A Mind To Prosper - God Wants His People Prosperous!

  Psalm 35:27 - "Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; and let them say continually, 'Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.'"

Biblical Prosperity

Listen...

I know the stigma. I know the stereotype that popped into your mind as soon as you read "prosperity". I know that the world likes to pick on Christians who actually dare to believe that God's people should be blessed! But let me try to straighten some things out...starting from a biblical perspective. 

Let's start with a basic definition: What is prosperity?

Prosperity is not necessarily synonymous with "wealth". It's not exclusively money...even though a lot of unbelievers (including "Christian unbelievers") try to accuse some preachers of being 'money-hungry' or 'greedy' when they talk about prosperity.

True Biblical prosperity is this: Living your life in the full blessing of God...leaving NONE of His promises unclaimed. Using this definition, you can see that true prosperity touches every aspect of your life:
 - Peace in your home
 - Protection from harm
 - Health and healing
 - Walking in supernatural success
 - The power of the Holy Spirit to walk like Jesus did
 - And...since it's part of your life...the blessing also touches your finances!

In this series, I'm going to focus on that one particular aspect of Biblical prosperity. Does God actually intend His blessing to affect our wallets and our bank accounts?
Does He - like some Christians teach - want His kids to be rich?
Or does He - like other Christians teach - want His kids to be poor?

I'm of the former opinion; and that is the perspective that this series is going to come from. If you disagree with the idea of "rich Christians", then stay with me and read on before you comment. You may just find out for yourself that the Bible teaches more about money that you were aware of!

A few more disclaimers:
1 - I'm assuming that you're already a born-again believer in Jesus Christ
2 - I'm assuming that you already have a daily habit of reading and meditating God's Word
3 - I'm assuming that you already have a heart that wants to glorify God in your life
4 - I'm assuming that you love others and desire God to work through you to help them

If those mindsets are already in place, then you're in a prime position for your finances to prosper!

When we think of prosperity, we often think of it as if it were only a financial term. Because of that, we usually think that the opposite of prosperity is poverty. But that's not how God sees it. True prosperity is actually a spiritual term that describes the effects of God's blessing in someone's life.

When we read Psalm 68:6, we see how God actually defines prosperity:
"God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity..."
Did you see it? The direct opposite of true prosperity is bondage. This means that prosperity = freedom. A prosperous life is when you're living free from anything that would keep you bound.

If there's any part of your life where something is prohibiting you from obeying God, then you're not prospering in that area.
If an addiction is keeping you from being sober-minded, then your mind is not prospering.
If there's constant turmoil in your home that is stopping you from walking in love, then your family life is not prospering.
If a sickness is keeping you bedridden, then your body is not prospering.

Financial poverty is absolutely part of the bondage that God wants to bring you out of. When God lays out a vision for your life (or when He tells you to be generous and give extravagantly) poverty will come along and force you to say, "God, I want to obey you, but I can't because I don't have enough."

True prosperity is designed to shatter that bondage, and bring you into a freedom like you've never experienced before!

Blessed In The Old...

Proverbs 10:22 - "The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and He adds no sorrow to it."

That verse is a true statement. Just think about what that blessing did for God's people in the Old Testament! To start with, God gave at least two of His men the entire planet! (Adam and Noah) Have you ever thought about it that way? It was all theirs...and that was just the way God intended.

Now, think about Abraham, the man that inherited God's blessing because of his faith. Genesis 13:2 says, "Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold." Those aren't just empty words...this man was loaded. So much so, in fact, that the land itself couldn't hold the stuff that belonged to him and his nephew together. As a result, Abraham and Lot actually had to go their separate ways. They split up, not because of hardship or disagreement, but because they had so much wealth. (In today's terms, that would be along the same lines of the two of them divesting into separate banks, because one could not hold it all!)

That blessing passed along to his son Isaac:
Genesis 26:13 - "...the man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous."
And then it flowed down to his grandson Jacob:
Genesis 30:43 - "Thus the man became exceedingly prosperous..."

This blessing continued throughout the Old Covenant.
David was one of the wealthiest men of his time. He personally contributed a 'multi-billion dollar' fortune to the construction of the temple.
Solomon was the wealthiest man ever to have lived. In fact, it was the overflow of Solomon's personal wealth that cased his entire kingdom to prosper!

To the extent that God's people followed Him and did what He said, they prospered.
To the extent that they forsook Him and walked away, they became impoverished.
As soon as they turned back to Him again, they started prospering again.

Why? Because His blessing made them rich!

Blessed In The New...

The blessing in Proverbs 10:22 didn't pass away between Malachi and Matthew.

We serve the same God in the New Testament as we read about in the Old. Of course, we now have a "better covenant" that's based on "better promises", This means that there's more to the Christian life than merely prosperity in this world. But I like how Keith Moore explained the difference between the Old Testament and the New: "Do you know what makes a $50 bill better than a $20 bill? The $50 has the twenty in it, and then more!" God's promises in the New Testament didn't replace the Old ones...they added onto them!

In Jesus Christ, we now have the same blessing that Abraham had!
Galatians 3:13-14 - "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree'), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus..."

Like we already said, that blessing covers so much more than finances. But at the same time, don't skip over that aspect! What did God's blessing do to Abraham's finances? "The blessing of the LORD makes rich.." In order to have the fullness of His blessing in our life, then that blessing needs to affect our money!

Don't believe me?

Did you buy into the lie that God wants His New Testament people to be poor? Then what do you make of this passage from 1 Timothy 6:17-18?
"Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, Who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share."
If God never wanted His people to be wealthy, then why did He give these specific commands to rich Christians? (...and none of those commands were to "stop being rich"!)

If you look through the New Testament warnings concerning money, you notice none of them are focused toward having money.
 - We're warned about being covetous and defining our life based on what we possess.
 - We're warned about trusting in riches
 - We're warned about being deceived by riches
 - We're warned about loving money
 - We're commanded to be generous givers
   (Something that's hard to obey if you don't have anything to give)
But we're never warned about possessing money; and we're certainly not commanded to be poor!

"No one would've remembered the good Samaritan if he only had good intentions; he had money as well." - Margret Thatcher

We have so much to do here on earth! There are so many ways that the Gospel still needs to be preached. There are so many ministers that need to be free to spend their days in study and prayer. There are so many people out there in desperate situations...and they need us to be able to give...
We must settle this now: God wants His people to be financially prosperous!

2 Corinthians 9:8 - "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work."