I had the opportunity to see some of you at the Kingdom Business Association gathering last week in Charlotte, South Carolina. My topic was He Gives Us the Ability to Produce Wealth. This title comes from Deuteronomy 8:18 which states. “But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability (power) to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.” Let’s break that down for a moment.

The “ability to produce wealth” seems to speak of something more than just hard work. Here are a couple of reasons why: One, I think we all know of people that work really hard and are not wealthy. Also, verse 17 speaks a warning so that we don’t “say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’” So in light of this we understand this ability to produce wealth is more of a Biblical revelation and maybe away of thinking than it is only a strong work ethic.

So what was the covenant with your ancestors spoken of here? At the time of the writing of this scripture, these ancestors were of course Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As I have written in these blogs, it was God that introduced himself to these early Hebrews as El Shaddai…the God of more than enough… and this was the covenant spoken of here in Deuteronomy. But as I have said, there is a social side of this as well that goes with these scriptures about experiencing God’s abundance. God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 is that he would be “blessed to be a blessing.”

Wealth created in a free society like the Bible teaches does not stay with a few powerful kings, nobles, lords or dukes. Instead it expands to touch all within reach and all are lifted. This was true for Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Jesus, the good Samaritan and we hope it is true for us too.