The Secret to Attracting the Favor of the LordSample

By 2002 I had received my assignment from the Lord, which was to write six-figure checks for my local church. At the time, I had no money and no assets. I was literally broke, and the Lord had told me to write $100,000 checks for my church! This was mission impossible.

In order to engage my assignment, I discussed a property development plan with my pastor at the time. This included the purchase of 23 residential blocks of land, to build houses on and then sell and pass on the profits to the church. My pastor knew I had no money and he wanted me to do it with the support of other men. Therefore, he chose two of the wealthy bigshots in our church and they were happy to join me in this venture.

I began to lobby a developer to sell me these blocks of land. He was very reluctant because the market was rising extremely fast, the land was in short supply and people were having to go into a ballot to gain access to vacant land. At best they could only get one block and I was lobbying for 23! It was mission impossible and made worse because the developer kept asking to see my financial capacity to buy the land.

During the ensuing months, I had multiple meetings with my two “partners” and as we progressed through this process, each partner pledged to have their funds on standby because we were slowly getting access to the land. I took advantage of the delay and I scraped together enough money to use as my 1/3rd deposit.

Eventually, I wore the developer down and in sheer frustration, he committed ten blocks to me on a Friday and demanded I pay for them immediately. I rejoiced and went back to my partners, telling them we would be going ahead and for them to get their bank checks. However, both of them made excuses and pulled out of the deal right at the end with no notice whatsoever! So much for the church “bigshots” who were there to help me. Do not be surprised when you face adversity and setbacks when trying to do God’s will. The enemy will do everything to try and take you off your Kingdom assignment.

At this point I was stranded and faced an important decision – do I give the developer a check and commit to these blocks of land and do my assignment, or do I do the safest thing and back out? If I gave him a check, I would have to give it to him so late in the day that he could not cash it, and that would give me just one weekend to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for the land by Monday. If I did not come up with the balance of funds on Monday, my check would bounce, and I would lose my deposit.

I decided to commit unconditionally. I paid for the full amount at 4.50 pm on Friday afternoon and all weekend I lobbied investors to see if I could sell each block of land for a profit. Well, the Lord applied His favor because I had no way out of doing His will.

By Monday I had sold seven of the blocks of land, each for more than I had “paid”, and this yielded enough to pay for all 10 blocks and create $70,000 profit for my church. This meant I had made $70,000 for my church in one weekend, with no money of my own. My wife, Merlene, went on to develop the other three blocks of land into houses and sold all three for a significant profit which completed the process of my assignment.

Many years later, Merlene and I are still committed unconditionally to our Kingdom assignments and witnessing the Lord’s favor, time and time again! Our acquisitions company has grown into a large enterprise which is way beyond our combined natural capacities and this company is the primary funder of Kingdom Investors, a marketplace ministry reaching and equipping millions of business people on how to trade God’s way. I am still at the same church and it is a very prosperous church now purchasing its own prime building. Again, the Lord’s favor is not dependent on the individual, but on the commitment to completing the Kingdom assignment and doing it God’s way.