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"Owe no man
anything..."
-Romans 13:8
"...the borrower becomes the lender's
slave."
-Proverbs 22:7
"...the
righteous man shall live by faith."
-Romans 1:17
"...without
faith it is impossible to please Him."
-Hebrews 11:6
"No one can
serve two masters..."
-Matthew 6:24
"The Lord
will make you abound in prosperity..."
-Deuteronomy 25:11
"...God
loves a cheerful giver."
-2 Corinthians 9:7
"...the
Lord... is giving you power to make
wealth..."
-Deuteronomy 8:18
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Greetings in the name of Christ Jesus!
Biblical prosperity is the state of total well being where God
is meeting all your needs: spirit, soul and body.
Did you know that the Hebrew word for the number "eight" can
also be translated as "New Beginnings?" As we start the New
Year, 2008 for many Believers has taken on a special
relevance for prosperous living. And we say prophetically today
that this is the year a great number of people in the Body of
Christ WILL BEGIN NEW THINGS that will have particular
significance for the Kingdom of God as they step out in faith in
the belief that success through Christ is inevitable. For many
Believers every step they take in 2008 will be a STEP OF
INCREASE because they will believe they receive even
BEFORE they take the steps.
Do you have a vision for what God wants to do with you and
your family in 2008? The beginning of each year is a good
time for many folks to make a special effort for reconnecting to
God's vision for their lives as discussed in our previous
Newsletter Staying Connected With God's Vision. If you
missed that issue please contact us and request a FREE e-copy
to help you seek the will of God as you start the New Year. But
for this issue, we could summarize the process of reconnecting
to God's vision as follows:
- Instead of making "New Year's Resolutions" aimed at
overcoming certain personal challenges that are important to
US, we want to put first what's important to God. In other words,
we need to find out what God wants to do with our lives and
then give up the right to pursue our own goals.
- Once we have sought the Lord and have HEARD what He
wants to do, we WRITE down His directions so we can RUN with
(pursue) the new VISION (Habakkuk 2:2).
- Next, keeping in mind that God prefers increase and
moving upward for our lives over decrease and decline, we
release our faith that He will empower and lead us to
accomplish what He has led us by the Spirit to write down.
- Finally, we RECEIVE the manifestation of God' vision by
standing in faith, refusing to give up on it even though parts of
it may not have manifested in the natural at the times we
thought they should, continuing to believe even when the
enemy and circumstances come to challenge our faith and our
patience to endure.
Once we have gone through this process if we are Believers of
strong faith we can EXPECT to see God perform on our behalf
according to the Vision we have written down. We have sought
the Lord, He has given us His vision, we have written it down
and now we run with it EXPECTING by faith for it to unfold as
He told us. We have high EXPECTATION that the Lord will use
us and teach us and develop us and lead us step by step
through the plan He has for each of our lives.
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Defining Expectation |
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But we need to go about our EXPECTING in the right way.
There are both proper and improper EXPECTATIONS and we
need to know the difference. According to the dictionary when
you EXPECT something it means you're looking forward to its
probable occurrence or appearance. In fact, you're looking
forward to it with eager anticipation because you believe it's
CERTAIN to happen. You're filled with a HOPE that's
grounded in faith.
The Bible says that faith is the assurance that the things we're
HOPING for will surely come to pass (Hebrews 11:1). This kind
of HOPE is not the "wishing" kind of hope. "Wishing" hope is
when you want something to happen but you don't know if it
will or not. But biblical hope is when you KNOW something is
going to happen, you just don't know exactly when, or how.
The Greek word for "hope" in Hebrews 11:1 can also be
translated "trusting." You are "trusting" God to bring about what
He has promised you He will do. And so, biblical HOPE can be
defined as EXPECTATION: once you're trusting that God will
make something happen, you've entered into EXPECTATION.
You are now EXPECTING, anticipating that something He has
promised will actually come to pass according to His timing
and in the manner He chooses. You don't doubt it, you're
EXPECTING it to happen.
EXPECTATION usually requires waiting and waiting always
requires patience. If there were no waiting, there would be no
opportunity for faith to be involved and without faith it's
impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). When you have
received promises from the Lord it's "proper" to have an
EXPECTATION that He will fulfill those promises. Abraham
believed that God would fulfill His promise to make him a
great nation (Genesis 12:2) but he had no idea when it would
happen and certainly in the beginning could not have
imagined it would require 25 years. Nevertheless, the Bible
says that Abraham never staggered in his faith through all that
time meaning he was confident, he EXPECTED God to one
day fulfill His promise.
"with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in
unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and
being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able
also to perform." (Romans 4:20-21 NAS)
EXPECTATION becomes "improper" if we attempt to include
our own time frame for God to operate in. Indeed, many
Believers become frustrated, even angry, and give up on God
if He doesn't fulfill His promises by the deadlines they set for
Him. Frustration comes from impatience and lack of
contentment and from not understanding that God won't allow
us to impose OUR time constraints on Him. The truth is God
rarely reveals His timing for future events so we'll learn to trust
Him. People are subject to the pressures of time but God isn't.
Therefore, we must be careful when developing our vision,
releasing our faith and forming our EXPECTATIONS that we
don't allow TIME to become a corruption of the process. Our
job is to hear, write and see the vision; God's job is to fulfill the
promise at the perfect moment, never early and never late.
"My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is
from Him. He only is my Rock and my salvation: He is my
defense; I shall not be moved." (Psalms 62:5-6 NAS)
Friend, your "soul" contains three parts: your mind, your will
and your emotions and this is where waiting can be a problem.
Focus on the Rock and bring peace to your soul so that waiting
will not be an issue for you. Once you're certain God has
spoken to you, wait with EXPECTATION but without time
constraints. God will fulfill everything He has promised when
He is ready and when you are ready.
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How to Develop Faith-Filled Expectations |
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EVERYTHING in the life of a Believer should flow from faith
and love: faith because it's impossible to please God except by
faith (Hebrews 11:6) and love because faith without love is
ineffective (1 Corinthians 13:2). The Bible says the righteous
shall live by faith (Romans 1:17) and biblical EXPECTATIONS
come from strong faith. In fact, you should want to have the
kind of faith that moves mountains because Jesus said you
could have it if you DON'T DOUBT WHAT YOU SAY (Mark
11:23). But it starts by loving God with all your heart, soul and
mind and by loving your fellow man as yourself (Matthew
23:37-39). It's the Holy Spirit's job to show you how to love at
this level; it's your job to yield yourself to Him and allow Him to
perform His ministry. Look for opportunities to love others and
watch your faith develop.
Now faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).
In other words, the more you hear and know about His Word,
the stronger your faith will be. So the Believer who desires the
faith that will move mountains is a person who seeks after the
Word with hunger and zeal asking God for insight and
revelation until it comes alive. Continuous study of the Word is
a regular endeavor for the person of strong faith and he/she
EXPECTS for God's promises to fully manifest in his/her life.
Strong faith can become a force that can change one's
circumstances and if it were not so Jesus wouldn't have told us
that it's possible to move life's mountains with it (Mark 11:22-
23). Powerful, mountain-moving EXPECTATIONS spring from
strong faith.
Developing strong faith-filled EXPECTATIONS also requires
that you actively pursue an increasingly close relationship with
the Lord. Most Christians today are too passive, sleeping
through their spiritual lives, complacent and satisfied with the
little they have accomplished so far in the Kingdom. But the
closer you are to God, the more familiar you are with His
speaking, the better you are able to distinguish His leading
from among all the various sources of noise in your
environment. If you can hear the "voice" of God for your life
and you know when you have heard it then faith and
EXPECTATION are sure to grow strong. Faith comes by
hearing both the written Word and His current personal Word
that's spoken directly to your spirit by the Holy Spirit. God wants
us to hear Him so He can lead us to the fulfillment of our
EXPECTATIONS.
Indeed, the sons of God are supposed to be led by the Spirit of
God (Romans 8:14). Unfortunately most Believers go about
their activities making decisions and choices in a flesh-led
process that excludes the Holy Spirit. Usually we only consult
Him after we've already done something and then we ask Him
to agree with it. But the Lord would like to be intimately
involved in the entire process of what you're doing even
BEFORE you make your decisions and choices. He won't force
you to involve Him; you've been created with a free will and
God won't stop you from exercising it. But His BEST for you is
for Him to be closely involved in your life, leading you through
His plans and purposes, creating opportunities for you to
develop trust and release your faith. God will NOT bless our
flesh-led decisions and only faith will please Him. But when we
do things His way, when we finally COVET the leading of the
Holy Spirit and abandon our lust to be flesh-led, then our faith-
filled EXPECTATIONS will help manifest the biblical
prosperity that Christ won for us at the Cross of Calvary.
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Characteristics of God's Vision |
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To a large extent our EXPECTATIONS flow out of the vision
we have for our lives. Is it a vision of fear and decrease? Do we
see ourselves struggling to hold on to the status quo so we
don't make trouble for ourselves? Are we EXPECTING to
achieve little things or big God things?
Beloved, the vision that God makes available to Believers is
ALWAYS a vision of INCREASE. The Bible in both the Old
and New Covenants establishes that God is the LORD of the
Increase. He's the One who causes things to increase (1
Corinthians 3:6-7) in the lives of Believers. And the increase
that comes from God brings no sorrow with it (Proverbs 10:22).
God's increase is always good and flows to people of faith out
of His love and total goodness. He's never the one who causes
decrease; He's not the one who steals and diminishes things
(John 10:10). Nor does He cause decrease to purge things for
some "higher purpose." No, either the enemy or we ourselves
with our wrong choices and decisions cause something to
decrease. Our Father is the Lord of the INCREASE.
Another way that scripture refers to INCREASE is the word
PROFIT. For example, the Bible says in Isaiah 48:17-18 that
it's God who teaches us to PROFIT.
"I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who
leads you in the way you should go. If only you had paid
attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would
have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of
the sea." (NAS)
Friend, since God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34),
these words apply to us today just as they did to the Jewish
people 2,700 years ago. The Hebrew word translated here as
PROFIT means "to ascend" or "increase." You could also
translate it as "to prosper." God is always increasing, always
prospering His creation and this is the vision He wants you to
have for your future; it's the desire of God's heart to increase
you and your family in 2008 (Psalm 115:14). How does He
increase us? According to this scripture, by leading us in the
way we should go. If we follow closely along the path the Holy
Spirit lays out for us, we're SURE to increase; we WILL
experience success.
But we also have to pay attention to His commandments,
which is to say we have to understand and pursue the
principles we find in His Word. Those principles are the basis of
the BINDING Covenant God has established with His people. If
we'll be obedient and do what we're supposed to do, the Lord
is bound by His agreement, by His Word, to respond as He has
promised. If we do this we'll experience a flow of well-being
like a river. The Hebrew word translated "well-being" is
SHALOM which also means peace and/or prosperity. It's the
type of "prosperity" where nothing is missing or broken in your
life; everything is working right for you spirit, soul and body and
you're totally at peace. It's not just financial INCREASE,
although financial INCREASE is included, but INCREASE in
every area of life. Friend, this is the INCREASE God wants us
to incorporate in our plans and pursuits for the future and you
should EXPECT it to happen because His Covenant says it will.
Does this mean that God's vision for you is free from tribulation
and persecution? No, difficulties come to us because we live in
the World. Indeed, for the time being we have to live IN the
World even though we're not OF it (John 17:14-18). The World
brings tribulations and persecutions and even within the Body
of Christ sometimes there is persecution for the Word's sake as
we struggle among ourselves to discern the Truth. God does
not put tribulations and persecutions on His children but what
He DOES do is provide sufficient grace so we can make it
through our difficulties in victory and in peace. Friend, it's
entirely possible to experience SHALOM peace and prosperity
while in the very midst of our storms. God's vision provides the
grace to do this and when we stay within the vision we will be
able to overcome every challenge and in the process be able
to glorify God.
And so, INCREASE should be an EXPECTATION you have for
your life. It should be a part of the vision you have for 2008. If
God is the One who gave you the vision you'll be following, it's
virtually guaranteed to be a vision of increase because that's
the way God works. No matter what tradition has tried to force
us to believe, the Word of God talks about the INCREASE of
God and about His abundance and prosperity for every area of
THIS life. Now you have to release your faith on the belief that
the Word of God is true and your EXPECTATIONS for what
God can accomplish with your life will then begin to strengthen
and grow.
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Examining Your Expectations of Yourself |
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As a final thought today, have you considered that the short-
range vision God has for Believers is limited by the
EXPECTATIONS we have of ourselves? God wants you to
increase but do you really SEE yourself increasing? Up to what
level does an increase seem possible or plausible? How much
faith do you have for receiving what God has for you? The
Bible says Jesus only did what He had SEEN the Father do
(John 5:16-19). So, there's something important about SEEING
with spiritual eyes where the Father wants to take you. The
vision that God can give you today is limited to what you can
believe for; in other words it's subject to the strength of your
faith. Believers with weak faith tend to SEE themselves
underachieving and have a smaller vision than God would
otherwise wish for them to have. But those with stronger faith, a
faith that has been exercised by hearing and studying the Word
will come to EXPECT the greater things God wants to do for
them.
Looking at this another way, the Bible says that as a man thinks
within himself, so IS he (Proverbs 23:7). Contemporary
expression might call this self image: people who think highly
of themselves will achieve highly and those with poor self
image will be low achievers. God has in mind that you would
be a HIGH achiever. You have been created to take whatever
God gives you and increase it by using your faith together with
His ability and power to make it happen. The only limits on
your achievements are the strength of your faith and your
willingness to use His ability and power instead of your own. If
you're EXPECTING this to happen, then it will happen. To
paraphrase the scripture then: as a man EXPECTS for himself
BASED ON FAITH, so will he be.
The Bible also says that Believers will do greater works than
Jesus did in His earthly ministry (John 14:12). Read this verse
for yourself and come to grips with the possibility that because
of weak faith, because of the casual relationship many of us
have with the Holy Spirit and because of low EXPECTATIONS
we have of ourselves, most Believers are well below the
ultimate vision God has for our lives and for the Church. Only
the Word of God can change this picture; only the Word of God
can raise our EXPECTATIONS for what God wants to do in our
lives.
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Some Final Thoughts |
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Friend, as we start the New Year, a time filled with promise and
optimism for New Beginnings, it would be really worthwhile for
Believers to spend some time with the Lord reconnecting to His
vision. What are you going to base your faith on in 2008? Do
you really believe that biblical prosperity can become reality
for you and your family this year and if so how will that
happen? If you aren't believing for it then biblical prosperity
probably won't be manifesting for you this year. Said another
way, you WILL experience what you are EXPECTING to
happen because what you are EXPECTING to happen is a
reflection of the strength of your faith. Is your faith weak or
strong as you start 2008 and what do you plan to do this year to
make it stronger?
If you really want to experience biblical prosperity in your life,
the prosperity that passes all understanding in every area of
life, spirit, soul and body, then you must develop a faith-filled
foundation of EXPECTATIONS that are powerful enough to
change your circumstances. If you EXPECT God to do
something special in your life, He WILL do it. Glory to God!
Thank you for reading Prosperous Life Newsletter today.
We pray that this publication has been a blessing and we look
forward to meeting up with you again in three weeks on
February 8. God bless you.
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Sinners' Prayer |
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If you have never invited Jesus to become the Lord of your life,
you can do so today by saying the following simple prayer:
Jesus I believe in you. I believe that you are the Son of
God and that He raised you from the dead. I receive you as my
Lord and Savior. Please forgive me for my sins and come into
my life today.
If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into
your life and you are a new creation. Now ask the Lord to lead
you to a good faith based bible teaching church where you can
be developed to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God. If
you're unable to find a church, give us a call and we'll help
you find a good one.
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Prayer Requests |
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Please e-mail your prayer requests to:
[email protected]. We'll be honored to bring them
before the Lord each Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM, Eastern
Time.
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Donations |
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If you have been blessed and edified by
Prosperous Life Newsletter, please pray about
making a Spirit-led love offering to support the work
of the Ministry (Galatians 6:6-7). PLN is a non
profit [501(c)(3)] gift to the Body of Christ so your
financial gifts are tax deductible (please consult your
tax advisor). You may mail your check or money
order payable to Cornerstone Consulting Ministries to
10621 N. Kendall Drive, Suite 113, Miami, Florida
33176 or click on the donation tab for other payment
options. May God bless you with His abundant
harvest from sowing your precious seed into this
Ministry.
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Questions and Suggestions |
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It would bless us to have an opportunity to answer your
questions concerning any of the areas covered by the ministry
of PLN. We would also be happy to consider your
comments and suggestions. Please feel free to e-mail them to
us or give us a call anytime during normal business hours at
our toll free number 1-800-357-4223.
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