Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
The following article is part of a series on FREEDOM in America that appeared in the Hood County Newspaper during the four weeks leading up to Memorial Day. Since most of our readers are either outside Hood County, Texas or have chosen not to take the local newspaper, we decided to run these articles as part of our summer program for this newsletter. We may even add a new one to cover all five of the weeks leading up to the July 4 Independence Day celebration. We pray that these articles will bless you and cause you to be thankful for our God-given FREEDOM.
TWO: THE PROSPERITY OF FREEDOM
This is a series of articles about FREEDOM in America. Sometimes we take it for granted but FREEDOM is one of the great blessings of life in this country and last week we established that according to the Bible ALL Freedom requires the presence of God (2 Corinthians 3:17). He gives it to those who're willing to receive it, take care of it, defend it, and enjoy it so they can eventually use it to make a FREE choice to accept OR reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Contrary to popular belief, true biblical Christianity is NOT about pressuring people to accept Jesus because God as the originator of freedom doesn't work that way.
Have you ever noticed that the freer a country is the more prosperous it seems to become? Another way of saying that is, the freer the country the more closely connected it is to God. The truth is we're living in the freest country that's ever existed and it also is the most PROSPEROUS country as well. PROSPERITY by the way is a bible word and it's mentioned there more than ninety times.
Of course, biblical PROSPERITY is closely related to a particular economic system called FREE Enterprise. When FREE Enterprise is grounded in biblical principles, it will ALWAYS be successful and out perform any other economic system known to man. But, it operates at its best in an environment of universal FREEDOM which we now know can only come from the presence of God. Enterprise without God isn't really free.
So, PROSPERITY didn't come to us because we were smarter than the rest of the world or because we have more natural resources or because the rest of the world is lazy. No, the driving forces behind American success have been RELIGIOUS FREEDOM and the Christian Bible. We have been FREE to apply ourselves as we want to, to believe as we want to and to live our lives as we want to BECAUSE we've been willing to involve the Lord of the Bible in our governance. It's He who makes FREEDOM available to people and when left to ourselves, we the people will ALWAYS work toward restricting Freedom so we can control others. In sum, God has to stay involved or people will take over and eventually ruin everything.
Do you find it compelling that over the past couple of decades, average family income in the US has been declining? That employment has also been decreasing? Is it possible that these things are the predictable result of efforts by many Americans to reduce the involvement of God in our culture? According to the Bible, He doesn't want His involvement reduced but He allows it to happen if that's what people prefer. All we have to do is reduce religious freedom and start removing God from our way of life. But of course when we do that, the purity of the FREE Enterprise system becomes corrupted which causes PROSPERITY to decline.
The bottom line is if we want our country to resume its historical level of PROSPERITY there's a strong argument to be made for defending FREEDOM. Even for those who don't like bible-based Christianity, the facts of history are irrefutable. And even for the many who would choose to use their freedom to reject Jesus, they would be way better off economically to support bible-based governance anyway because it's the ONLY road that ever leads to real economic PROSPERITY.
NEXT WEEK: THE PURSUIT OF FREEDOM
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on June 19. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!
Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer:
Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time 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, God has already come into your life and you're 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.
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
Donations
If you've been edified by Prosperous Life Newsletter, please consider a LOVE offering to support the Ministry (Galatians 6:6-7). PLN is a nonprofit gift to the Body of Christ so your financial support should be tax deductible. Please send your donation to: PO Box 1164, Granbury, TX 76048. You'll be sowing into good ground and God will surely bless you for it.
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 central time. Agree with us for God to answer your petitions.
About Prosperous Life Newsletter
PLN is an outreach of Make A Way Ministries, published continuously since January 1998. It's a FREE e-publication about life in the Kingdom of God and is sent to our email list of MEMBERS. If you're reading this and aren't on our list, please click on the MINISTRY WEBSITE link at the top of this article to find the PLN enrollment link.
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