Hi Phil,
I am impressed. That's rather scary.   Man, I just hope that when that kind
of test comes to me, I will be able to hear and obey and pass it like that.
At our church convention, much of the word we had was on the too most
important things we must do-hear and obey.  It could mean the difference
between life and death someday for any of us.
Vinny
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 12:28 PM
Subject: Easy Come; Easy Go


> Here is a true story which just happened to me in the last two weeks.
>
> Easy Come; Easy Go
>
>
>                          By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>
>      After setting up a website relative to the ministry to which
> the Lord had called me, and experiencing some results, it seemed
> prudent to expand.  I briefly prayed about advertising
> commercially on a local Christian radio station.  It seemed to me
> that it was a logical way to progress and the best way to appeal
> to a wide audience.  After checking on the advertising rates, I
> called friends and family and asked them to pray that the Lord
> would provide the money.  I needed 3,000 dollars.
>
>      One day, some friends called, let's call them Sam and Gloria,
> and said they were coming over.  When they got here, I was handed
> a check for 3,000 dollars which was the exact amount I needed.
> Praise God!  What a blessing this was and what a wonderful answer
> to prayer.  Especially since my wife and I were so financially
> broke at the time, too.  I called friends and family and told them
> the good news and they rejoiced with me.  After all, this had to
> be of the Lord.  Right?  Immediately, the next day, things began
> to happen to make me reconsider.
>
>      The money was given to me on a Friday.  Over the weekend, a
> number of things occurred to bring discouragement to my life.  I
> found them all quite puzzling and spiritually mysterious but bless
> God, He had answered prayer and things were about to change;
> weren't they?  Yet, I felt something was wrong.  As the week
> progressed, things actually grew worse in several different ways.
> I do not want to belabor all the things which occurred which
> attempted to confuse me because that part of this testimony is
> not important.  Besides, most people probably wouldn't believe it
> even if I did explain it in detail.  It is what happened to the
> money itself that is nothing short of amazing.
>
>      When Sam and his Wife, Gloria, came and gave me a check for
> the money, Gloria said she had a vision during her time in prayer
> two weeks earlier.  She saw packets of sealed seeds with paper
> money attached to each packet raining down from the sky.  The
> packets had no writing on them.  She knew what these items were,
> of course, because the Holy Spirit explained it during the vision.
> Since the packets of seed had no writing, she asked the Lord who
> it all was for.  The Lord said, "Phil."  She was then instructed
> to give the money to me.
>
>      Gloria set this, as it were, on the back burner and waited
> for further confirmation.  She decided, after a period of time, to
> ask her husband's opinion.  He already felt they should give the
> money to me.  Since they were in agreement, therefore, they did
> what the Lord had led them to do.
>
>      The first time I recognized something was wrong, was the
> moment they handed me the check.  I even stood with the check in
> my hand, thanking them for what they had done, but in my spirit,
> I felt something wasn't right.  Each day following the day I
> received the financial gift, different events occurred one by one
> which caused me to focus on the money.
>
>      As I walked through the kitchen the following Thursday, just
> six days after receiving the gift, I stopped dead in my tracks,
> turned, and placing both my hands on the counter top, I prayed.
> "Lord?  I need to know what is wrong and I need to know right
> now."  Suddenly, I knew.
>
>      The Lord said, "It's the money."
>
>      I said, "What about the money?"  He made it very clear He
> wanted me to return it.  No, He didn't explain why at first but I
> soon learned.
>
>      As I continued questioning the Lord about the whole
> situation, I asked Him how to best go about returning the money
> without offending the people that had given it to me.  The Lord
> showed me several things.  First, He reminded me of at least three
> things which were checks in my spirit, or notifications, if you
> will, of something that was wrong or that He wanted me to
> consider.  After identifying those three things that caused me to
> reconsider keeping the gift, the Lord revealed what was really
> happening.
>
>      The Lord said that I was attempting to market, as it were, my
> own ministry.  You see, I am no longer in business but in ministry
> and it isn't even mine; its His.  Since 1973, I have been self
> employed.  I have done radio commercials to market my business,
> printed fliers, mass mailed, set up websites, and used other
> marketing tools to advertise.  Now the Lord was telling me that I
> was trying to get the word out about what He had called me to do
> as if I were still in business.  He wanted me to return the money
> and let Him promote what He alone had started.  In this way, the
> Holy Spirit explained, I would not have to work at marketing the
> ministry, worry about people finding me, or even be concerned
> about the money needed for support.  His message was simple: I
> was attempting to advertise the ministry on my terms instead of
> His.  Understanding what He was telling me, I made contact with
> Sam and his wife and made arrangements to return the money.  Now,
> here is the amazing part.
>
>      When I explained to them why I was returning their money and
> explained all the details which when along with it, Gloria said,
> "This is amazing.  Last night the Lord spoke to me when I was
> praying and said, "The Money is coming back."  She questioned how
> this could be but the Lord just confirmed what He had said.  She
> wrote down what the Lord said in a computer file and saved it,
> because He said some other things related to the whole picture and
> she wanted to make note of it.
>
>      Thursday afternoon, when I had decided to return the money,
> due to all the Lord had shown me, I felt the Lord telling me other
> things concerning the actual money itself.  I asked the Lord,
> "What about the vision?  You even told them the money was for me
> and used my name in the vision."  The Holy Spirit then revealed to
> me that this was true; He, in fact, had told them to give me the
> money and confirmed it with a vision.  So, I said, "Then why did
> you tell them to give me the money if I am supposed to give it
> back?"
>
>      The Lord said, "It was a test for them and for you.  They
> obeyed by giving you the money as I told them so they passed the
> test.  Now it is your turn to see if you will obey."
>
> It was at that moment in time I knew I was going to do exactly
> what He had said.  No, it wasn't hard to tell them I was giving
> their money back.  Instead, I felt a sense a feeling of honor that
> the God of the universe would go to such elaborate means to test
> me.  First, he gave me the money.  Secondly, He allowed all sorts
> of things to happen which were things designed to distract me from
> hearing His voice.  Third, I stopped, in the midst of all the
> clutter going on around me, and prayed and heard His voice.
> Finally, I obeyed.
>
>      Once the decision was made, and the donors were told, I felt
> something else in my spirit that was amazingly unusual to me.  I
> felt that the Lord had just given me money to plant as seeds into
> the ministry He had called me to serve Him in.  Gloria then told
> me that the Lord told her that they had obeyed and given the
> money.  I had obeyed and the money was returned.  Now the seeds
> were planted.  Somehow, the Lord wanted me to plant financial seed
> while at the same time I had no money to do so.  He gave me money,
> which belonged to someone else, to use as seed money to plant for
> a future harvest.  By returning the money, He became responsible
> to make those seeds grow and I had to do nothing but obey.
> Additionally, the donors were blessed in a similar manner.
>
>      This is not the end of this story for two reasons.  First,
> when the Lord expands the ministry I am in now, I will have to add
> to this story to report on God's greatness.  Secondly, on Thursday
> afternoon, when I prayed in my kitchen and heard the Lord telling
> me what to do about returning the money, I had forgotten that our
> tax preparer was coming over that evening for us to sign the
> papers concerning our income tax return.  three hours after the
> Lord revealed His truth to me about the money, we were seated at
> our dining room table listening to the CPA explain all he had
> done.  When he said, "between your state and federal taxes,
> therefore, you are getting back 5,000 dollars," I nearly fell off
> my chair.  If Sam and Gloria had not given me the 3,000 the week
> before, and if I had not heard the voice of the Lord about
> returning it, I would have taken my own money, spent it, and never
> once realized why my investment in radio commercials proved
> fruitless.
>
>      Finally, Gloria told me the next day something else the Lord
> told her concerning the money.  She just was asking the Lord in
> the thoughts of her prayer time, why I gave the money back when
> He, the Lord, had not only given her a vision but also even said
> they were to give the money to me.  The Lord told her that the
> money was seed.  She and her husband, therefore, had planted the
> seed but gotten the money back.  He then asked her where the money
> was now and she said, "being returned."  He then told her, the
> seed is now planted.
>
>      I don't know if you really followed all of this but if not,
> go back and read it all again.  The bottom line is this.  God
> wanted to test me as well as Sam and Gloria.  God knew I needed
> money that I did not have.  He knew, if I got my income tax back,
> I would think, with that much money, I could spend 3,000 dollars
> on radio commercials.  He did not want me to do that so He devised
> an intricate test to see if I could hear him through an onslaught
> of clutter.  A vision was given in order to confirm Sam and Gloria
> would do the will of the Lord.  They gave.  Then I was tested to
> see if I would obey by giving it back.  I did.  When I did, the
> Lord confirmed the return of the money before I returned it.  He
> also told me, and Gloria, that the money was seed and the seed was
> now planted.  So, as I sat in my living room considering all this,
> I suddenly realized, I am going to reap a harvest which was the
> outcome of using somebody else's money for a brief period of time.
> Why the exchange you ask?  As I have said, first, it was a test
> but there is more to it than that.  There was a harvest the Lord
> wanted some people to experience.  He made a way so both parties
> could receive confirmation of the will of the Lord and then
> promised a blessing as a result.  As they say, "Easy Come; easy
> go," but with God, "All things are possible."
>
> I Flew Kites With Jesus
> www.SafePlaceFellowship.com