Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship:
Thanks for joining our Bible study tonight as we continue discussing the subject of biblical PROSPERITY. Over the past thirty-two weeks we've looked at this subject from a number of different angles trying to make the case that true bible-based PROSPERITY is a good thing, a special blessing (Deuteronomy 28:11 and Proverbs 10:22) that God wants us to have and enjoy (1 Timothy 6:17). It is after all mentioned in our Bibles in a positive context almost 100 times in one form or another and it almost always includes financial PROSPERITY in its context.
Unfortunately though many Believers, maybe most attach a negative connotation to this Word despite the fact that God says it's His intended benefit and we've discussed several causes of this negativity. One is that we've had unbalanced teaching in the last 30 or 40 years that has somehow led people to connect this word to the bad teaching instead of to what the Bible actually says about it. An even greater factor though is that we've had about 18 centuries of unscriptural man made tradition and theology that encourage Christians to be satisfied with long-term insufficiency and to value that more highly than God's PROSPERITY. Friend, the Word of God does NOT encourage insufficiency and poverty: it doesn't encourage it in the Old Testament and it doesn't encourage it in the New Testament. Many folks teach it but the Bible doesn't teach it. What the New Testament DOES teach about finances is that we should learn how to correctly handle material things so we can apprehend and use them to benefit the Kingdom of God and bless other people without corrupting ourselves.
And so our position has been all these weeks and months that committed Christians who have genuinely submitted themselves to the authority of the Word should be doing everything they can to learn how to correctly receive and use God's PROSPERITY instead of resisting it and being satisfied with insufficiency, lack and poverty. Indeed, insufficiency, lack and poverty are specifically from the Curse (Deuteronomy 28:48) and they're NOT noble conditions of life as some would have us believe. They're NOT desirable and there's NO way scripturally to successfully replace one of God's blessings with a bunch of curses that we've been redeemed from (Galatians 3:13). Rather than avoiding PROSPERITY we should be PURSUING it by learning from the Word how to handle it. If we learn how to use it according to God's instructions, plans and purposes it will be impossible to not connect to it because it's already available and it has been for 2000 years waiting for qualified Believers who have learned how to receive and work with it to drop by and claim it. Here are a couple of scriptures from the New Testament that verify God's intentions:
"...the Lord of all abounds in riches for all who call on Him" (Romans 10:12).
"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 BE rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
"God is willing to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed" (2 Corinthians 9:8).
The Requirement of Faith
Now there's a big requirement for connecting to PROSPERITY that we haven't discussed much so far which is having strong FAITH. Indeed the Bible says that Believers are supposed to LIVE by FAITH in the Gospel so that our lives will reveal the righteousness of God (Romans 1:16-17). Indeed it goes on to say that actually It's impossible to please Him without FAITH (Hebrews 11:6) so we should probably be able to conclude fairly easily that it's going to be difficult to connect effectively to one of God's major blessings like PROSPERITY unless we're doing what it takes to please Him.
Scripturally speaking it's our OBEDIENCE that connects us to the Blessings of God. In the Old Testament it was obeying the LAW that connected the people to His BLESSINGS (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). But under the New Covenant we don't live under the LAW anymore because Jesus has ALREADY fulfilled it on our behalf (Matthew 5:17 and Romans 10:4). Nevertheless there remains an OBEDIENCE factor for the New Covenant that we need to understand and it's called In Scripture the "obedience of faith" (Romans 1:5, 16:25-26 and Acts 6:7). Some folks may not quite understand this kind of OBEDIENCE because for some reason it's not taught very much in our churches. So in case one of our readers is in that category here's my explanation of it in short form: obedience of faith is simply BELIEVING that God IS who He says He is and TRUSTING that He'll do everything He says He'll do. The Old Covenant was about an OBEDIENCE of works but the New Covenant is about the OBEDIENCE of faith. It's still about OBEDIENCE but on a decidedly different level: I don't DO my OBEDIENCE; rather I OBEY by BELIEVING and TRUSTING. And now since the Resurrection of Christ, this newer kind of OBEDIENCE is what connects me under the New Covenant to the blessings of God, specifically in this case to His PROSPERITY and included in that to His financial PROSPERITY.
But there's still another part of New Covenant OBEDIENCE we need to consider which is that everything in the Kingdom of God flows through Jesus. He's the One who's King of kings and Lord of lords (1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14, 19:16). He's the One who's the Mediator of the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:6). He's the One who's our ADVOCATE with the Father (1 John 2:1) and He's the One who's the Head of the Church (Ephesians 1:22, 4:15, 5:23 and Colossians 1:18). Therefore, New Testament faith is about BELIEVING and TRUSTING that through Jesus we receive mercy and GRACE, salvation and eternal life and we have an opportunity to live a renewed life in total VICTORY. It is by GRACE through FAITH and ONLY that way that the blessings of God are revealed and apprehended by the Believer.
The Strength of Faith
Now you can have a little bit of FAITH or a lot of it (1 Timothy 1:19). You can have weak, puny barely-getting-by FAITH or you can have strong and powerful FAITH that can move mountains (Mark 11:22-24). We each start out as new Christians with a certain amount of FAITH that's been imparted to each Believer by God Himself (Romans 12:3). The question is: why do some Believers wind up with weak/little faith that never much goes anywhere while others have powerful FAITH that gets results and helps establish and increase the Kingdom of God?
In answering this question we have to first acknowledge that there's a large segment in the Body of Christ today teaching that Believers start out with varying measures of faith in order to explain the different degrees of accomplishment later on. But to my way of thinking that viewpoint requires God to be a respecter of persons which the Word says He doesn't do (Acts 10:34 and Romans 2:11). By all means study this question out for yourselves but for me the more logical viewpoint is that we all start out with the same amount of FAITH called "the measure of faith" by the KJV (Romans 12:3).
Why is this important? It's important because if we all start out with the same amount of faith then it's our responsibility to cause it to grow stronger instead of falling back on God's predetermination. When we finally realize that, we can then all aspire to the possibility of eventually using it to move the mountains out of the way and get through to the VICTORY in Christ we've been promised (1 Corinthians 15:57). God gave us all the same first measure of Faith to get started but after that it's strengthened according to something we have to do. Indeed, Faith increases and gets stronger by hearing the Word of God with understanding (Romans 10:17). So, our faith is not a static thing that never changes. Otherwise, why would Jesus have criticized His disciples on multiple occasions for having too little Faith (Matthew 8:26, 14:31, 16:8)? Why would the disciples on another occasion have requested Jesus to increase their Faith (Luke 17:5)? Didn't they know any better? No friend, Faith can enlarge and grow stronger (2 Thessalonians 1:3) and we make that happen by developing an ongoing ever-deepening relationship with the Word.
This is important because in order to receive God's PROSPERITY we have to connect to His GRACE. The PROSPERITY is in the GRACE, and it's there in the GRACE that we're empowered through FAITH to perceive and connect to the PROSPERITY. The stronger our FAITH is the quicker and easier it is to PERCEIVE and apprehend the objective. And by the way this has NOTHING to do with the so called "Law of Attraction" that the World goes by. We do NOT "attract" PROSPERITY to ourselves. Rather we PURSUE and then perceive the GRACE that God's ALREADY made available, we connect to it by spiritual perception and FAITH, and then we apprehend it also by FAITH in order to use it to accomplish God's purposes. In sum, most Christians who're not PROSPEROUS are struggling because of weak FAITH which is the result of insufficient attention to the Word.
To conclude tonight I want to make the point that of course there are many areas of life covered by the Word. Exposure to any of those areas by consistent focus and meditation will produce prolonged enlargement of our FAITH. But on a day-to-day basis our FAITH growth will be related to the particular area we were studying that day. If financial PROSPERITY is your primary concern then for a season, probably a long season you'll need to focus a lot of your meditation on the parts of the Bible that speak to finances. Unfortunately most Believers want to abdicate that responsibility to the local church that we only see briefly once or twice per week. In other words they want to depend solely on the local church for their instruction but the local church can't do this job alone. We have to take responsibility individually for our own FAITH growth working on our own on our own time which means studying the Word, reading bible-based publications and receiving knowledge and Godly wisdom from special-topic ministries like this one. Most of our local churches need more money to carry out their purpose and most of that increase has to come from their members who need to learn to produce greater PROSPERITY for the Kingdom of God which will take care of the local church.
You need STRONG faith to fully connect to the Kingdom of God. Indeed, the Word of God produces STRONG faith. Rely on that relationship not because I say so but because the Word says so and because you know exactly where to go in the Word and verify that it's true. When you do that and TRUST the Word in the area of finances to bring about change in your life, your obedience of faith WILL soon make it possible for you to connect to God's PROSPERITY.
Thanks for dropping by tonight. We'll be looking for you again next Sunday evening, May 26 and we hope you'll join us each week as we continue studying the subject of bible-based PROSPERITY. We're NOT finished yet! Until then may God bless you and your family with the total PROSPERITY of Christ!
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 Savior and Lord. 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.
http://www.creditcounseling.net/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1
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