Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship:
Thanks for dropping by tonight! We're still here in PROSPERITY SCHOOL delving into what the Bible actually says about PROSPERITY, breaking away from all the manmade traditions and thinking so we can learn how to receive one of God's major blessings. As we've discussed previously, PROSPERITY is a word that's mentioned in Scripture in a positive context almost 100 times. But large portions of the Body of Christ avoid using it because of unscriptural teachings from the past that have led to some wrong conclusions. Never mind apparently that it's the Holy Spirit who caused it to be mentioned there so many times so we could study it and learn about it and come to understand and use it. No friend, the truth is PROSPERITY is a bible word and it's too good a word to just throw out!
To be truly PROSPEROUS in a bible sense means to be SUCCESSFUL in every area of life: spirit, soul and body. Most of the time we just equate it to financial success but God's kind of bible-based PROSPERITY is not limited to just finances. Rather, it contemplates everything in life that's involved in acquiring and enjoying the PEACE of God in Christ that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). Even so, God's PROSPERITY by definition DOES always include our finances except when the Word says otherwise because it's really not possible to live in sustained PEACE if one's finances are not sufficient. Indeed, lack and insufficiency are listed among the curses of the Law (Deuteronomy 28:48) that New Testament Believers were redeemed from by Jesus on the Cross (Galatians 3:13). God says that lack and insufficiency are curses and that PROSPERITY is a Blessing (Deuteronomy 28:11). It's people with the enemy's help that can't seem to get this straight.
Now I don't know about you but I want to connect to ALL of God's Blessings that I can get to. And according to Him PROSPERITY is one of His Blessings. Therefore, I want to talk about it and talk to Him about it and look forward to it and call it the same name the Holy Spirit calls it and release my faith for it and use my God-given imagination about it, and seek after it without letting a bunch of religious folks make me feel guilty about it. In order to do that with God's PROSPERITY, I'm going to have to override 18 centuries of traditional teaching and renew my thinking about it, and to do that I will have to grow in the Word and learn to avoid the things in life that HINDER me from connecting to this Blessing. This has pretty much been the focus of this series for thirty-four weeks now and if you'll go back over all the various articles you can be reminded of the various things the Lord has pointed out for us to do that will work together to eventually produce a lifestyle of PROSPERITY.
A new area for us to consider this week is the biblical principle of not looking back. Many Believers are constantly revisiting their past, living in the past, thinking about the past, blaming the past and generally allowing the past to dictate what they think about the future. The Kingdom of God lies up ahead. Most of your PROSPERITY and increase is up ahead of you and the past is gone forever along with its insufficiency and decrease. According to Scripture the Apostle Paul told us that we should actually forget about the past so we can more freely reach forward to what lies ahead (Philippians 3:13). Certainly Believers should learn from the past but scripture instructs us to avoid dwelling or camping-out there. We should not allow ourselves to get stuck in history regretting and lamenting all the things that happened, bearing grudges and unforgiveness against those who have offended or abused us, and even mourning over our past transgressions and lost opportunities.
God's way is always looking and thinking and moving forward; that's where He's going and that's where He wants us to put our emphasis in life: pursuing what lies ahead which is where we'll find our PROSPERITY. We can see this principle clearly confirmed in the following two well-known bible examples of when people got caught looking back when they should have been looking ahead.
The Example of Lot's Wife
The first example can be found in the 18th and 19th chapters of the Book of Genesis when God was preparing to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the particular wickedness of the people who lived there. The Bible says that the sin of those people was exceedingly grave (Genesis 18:20) and the Lord had decided to judge them. Only Abraham's nephew Lot and his family were found worthy enough to be spared mainly because Lot was related to Abraham (Genesis 19:29) with whom God had established a special covenant. And so Lot was notified by two angels that he should flee Sodom just before it was to be destroyed.
The relevant part of this story is that Lot and his family were warned that as they fled they should not look back upon the destruction that would be brought by the Lord (Genesis 19:17). Unfortunately though, Lot's wife disobeyed and did look back for which she was instantly turned into a pillar of salt. For the act of looking back she lost her life and became a tragic figure in biblical history.
The Example of the Israelites in the Wilderness
The second example concerns the Israelites when they went into the wilderness after more than 400 years in slavery. Soon after they had departed from Egypt the people began to grumble and complain about the comforts of life they were lacking in the wilderness. First, they complained that they didn't have enough water instead of trusting God to provide for them. And of course the Lord did provide the water (Exodus 15:25) just as He did everything else they needed. Then they grumbled that they wished they had died in their slavery instead of having to give up eating their Egyptian bread and pots of meat (Exodus 16:3) and all the other delicacies they were used to eating (Numbers 4:5). In other words they were looking back to the slavery they had been miraculously delivered from instead of ahead to the special place of PROSPERITY God wanted to take them to. They preferred the certainty of their lives in bondage to the relative uncertainty of an adventure that required them to depend upon the Lord.
God became so provoked with their complaining and grumbling that He kept the Israelites wandering in the wilderness for 40 years even though the linear distance to their ultimate destination was an 11-day trip. The result was that most of the people who had departed from Egypt died in the wilderness and never got to see the PROSPERITY God had for them up ahead. God's original intention for a brief time in the wilderness had been to purge the Israelites of their slave mentality and prepare them for ruling and reigning in the Promised Land. But by constantly looking back to where they had come from and complaining about the uncertainty they were going up ahead, almost all of them lost the opportunity to enjoy the victorious future God had wanted them to have.
What the Biblical Examples Tell Us
To help understand what these examples are telling us, let's consider two basic observations. First, both examples show that God wanted the people to be looking forward, up ahead. In each case He had a plan for the future that incorporated a favorable result but the people resisted moving ahead into the unknown. Secondly, in both examples the people lost the Blessing God had planned for them. Instead of deliverance and victory and PROSPERITY they received bondage and defeat and death. Were these a couple of isolated events or could we say they have general and ongoing application for all Believers?
The truth is God apparently has very strong feelings against looking back, so much so that Jesus found it necessary during His earthly ministry to say that anyone who looks back is not qualified to be in the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62). That's a pretty strong statement and with it coming from Jesus Himself the message of not looking back became relevant for all Believers, something for us to pay special attention to and to try to understand. Many centuries after Lot's wife was turned into salt, Jesus instructed His followers not to forget this unfortunate woman. He was speaking in the context of describing His second coming but His statement reveals the deeper meaning of what it means to God when we look back.
"Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." (Luke 17:32-33)
We can conclude from this that Lot's wife looked back because she feared for her life and the fear overcame her FAITH in the Lord to protect her as the Angels had promised. In other words, her concern for her life caused her to lose it while putting her life in God's hands would have taken her to safety and her place of PROSPERITY. The principle Jesus was revealing is that in order to enter into a covenant relationship with Creator God and receive the related benefits, we're required to die to self. The person you used to be before you were born again is dead and you have become a new creature whose purpose is to manifest the life of Christ:
"...He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him...." (2 Corinthians 5:15)
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me..." (Galatians 2:20)
"For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11)
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come." (2 Corinthians 5:17)
As true Christians we're called to surrender ownership of our lives so that Christ will be free to live through us. This is what we're agreeing to do when we give our hearts to God, when we ask Christ to be the Lord of our lives, when we're born again. We're agreeing to let Him take over and we're agreeing to submit to whatever plans and purposes He has for us. Our lives are no longer our own; they belong to God because Jesus paid for them. We give up our lives in the natural so we can obtain a new life in eternity.
The plans and purposes God has for each Believer are always up ahead of us instead of behind. Since they're in the future, we can't evaluate them with our five physical senses which can make us uncomfortable. The flesh is always uncomfortable with uncertainty. So we have to rely on the faithful direction of the Holy Spirit to lead us to the Blessing and PROSPERITY God has up the road. If we spend a lot of time looking back to try to use our past experiences to evaluate what's happening to us now, our journey with God will be delayed because we become hesitant and indecisive. Our fear of the future makes us look back just as Lot's wife did. But God says:
"stop worrying about yourself so that Christ can live through you. If you will stop looking back, if you will just trust Me and stop worrying about the future, I will take you to your Blessing. I will bring you into PROSPERITY in every area of your life: spirit, soul and body."
Friend, God loves you too much to let you dwell in the past without at least a warning. The truth is part of the transformation we undergo into the image of Christ is to learn to stop looking back so we can increasingly focus on what lies ahead. God has a great future for each of us and we'll get there a lot sooner once we learn this lesson. By looking back all the time, by trying to control everything instead of letting God take over, we're cutting off the favor and PROSPERITY He wants us to have and enjoy. So keep your eyes on the road ahead and trust in the Lord and according to the Word, He WILL bring you out into your WEALTHY place (Psalm 66:12).
Thanks for dropping by tonight. We'll be looking for you again next Sunday evening, June 2 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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