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THE LAWS OF BIBLICAL PROSPERITY
Part Thirty Six - The Power of Faith Filled Expectation
Volume XI Number 1 January 18, 2008

In this issue

Links to FREE Articles

Defining Expectation

How to Develop Faith-Filled Expectations

Characteristics of God's Vision

Examining Your Expectations of Yourself

Some Final Thoughts

Sinners' Prayer

Prayer Requests

Donations

Questions and Suggestions


 

Links to FREE Articles


Links to Special Financial Services















"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

















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.


  • Defining Expectation
  • 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.

  • How to Develop Faith-Filled Expectations
  • 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.

  • Characteristics of God's Vision
  • 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.

  • Examining Your Expectations of Yourself
  • 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.

  • Some Final Thoughts
  • 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.

  • Sinners' Prayer
  • 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.

  • Prayer Requests
  • 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.

  • Donations
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  • Questions and Suggestions
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