Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship:

Several times in this series I've referred to the fact that God LOVES us and out of that LOVE flows a strong desire for His children to PROSPER and succeed in all things. Don't you want those same things for your children? How much more then does our Father who IS LOVE (1 John 4:8, 16) want the best for His children (Matthew 7:11)? But despite the evidence of Scripture many Christians, perhaps most have trouble believing with full assurance that God really wants them to PROSPER. Maybe God will PROSPER other people but not me. Or somehow for some reason(s) I just won't be allowed to PROSPER.

Indeed, a bunch of us were taught some centuries-old traditional thinking by a number of well-known Christian teachers that God routinely withholds or manipulates our finances in order to get our attention. In fact, He has a specific financial plan for each Believer and those plans are individually different facilitating some of us to PROSPERITY but committing others to lives of insufficiency and lack, even poverty. According to tradition God knows what's best for us and we should be content to just let Him control our finances which more often than not will tend toward insufficiency so that we'll eventually cry out for relief and be able to hear from Him better.

But some years ago as I studied the Word myself, I came into disagreement with these kinds of teachings even though I admire the teachers as great spiritual folks who meant well and taught us a lot of other things that were really helpful. But I see those particular teachings now as coming from unscriptural traditions that are an impediment to what God is working to accomplish and that contradict the concept that the type of LOVE God IS is an agape LOVE that's self-sacrificing (think Jesus), unconditional and doesn't require anything in return. That kind of LOVE is unique to the New Covenant because it can only fully manifest when all sin has been paid for. Interestingly the Greek word AGAPE translated as LOVE and used only in the New Testament came into being during the first century only after the work of Christ at the Cross had been completed. LOVE that requires nothing in return manifests as GRACE and God's GRACE is your undeserved empowerment to PROSPER and succeed.

The bottom line is this: the TRADITIONS of men always work toward invalidating the POWER of the Word of God (Mark 7:13). The POWER says God IS LOVE and IS INCREASE and PROSPERITY. Man-made TRADITIONS say maybe not, maybe sometimes, maybe never. Those TRADITIONS are impeding God's end-time work because they influence us away from connecting to His PROSPERITY which is needed for the end-time work of the Kingdom. So tonight let's look at a few of these TRADITIONS with the objective of changing our THINKING to agree with God's Word so we can come to fully RECEIVE God's AGAPE LOVE and PROSPERITY.

Identifying the Man-Made Traditions

We can start with the "God controls everything" tradition because it's so entrenched in our contemporary Church thinking. My Bible does NOT say anywhere that God controls everything. He could if He wanted to but He's chosen not to. Instead He's given us the ability that many call FREE WILL to choose for our lives as we want to. We choose all the time between life and death, blessing and cursing and right and wrong; and we have to live through the consequences of our choices. God helps us get out of the related problems we get into and He WILL cause all our challenges and difficulties to eventually work together for good IF we're counted among those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28).

Not only does He NOT control everything, He does NOT manipulate our finances so we'll be more receptive to His teaching. Human fathers might do that kind of thing but NOT our LOVING heavenly Father. In order to carry out such an idea God would have to CAUSE lack and insufficiency to occasionally (or frequently if necessary) come into the lives of all those inattentive Believers. Or at the least maybe He would need to send out the devil once in a while to mess up our finances rather than do it Himself so He can teach us something just before He sweeps in for the rescue. It would also mean that different people would have different God-ordained financial plans which would make Him a Respecter of persons (i.e. show partiality) and cause Him to violate His own Scripture (Acts 10:34 and Romans 2:11).

I used to believe these kinds of things myself and I blamed God for my times of insufficiency, but over the years I learned better. Insufficiency and lack are part of the Curse, and my Bible says that under the New Covenant I've been REDEEMED from the Curse (Galatians 3:13). And I've also learned that God doesn't USE my enemy against me for anything; no, my Bible says that one of the things Jesus came to earth to do was DESTROY the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), not use them. Can you imagine sending Jesus to the Cross to finish destroying the works of the devil and then re-empowering that devil to resume doing what Jesus destroyed so that the Holy Spirit can be a more effective teacher? You're right: it doesn't make any sense but a lot of folks believe it anyway.

In sum, God's not manipulating our finances. No, instead of that they're going up and/or down according to, 1) our understanding of the WORD, 2) the strength of our FAITH, 3) our ability to PERCEIVE and CONNECT to all the opportunities that GRACE has ALREADY made available, and 4) our determination to aggressively PURSUE every benefit God has ALREADY made available by His GRACE.

Another tradition we need to deal with says that poverty is virtuous. In fact, a lot of Believers think it's actually more righteous to be poor than to be wealthy. But it was God who gave us the ability to obtain wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18), and THE Word says that PROSPERITY is a BLESSING from God (Deuteronomy 28:11), and it says that Jesus became poor so we could have an opportunity to become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9) and that God is WILLING (i.e. it's His WILL) that we have ALL SUFFICIENCY IN EVERYTHING (2 Corinthians 9:8). No friend, poverty is part of the Curse. Under the Law it was actually a punishment for disobeying God and according to Him it wasn't virtuous and never has been except perhaps in a couple of selected, infrequent instances. For example, if you're not able to love the Lord over wealth, perhaps you should stay poor until you can learn how to PROSPER correctly. Or there're those people who themselves choose to live in poverty as part of their ministry out of concern that PROSPERITY could be a distraction, but that's a personal decision and not something God imposes. In all other respects poverty is NOT virtuous; rather, it's an Old Covenant punishment.

Another popular TRADITION is that God's PROSPERITY is for the future after we all go to be with Jesus, but friend everyone will be PROSPEROUS in Heaven. There's no insufficiency there, it's down here on the earth now in this age where there's insufficiency and lack and poverty, and PROSPERITY is needed to fund the INCREASE of the Kingdom of God on the earth. Needless to say there're NO scriptures that say PROSPERITY is reserved for the future.

Attendant to this TRADITION is another one that says that when the Bible talks about PROSPERITY in the New Testament it's not talking about our finances but about spiritual PROSPERITY. But from the context of many PROSPERITY scriptures it's obvious to the objective student that in context it's impossible to exclude financial PROSPERITY from what God had in mind. Maybe God's PROSPERITY is about more than just our finances but without question our present finances are the major focus of all those scriptures.

Another TRADITION is that the PROSPERITY of God was given to the Jews who lived under the Old Covenant of the Law and is not for Christians under the New Covenant. There're absolutely zero scriptures that say this and in fact this TRADITION confronts a couple of specific New Testament scriptures that state the exact opposite:

2 Corinthians 8:9 = "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 9:8 = "And God is able (willing) to make ALL GRACE abound to you, so that ALWAYS having ALL sufficiency in EVERYTHING, you may have an AABUNDANCE for every good deed..."

The context of both of these scriptures is that the Apostle Paul was taking up an offering and was writing to the church in Corinth to confirm a previous pledge they had made to participate in it. These two scriptures are talking about finances and about the abundance of it that's available to be received by GRACE under the New Covenant which is a better covenant with better promises than the old one under the Law (Hebrews 7:22, 8:6).

Finally, we need to deal with the TRADITION that God will withhold our PROSPERITY if we have unconfessed sin in our lives. Friend, the Word of God doesn't say this either. We all commit sins on a regular basis and they're almost never all confessed. What the Bible DOES say is that Christ has ALREADY paid for ALL our sins for ALL time and for ALL people. As a result His view of you and me is that we NEVER sinned and amazingly He's FORGOTTEN about them (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17). So it's not going to do any good to get all holy when we're experiencing insufficiency to try to impress the Lord so He'll open the windows of Heaven again. No He's not the One who turned off our PROSPERITY. Rather, our sins open a door to the enemy and he can come into our lives to kill and steal and destroy (John 10:10) until we stop the sin and turn away from it, RESIST the devil with the Word and kick him out of our finances. God's no longer holding our sins against us and He's not holding up our finances either, but our sin DOES separate us from God's GRACE because sin dulls our perception which makes it more difficult to CONNECT to and RECEIVE our PROSPERITY. If the enemy's accusing you of sin tonight, simply THANK God for the forgiveness you ALREADY have through FAITH in Christ and proceed to kick the devil out of your finances (or whatever) by quoting Scripture to him. It's guaranteed that he WILL flee (James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:9).

Some Final Thoughts

I've gone a little further this week with this TRADITION thing than in previous articles and the reason is that all these man-made TRADITIONS are hindering our ability to appreciate and fully understand the LOVE that God has us. Once you get the revelation of it you'll see by FAITH that God would never hinder your PROSPERITY. That's what the Word clearly says but the man-made TRADITIONS throw us off and make it hard to believe that God really, truly wants us to be PROSPEROUS. And friend you'll NEVER be fully PROSPEROUS until you RECEIVE this revelation for yourself and are convinced deep inside yourself that part of the profound LOVE of God for you as an individual is His personal desire for you to be PROSPEROUS in all areas of life: spirit, soul and body, AND finances.

Over the years I've observed that most Christians aren't PROSPEROUS even though the Bible says we should be and that God wants us to be so He can use us. And I've come to the conclusion that the greatest hindrances to our PROSPERITY are what we THINK about ourselves and what we THINK about God. We've already talked about the first part of that in previous articles. And as to the second part, the revelation of who God is and of His LOVE for you can only be found in His Word; so the conclusion to be drawn is that many Believers THINK less of God than He is because they don't know the Word, they haven't PURSUED the understanding that it takes to be successful and victorious and PROSPEROUS in life.

I'm telling you tonight that if you truly want to be PROSPEROUS, if it's a desire of your heart to be a useful part of the Kingdom of God, you need to throw off all these man-made TRADITIONS and pursue an understanding of the Word as aggressively and as VIOLENTLY as you can. Every time a TRADITIONAL thought rises up against your PROSPERITY, cast it down in the name of Jesus and claim the ABUNDANCE God has for you. Be sure to release your FAITH over your PROSPERITY continuously and then see what God will do in your life. It'll be something special!

Thanks for stopping by tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night February 10, 2013. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing causing you to PROSPER in every area of life!

Sinners' Prayer

If you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you need to and you can do it today just by saying out loud the following simple prayer:

Jesus I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.

If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God has already come into your life and you are a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.

And, when you get a chance have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer today and believing what you said:

Romans 10:9

2 Corinthians 5:17

Ephesians 2:8

Prayer Requests

If you have a Prayer Request, please connect to the Link below and follow the promptings. The PLN staff members pray over Prayer Requests every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM eastern time. Agree with us for God to answer your petition.

http://www.creditcounseling.net/prayer-request.aspx 

Donations

If you've been edified by Prosperous Life Newsletter, you may want to consider making a SEED FAITH offering to support the Ministry (Galatians 6:6-7). God has instructed us to simply provide folks with an opportunity to sow seed into good ground so in due season you'll be eligible to reap a harvest and the rest is up to you as the Spirit leads. For your information PLN is a nonprofit gift to the Body of Christ so your financial offerings will usually be tax deductible (consult your tax advisor). Just go to the secure Shopping Cart on the Cornerstone web site by connecting through the following link. We appreciate your support and generosity.

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