Bless Me So I Can Spend More on Me —7-Day Devotional & Group Study

Seven Days

One short reading and one prayer a day. Ten minutes, no rush.

1. Day 1Ordering at the Drive-Thru Window

   "You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

   The song opens with a prayer that sounds suspiciously like a lunch order: “Extra blessing, hold the guilt, add a lake house, let’s go.” The narrator pulls up to the window of heaven, recites his list, and expects the bag handed out hot. It is funny because it is exaggerated — and it stings because it is not exaggerated by much. Most of us have prayed a drive-thru prayer. We just used quieter words.

   James diagnoses the whole transaction in two verses. First, remarkably, he says the problem is sometimes that we do not ask at all — we scheme, covet, and fight for what a simple request could have brought. God is not stingy; He invites asking. Jesus Himself said, “Ask and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7). So let us be clear about what this song is not mocking: bold, childlike asking is not the disease. A Father who tells His children to ask is a Father who loves to give.

   The disease is in the second half: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James could have written the chorus himself — bless me so I can spend more on me. The drive-thru prayer treats God as staff, not as Father. It wants His hand and has no interest in His face. It would happily take the bag and drive off without ever parking the car and coming inside to sit at the table with Him.

   Here is where the mirror turns toward us, because the drive-thru window is not only at the prosperity preacher’s church. It is anywhere prayer shrinks to a list of deliverables. When our prayers are all requisition and no relationship — when we talk to God mostly when we want something moved, fixed, funded, or healed on our schedule — we are in the same lane as the narrator, just in a humbler vehicle. The test is simple and uncomfortable: subtract every request from your prayers this week. What remains? Any worship? Any confession? Any listening? Any love?

   Prayer is communion before it is petition. The Lord’s Prayer asks for bread, yes — one line of it — after it has hallowed a name, longed for a kingdom, and bowed to a will. Bring your requests; your Father wants them. But come inside. Sit down. The window is for strangers; the table is for children.

   Journal Questions

   • If I subtracted every request from my prayers this week, what would be left?
   • What is the difference between the bold asking Jesus invites (Matthew 7:7) and the drive-thru ordering James condemns — and which does my prayer life look more like?
   • What do my most repeated prayer requests reveal about what I really want God for?

   Prayer

   Father, forgive me for the times I have pulled up to Your window with a list and driven off without seeking Your face. Thank You that You invite me to ask — teach me to ask with a child’s heart, not a customer’s. Before You bless my hands, have my heart. Amen.

2. Day 2Till the Barns Can’t Hold It

   "And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’”"

   The chorus of this song is a prayer Jesus already answered — with a parable. “Bless me, Lord, till the barns can’t hold it” is not a new request; it is the rich fool’s business plan set to a beat. Jesus told the story of a man whose ground did exactly what the narrator is praying for: it yielded so much that his barns could not hold it. And notice — the abundance itself was not the sin. The harvest came from the ground, and the ground’s increase comes from God. Scripture never blushes at a good crop.

   Watch instead what the man does with his windfall, and listen to his pronouns. “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops... This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself...” In three verses he manages to hold a full board meeting in which he is the chairman, the shareholders, and the only beneficiary. God does not appear in the plan; neighbors and the poor do not appear in the plan. Surplus, in his hands, has exactly one destination: himself. Bigger barns so I can spend more on me.

   That is the trap hiding inside the chorus, and it is worth naming precisely: the problem is not that the barns are full; it is that the barns are the point. When abundance arrives, it always asks a question — is this a river or a reservoir? A river blesses everything downstream. A reservoir just rises behind the dam, and the man who built it sits on the shore telling his soul to take life easy.

   Today, stop the story where Jesus paused it — before the verdict falls (that is Day 7’s dread appointment). Sit for a moment in verse 19, in the man’s recliner, because we have all rehearsed his speech. “Once the house is paid off... once the account hits the number... then, soul, relax.” The dream of the bigger barn is the most respectable idol in the room. It looks like diligence and prudence — right up until you notice that in the whole soliloquy, the man never once says thank You, and never once asks the Giver what the harvest is for.

   So ask. That is the discipline of Day 2: take your fullest barn — income, savings, house, margin — and ask its Owner, “What is this for?” The answer will almost never be “a bigger barn.”

   Journal Questions

   • Listen to your own financial daydreams: how many of the pronouns are “I,” “my,” and “myself”?
   • What is my version of the bigger barn — the “once I have ___, then I’ll relax” number or possession I am quietly living for?
   • When surplus has come to me before, did it flow like a river or rise like a reservoir? Who was downstream?

   Prayer

   Lord of the harvest, every full barn I have came from ground You made and rain You sent. Forgive me for holding board meetings about Your gifts without inviting You. Before I build anything bigger, teach me to ask what the surplus is for — and make my life a river, not a reservoir. Amen.

3. Day 3Sellin’ Seeds Like a Dope Man

   "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

   The song’s sharpest line lands on the man holding the microphone: a preacher “sellin’ seeds like a dope man.” The comparison is brutal and earned. Both promise a quick hit of a better life, get rich off the craving, and leave their customers poorer than they found them. “Sow a hundred, reap a mansion” is not the gospel; it is a lottery ticket with a verse printed on the back.

   Paul saw the scheme coming two thousand years early. He warned Timothy about teachers with corrupt minds “who think that godliness is a means to financial gain” (1 Timothy 6:5) — that is seed-faith merchandising in a single clause. And then he described what the scheme does to the buyers: “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap... that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” Nobody plans the ruin. They plant a twenty expecting a Tesla, then a hundred, then the rent money — reaching for something that was never there.

   But before we spend the whole day shaking our heads at the man on the mic, be careful: this passage is a mirror, not a set of binoculars. Paul’s warning is not addressed to TV preachers. It is addressed to anyone who wants to get rich — and the love of money grows just as well in a checking account as in a jet fund. You can despise the prosperity gospel and still run its math quietly in your own heart: if I do the right things, God owes me an upgrade. That is the same seed in a more respectable pot.

   And let us keep the distinction the song itself is careful about. Generous giving is not the scam — Scripture commands and celebrates it, and yes, God promises that the sower of generosity reaps a harvest (2 Corinthians 9:6–11) — but read what that harvest is: righteousness, sufficiency, thanksgiving to God, not a mansion with your name on the deed. Giving that lets go is worship. “Giving” that is secretly a lever to extract returns is just shopping. The difference is not the amount on the check; it is whether your hand opens or stays gripped on an expected receipt.

   So today, audit your seeds. Give something this week with no possibility of return — and watch what your heart does. If it feels like loss, grace has work to do. If it feels like freedom, the real harvest has already begun.

   Journal Questions

   • Where does “if I do the right things, God owes me an upgrade” math quietly run in my own heart?
   • What is the difference between generous sowing (2 Corinthians 9:6–11) and seed-faith purchasing — and how can I tell which one my giving is?
   • Has wanting more money ever led me somewhere I now recognize as a trap? What did it cost me?

   Prayer

   Lord, protect me from every gospel that turns You into a payout. Forgive me for the times my giving was a lever and my obedience was an invoice. Uproot the love of money from my heart, and teach me to give the way You gave — freely, gladly, with an open hand. Amen.

4. Day 4Checking if the Camera Got My Good Side

   "“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”"

   Here is the song’s most uncomfortable freeze-frame: hands up, congregation clapping, everything that looks like a man caught up in the Spirit — and inside, one thought running on a loop: is the camera getting my good side? The worship is real; it is just not directed at God. It is a performance, and the performer is also the audience he is performing for.

   Jesus spent a stunning amount of the Sermon on the Mount on exactly this. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.” The hypocrites He describes gave real money to real poor people — the trumpet was the problem. And His verdict is quietly terrifying: “They have received their reward in full.” Paid in full. The applause happened; the honor was collected; the transaction is complete, and heaven owes nothing further.

   The song sets this scene in a sanctuary with cameras, but our cameras live in our pockets. Every act of goodness now arrives with a temptation the hypocrites of Galilee never faced: the option to post it. The mission trip has a photo stream; the kindness has a caption. Even our outrage at prosperity preachers can be performed for an audience — humility, staged, is still theater. The question of Day 4 is not whether you have a good side; it is who the good side is for.

   Notice the alternative Jesus offers, because it is not “stop giving” — it is secrecy, and secrecy is a mercy. “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Secrecy starves the performer in us and feeds the child. When no one sees, one audience remains: “your Father, who sees what is done in secret.” God is not scanning the sanctuary for the best worshiper; He is in the secret place, watching for the gift no one claps for, preparing a reward the camera could never capture.

   So this week, do something good and hide it. Give with no acknowledgment. Serve where no story can be told. Worship God in an empty room with the same hands you raise in the full one. It will feel strangely like dying — and then, strangely, like being finally, fully alive before an audience of One.

   Journal Questions

   • Where has an audience — a camera, a platform, a person I want to impress — quietly become part of my worship, giving, or serving?
   • “They have received their reward in full”: what rewards am I collecting now that may be the only ones I ever get for those acts?
   • What is one good thing I could do this week in total secrecy — and what does my resistance to that idea tell me?

   Prayer

   Father, You see what is done in secret. Forgive me for the trumpets — the posts, the mentions, the good side turned toward the camera. Teach me the freedom of the hidden gift and the empty room, until Your eyes are the only audience my heart is playing to. Amen.

5. Day 5Just the Part About the Tithing

   "“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”"

   The narrator confesses his Bible-reading plan in one line: “Never read the whole Book, just the part about the tithing.” He has curated Scripture the way a shopper curates a store — walk straight to the aisle that pays, skip the rest. Malachi 3:10 is highlighted; the Sermon on the Mount is uncracked. The Book has been reduced to its perceived revenue-generating passages.

   Jesus met this exact spirit in the most Bible-saturated men of His day. The Pharisees tithed so meticulously they counted out leaves of mint and seeds of dill and cumin — a tenth of the spice rack for God. And Jesus, remarkably, does not mock the tithing: “You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” Keep tithing, He says. Tithing is not the target here, and neither is generosity — the target is the editing. They had built an entire spirituality out of the parts of the law that could be counted, displayed, and leveraged, while “the more important matters — justice, mercy and faithfulness” lay neglected like unread chapters. You can be scrupulous about the tenth and a stranger to the God of the whole.

   Paul told Timothy this editing would become an industry: “to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3). Itching ears always find scratching fingers. The seed-faith preacher exists because an audience wants him to exist — wants a Bible that is all Malachi and no Matthew 23, all blessing and no cross, all “ask” and no “deny yourself.”

   Now the mirror. Few of us cherry-pick for money, but nearly all of us cherry-pick. Everyone has a canon within the canon: the anxious soul rereads the comfort passages and skips the commands; the crusader knows every verse about the sins of others and none about gentleness; the busy believer lives on a diet of promises extracted from their contexts like raisins picked out of bread. The test is painfully simple: when did a verse last change your mind, cost you money, or interrupt your plans? A Bible that only ever agrees with you is not the Bible; it is a mirror with a leather cover.

   So read the whole Book — literally. Pick a Gospel this week and read it straight through, the paying parts and the costly parts, the promises and the woes. Let justice, mercy, and faithfulness — the weighty matters — press their full weight on you. The Word is not an aisle to shop. It is a table to sit at until the whole meal is served.

   Journal Questions

   • What is my “part about the tithing” — the passages I return to because they pay, comfort, or agree with me — and which parts of the Book do I quietly skip?
   • When did Scripture last change my mind, cost me something, or interrupt my plans?
   • Justice, mercy, faithfulness: which of these “more important matters” is most neglected in my life right now, and what would practicing it cost this week?

   Prayer

   Lord, forgive me for editing Your Word down to the parts that pay. Give me an appetite for the whole Book — the promises and the woes, the comfort and the cost. Weigh me down with the weightier matters: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. And let Your Word read me as I read it. Amen.

6. Day 6A Bigger Cup — Matter Fact, Make It Gold

   "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

   In the bridge, the narrator finally gets his hands on a real Bible verse — and immediately files a complaint about the containers. The cup is supposed to run over? Fine: his just needs to be bigger. Matter of fact, make it gold. It is the perfect punchline for a heart that has misread the psalm entirely, because the overflowing cup of Psalm 23 was never a delivery metric. It is a picture of a Host so lavish that He pours past the brim — and the wonder of the psalm is not the cup. It is the Person holding the pitcher.

   Read the two verses slowly and notice what David is actually celebrating. A table, prepared — by God, not catered by the sheep. Prepared “in the presence of my enemies,” which means the blessing does not wait for trouble to clear. Oil on the head: the welcome of an honored guest. A cup that overflows: generosity beyond calculation. And then the summary of the whole blessed life: goodness and love chasing him down all his days, and this destination — “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” There it is. The psalm’s treasure is not what is on the table. It is whose house you get to live in. David does not ask to take the cup home; he asks to stay with the Host.

   The bigger-cup prayer gets this exactly backwards. It loves the overflow and has no interest in the house. It would take the oil, the table, and the gold cup to go, and leave the Shepherd standing at the door. And here is the diagnostic sting: a demand for a bigger cup is a confession that the overflow never satisfied — because it never does. Contentment is not a cup size. A heart with a hole in it drains every vessel you pour into it, pewter or gold.

   Paul hands us the psalm’s secret in one sentence: “godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (1 Timothy 6:6–8). Great gain — Paul is not against gain; he just knows where it is actually found. The truly rich person is not the one whose cup is biggest but the one whose Shepherd is enough, for whom the overflow is a wonder instead of a wage.

   So today, practice the psalm properly: take inventory of your actual cup — the roof, the meals, the people, the mercy — and thank the Host for every inch of overflow you have been calling “not enough.” Then ask for the one upgrade that matters: not a bigger cup, but a deeper delight in the house of the Lord, where you are invited to dwell forever.

   Journal Questions

   • Am I more in love with the overflow or with the Host — and what would my prayers say if someone audited them?
   • Where have I been demanding “a bigger cup” — treating real blessings as not enough — and what is the hole in the heart that no cup size can fill?
   • What would “godliness with contentment” (1 Timothy 6:6–8) look like concretely in my finances and my wish list this month?

   Prayer

   Shepherd of Psalm 23, forgive me for critiquing the cup while ignoring the Host. You have prepared a table, anointed my head, and poured past the brim — and I called it not enough. Give me the great gain of contentment, and make Your house, not Your overflow, the home of my heart. Amen.

7. Day 7The Night the Seed Didn’t Multiply

   "“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”"

   The song ends the only way it honestly could: the music stops, and a Voice the narrator never budgeted for speaks the old King James words over him — “This night, thy soul is required of thee.” A beat of silence. Then the last, deflating joke: “...guess the seed didn’t multiply that fast.” That silence is the whole sermon. Everything on the wish list is still out there somewhere; none of it can follow him where he is now going.

   Jesus lands the parable of the rich fool with the same midnight verdict (the song quotes the KJV cadence; the NIV renders it: “This very night your life will be demanded from you”). And God asks the man one final question — the cruelest audit in Scripture: “Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” All those bigger barns, and the answer is: somebody else. The fool’s error was not wealth; Scripture knows wealthy saints. His error is spelled out in the verdict: he “stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” He had two accounts his whole life — one bulging, one empty — and at midnight he discovered which one he actually lived on.

   “Rich toward God.” Let that strange phrase do its work. There is a wealth that survives the night your soul is required: a treasure Jesus explicitly told us to store up — “treasures in heaven... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21). Every act of secret generosity from Day 4, every open-handed gift from Day 3, every contented thank-You from Day 6 — none of it purchases God’s favor, but all of it is deposited where midnight cannot touch it. Eternity does not shrink your life; it reprices it.

   And here is where the song’s cold silence gives way to warm news, because the gospel does not end at the audit. There was another rich Man, and He prayed the chorus in reverse. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Impoverish Me, He prayed, so I can spend everything on them. The night His soul was required, He handed it over willingly — and that is the only reason any of us can face our own midnight unafraid. Do not merely walk away from the drive-thru window. Walk to the cross, where the true riches were already purchased, and become — starting tonight — rich toward God.

   Journal Questions

   • If my soul were required of me tonight, which account have I actually been living on — and who would get everything in my barns?
   • What would it look like, concretely, for me to be “rich toward God” this year — what deposits can moths, markets, and midnight not touch?
   • Jesus, though rich, became poor to spend everything on me (2 Corinthians 8:9). How does that reversal of the song’s chorus change what I want to do with what I have?

   Prayer

   Lord Jesus, You were rich and became poor so that I, through Your poverty, might become truly rich. Forgive every prayer I aimed at my own barns. Before the night my soul is required, make me rich toward God — treasure in heaven, a heart that follows it there, and a life spent, like Yours, on others. Amen.