Hello everyone. I’m Joshua August with Joshua August Ministries on YouTube. Welcome to God Today. Today, I’m going to be talking about favor and finding favor with God and man. I was just sitting here praying, and I was like, “Lord, what do you want to talk about?” And He said, “Favor, teach them about favor.”
So do you folks know that you can grow in favor? You can grow in favor with man and with God. Jesus did. Can you imagine just growing and getting more and more favor compound interest with the Lord? That’s what I love about God math. In the beginning of the Bible, He didn’t say be fruitful and add. He said, be fruitful and multiply. He’s a God of multiplication, times 30 fold, 60 fold, a hundred fold. He’s just an amazing God multiplication. But if you look up favor in God’s heavenly dictionary, do you know what it would say? It would say, obedience. And that’s what a lot of people don’t like to do. We like to make our own sacrifices. We like to choose how we’ll serve God. Well, I’m going to feed the homeless or I gave this amount of dollars or I’m going to help this person. But it says in Samuel distinctly, that obedience is greater than sacrifice. I mean, I feel the Lord so strong right now. And it’s the key to God’s favor. Even in the very beginning from day one, Cain and Abel. Cain decided, I’m going to do these things with my hands. And it was an amazing sacrifice. It was incredible. I’m sure he was amazing at his job and what he was trying to do. But Abel was the one being obedient and making the offering to the Lord. And we know Jesus, you know, definitely walked in obedience. And He said, He even said it with his own lips. He said, “I only do what I see my Father doing.”
And I just want to share a few quick stories with you. Before I entered this season of marketplace ministry, where I am now, I was kind of fighting the Lord. You know, I was doing incredible things, making videos, helping the homeless, doing things like that. But I decided, and someone spoke to me, you know, to surrender and to get into marketplace ministry. And although I was doing these amazing things, as soon as I raised my hands and I submitted to the Lord, I ran into somebody, and long story short, there was a super Kingdom connection. I got offered a job by that person and that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t postured my heart for obedience and to not just do the things that I wanted to do. And you might be saying, where’s the favor in that? Well, I’ll show you, There is some there, because I didn’t apply for that job, but more favor came. So now that I’m doing marketplace ministry and I’m ministering, evangelizing, and which I love, but I have a heart of a worshiper, a heart of a pastor, missionary. And sometimes you can think like, oh, these aren’t as good as just doing full-time ministry, but it is full-time ministry. So I want to tell you, I’m a filmmaker, and I ended up making a film with my new company. One that God supernaturally brought together. Like I’ve been trying to make this film for about eight years, and I just have always had the idea, but the cast came together, the subject came together, and the locations. It was all perfectly synergized for me to actually do it. I was just waiting for the right components, and folks, I made the film. So God answered that cry of my heart. And I didn’t even pray for it. You know, while I was there, I didn’t. I entered it and I got it accepted to a film festival. So God answered, you know, it says delight in me and I’ll give you the desires of your heart. You know what I mean? And so if you’re really going to delight in God, people, I think people misread that verse. If you’re going to delight in God, that means you have to delight in obeying Him. You have to delight in following Him, learning from Him and in drinking from His cup, you know, good, bad, tough, all those types of things.
But I just want to encourage you. Obedience is the gateway to favor. It opens the floodgates, because God knows you best, and He wants to give you those things anyway, and favor will open the door. So I just thank you in Jesus’ Name for anybody watching, that you continue to develop a heart of obedience. Obedience is greater than sacrifice, that you work and serve and grow in favor in the Lord like Jesus did, in Jesus’ precious Name, with wisdom and peace and favor, Amen.