Ch4: Episode 5: The Blessing of the Tithe: Unleashing God's Overflowing Abundance

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Well, welcome back to Diary of a Black Woman podcast.

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I'm your host, Connie Morris. And in our final episode of this series,

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we will be discussing the blessing of the tithe found in Malachi chapter 3, verses 8 through 12.

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This episode highlights the spiritual principle of

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giving back to God and the blessings that

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follow And so today we're going to be looking

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at Malachi and we're going to use the NIV translation So if you have that translation

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or just the Bible that you have you want to follow with me We're going to start

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in chapter 3 verse 8 And we are in what chapter four?

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What is in your hands from the simple to the supernatural?

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And so what do we have in our hands?

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And so we have tithes in our hands this week. So let's read and see how God

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wants us to handle his money.

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Okay. Verse eight. Will a mere mortal rob God?

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Yet you rob me. But you ask, how are we robbing you in tithes and offering? So tithes is 10%.

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You are under a curse, your whole nation, because you are robbing me.

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Verse 10, bring the whole tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house.

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Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the

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floodgates of heaven And pour out so much blessing that there will not be room

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enough to store it. Verse 11.

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I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and vines in your fields will

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not drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty. Lord Almighty.

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Then all the nations will call

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you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the Lord Almighty.

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We see here that God challenges his people to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse,

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promising to open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so many blessings that

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there is not room enough to store it.

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He also promises to prevent pests from devouring their crops to ensure their vines produce fruit.

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So what is the cultural background of a tithe? So we're going to do a little biblical study here.

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So the practice of tithing was an integral part of the Israelites' law law,

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instituted to support the Levites, people of low income and functioning of the temple.

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So people who, the Levites, they worked for the sacrifice, right?

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They worked in the temple.

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And then people who had low income. So we have people back in biblical days

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who didn't make a lot of money, right? So that happens still today.

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And then, and the functioning of the temple. So So people had a little mediocre job.

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So let's go to Leviticus. We rarely go to Leviticus.

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I have a devotion on Leviticus too. We'll get to that.

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I don't know what number that one is, but we're going to go to Leviticus and

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see what Leviticus says about the tithes.

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Leviticus. Leviticus chapter 27, verses 30.

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I'm reading from the NIV. Verses 30 through 33. to support the Levites.

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Okay, they were describing the people with low incomes and the functioning of the temple.

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So people who worked in the temple, that money went for them.

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And so verses, chapter 27, verses 30 through.

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233, let's see what the Bible says about tithing.

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Here it says, A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from soil or

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fruit from the tree, belongs to the Lord.

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It is holy to the Lord.

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Whoever will redeem any of their tithes must add a fifth of the value to it.

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Every type of the herd and flock, every 10th animal that passes under the shepherd

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rod will be holy to the Lord.

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So everything that you plant was holy to the Lord.

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And then let's go to Deuteronomy 14, 22 to chapter 14.

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Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 14, then verses 22 to 29.

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Let's see what else the Bible says about the tithe. It reads.

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As a dwelling for his name so that you may learn to to reverence the Lord your God always.

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Verse 24, but if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the

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Lord your God, cannot carry your tithes because the place where the Lord will

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choose to put his name is so far away.

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Then exchange your tithes for silver and take the silver with you and go to

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the place the Lord your God will choose.

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Verse 26, use the silver to buy whatever you like, like cattle,

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sheep, wine, or other fermented drink, or anything you wish,

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then you and your household should eat there in the presence of the Lord your God.

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Verse 27, And do not neglect the Levites living in your town,

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for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

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At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce

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and store it in your towns,

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so that the Levites who have no allotment or inheritance of their own,

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and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may

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come eat and be satisfied, So that the Lord your God may be blessed in all the work of your hands.

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So the importance of the tithes that sometimes always get a bad rap,

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it is to go to the storehouse and it takes care of, we see the widows and those

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that Levi's who don't have an inheritance, but also goes to pay for the storehouse,

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which is your church, electric.

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Also, most of the time it pays for the salary of your pastors and the staff

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and whatever it takes to keep that church going.

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So tithing was a demonstration of faith, obedience, and gratitude to God for his provision.

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And so the offering is anything that is above the tithe.

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So you maybe I maybe have a building fund, a lot of things that kids always.

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Children's church always have activities. They have camps and things that you give into.

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Those are kind of the offerings that you offer above your tithes.

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And so what does God do? The significance of the tithe. Tithing acknowledges

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God's sovereignty and provision.

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It acknowledges that God gave it to you and you are honoring him when you return the tenth of it.

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So by giving a tenth of their produce of earning, the Israelites recognize that

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everything they had came from God.

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That's what we do. We recognize that everything that we have comes from God.

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And if you are a tither, you know that you never go broke, right?

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Because you can never outgive God.

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Things can be tight, but God always comes through.

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It's always us it is also a

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way to support the community and ensure that

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everyone needs were met reflecting god's care

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for his people if you get a chance you can read the book of acts and it shows

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how that the church that they would sell their land and everything to make sure

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that every person was taken care of in the church so it wasn't like we the people

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had their hand out for the government,

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the church was responsible for providing for the community of people that attended their church.

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So there was no one left behind, no one's hungry or homeless, right?

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That each person would give, sell their land to make sure everybody was taken care of in that church.

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The role of prophets like Malachi. What was Malachi's role?

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Prophets like Malachi were sent by God to call people back to faithfulness and obedience.

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Malachi's message challenged the Israelites to return to proper worship and

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trust in God's promises.

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And so things got a little tilted like they always do, right?

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So Malachi calls everyone back, but his message was raw. all.

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It was like, will the man rob God?

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He said, you have robbed him in tithes and offering.

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So things still today and even back then that have to be reminded that can a man rob God?

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And so that we still use that verse in offering scriptures, tithes and offering

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scriptures today. day. But God has other promises.

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What is the blessing of tithing?

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God promised to bless those who bring their whole tithes, ensuring that their

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needs are abundantly met.

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The phrase, open the floodgates of heaven, signifies an overwhelming outpouring of blessings.

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And so a lot of times we get so concerned about we giving our tithes to men,

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we give our tithes to God and they mess it up.

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They got to handle it. And, you know, God don't play when it comes to his children.

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And we see in what we just read, he don't play when it comes to his tithes.

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And then provision and protection is offered to us as we do our part.

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God promises I mean what we have in our hand We have tithes in our hand Right

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And so God promises To extend beyond provision and protection.

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Preventing pests from devouring crops And ensuring if you have a farm It's very

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agricultural Then if you own a farm You want your farm to produce well You don't

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want the pesky birds To eat up all your produce God promises that he will protect,

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even your produce. How powerful is that?

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You know, this reflects God's comprehensive care over every aspect of our life.

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So whatever you're tithing, God's protecting, right? God is protecting.

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He said he was open the floodgates of heaven.

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There are so many stories I can share with you, but I don't want to keep you long.

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But once you begin to get in the habit of just allowing God to bless what he's

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given you, give him back.

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And so if you have a business, you give him 10% of your business,

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give him 10% of what God has given you, he will bless you in abundantly.

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You would never want for anything, right?

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I said he would even rebuke the devourer. So you've got your security over everything

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that he has promised you.

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You know, let's read that again. Let's not forget the promises of the blessing.

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I don't want you to think that I'm making it up. Let me find it again.

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Go back. Even if you have it, go back to Malachi.

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Go back to Malachi. Malachi 3, verses 9 through 10.

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He said, when you bring your whole tithe into the house, that there may be food in my house.

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He says, test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw

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open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will

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be not room enough to store it.

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I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields

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will not drop their fruit before it's ripe, says the Lord Almighty.

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Then all your nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful

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land, says the Lord Almighty.

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Every translation has a different way of saying it, but he will bless you.

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He will bless you. God's promise extends beyond provision to protection,

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preventing pests from devouring your crop.

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And this reflects God's comprehensive care over every aspect of our life.

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What is this? It says Elijah question.

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It says significant testing of God.

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Malachi 10 is unique in this, that God invites his people to test him in their tithing.

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This challenge emphasizes God's faithfulness and his desire to bless his people abundantly.

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God says, test me, see if I won't do this so that's kind of like a challenge

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like challenge me see if i will not bless you if you,

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don't if you if you just he didn't say that in any of the other ones but he

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said it if you just test me in this that i will not open that windows of heaven

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for you that's the one i always remember and i will not rebuke the devourer for your sake Hmm.

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It's a tithing teaches us to trust God with our resources, recognizing that

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he can do far more with our obedience than we could ever achieve on our own.

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He can do far more with our 10% than we can do with our own.

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Right. At 10% is nothing to him, but it can stretch further.

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It can make our 90% stretch much,

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much further. So when the Bible says storehouse, what does that mean?

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The storehouse represents the temple, the place of worship and community support.

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So he says, bring all the tithes to the storehouse.

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The storehouse is a place where you pretty much get fed, where you worship God.

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It's your church home, I call it. It's your community home. So bringing tithes

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to the storehouse ensures that the needs of the community are met and worship

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can continue unhindered.

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We know that salvation is free, but running the church is not.

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Right. And so bring your tithes to your place of worship.

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If you get your worship from being online, then you take it to that place, your place of worship.

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Similar to the widow with the mite. Remember, she gave her whole. She gave her mite.

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The feeding of 5,000 gave her mite.

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Tithing demonstrates how God uses our faithful offering to accomplish his purpose.

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What do you have in your hand? The lady with the mite gave all she had.

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It wasn't just in her hand, but it also seemed like it was in her heart too.

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The little boy with the food, with the fishes and the loaves.

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He said, here, you can use me. You can use this.

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So call to tithe requires faith and willingness to trust God's promises.

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It reflects a commitment to honor God with our resources.

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So how do we trust God? We can say, I trust the Lord.

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But when he says, trust me with your tithes and your offerings,

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That's how it shows that we trust him.

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What can God do with our tithes and our offering? What can God do with what we have in our hand?

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He wants to bless us. Can we trust him with our tithes and our offering?

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Throughout the scripture, faith and obedience are intertwined.

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The act of tithing exemplifies this principle, showing that when we honor God

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with our resources, He responds with provision and protection.

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We don't have to worry about the crazy world when we know we're doing what God

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requires of us. Remember, we're following the instruction.

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What's the instruction for this episode, for this lesson?

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He says 10% in offerings.

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And I will bless you. You won't have room enough to receive it.

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I will rebuke the devourer for your sake.

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Wow. I will protect you. I will make sure that every, you will have good produce.

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You will be productive.

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Is it worth it? Or do we still want to do things on our own?

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What do you have in your hand?

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From the simple to the miraculous, the simple to the supernatural.

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All right. How do we apply this basic principle to our everyday lives?

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Number one, we reflect on your resources. Take a moment to assess what you have.

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And so we can always know when we do our taxes done and we look at our final W-2,

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if you're in America, and you can see, did I actually tie my,

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did I do the right thing? proper thing? Did I honor God with my income?

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We can always check and verify if that worked.

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That's how we can do that with our tithes and our offerings.

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Did we really give God his true value in 2024?

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Also, we're still looking at the skills and talents and our time and our finance.

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That's where we get the financial resources point from.

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Did we really honor God with our finances?

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What do we have in our hand from the simple to the supernatural?

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Remember, start small, right? There's nothing too small for God to use.

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You know, I remember, you know, starting small.

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Like, you know, I was when I started church, I didn't really have.

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Remember, we're going to tell my story later, but we'll just we'll keep it going

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because I don't want to keep you long.

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All right, scripture for that is each of you should use whatever gift you have

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received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in a various form.

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So make sure you put everything you have that God has given you.

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Use that grace to serve others.

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Act in faith like Israelites. Step out in faith with what you have.

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Trust that God can multiply your humble offerings beyond your imaginations.

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I mean, he gave you enough to give back to him. Isn't that like,

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God, I'm going to give you this job so you can be able, so I can bless you more, right?

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I'm going to give you this job so you can tithe and give offerings so I can

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promote you more to a higher place.

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Just give me back 10% and watch yourself get promoted. Interesting, right?

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Hebrews 11.1, now faith is the confidence

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and what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see.

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Number three, obedience brings blessings.

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God promises blessings for those who faithfully bring their tithes and offering.

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Offering our obedience to God's guidance can

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unlock this supernatural provision we

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do want to unlock that supernatural

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provision so God's promise obedience brings blessings we know what to do now

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it's just time to do it if you're tired of that job if you I don't know where

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you work but if you're tired of that job you're tired of working overtime to make ends meet.

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Start giving your tithes and offering and watch God become your provider,

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your source, and watch how that begins to change.

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I remember that I was working a lot of overtime and I said, you know what?

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I'm not giving God enough money because I don't have that. I'm just tired.

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And I said, I'm just going to start tithing and giving a lot of money.

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Pretty soon, I didn't really have to work a lot more overtime,

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you know, because I'm trying to make more money to do what?

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But, you know, it didn't really start to add up because remember,

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you know, the tax man going to get his.

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So let's not, the tax man automatically is getting his.

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I think his is like 26, 36%. It's way more than 10% ripping us off.

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And we came to give God 10%.

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So let's give God 10% so he can get the tax man off our back. How about that?

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That sound like a plan? So obedience brings blessing.

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Our obedience to God's guidance can unlock his supernatural provision.

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Remember, it's better to obey, but better than sacrifice.

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So we have to get into prayer and find out how God wants to bring a balance to this.

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Because we can create some bad habits of thinking that we can work our way out

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of some issues that we develop.

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But God, Just like the Queen of Sheba asked for wisdom, we can ask for wisdom

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and God can show us a way out of our situation.

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Expect miracles. Anticipate that God will show up in miraculous ways when you act in faith.

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God promised to open the floodgates of heaven signifies an overwhelming abundance of blessings.

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Wouldn't that save you from working all that overtime?

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Because to me, it never balanced out. Because once Uncle Sam takes his cut...

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You know, it just never balanced out. That extra 50 or a hundred dollars was

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never, it seemed like it was never, ever enough.

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So I put back on the overtime, spent more time with my children and start giving

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tithes and offering and then volunteering at the church. It seems like what?

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And then when they said, ask me, do you want to work a little more overtime? I was like, no, I'm good.

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I learned that I don't need all that extra overtime because it wasn't really

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adding up. something to think about.

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Remember, trust Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 says, trust in the Lord with all your heart

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and lean not to your own understanding.

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Because our own understanding get it all twisted, doesn't it?

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Our own understanding, you get it all twisted.

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We keep leaning to our own understanding. We tired.

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I remember I listened to a friend, we're having lunch. She said she was working 80 hours a week.

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I said, how do you work? Is there 80 hours in a week?

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She said, yes, there is. I said, I was figuring out how did you sleep?

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I mean, that's kind of like an impossible thing to do. 80 hours in a week?

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You know, you work 40 hours, you double that. When do you sleep?

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And so I was still puzzled because something was missing from that framework.

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Framework, the blessing, the God part was missing from that part in her life, right?

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You know, that was, that was interesting, you know, and then we know that faith

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without works is dead, but not the works in your own flesh, right?

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Work your faith, find a way to work your faith.

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Okay. So if you, if you have began the tithe and you find out that God is doing

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a supernatural in your life, I would love to hear about that.

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If you have some unexpected blessings that happen because you have obeyed the

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word of God, I would love to hear that.

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This is our final episode, so I want to go over these decrees with you.

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This was very good, very interesting, and really kind of helped me,

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remind me of why we do the things we do in the Bible.

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Sometimes we can do things out of habit and forget the main purpose of why we do things.

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We become so super spiritual or so habit We forget to pull on the faith that

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we should be pulling on So this just reminded me that Hey,

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I got some blessings coming my way And I'm not at the overflow So I need to

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pull on God's coat a little bit more Amen If that's you,

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you do the same So just remind, let's do the decree,

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And repeat after me I decree that my faithfulness and tithes and offerings are.

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I'm sorry, let's repeat that. I decree that my faithfulness and tithes and offering

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will release God's overflowing blessings and protection over my life.

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I decree that as I honor God with my resources, I trust in his promise to open

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the windows of heaven and pour out blessings beyond measure.

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I decree that my faith and obedience will unlock God's supernatural provision.

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I decree that I will expect and receive God's miraculous interventions in my life.

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I'm so excited that this was so good. It was such a refresher to remind ourselves

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that God wants to take the simple and make it into the supernatural.

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Like, he's a supernatural God.

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You know, he's a supernatural God. It's not all about money. It's just about wisdom.

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Queen of Sheba said, I got money. I don't need the money. I just want that wisdom,

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right? I want that intervention.

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I want that supernatural provision.

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So thank you. So thank you for joining me through this series.

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The blessing of tithing reminds us of God's incredible faithfulness and generosity.

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Hope these episodes have inspired you to see the extraordinary potential in

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what you hold in your hand.

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Stay blessed and keep believing and continue to trust God's supernatural provision.

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The next episode is going to be chapter five. It's embracing God's unchanging call.

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It's really, it's the gifts of no return, embracing God's unchanging call.

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And throughout the next episodes of chapter 5, we're going to explore God's

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call on our lives, remain steadfast, and guiding us through seasons of change and uncertainty.

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When God calls you, he has not changed his mind.

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So hopefully that this next chapter will stir up the gifts and callings that he has on your life.

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And so join me as we uncover the powerful ways in which embracing God's call

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to lead to a life of purpose, fulfillment, and unwavering faith.

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Don't forget to download a copy of Chapter 4.

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Chapter 5 will be available on my website, Diary of a Black Woman, LLC.

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And you can access other resources there. This has been fun.

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Chapter 4 has been fun. and I'm looking forward to chapter five.

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If you have any breakthrough moments, feel free to just leave a comment,

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share your journey, your insights.

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Please don't hesitate to reach out.

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You can email me directly at ConnieMorris at DiaryOfABlackWomenLLC.com.

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And if this has inspired you, please share it with a friend, subscribe and enjoy.

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Until next time, this is Diary of a Black Woman podcast.