Dysfunction Is Not Your Destiny: Breaking the Cycle and Building a Lasting Legacy

Centerpointe Apostolic Church •
September 21, 2026

6 Minute Read

Every generation stands in the middle of two others. You inherit something from those who came before you, and you pass something on to those who come after. The question is not whether you will leave a legacy — you will. The only question that matters is what kind of legacy it will be.

This is not a small question. The answer shapes families, communities, and futures that extend far beyond what any of us can see.

The Power of Generational Influence

Psalm 78, written by Asaph — a gifted musician and prophetic composer from the era of David and Solomon — opens with an urgent call to listen, to learn, and to teach. The psalmist declares that the stories of God's faithfulness must not be hidden from the next generation. They must be told, passed down, and lived out, so that each generation can set its hope anew on God rather than repeat the failures of those who came before.

That phrase — "set its hope anew" — is worth sitting with. Every generation must discover God for themselves. Faith cannot be inherited like a piece of furniture. It must be personally pursued, personally embraced, and personally lived. But the environment in which that pursuit happens is shaped enormously by the generation that came before.

This is the weight and the wonder of generational influence.

What the Data Actually Shows

In the mid-1700s, two men lived in roughly the same time and place in America. One was Jonathan Edwards, a revivalist, pastor, and theologian who rose at four in the morning and spent up to thirteen hours a day in prayer and study of Scripture. The other was a man named Max Jukes, whose life went in a drastically different direction.

Nearly 150 years after their deaths, an American educator traced the descendants of both men. The contrast was staggering.

From Jonathan Edwards came one U.S. vice president, three U.S. senators, three governors, thirteen college presidents, sixty doctors, one hundred lawyers, one hundred clergymen, and two hundred and eighty-five college graduates, among many others. From Max Jukes came seven murderers, sixty thieves, one hundred ninety prostitutes, four hundred forty alcoholics, and three hundred who died prematurely.

Two men. Two directions. Centuries of consequences.

This is not a story about perfection. Edwards himself came from a family that was far from spotless — his grandmother was considered a disgrace, and his family tree included violent criminals. He had a choice about which influence would define him, and he made it deliberately and daily.

The Truth About Generational Curses

There is a concept that circulates widely — the idea of generational curses, the belief that the sins of previous generations are somehow genetically transferred and inescapably passed down. This idea, while it contains a kernel of truth about consequences, can become deeply destructive when taken too far.

It can become a prison. A person begins to believe that the dysfunction they were born into is simply the hand they were dealt, and there is nothing to be done but live inside it. Or it becomes an excuse — a way of shifting responsibility for present choices onto past generations rather than taking ownership of one's own life and decisions.

Ezekiel 18:20 is clear that each person is accountable for their own sin, not the sin of their parents. Every individual stands before God on the basis of their own choices. Romans 5:12 confirms that death spread to all people because all have sinned — each person's own sin is the issue, not a curse inherited from someone else.

What Deuteronomy 5:9 does describe is not a curse in the mystical sense, but the very real consequences and influence that flow from one generation's decisions into the next. Bad decisions produce painful consequences, and those consequences can ripple outward for generations. That is sobering. But it is not the whole story.

One Generation Can Change Everything

Deuteronomy 5:10 is where hope breaks through. While the consequences of rejecting God may affect three or four generations, God lavishes His unfailing love on a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. The math is not close. One generation of faithfulness opens the door to a thousand generations of God's overflowing goodness.

All it takes is one person who decides to turn the tide. One father who declares, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." One mother who refuses to let tragedy define her family's future. One young adult who looks at the dysfunction they were raised in and says, "This stops with me."

The story of Joseph in Genesis is a stunning illustration of this truth. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob formed one of the most famously dysfunctional family lines in all of Scripture — marked by deception, favoritism, jealousy, and betrayal. The pattern of lying ran so deep that it passed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob without interruption.

But Joseph refused to pick it up. Thrown into a pit by his own brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and forgotten in prison, he had every reason to become bitter, to deceive, to retaliate. Instead, he maintained his integrity at every turn. And in the end, he looked at his brothers and declared that what they had intended for evil, God had turned for good. One man's faithfulness reversed the momentum of generations.

The Decision in Front of You

The failures of a previous generation do not have to define your future. The dysfunction of the past does not have to be the blueprint for your present. Just because a home was broken does not mean the next home has to be. Just because addiction, deception, or bitterness marked those who came before does not mean it must mark those who come after.

The gospel exists precisely for this moment. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the ultimate reversal — the point at which every curse of sin meets its match. By His wounds, healing is made available. Not just physical healing, but emotional, relational, and generational healing.

You are standing in the middle of two generations right now. What will you pick up? What will you leave behind? What will you pass on?

The direction you choose today is already shaping tomorrow. His mercy is forever. His kindness is forever. His goodness is forever. And one faithful generation is all it takes to set a thousand more on a completely different course.

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From this Collection: Beyond The Message
November 10, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
How to Get From Here to There
There is a place called "there." You may not be able to see it from where you are standing right now, but it exists. It is a place of blessing, restoration, peace, and transformation. It is the future God has prepared for you. And the distance between where you are and where God is calling you to be is not measured in miles or months. It is measured in surrender. The ancient story of Jacob in Genesis 32 is one of the most raw and revealing passages in all of Scripture. It is the account of a man who had spent the better part of his life relying on himself, and the night God finally got him alone long enough to change him forever. The Man Who Ran From Himself Jacob was, by his own admission, a complicated man. He had manipulated his hungry brother Esau into trading his birthright for a single bowl of soup. He had dressed in animal skins and walked into his dying father's room to steal a blessing that was not meant for him. He was a schemer. A deceiver. 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You can leave blessed. The place called "there" is real, and the road that leads to it runs straight through surrender.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

November 2, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Faith for a New Thing: Why God Is Ready to Move in Your Life Right Now
There is a moment in every person's life when the road ahead looks impossible. The bridges are burned, the path is unclear, and the weight of past failures has made the future seem like a closed door. If you have ever found yourself in that place, there is a word that cuts through the noise of doubt and discouragement: God is not only able to do what He has always done, He is ready to do what He has never done before. That is not a motivational phrase. That is a declaration rooted in the very nature of who God is. The Word That Does Not Fail Before anything else, it is worth establishing the foundation on which this entire conversation rests. The Bible, all 66 books and 31,102 verses, is not a collection of human opinions or cultural wisdom. As described in 2 Timothy 3:16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for shaping what we believe, correcting what we get wrong, and instructing us in how to live. It is not the word of man. It is the word of God. 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Then comes the second story, and this is where things get remarkable. A Roman centurion, a military man with no religious pedigree, approached Jesus with a request for his servant who was suffering at home. Jesus, following the same pattern He had just demonstrated, was prepared to come and heal the servant directly. But the centurion stopped Him. He said, in essence, You do not need to come. Just speak the word, and my servant will be healed. There was no precedent for that. No scripture the centurion could have pointed to. No story he had witnessed that told him it would work that way. He simply had faith for something new, something that had never been done before in that manner. And Jesus marveled. He said He had not found faith like that anywhere in Israel. The servant was healed that very hour. That is the power of faith for a new thing. Worship That Is Real One of the most striking elements of both stories is the nature of the approach. Neither the leper nor the centurion came with polished religious performance. They came with honest, vulnerable declarations of need. And that is exactly what God is looking for. Authentic worship is not always a carefully scripted prayer or a perfectly worded petition. Sometimes it is simply coming before God without the mask, without the facade, and saying, I have a broken situation and I need Your intervention. God is not looking for perfection. He is looking for a real relationship. The woman at the well in John chapter 4 experienced this firsthand. Jesus was willing to reveal Himself as the Messiah, but first He asked her to be honest about her own life. Vulnerability before God does not disqualify you from His presence. It invites Him in. The Enemy's Strategy and God's Timing There is a reason so many people feel spiritually stuck. The enemy operates in two specific places: the past and the future. He uses the past to replay failures and build hopelessness. 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God Can Exceed Himself Perhaps the most breathtaking truth in all of this is that God is not bound by what He has done before. In the Old Testament, He enabled a woman well past childbearing age to have a son. In the New Testament, He caused a virgin to bring forth the Son of God. He exceeded Himself. The Spirit that once came upon men in the Old Testament now dwells within believers. The miracles that could be counted in the Old Testament became so numerous in the New Testament that the Gospel of John says the world itself could not contain the books that would be needed to record them all. God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we can ask or think, as Ephesians 3:20 declares. That promise is not past tense. Your Story Is Not Over If you have placed a period at the end of your story, if you have concluded that healing will not come, that ministry is behind you, that the promise you once believed has expired, consider this: God is the author and finisher of faith. He can replace that period with a comma and begin writing again. The question is not whether He is able. The question is whether you still have faith for a new thing.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

October 25, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
The God Who Sees You
There is something deep within every human being that longs to be noticed. It does not matter how old you are, where you come from, or what you have accomplished in life. Every person carries within them a quiet, persistent need to know that someone sees them, that their life matters, that they are not invisible in a world crowded with billions of people. We live in the most connected generation in human history. Cell phones, social media, instant messaging, video calls — we have more ways to reach one another than ever before. And yet, somehow, loneliness has never felt more common. People sit in rooms full of others and still feel utterly alone. Conversations happen while eyes drift to screens. Attention has become so scarce that we no longer just give it — we pay it. And that language matters. Paying attention costs something. It requires time, focus, and the willingness to stop what you are doing long enough to truly see the person in front of you. 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Scripture says the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness. Not at an altar. Not in a place of worship. Not somewhere anyone would expect a divine encounter to take place. God found her exactly where she was — broken, frightened, and running. He called her by name. He invited her to be honest about her circumstances. And after that encounter, Hagar did something that has echoed through centuries of faith. She gave God a name. She called Him "El Roi" — the God who sees. "Have I also seen Him who sees me?" she asked. It was the declaration of a woman who entered the wilderness believing she was forgotten and left knowing she was seen. Seen Before You Can See The Gospel of John records the story of a man who had been blind since birth. He had never seen a sunrise, never looked into the face of someone he loved, never experienced the beauty of the world around him. For years he sat at the gate, dependent on the generosity of strangers, so familiar to those who passed by that they barely registered his presence anymore. When Jesus encountered this man, the disciples immediately looked for someone to blame. "Who sinned," they asked, "this man or his parents?" It is a deeply human response. We want a reason. We want a handle to hold onto when life does not make sense. If we can find a justification for someone's suffering, it somehow feels more manageable. But Jesus reframed the entire question. According to John 9:3, the man's blindness was not the result of sin at all, but existed so that the works of God could be revealed in his life. That answer is uncomfortable because it removes the tidy explanation we were looking for. It reminds us that God's purposes are larger than our logic, and that sometimes what looks like abandonment is actually preparation. What stands out most in this story is a simple, stunning detail. The man was blind. He could not see Jesus. But Jesus saw him. Long before this man could turn his eyes toward the Savior, the Savior had already turned His attention toward him. That is the nature of this God. He sees you before you see Him. When You Cannot Find Him There are seasons in life when God feels impossibly distant. You pray and the silence is deafening. You look forward and He is not there. You look backward and cannot perceive Him. You search left and right and find nothing. Job, a righteous man who had done everything right, described exactly this experience in Job 23:8-9. He looked in every direction and could not find God. And then he said something that is worth holding onto for the rest of your life. Job 23:10 begins with three words that shift everything: "But He knows." I cannot find Him, but He knows where I am. My inability to see God does not mean God has lost sight of me. That distinction matters enormously. Feelings are real, but they are not always reliable narrators. When the wilderness feels endless and God feels absent, the truth of Scripture stands unchanged. He knows the way you take. What This Means for How We Live The God who sees individuals also moves with compassion toward crowds. Matthew 9:36 and Matthew 14:14 both describe Jesus looking out at multitudes of people and being moved with compassion. There is something that happens when people gather together with the intention of seeking God. His compassion is drawn toward that. He brings into those moments every resource needed to meet every need present in the room. This is why the people around us matter so deeply. Every person you encounter has a name, a story, a struggle, and a future. Every one of them is someone God sees. The question is whether we will see them too, or whether we will pass by like the crowds who had long since stopped noticing the blind man at the gate. Romans 5:8 makes the stakes of this love unmistakably clear. God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He did not wait for us to become worthy of His attention. He did not require us to clean ourselves up before He would look our way. He turned His face toward us at our worst and went to Calvary anyway. You are not invisible. You are not forgotten. You are not too far gone. The God who saw Hagar in the wilderness, who saw the blind man at the gate, who knew Job's location even when Job could not find Him — that same God sees you right now, exactly where you are. The only question remaining is whether you will turn your heart toward the One who has already turned His face toward you.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

October 19, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Living in the Overflow: Moving Beyond Survival Into the Fullness of God's Spirit
There is a difference between a sip and a river. One sustains you for a moment. The other transforms everything it touches. Too many believers have settled for the sip. We drag ourselves into a worship service on Sunday, hoping the music hits right or the message lands with enough force to carry us through the week. By Wednesday, the tank is running low. By Friday, we are back to white-knuckling it through the demands of life. Then Sunday comes again and we repeat the cycle, marching back to the well, drawing just enough to get by, and pouring it out on an altar that never seems to change. This is not the life Jesus promised. The Feast and the Cry To understand the fullness of what Jesus offers, you have to picture the scene in John chapter 7. It was the Feast of Tabernacles, the most joyful and celebrated event on the Jewish calendar. For seven days, Jerusalem overflowed with worshipers who had traveled from across the region. They built temporary shelters from palm branches to remember how God had sustained their ancestors in the wilderness. Every morning of that feast, the high priest would take a golden pitcher, march down to the Pool of Siloam, scoop up water, and process back through the city to pour it on the stone altar before all of Israel. It was a plea for rain, a cry for the latter harvest, a ritual that had been repeated year after year after year. Then came the eighth day. The great day of the feast. The ceremony was over. The golden pitcher was set aside. The crowd stood in silence, wondering whether God had heard their prayers. And right in the middle of that silence, Jesus stood up and cried out. Not whispered. Not suggested. He declared it. John chapter 7, verse 37 records that he invited anyone who was thirsty to come to him and drink, and then in verse 38 he promised that rivers of living water would flow from within those who believed in him. He was not offering a refill of the golden pitcher. He was offering a river. The priest had been pouring water on cold stone for seven days. Jesus was saying that the altar needing refreshment was never the temple stone. It was the human heart. And he had come to pour his Spirit out on every willing heart that would receive him. Pentecost Is a Birthday, Not a Destination There is a meaningful distinction between the Feast of Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles. Pentecost was the celebration of the early wheat harvest, and in the New Testament it marks the birthday of the church. Acts chapter 2 describes the moment the Holy Ghost was poured out, when those gathered in one place heard a sound like a rushing mighty wind, saw what appeared as cloven tongues of fire, and were all filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. It was a glorious and foundational moment. But Pentecost was never meant to be a monument. The Feast of Tabernacles pointed toward something more. It celebrated the final and greatest harvest of the agricultural year, the ingathering of every olive, every grape, every fruit. And it looked forward to the latter rain, the rain that would make the next harvest possible. It pointed toward abundance, completion, and the dwelling of God with his people. When we treat our initial experience with the Holy Ghost as the finish line rather than the starting line, we miss the point entirely. We park at Pentecost when God is calling us toward Tabernacles. We celebrate the birthday of the church while the harvest rots in the field. The River Changes Everything Jesus described the overflow of the Spirit not as a trickle or a puddle, but as rivers of living water. That language is deliberate. Rivers do not sit still. Rivers carve canyons, sustain ecosystems, and draw civilization to their banks. Every major city in human history has been built near a river because rivers bring life wherever they flow. The landscape around a river is never the same as the land far from it. This is the image Jesus used to describe what Spirit-filled believers are meant to be in the world. Not a bucket that holds a limited supply. Not a pitcher that has to be refilled every Sunday. A river. Constant, flowing, life-giving, and impossible to exhaust. Psalm 16:11 tells us that in God's presence there is fullness of joy. Acts 1:8 promises that when the Holy Ghost comes upon a believer, they receive power to be a witness. John 7:38 declares that the overflow reaches outward, touching everyone around it. These are not distant theological concepts. They are the inheritance of every Spirit-filled believer. A Harvest Is Waiting The world around us is not short on problems. Marriages are fracturing. Families are unraveling. People are carrying burdens they were never designed to carry alone. And they are walking right past us every single day, at workplaces and schools and restaurants and neighborhoods, desperate for something real. They are tired of dead religion. They are tired of ceremony and ritual and golden pitchers poured on cold stone. They want to encounter something living. Revelation chapter 12 reminds us that believers overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. The blood was entirely God's work. But the testimony belongs to you. The story of what Jesus has done in your life is a weapon, and silence is surrender. There are people in your community who have never heard that they can have the Holy Ghost. Not that they rejected it, but that no one ever told them it was available to them. They are hungry. The harvest is real. Stop Surviving. Start Overflowing. God never intended for the Holy Ghost to be rationed out in small doses just to keep you functional. He did not save you so you could barely drag yourself across the finish line of heaven. He filled you with the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, and he did it so that rivers, not drops, would flow from your life into the world around you. The question is not whether the river is available. The question is whether you are living in it. Stop praying just to survive the week. Stop marching back to the well for just enough to get by. The overflow belongs to you. Step into the river, and let it change everything around you.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

October 12, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Hell Can't Cancel Calvary
There are moments in life when circumstances seem to scream louder than the promises of God. Seasons when prayers go unanswered in the way we hoped, when the ground beneath us feels like it is eroding, when everything we were trusting for appears to be slipping away. In those moments, a question rises up from the deepest part of us: Is God still in control? The answer is an unshakeable, resounding yes. No matter what hell tries to start, it cannot stop God. The promises of God are not dependent upon the cooperation of our circumstances. If He declared something to happen, it is going to happen. Hell cannot cancel Calvary. The Promise Was Never Plan B To understand the power of that statement, we have to go back to the very beginning. In Genesis chapters one and two, God created humanity in His own image and placed them in a garden of perfect fellowship. There was no sin, no shame, no separation. But in Genesis three, the serpent entered the picture and convinced Adam and Eve that what they had was somehow less than what they deserved. Sin entered the world, and with it, death. From a human perspective, everything appeared to be lost. But here is what is remarkable: God was not surprised. He did not wake up scrambling for a backup plan. Before He ever drove Adam and Eve from the garden, He spoke directly to the serpent in Genesis 3:15, declaring that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head. In other words, before the dust had even settled on the first act of human rebellion, God had already announced that the enemy would not have the final word. Calvary was not an emergency response to an unexpected crisis. It was God's eternal plan. As 1 Peter 1:18-20 makes clear, Christ was foreordained as the spotless lamb before the very foundation of the world. The cross was not evidence that God's purpose had failed. It was the ultimate revelation of how far God was willing to go to redeem broken humanity. When Hell Tried to Stop the Promise Throughout history, the enemy launched repeated assaults against God's redemptive promise, and each time he failed. In Exodus 1:15-16, Pharaoh commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill every newborn Israelite son, attempting to extinguish the people through whom God's promise would be fulfilled. But the midwives feared God above Pharaoh, and the very household trying to destroy Israel ended up raising Moses, the man God would use to lead His people out of bondage. God did not panic. He had a plan. Centuries later, a wicked queen named Athaliah attempted to destroy the royal descendants of David by killing her own grandchildren, hoping to seize the throne and sever the lineage through which the Messiah would come. But a young boy named Joash was hidden away in the house of God for six years. When he was brought out and crowned king in 2 Kings 11:12, the royal line was preserved. Athaliah could seize a throne, but she could not cancel a covenant. Then came Herod. When the wise men arrived in Jerusalem asking where the newborn King of the Jews could be found, Herod ordered the slaughter of every male child two years old and under in Bethlehem. But God had already warned Joseph in a dream, recorded in Matthew 2:13, to take the child and flee to Egypt. Jesus was preserved. The promise kept moving forward. Different generations. Different rulers. Different strategies. The same result every single time: God's redemptive purpose continued marching forward because you cannot stop what He has already set in motion. What Looked Like Defeat Was Victory When Jesus stood before Pilate, when Judas had betrayed Him and His disciples had scattered and the crowd that had praised Him days earlier cried out for His crucifixion, everything appeared to be over. From every earthly angle, it looked like the opposition had finally succeeded. But what appeared to be the greatest defeat in human history was actually the greatest victory the world has ever known. Jesus was not dragged helplessly to Calvary. In John 10:17-18, He declared plainly that no one was taking His life from Him. He was laying it down willingly. When soldiers came to arrest Him in the garden and He spoke His name, they fell backward to the ground (John 18:6). He lacked nothing in terms of power. He simply understood the assignment. Colossians 2:14-15 describes what happened at the cross in triumphant language: the handwriting of ordinances against us was blotted out and nailed to His cross, and the principalities and powers were openly defeated. The cross was not merely a place of suffering. It was a place of the most decisive victory ever won. The Promise Is Still Alive On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood before a crowd and preached Christ crucified, buried, and risen. When the people were cut to the heart and asked what they should do, Peter's answer in Acts 2:38 was direct: repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then he added something that reaches across every generation: this promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all who are far off. That means the promise is still alive today. It has not lost any of its power. It is as active and available now as it was on that day in Jerusalem. If you find yourself weary, if your circumstances seem to contradict everything you have been believing for, if you feel like the enemy has gained the upper hand, hear this clearly: your past does not have the final word over your life. Your failures do not have the final word. Your circumstances do not have the final word. Jesus Christ has the final word. The promise that was announced in a garden, preserved through generations of attack, and fulfilled through death, burial, and resurrection is still marching forward. Numbers 23:19 reminds us that God is not a man that He should lie. When He says something is going to happen, it is going to happen. Stand on the Word. Claim the promises. Worship through the weariness. Hell cannot cancel Calvary.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

October 5, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Occupy Until He Comes: Living With Purpose Between Now and Eternity
There is a moment in Luke 19 that is easy to read past without fully absorbing its weight. Jesus is nearing Jerusalem, and the crowd around him is electric with anticipation. They are convinced that the kingdom of God is about to appear immediately. They want Rome overthrown. They want a throne established. They want everything set right, right now. Jesus senses the expectation. And instead of simply riding the wave of enthusiasm, he stops and tells a story. The parable of the ten servants in Luke 19 is not a comfortable story. It is a clarifying one. A nobleman leaves for a far country to receive a kingdom, entrusts his servants with resources, and gives them one command before he departs: occupy until I come. In the New King James rendering, that command becomes even more direct. Do business until I come. Not sit. Not wait. Not simply show up. Do business. The Space Between Departure and Return The setting of that parable is, in many ways, the exact setting in which the church finds itself today. Jesus has come. Calvary has happened. The grave has been defeated. The Holy Spirit has been poured out. And yet he has not returned. We are living in the space between his departure and his return, and the question that every believer must honestly wrestle with is this: what are we supposed to do while we wait? The answer the parable gives is not passive. It is not merely about attendance or preservation. It is about productivity, engagement, and stewardship. The nobleman did not leave his servants empty-handed. He placed something of value in their care and expected a return. God operates the same way. He never gives responsibility without also giving opportunity. He fills his people with his Spirit, as Acts 1 makes clear, not simply so they can speak in tongues in a church building, but so they can be witnesses. The evidence of the Spirit points toward an assignment, not just an experience. What Has Been Placed in Your Hands Every believer has been entrusted with something. The Word of God. A testimony. Time. Influence. Relationships. Gifts and abilities that were woven into the fabric of who you are before you were ever born. The question is not whether God has placed something in your hands. He has. The question is what you are doing with it. This is where the parable becomes uncomfortably personal. One of the servants in the story did not lose what he was given. He did not squander it or spend it recklessly. He wrapped it in a cloth and kept it safe, reasoning that his master was a hard man and he was afraid of failing. When the nobleman returned and called for an accounting, this servant presented the original amount, unchanged, untouched, and unproductive. The master's response was not relief. It was rebuke. Preservation is not the whole assignment. The truth was not handed down through generations so that it could be carefully wrapped and stored away. It was given to be spread. The Holy Spirit was not poured out so that believers could feel something extraordinary on Sunday mornings and then return to ordinary, self-focused weeks. It was given so that ordinary people could carry an extraordinary message into a world that desperately needs it. Fear Is a Terrible Steward The servant who buried his talent named his reason plainly. He was afraid. And fear, while understandable, is a devastating steward of kingdom resources. Fear buries gifts. It silences testimony. It keeps people from stepping into ministry, from reaching out to a neighbor, from sharing what God has done in their own life. The world around us is not always friendly territory. Luke 19:14 makes that plain as well. The citizens of the nobleman's story sent word after him saying they would not have him reign over them. Hostility is not a new development. But the parable is equally clear that hostility never canceled the assignment. Resistance does not excuse inactivity. Rejection does not release anyone from responsibility. Jesus declared in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church. In the ancient world, the gates of a city were where legal decrees were posted, where the business of governance was conducted. The declaration of Jesus is that whatever hell announces, whatever the enemy declares, it cannot stand against the forward movement of the kingdom. The church was never pictured as hiding behind locked doors waiting for things to get easier. It was commissioned, empowered, and sent. A Return and an Accounting The nobleman in the parable does come back. And when he does, he calls his servants to account. Not to punish them for the difficulty of the work. Not to dismiss the challenges they faced. But to ask the only question that ultimately matters: what did you do with what I gave you? The servants who had increased what they were entrusted with were not celebrated because they had matched each other. The one who gained five was not measured against the one who gained ten. Each was evaluated on the basis of his own stewardship, his own faithfulness, his own willingness to engage the assignment. This matters because the comparison trap is real. It is easy to look at someone else's platform, someone else's gifts, someone else's opportunities, and conclude that your own contribution is too small to count. But God is not grading on that curve. He knows what he placed in your hands. He is asking what you did with it. The Assignment Is Not Over The king has not yet returned. And as long as that is true, the assignment remains in force. There is still time to step into what God has called you to do. There is still time to tell your testimony, to pray with someone, to reach outside the comfortable circle of people who already share your faith. There is still time to ask God not what else he might give you, but what he wants you to do with what he has already given. The parable ends with a return. It always does. And when the king comes back, he will be looking for people who were found working, not waiting. Occupying, not hiding. Doing business on behalf of the kingdom, not simply preserving a comfortable seat inside it. The question worth sitting with today is a simple one. What are you doing with what God has placed in your hands?

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

September 28, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
When Something Stands Between You and God: Reclaiming Clear Vision for Your Family
There is a simple but sobering experiment worth trying. Hold a book directly in front of your face. Nothing about you changes. Nothing about the room changes. But suddenly, your ability to see everything in front of you is gone. Something came between you and your view, and that was enough. That image captures one of the most quietly dangerous realities in the spiritual life. We do not lose our vision of God all at once. We rarely wake up one morning and decide to walk away from faith, abandon our values, or let our family drift. Instead, it happens gradually, almost imperceptibly, through small compromises, misplaced priorities, and subtle distractions that inch their way between us and the God we love. One quiet decision at a time, our vision becomes blurry. The First Commandment Is About Position, Not Rank When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, He said something worth examining very carefully. He did not say, "You shall have no other gods above me." He said, "You shall have no other gods before me." The distinction matters enormously. The issue is not merely about rank or hierarchy. It is about position. Whatever stands in front of God in your life will eventually distort how you see Him. An idol, in the truest biblical sense, is not limited to a golden statue or an ancient pagan deity. An idol is anything that moves between you and God until it begins to shape how you see Him. It could be a career, a relationship, money, or ambition. It could also be something less obvious: the need for approval, the grip of fear, the bitterness of offense, or the comfort of control. None of these things are inherently evil. The danger comes when a good thing moves into God's place. As the saying goes, a blessing becomes an idol the moment it occupies a position that belongs to God alone. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 that the enemy's strategy is not to steal your Bible or silence the gospel. His aim is to blind the mind. If he can distort your vision of who God is and what God can do, he does not have to force your decisions. Your distorted vision will make them for you. A Miracle in Two Stages In Mark chapter 8, Jesus heals a blind man in an unusual way. Rather than restoring the man's sight instantly, He does it in two stages. The man first says he can see people, but they look like trees walking. Jesus touches him again, and then he sees clearly. This has puzzled many readers over the years. Why would Jesus, who is fully capable of instant healing, work in stages? The answer becomes clear when you read the surrounding context. In the same chapter, Jesus asks His disciples who people say He is. Peter gives the remarkable answer: "You are the Christ." It is a moment of genuine revelation. But just a few verses later, when Jesus begins to explain that He must suffer, be rejected, and be killed, Peter pulls Him aside and rebukes Him. Jesus responds with a sharp correction: "Get behind me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." Peter did not lose his faith. He lost his clarity. He had received genuine revelation about who Jesus was, but his personal expectations and ambitions had stepped in front of that truth. He wanted a Messiah who fit the version of victory he had imagined. When Jesus did not match that image, Peter tried to reshape Him. The two-stage healing is not a picture of limited power. It is a picture of the Christian journey. Sanctification is a process. We see in part, we grow, we are corrected, and we see more clearly. The danger comes when we assume that because we have received light in one area, we see everything perfectly. Spiritual maturity is not reaching the place where you have all the answers. It is remaining teachable enough for God to keep correcting your vision. What You Place Before God, Your Children May Place Beside God This is where the conversation becomes deeply personal, especially for families. Exodus 20:5-6 speaks of God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations. The word translated as "iniquity" carries three literal meanings: bent, twisted, and distorted. Idolatry does not just affect the worshiper. It bends the home, twists the priorities, and distorts the lens through which the next generation learns to see the world. Children are not born believing that success is life's greatest pursuit. They learn it by watching what the adults around them celebrate. They are not born thinking church is optional. They learn that by watching what is made optional. The choices made within a family's sphere of influence have a way of outlasting the people who made them. But here is the extraordinary hope embedded in that same passage. While the consequences of rebellion may reach three or four generations, God's mercy extends to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments. His grace is always longer than the reach of sin. The Declaration That Changes Everything In Joshua 24, a 110-year-old man who has fought battles, buried generations, and led a nation to the promised land gathers everyone together for his final message. He does not give a long list of rules. He simply draws a line and makes a declaration: "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua identifies three categories of gods his people were tempted by: the gods of their ancestors, the gods of their past bondage in Egypt, and the gods of the surrounding culture. The progression is familiar. Inherited idols, personal idols, and cultural idols are still the three great temptations facing every family today. His message is not complicated. It comes down to one word: choose. Faithfulness is never an accident. It is always a decision. Your greatest legacy is not what you leave to your children. It is what you leave in them. You can leave them material wealth, but if they never learn how to call on the name of God in a moment of crisis, what was the gain? A heritage of prayer, of worship, of knowing how to seek God in the dark, is worth more than any financial inheritance. Whatever has been broken in your family line is not the final word. Mercy is longer than your history. And today, you can be the generation that draws the line and says: it stops here.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

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September 21, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Dysfunction Is Not Your Destiny: Breaking the Cycle and Building a Lasting Legacy
Every generation stands in the middle of two others. You inherit something from those who came before you, and you pass something on to those who come after. The question is not whether you will leave a legacy — you will. The only question that matters is what kind of legacy it will be. This is not a small question. The answer shapes families, communities, and futures that extend far beyond what any of us can see. The Power of Generational Influence Psalm 78, written by Asaph — a gifted musician and prophetic composer from the era of David and Solomon — opens with an urgent call to listen, to learn, and to teach. The psalmist declares that the stories of God's faithfulness must not be hidden from the next generation. They must be told, passed down, and lived out, so that each generation can set its hope anew on God rather than repeat the failures of those who came before. That phrase — "set its hope anew" — is worth sitting with. Every generation must discover God for themselves. Faith cannot be inherited like a piece of furniture. It must be personally pursued, personally embraced, and personally lived. But the environment in which that pursuit happens is shaped enormously by the generation that came before. This is the weight and the wonder of generational influence. What the Data Actually Shows In the mid-1700s, two men lived in roughly the same time and place in America. One was Jonathan Edwards, a revivalist, pastor, and theologian who rose at four in the morning and spent up to thirteen hours a day in prayer and study of Scripture. The other was a man named Max Jukes, whose life went in a drastically different direction. Nearly 150 years after their deaths, an American educator traced the descendants of both men. The contrast was staggering. From Jonathan Edwards came one U.S. vice president, three U.S. senators, three governors, thirteen college presidents, sixty doctors, one hundred lawyers, one hundred clergymen, and two hundred and eighty-five college graduates, among many others. From Max Jukes came seven murderers, sixty thieves, one hundred ninety prostitutes, four hundred forty alcoholics, and three hundred who died prematurely. Two men. Two directions. Centuries of consequences. This is not a story about perfection. Edwards himself came from a family that was far from spotless — his grandmother was considered a disgrace, and his family tree included violent criminals. He had a choice about which influence would define him, and he made it deliberately and daily. The Truth About Generational Curses There is a concept that circulates widely — the idea of generational curses, the belief that the sins of previous generations are somehow genetically transferred and inescapably passed down. This idea, while it contains a kernel of truth about consequences, can become deeply destructive when taken too far. It can become a prison. A person begins to believe that the dysfunction they were born into is simply the hand they were dealt, and there is nothing to be done but live inside it. Or it becomes an excuse — a way of shifting responsibility for present choices onto past generations rather than taking ownership of one's own life and decisions. Ezekiel 18:20 is clear that each person is accountable for their own sin, not the sin of their parents. Every individual stands before God on the basis of their own choices. Romans 5:12 confirms that death spread to all people because all have sinned — each person's own sin is the issue, not a curse inherited from someone else. What Deuteronomy 5:9 does describe is not a curse in the mystical sense, but the very real consequences and influence that flow from one generation's decisions into the next. Bad decisions produce painful consequences, and those consequences can ripple outward for generations. That is sobering. But it is not the whole story. One Generation Can Change Everything Deuteronomy 5:10 is where hope breaks through. While the consequences of rejecting God may affect three or four generations, God lavishes His unfailing love on a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. The math is not close. One generation of faithfulness opens the door to a thousand generations of God's overflowing goodness. All it takes is one person who decides to turn the tide. One father who declares, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." One mother who refuses to let tragedy define her family's future. One young adult who looks at the dysfunction they were raised in and says, "This stops with me." The story of Joseph in Genesis is a stunning illustration of this truth. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob formed one of the most famously dysfunctional family lines in all of Scripture — marked by deception, favoritism, jealousy, and betrayal. The pattern of lying ran so deep that it passed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob without interruption. But Joseph refused to pick it up. Thrown into a pit by his own brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and forgotten in prison, he had every reason to become bitter, to deceive, to retaliate. Instead, he maintained his integrity at every turn. And in the end, he looked at his brothers and declared that what they had intended for evil, God had turned for good. One man's faithfulness reversed the momentum of generations. The Decision in Front of You The failures of a previous generation do not have to define your future. The dysfunction of the past does not have to be the blueprint for your present. Just because a home was broken does not mean the next home has to be. Just because addiction, deception, or bitterness marked those who came before does not mean it must mark those who come after. The gospel exists precisely for this moment. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the ultimate reversal — the point at which every curse of sin meets its match. By His wounds, healing is made available. Not just physical healing, but emotional, relational, and generational healing. You are standing in the middle of two generations right now. What will you pick up? What will you leave behind? What will you pass on? The direction you choose today is already shaping tomorrow. His mercy is forever. His kindness is forever. His goodness is forever. And one faithful generation is all it takes to set a thousand more on a completely different course.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

September 14, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Empty Vessels and Open Hands: What It Means to Let God Pour Into You
There is something quietly profound about an empty container. A bowl sitting on a counter, a jar waiting on a shelf — these things have no value in their emptiness alone. Their purpose is found only when something is poured into them. That image, simple as it is, captures one of the most important truths a person can wrestle with: God is ready to pour, but we have to be ready to receive. The Foundation That Holds Before anything can be poured out, there has to be something solid underneath. In Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus draws a vivid contrast between two builders. One hears the words of God and puts them into practice — and when the storms arrive, his house stands. The other hears the same words and does nothing with them — and when the storms arrive, his house collapses completely. The storms, Jesus makes clear, are coming either way. The rain does not skip the house built on sand just because its owner showed up to hear good teaching. The difference between the two houses is not the weather they face. It is the foundation underneath them when the weather hits. This is a truth that cuts through every layer of age and experience. It is not enough to sit in a room where the Word of God is being spoken. It is not enough to nod along, to feel the warmth of a worship service, to appreciate a moving message. The Word has to move from the ears into the hands and the feet. It has to become action. It has to become the daily choices we make when nobody is watching, the way we treat people when we are tired, the values we hold onto when holding on is costly. Hearing is the beginning. Doing is the foundation. A Woman, Two Boys, and a Little Bit of Oil In 2 Kings chapter 4, there is a story that does not get enough attention. A widow finds herself in a desperate situation. Her husband has died. A creditor has arrived at her door with a legal claim — pay the debt, or surrender her two sons. She has nothing. Almost nothing. She has one small jar with a little bit of oil inside. She does the only thing she knows to do. She goes to the man of God and lays her problem at his feet. His response is unusual. He tells her to go home, gather every empty vessel her neighbors can spare, and then begin pouring from her small jar. She does it. And the oil does not stop. It fills every bowl, every pot, every vase, every container she managed to borrow. The oil keeps flowing until there are no more empty vessels left. Then, and only then, does it stop. The detail worth sitting with is this: the oil stopped when the vessels ran out. Not when the miracle ran out. Not when God grew tired. The limiting factor was not the supply. It was the number of empty containers available to receive it. She paid her debts. She provided for her sons. God did not just rescue her from the crisis of that afternoon — He gave her a future. Dirty Dishes and Clean Hearts Here is where the image gets personal. A vessel that is already full cannot receive anything new. And a vessel that is dirty is not one anyone wants to eat from. Before God pours into a life, there is some housekeeping to do. The theological word for it is repentance, and it is less complicated than it sometimes sounds. It simply means coming to God honestly and saying, I have done things, said things, and thought about things that go against your Word. I am sorry. Will you forgive me? Will you help me turn and start making better choices? That is it. That is the beginning of a clean vessel. Repentance is not a punishment. It is a preparation. It is the washing of the dish before the meal is served. The plan laid out in Acts 2:38 follows this same logic. Repentance comes first, making room. Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ follows, representing the washing away of what was there before. And then God fills the vessel with His Spirit — the Holy Ghost, the presence of God living inside a human life. The sequence is not arbitrary. It is the order of a God who wants to pour into people who are ready to receive. When Prayers Move Mountains The widow's story is ancient, but the same God who multiplied her oil is still working today. The pattern has not changed. People face impossible situations. They go to God. They do what He says, even when it sounds unusual. And He moves. Prayers offered in faith still reach the ears of a God who listens. Doctors still sometimes walk into hospital rooms with reports that contradict everything they said five days earlier. Families that have been far from God for decades still find their way back. A father goes to church. A sister follows. A brother-in-law comes through the door for the first time in his life. A niece learns worship songs at home and sings them without being asked. God does not just answer the prayer in front of Him. He answers the prayers that have not even been prayed yet, moving in lives and generations that are still downstream. The oil did not stop because God ran out. It stopped because the vessels ran out. Hold Out Your Hands The question this story leaves behind is not whether God is willing to pour. He is. The question is whether we are positioned to receive. Are we built on a foundation that can hold when the storms arrive? Have we done the work of repentance, clearing out what should not be there? Are we holding out open, empty, clean hands and asking Him to fill us? Whatever you are carrying into today — fear, grief, debt, distance from God, a family situation that feels impossible — there is a God who sees it. He is not out of oil. He is not out of miracles. He is not out of grace. He is simply waiting for empty vessels.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

September 8, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Who Is Forming Your Family?
The family is under attack. That may sound like an alarming way to open a conversation, but if you have been paying attention to the world around you, it is not a surprising one. The pressures bearing down on the home today are relentless, and what makes them so dangerous is that most of them never knock on the door and announce themselves. They simply become part of the atmosphere, quietly shaping the way we think, the way we spend our time, and ultimately, the kind of family we become. So here is a question worth sitting with today: Who or what is forming your family? Something is. The only real question is whether it is something you have chosen, or something that has simply filled the vacuum left by the absence of intention. The Power of Intentional Legacy Psalm 78, verses 5 and 6, captures a vision that has been God's design from the very beginning. In it, God commands His people to teach His instructions to their children, so that the next generation might know them, and the generation after that, and the one after that. Faith was never meant to be accidental. Truth was never meant to be absorbed by osmosis. A lasting legacy is built on purpose, or it is not built at all. If we are not intentionally building something into our families, we will unintentionally pass along something we never meant to give them. By default, the inheritance becomes one of brokenness rather than blessing. The enemy of our souls is extraordinarily intentional. He comes, as Scripture says in John 10:10, to steal, to kill, and to destroy. He is particularly focused on the family because the family was God's institution, God's design, and therefore his primary target. The antidote is not perfection. It is intentionality. The Battle for Our Time Ephesians 5, verses 15 and 16, urges believers to walk carefully, not as fools but as wise people, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. The word translated as "circumspectly" in some versions carries the idea of looking around, being aware, not sleepwalking through life. A full calendar is not the same thing as a full life. A family can be involved in everything and deeply connected to nothing. The activities filling our schedules are not necessarily bad. Sports, school, work, appointments, and even church responsibilities are good things. But we must ask a harder question than whether we can fit something in. The better question is: What is this schedule producing in our family? Is it enhancing us or eroding us? Are we becoming the family God called us to be at the pace we are living? Protecting your family sometimes means saying no. Not every good opportunity is a God opportunity for your specific season of life. The goal is not an empty calendar. It is an intentional one. The Battle for Our Identity Colossians 2:8 warns against being taken captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Culture is relentless in telling us who to be, what success looks like, and what we should want. And because we are constantly absorbing information, comparison becomes almost unavoidable. But here is the liberating truth: we do not have to reinvent ourselves every time culture changes its mind. Our identity begins with the God who created us. Genesis 1:27 reminds us that we are made in His image, male and female, purposefully and uniquely designed. That foundation does not shift with trends or social movements. Our families need more than rules. They need to understand why we believe what we believe. Difficult questions deserve honest engagement, not avoidance. When our homes become safe places where truth is spoken clearly, questions are asked honestly, and love is never in doubt, we give our children something far more durable than a list of dos and don'ts. Conviction without relationship can feel like rejection. But relationship without truth eventually becomes abandonment. The goal is both, held together. The Battle for Our Thinking The pace of technological change is unlike anything previous generations have faced. Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant concept. It is embedded in our phones, our schools, our workplaces, and our homes. And like all powerful tools, it carries both potential and peril. The pursuit of unrestricted knowledge has always led God's people into trouble. The account of the Garden of Eden is instructive here. God did not withhold knowledge from Adam and Eve because He wanted to keep them ignorant. He wanted the relationship first. Through relationship, He would guide them into what they could handle. They short-circuited that process, and the consequences were catastrophic. The same dynamic is at play today. AI can assist our thinking, but it must never replace it. It can generate an apology, but it cannot humble a heart. It can produce a devotional, but it cannot build an altar in a home. It knows Scripture and will quote it back to you, but it will do so in service of validating your feelings rather than challenging you toward transformation. Proverbs 4:7 says that wisdom is the principal thing, and with all of our getting, we should get understanding. We need the Holy Spirit operating in our lives now more than ever, giving us the discernment to know the difference between what is real and what is imitation. The Battle for Our Attention Matthew 6:21 tells us that where our treasure is, our heart will be also. Whatever repeatedly receives our attention will eventually shape our priorities, our desires, and our affections. We are giving our attention to something every moment of every day. The only question is whether we are choosing it deliberately. Technology has made us the most connected generation in human history, and yet loneliness is at epidemic levels. Presence is not simply occupying the same room. It is the gift of focus, of eye contact, of listening to the mundane at 10:30 at night because that is when someone finally felt safe enough to open up. Protected spaces matter. A technology-free dinner table. An hour before bed without screens. One honest conversation. One prayer offered together. One Faithful Step You do not have to change everything today. But you can begin. One protected evening. One question asked and genuinely heard. One decision to put the phone down. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That declaration from Joshua 24:15 was not made from a position of perfection. It was made from a position of resolve. It is available to every family, in every season, at every table. Something is forming your family. Make sure it is something you have chosen.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

August 31, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
The Principle That Changes Everything: Putting God First in Every Area of Your Life
There is a thread woven through the entire fabric of Scripture, from the opening chapters of Genesis all the way through the letters of the New Testament, that most people either overlook or quietly choose to ignore. It is not a complicated thread to follow once you see it. But once you see it, you cannot unsee it. It is the principle of first fruits, and it has the power to reorder everything about the way you live, give, and trust God. More Than a Financial Conversation Before anything else, it is worth establishing something clearly: this is not really about money. Money is simply the lens through which a much deeper spiritual reality comes into focus. Jesus spoke about finances more than almost any other subject during His earthly ministry, and He did so because He understood the connection between our treasure and our heart. As He declared in Matthew 6:21, where a person's treasure is, that is precisely where their heart will follow. He did not say the reverse. He did not say that your treasure follows your heart. He said your heart follows your treasure. That distinction matters enormously. What we consistently invest in, what receives our time and energy and sacrifice, is what eventually captures our deepest affections. This is why the principle of firstfruits is not simply a financial strategy. It is a declaration of lordship. It is a statement about who is actually in charge of your life. A Principle From the Very Beginning In Exodus 13, God established something foundational with His people. He declared that whatever opens the womb, both among people and animals, belongs to Him. The firstborn was His. This was not an arbitrary rule. It was the establishment of a principle that runs like a river through the rest of Scripture: the first belongs to God. The principle deepened when God instructed in Exodus 23:19 that the very first of the first fruits of the land was to be brought to His house. Proverbs 3:9 echoes this same call, connecting the honoring of God with the first fruits of all increase to the promise that barns will be filled with plenty and vats will overflow. The order matters. The first portion is not what is left over. It is what comes first, before anything else is touched. The Story of Cain and Abel, Revisited Few stories in Scripture have generated more confusion than the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. Why did God receive Abel's offering and not Cain's? The answer is embedded in the language of the text itself. Abel brought the firstborn of his flock. The Scripture is specific and deliberate about that detail. But when it describes what Cain brought, it simply says he brought an offering in the process of time. There is no mention of first fruits. There is only the suggestion that time passed, a harvest came, and eventually Cain brought something to God. The implication is clear. Cain did not make God first. He gave God what was convenient, what remained after time had passed and other priorities had been addressed. And God, who looks at the heart behind every offering, did not receive it. This is not a story about God being harsh. It is a story about the importance of priority and the posture of the heart. The Redemptive Connection Here is where the principle becomes breathtaking in its depth. In Exodus 13, the law regarding the firstborn specified that what was clean was to be sacrificed, and what was unclean had to be redeemed with a lamb. Centuries later, when John the Baptist stood at the banks of the Jordan River and pointed to Jesus, he declared in John 1:29 that this was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The language was not accidental. Jesus was God's firstborn, clean and unblemished, offered as the first fruits sacrifice that would redeem everything that was unclean, which includes every one of us. Romans 11:16 states that if the first fruit is holy, the whole lump is also holy. This is the redemptive logic of the first fruits principle. When the first portion is consecrated to God, it sanctifies the rest. When you honor God with the first of your increase, the remainder of what you have comes under His blessing and His covering. What This Looks Like in Practice The practical application of this principle is straightforward, even if it requires genuine faith to live out. It means that when income arrives, the very first financial decision made is to give to God. Not after the mortgage is paid. Not after groceries are purchased. Not after every other obligation has been satisfied. First. Before anything else. This is not a prosperity doctrine. It is not a transaction where a certain gift guarantees a specific financial return. God does not operate like a vending machine. What He does promise, as stated in Malachi 3:10-11, is that He will open the windows of heaven and rebuke the devourer on behalf of those who honor Him with their tithes and offerings. Sometimes that looks like unexpected financial provision. Sometimes it looks like a car that keeps running, an appliance that holds together longer than it should, or a crisis that never materializes because God quietly intervened. The blessing does not always arrive in a form you can deposit. But it arrives. The Deeper Question The principle of first fruits ultimately asks a question that reaches far beyond finances. It asks whether God is truly first in every area of life. First in your schedule. First in your relationships. First in your ambitions and your plans and your future. First in your family, because even family can become an idol when it is elevated above God. Abraham was asked to offer Isaac, his only son, the very fulfillment of God's promise to him, as a sacrifice. God did not ultimately require Isaac's life. But He did require Abraham's willingness. He required proof that the promise had not replaced the Promise-Giver in Abraham's heart. That is the question the principle of first fruits places before every person who takes it seriously. Not simply, do I tithe? But rather, is God genuinely first? Is He Lord of all, or is He Lord of only the areas where surrender is comfortable and convenient? The invitation is open. Give God the first and the best, and watch what He does with the rest.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church

August 24, 2026 • 6 Minute Read
Who Holds Your Wallet? Rethinking the Way We Give
There is a question that most of us would rather not sit with too long: who is actually in charge of your finances? Not who manages the budget, not who pays the bills, but who is the true authority over the money that flows in and out of your life? It is a question that cuts right to the heart of faith, trust, and what we actually believe about God. Money is one of the most spiritually loaded subjects in all of Scripture. Jesus addressed it more than almost any other topic. In Matthew 6:24, he made a statement that was as blunt as it was profound, declaring that no one can serve two masters — a person will either love one and hate the other, or be loyal to one and despise the other. He concluded that no one can serve both God and money. That is not a suggestion. That is a diagnosis of the human heart. So the real question is not whether money is important. It clearly is. The question is whether money is your master or your tool. The Difference Between Tithing and Offering Most conversations about church giving stop at the tithe. Ten percent. One in ten. It is clean, it is mathematical, and once you have it figured out, it feels manageable. But Scripture does not stop at the tithe. In Malachi 3, God confronts his people with a piercing question: will a man rob God? When they ask how they have robbed him, the answer is telling. Not just in tithes. In tithes and offerings. Both. Together. The tithe and the offering are connected, and ignoring one while honoring the other leaves something unfinished in the spiritual economy of your life. The tithe is the foundation. It is the acknowledgment that everything you have came from God in the first place. The offering, however, is something different entirely. There is no fixed percentage attached to it. It is not a formula. It is a response — a willing, heartfelt, Spirit-led response to the goodness of God in your life. A Willing Heart Changes Everything When Moses was commissioned to build the tabernacle, he did not send out invoices. He did not mandate a percentage. He asked for offerings from everyone whose heart moved them to give, as described in Exodus 25. The qualification was not wealth. It was willingness. God wanted the sanctuary built from the overflow of grateful hearts, not reluctant checkbooks. This matters because it reframes the entire conversation. Giving is not a tax. It is not a religious obligation you check off a list. It is an act of worship that flows from a heart that has genuinely reckoned with how good God has been. When you stop and honestly consider the health you have, the abilities you possess, the relationships you enjoy, the income you earn — and you trace all of it back to its source — something shifts. Gratitude has a way of loosening the grip of self-sufficiency. And self-sufficiency is the real enemy here. The American ideal of being a self-made person sounds admirable on the surface, but underneath it is a quiet declaration of independence from God. It says: I do not need anyone. I can take care of myself. That posture, however culturally celebrated, is spiritually corrosive. It turns financial security into an idol, and idols always demand more than they give. The Blessing of Becoming a Giver Here is what Scripture consistently promises to those who learn to live with open hands: a blessed life. Acts 20:35 records these words of Jesus — it is more blessed to give than to receive. That is not a platitude. It is a principle woven into the very fabric of how human beings are designed. Generous people are, over the long arc of life, happier, more connected, and more free than those who hold tightly to what they have. There is even a physiological dimension to this. When you give willingly, your body releases chemicals associated with joy and connection. When you withhold stingily, your body produces cortisol — the stress hormone. It is as if God hard-wired generosity into the very biology of the human body, making it impossible to separate spiritual health from the posture of an open hand. Beyond personal joy, generosity builds relationships. It leaves a legacy. Psalms 37:25 describes the righteous person as one who is always generous, and whose children become a blessing. Generous parents raise generous children. The way you handle money in your home right now is teaching the next generation either to trust God or to trust themselves. The Widow and the Offering Pan Perhaps no story captures the spirit of true giving better than the one recorded in Mark 12. Jesus sat down across from the offering area and watched as people brought their contributions. The wealthy gave large amounts — impressive by any human measure. Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins, worth almost nothing in practical terms. Jesus called his disciples over immediately. He told them she had given more than everyone else. Not because the amount was larger, but because it cost her everything she had. The smallest offering ever recorded became the most celebrated act of generosity in the New Testament. It was not the size of the gift that moved Jesus. It was the size of the trust behind it. Settling the Question The invitation here is not to give until it hurts for the sake of hurting. It is to settle the question of who is actually Lord of your life — including the parts that feel most personal, most protected, most yours. For most people, that place is their finances. What would it look like to hold your income with an open hand? To ask God not just how much to keep, but how much to give? To become so naturally generous that giving feels less like a decision and more like a reflex — like tying your shoes? The promise on the other side of that question is not just a full barn, though Scripture speaks of that too. It is the freedom that comes from no longer being enslaved to your possessions. It is the joy of being used as a conduit of God's love in the world. It is the deep, settled peace of knowing that the one who holds your future is the same one who holds your wallet — and he is very, very good at his job.

Centerpointe Apostolic Church