Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
During the summer months while so many folks are away on vacation, we'll be repeating some of the earlier articles from this special series on PROSPERITY. Use them to establish a firm foundation for releasing your FAITH for God's abundance in every area of life: spirit, soul and body. These articles are repeated as they were originally published.
Thanks for joining us tonight as we go back to SCHOOL together on the subject of FINANCES in the Kingdom of God. As pointed out previously, some of the things we've learned in the past and repeat among ourselves as Christian doctrine can't actually be found in our Bibles and we need to RE-examine those things so we can come into AGREEMENT with the Word. If the Bible does NOT say some particular thing about a subject, it's NOT correct to derive our own interpretations and then present them as DOCTRINE. Those kinds of man-made conclusions soon become RELIGIOUS traditions that so many folks then use to condemn the other folks who don't want to follow them. And the Truth is there's a lot of that going around these days concerning this area of finances in the Kingdom of God.
As we get into tonight's example of ideas we need to RE-learn, I remember very well that when we were first starting our financial counseling ministry back in 1985 I began to read all the Christian books I could find on the subject of financial stewardship. A particular author/teacher who stands out in my memory was one of the leading Christian financial experts of the day and his books and materials were a special help to us as we were getting started. Even though he's moved on into eternity with Christ his publications are still widely used. He was (and still is) a highly credible teacher but I remember that he frequently repeated as DOCTRINE a particular point of view that I haven't been able to find in my Bible. At that time back in the mid-80's I received it as DOCTRINE myself and also taught it as DOCTRINE because after all EVERYONE else was teaching it and it had become pretty much settled around the Body of Christ that it was the way God operated. I neglected to go to the Word and search it out for myself so for quite a while I was teaching something I now disagree with. Some of our major Denominations and others still teach this viewpoint as DOCTRINE and it goes something like this:
God constantly manipulates our money from scarcity to abundance and all the points in between as a means for teaching us and consequently leading us to His purposes for our lives. Some Believers will be poor because of His plan for them and others will be rich because His plans for them are different, and wherever we wind up in life we should be content knowing that God is CONTROLLING every detail of our lives.
The Sovereignty of God
A popular saying these days around the Body of Christ is that "God's in control" meaning that every negative thing happening in my life must be part of His plan and eventually the wisdom of it all will be revealed to me as everything is worked out to His planned conclusions. None of the negativity is my fault, I take no responsibility for it and the only thing I can do about it is pray and plead with God to take me out of His tribulation (that supposedly is for my own good) as soon as possible. In essence God gets blamed for everything that happens and this is especially true for the various financial problems I might go through because He's manipulating my money for His purposes and I need to hurry up and learn whatever He's trying to teach me so He will release my money. Teachers of this Doctrine point out that God uses our money so frequently to CONTROL us because we're super-sensitive to it and He can easily get our attention.
Now the belief structure that incorporates this view of our finances is called the SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD DOCTRINE and the word "sovereignty" is interpreted by its proponents to mean that God CONTROLS everything that happens on the earth so His WILL can be accomplished. It's one of the prevailing DOCTRINES in the Body of Christ today and some of the modern Bible translations have even inserted the word SOVEREIGN into their versions of the New Testament when the older translations were actually more accurate. The first problem with this is that the word SOVEREIGN does not by definition convey the concept of CONTROL and you can look that up for yourself in Webster's Dictionary. A human king is SOVEREIGN because he has a king's authority over the people in his country or domain but it's impossible for him to CONTROL everything that happens in that domain. Likewise God is SOVEREIGN because He's the One in authority over the Kingdom of God. He DOES have the power to control everything but according to my Bible, and here's the second problem with this DOCTRINE, He's chosen to NOT CONTROL it all so that people can have a free will to choose between life and death, good and evil, righteousness and sin, faith and fear, wisdom and stupidity, Jesus and the World, etc.
He's also chosen to not CONTROL everything on the earth because mankind who was originally given the authority to rule over everything rebelled in the Garden and abdicated that authority over to the enemy. Yes friend, your Bible really does say that the devil is presently the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4, John 12:31, 14:30 and 16:11) and the Truth is the real God Almighty who has the real power has chosen to withhold His CONTROL so that mankind can have another chance at ruling and reigning under a New Covenant that was ratified by the blood of Jesus. Indeed, if God is presently controlling everything, if He's the One who's deciding who gets saved and who doesn't, what purpose did the Resurrection of Jesus actually serve? And why is God's stated WILL that every person on the earth be saved (1 John 2:2) not being fulfilled nor ever going to be fulfilled? Why is He not CONTROLLING that "little" detail?
In sum then, the SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD DOCTRINE says that God is the One who's blocking my PROSPERITY and I find that to be a mighty curious belief in the face of just the following scripture alone much less all the others throughout the Word we've pointed out in previous articles:
"For we 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 8:9).
For the SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD DOCTRINE to be accurate we would have to say that God frequently blocks our PROSPERITY even after He sent Jesus to DIE a horrible death on a Cross so that among other things we could become rich and He then would have an additional thing to block and deny us from achieving. If that doesn't make sense to you then perhaps we're getting somewhere because my Bible does NOT say anywhere particularly in the New Testament part that God is manipulating my finances to get my attention. It's just not in there and so the idea of a CONTROLLING SOVEREIGNTY is actually something that's obscuring the Truth and MUST be UN-learned if we want to ever experience the PROSPERITY Jesus died for us to have.
The Authority of Man
Now what my Bible DOES say is that it's the ENEMY who comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). Therefore, it's the devil who's actually blocking my PROSPERITY and he's the one who's stealing it from me as fast as I continue to let him do it. It's not God Almighty who's doing it because He loves me and actually wants me to PROSPER (3 John 2) so I'll be able to live in VICTORY (1 Corinthians 15:57) and PEACE (Philippians 4:7). But since the devil is the god of this world he influences me to get involved in the schemes of his kingdom instead of in the Kingdom of God so that I wind up making wrong decisions and choices that are in disagreement with the Word. And this is the actual cause of my PROSPERITY being blocked: my own decisions and choices influenced by the devil and the world.
The Good News is that Believers have been given authority and power (GRACE) to RESIST (overcome) the enemy and cause him to flee (James 4:7 and 1 Peter 5:9). You RESIST the enemy always in FAITH and in the Name of Jesus by using the Word the same way He did (Matthew 4:3-11) and by using the whole ARMOR OF GOD as discussed in Ephesians 6:10-18. We have authority over the enemy because of what Jesus did and the New Testament instructs us repeatedly to RESIST the devil which fully nullifies the idea that God is CONTROLLING everything.
In sum, you and I have the authority in Christ to keep the devil away from our PROSPERITY. We just need to do it in FAITH and we need to use the empowerment God's ALREADY given us. His empowerment is called GRACE which we connect to by FAITH. Unfortunately though most Christians don't CONNECT to their empowerment and they don't RESIST the enemy because they're too busy blaming God for everything and because they don't know how to go about getting the victory. You can start by UN-learning the concept that God actually CONTROLS everything and by coming into AGREEMENT with the Word that says what God DOES do is see to it that whatever trouble we get ourselves into we can get out of by humbling ourselves (1 Peter 5:6-10) and letting Him help us out of our problems:
"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
Friend, God's not helping us get out of problems He's caused; He's helping us get out of things we got ourselves into with the influence of the enemy. RESIST the enemy and he WILL flee and in that process our PROSPERITY will finally be unblocked so we'll be able to use it to help God establish His Kingdom.
Thanks for stopping by tonight. We'll be looking for you again next Sunday night on July 7. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing and cause 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.
http://www.creditcounseling.net/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1
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