Biblical Prosperity

A pastor friend of mine said the following after he was physically assaulted at a New Year’s Eve celebration, “Christianity is all theory until it is put to the test.” His ability to live out Christianity was put to a test, and he passed as he forgave the individual and moved on with life. This statement is true about our belief in biblical prosperity too. It is all theory unless it is put to the test. We started early on by looking at the blessings of Abraham. He was blessed to be a blessing. He received the blessing of God by faith. We need to do it the same way. It has often been said that faith is spelled RISK.

In the book Good to Great, author Jim Collins talks about how to confront the brutal facts without losing faith. Start with an honest approach to assess the given situation. Don’t confuse faith that you are going to prevail with the brutal facts and reality of your current situation. The reality of your present situation, perhaps as measured by net worth, gives the sound footing needed to lift yourself out of it. We must look reality in the eye and confront it.

In order to prosper financially we will have to take risk and confront fear. These next few blogs will be about how to take a realistic assessment of your finances and overcome fear to change that present reality.

From history we know that when William Bradford founded the first English colony in America in Jamestown, Virginia; the first couple of years were very tough for the new colony. One reason was because they took a socialistic approach to farming and had a community garden in which all were to labor together and share the food, but as it ended up only a few demonstrated the incentive to do the work and many died in the first year. After a couple of years they decided to split up the garden into plots and give each family a plot of ground for which they were personally responsible. On this plot they would work and eat the food that was harvested from it. Guess what?…from that point on there was plenty of food in Jamestown! Individuals took personal responsibility for their own provision, it made a big difference and the settlement at Jamestown survived.

To apply this principle, shall we sit around and fantasize about how much we would like to give or shall we start to work the land for the abundance from which to give? Proverbs 28:19 states, “He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty.” We can’t give what we don’t have, so let’s quit being spiritually lazy and start believing God for abundance. How can we make our soul prosperous? Unless we change some of our thoughts and actions, we will get the same financial result that we have gotten before. We can have great intentions about building a budget, calculating net worth and developing a financial plan, but if we don’t put action to it nothing will change.

Consider a financial plan for yourself. It is important to remember you are not competing against anyone else or trying to get ahead of your neighbors. This is not a race! That would be a wrong motivation. This is between you and God, and it is about you having the resources to fulfill your destiny. That is…to do all you are called to do on this earth.

You will use your regular net worth calculation to monitor the success of your financial plan. Just do it. Get started. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to start. Just do it. Do not slip into the delusion that you will get rich overnight. Instead plan to move into a prosperous life-style gradually. I have included a simple template to get you started in my book A Practical Path to a Prosperous Life in Appendix F on page 260.

A prosperous person will be outcome-based not hourly-based. The hourlybased person will put in a lot of time and be happy with that even though the objective has not been reached. “I did my best and tried hard. I feel good about my effort. If you want I can tell you about how hard I tried. It is a great story.” But what is the outcome? Either you put a measurable financial plan together or you did not. A prosperous person will look for a way to achieve the goal. Either you will initiate change or things will stay the same. But even if you initiate steps to change some of those steps might not work. Don’t be satisfied to have taken steps, persevere with needed adjustments until change occurs.

Be realistic and recognize failure to achieve desired outcomes, though this should be done in a positive environment. Failure is not the enemy of success but rather the teacher of success. This is a valuable tool. I am sure you have heard of the great number of failures Abraham Lincoln experienced before he was elected President of the United States, or of the thousands of times Edison tried the light bulb before he discovered how it worked. For some, failure defeats them and yet for others failure motivates them.

Everyone knows that a farmer works hard physically. But a farmer has his crops growing while he is sleeping. If it is raining during the night his crops are being watered while he sleeps. Many investments work this way. Think of your dollars invested as working for you as you are sleeping. There is something inherently good about this. It is called passive income because you do not have to do anything for it to yield increase as opposed to active income that is payment for your labor.

Plant a seed and several months later that seed will produce fruit with dozens of seeds. Investing is one way of planting seeds for the future. Plant now, the harvest is in the future. The average stock related investment doubles every 7 years. These are not chance deals with big risk. Begin to live on the harvest and not the seeds. Don’t eat your seed. Make a goal to save and invest 10% of your income. It’s okay to start with 2 or 3% and work up to 10%.

Consider the story Jesus told about the talents (Matthew 25: 14-30). Jesus was literally talking about investing money. Spiritual gifts (what we sometimes call talents) are a secondary application of these scriptures. As we will discuss later a talent in Jesus’ day was a set amount of money. Think in terms of planting, time, and reaping. This biblical principle is called seed time and harvest. It is found throughout the Bible.

Some people are waiting around for God to do a financial miracle. Their faith might be fixed on Proverbs 13:22, “And the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” If those Christians simply applied the principles in God’s word, the wealth of the sinners would begin to flow into their hands. Instead,they are waiting for God to fulfill his word and he is waiting for them to apply his principles and plant some seeds.

My experience is that financial plans seldom work out exactly as written and that they need to be re-written every few years. Here is what Rick Joyner says about planning.

Nothing of lasting significance has ever been accomplished without some type of planning or preparation. Every general goes into battle with a battle plan and every coach goes into a game with a game plan.(2)

When a sports team is preparing for competition the coach develops and the athletes focus on a game plan and practice relentlessly to execute it. At the same time the coach and the players make decisive changes at halftime or mid game as needed to get the victory. Likewise Marines are taught plans and maneuvers and go into every battle with a battle plan. They are told no battle will ever go as planned and that adjustments will need to be made along the way. A financial plan will seldom work out exactly as planned, but will get you far enough to know what corrections or adjustments are needed for success.

Does the fact that the game plan might change at halftime keep a team from developing a game plan? No. Does the fact that the battle plan will likely change during the battle keep the Marines from developing a battle plan? Of course not; they plan to win but are ready for anything that might come their way. Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. Failure will only make you stronger and smarter.

² Rick Joyner Prophetic Bulletin, 2008

Let us carefully read what Jacob used for his financial plan. It is very detailed and very specific. He planned it carefully and followed his plan and became prosperous.

”…Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen. Jacob…took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban…Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys (Genesis 30:29-43).

So where did Jacob come up with this detailed financial plan? The scriptures don’t specifically tell us, but it would seem like he got it from spending time with God. I love the fact that Jacob’s financial plan was part natural and part supernatural. Norm Schlemmer is a church leader and a businessman from Indiana. Here he describes how he gets ideas from God.

Ask God to give you ideas for continuous streams of income. One example I had was when I asked God how I would pay for college educations for my four children.  After I bought my first apartments, the Holy Spirit told me to buy ten sets of coin-operated washers and dryers and put them in the apartments. I paid for them the first year and have now had them for over twenty years. It was very little work, other than hauling the quarters to the bank. They paid for college and then some. They are still producing today with almost no involvement. Being obedient to the Holy Spirit can have great rewards. 

If a farmer plants corn in the spring, he harvests the crop in the fall. If he plants apple seeds in the spring, it may be many years before he can reap. The difference between the corn and the apple tree is that the corn is harvested only once and has to be replanted the next year. The apple tree will yield many years of harvest from one planting. Buying stock in a company can yield many years of dividends. Ask God to show you long-term investments².

This sounds easy but it is not. However it can be done.

We have already learned from Deuteronomy 8:18 that it is the Lord who gives you the ability to produce wealth. The author of creativity is in you. Don’t think small. God isn’t small. Remember, thinking about getting a second or third job is the wrong idea! This is short term, poverty thinking. Don’t just work harder and become a workaholic; find a way to have your money work hard for you.

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint (Proverbs 23:4).

Change your thinking. Lift up your eyes. Get off the tricycle and on a bicycle or in a car. Create wealth. Help people succeed. Move from earning money to seed planting and creating wealth. Think of new ideas that help people. The person who takes time to solve other people’s problems is opening the door for his own advancement. Your ability to create never will be greater than your concept of God, as Frank Schaeffer indicates:

Prosperity comes from creative ideas that create wealth and enhance culture.

In my next blog we will carefully read what Jacob used for his financial plan. It is very detailed and very specific. He planned it carefully and followed his plan and became prosperous.

Developing a financial plan might seem very carnal and unspiritual. Some of us might even react to it because there are many people who are not Christians that are making financial plans. However, we must realize that there are times that the Lord asks us to do things that look a lot like how the rest of the world is doing. A case in point is the Old Testament sacrifices that were required of the children of Israel. Though they were unique in some ways and done in the name of Jehovah, the truth is that to the objective observer they were a bloody mess that looked a lot like many of the pagan rituals practiced in that day.

We must be secure enough to do what the Lord is asking us to do. It could be radically different—like spitting in someone’s eye to the heal them. Or, it could look just like what everyone else is doing—Jesus getting baptized in the Jordan with many others.

A closer examination of the scriptures shows us that many in the Bible had a financial plan. Joseph had a plan. Jacob had a plan. Poverty minded people have a difficult time setting goals or verbalizing their plans for the future. Can we move in the opposite spirit of this? Yes, we should live like the Lord Jesus might return tomorrow, but we should plan like he won’t return for 40 years.

When we write a financial plan, it forces us into the discipline of thinking long term instead of short term. Planning can be one of our greatest skills. Many Christians think that planning is contrary to God’s nature; however nothing could be further from the truth. In Isaiah, we find the Lord talking about his plan.

…what I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do 

(Isaiah 46: 11) 

So God has a plan and we are not supposed to…I don’t think so. Is God’s plan completely scripted and unchangeable? No. I believe his plan has some variables built into it. It has to because he is working with us. But it is still a plan. Hey…this works for me. The scriptures state that the plans of the diligent lead to prosperity:

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty 

(Proverbs 21:5)

Bring it on!

My tutoring by the Holy Spirit in the area of thinking long term became very practical for me. I was having a conversation with a gentleman I met, and we started to talk about cars. He commented about a certain vehicle that he had owned and what a good truck it was. He said he had bought it new and owned it until it had 120,000 miles driven on it. This was a new concept to me since I had never purchased a new car, but his next comment really got my attention. He said he had gone through two sets of tires in the life of the vehicle. I thought he was joking. “What do you mean two sets of tires?” I asked. He replied it had a good set of tires when he bought it from new that lasted for 60,000 miles and then he bought an expensive set of tires that lasted for the second 60,000 miles.

I was amazed. I started to think about what happened when I went to buy tires. I would walk into the tire store and scan the racks of tires until I found the least expensive ones, purchase them and leave thinking about what a bother it was to spend money and time buying tires. Unfortunately the reality was that the cheap tires would soon wear out and before I knew it, I was back in the tire store scanning the racks for the cheapest tires once again. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the spirit of poverty was affecting the way I bought tires. I was just thinking about saving a few dollars in the short term and not thinking about the long-term effect. We owned two vehicles, and between the two of them, I was spending a lot of time and energy at the tire store.

I contrasted my experience with this man’s experience. Somehow, what he was describing seemed like a better path to take. It seemed like a more prosperous path. I changed my method of tire purchasing and started to buy better tires that lasted longer. I spent a lot less of my time and energy shopping for tires and had more of both for important things…like my family.  The more expensive tires gave my cars a smoother ride and my family felt safer in bad weather. My new tire-buying strategies gave me a better quality of life. I found a better way, a more prosperous way to live.

There might be times when it is appropriate to buy inexpensive tires for a vehicle; however, in my personal life, this was one area where the Lord was specifically working to uproot a spirit of poverty in my life.

Thinking long term causes us to step back and take more of an overview of our lives, careers and families. For example a church leader might want the church to grow and be a blessing to the people who get involved. This is a good and godly thing to desire. However the church leader should not think in terms of trying to invite one new person to the church. He should be thinking bigger toward creating a spiritually enriching environment that will draw many new people to the church.

Think for example of the advertisements for soft drinks. They never come out and say, “Go to the store and buy a coke.” No, they portray all the fun things of life and portray the soft drink as a part of that. The key is they do not want you to buy one soft drink, they want you to buy their soft drink for a lifetime. This is thinking long term in their marketing.

Great restaurants don’t sell individual meals, they create an atmosphere. An effective insurance salesman doesn’t look to sell you a single insurance policy, but wants to develop a relationship with you because he wants your business for a lifetime. One way of thinking long term we will discuss in upcoming posts is developing a financial plan. However…I want to give some more practical examples first. Learn next week how “thinking long term” changed the way I buy tires for my car. Maybe you can imagine where I am going with this.