousness today and enjoying long life satisfied, guaranteed tomorrow.
•   What Esau wants is physical – the senses the smell of the red broth.
•   What Jacob wants is intangible.

JACOB PLACED A VALUE ON THE INTANGIBLE

•   Jacob wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t steal the birthright – he paid for it.
•   He placed a value on the intangible, the spiritual – on the future.
•   Esau placed a value on the tangible – the material – on the today.

JACOB PLACES A HIGHER VALUE

•   NB Jacob placed a higher value on what Esau had, than Esua did.
•   The day someone else places a higher value on what you have than you do, you are in trouble.
•   If you don’t value your wife, someone might.
•   If you don’t value your business, someone might.
•   If you don’t value your ministry, someone else (God Might).

Watch before you sign

Don’t let anybody steal your productivity, creativity.

Don’t sell your destiny.

•   Esau are consumers who come to church every week to get a message, and takes the bread that helps him through the week. They come back next Sunday are hungry again.
•   The Jacob believer knows that in every message, there is bread for the eater, and seed for the sower. He multiplies the seed so it produces fruit.

Proverbs 13:22

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

The wicked one in this context is not talking about not being born again. It’s talking about the man who does not know how to multiply his resources.

GOD NEVER REPRODUCES – HE LEAVES THAT UP TO US.

Tom Inglis, 22/08/2010