Biblical Prosperity

My wife and I have always supported missions as a regular part of our budget. This has been our life-style since the first year of our marriage. Even before we were married, as singles we supported missionaries because we had a desire to see the gospel go to the entire world.

Over the years, we have endeavored to find ways to increase our giving, and a few years ago I had a “great idea” of how we could accomplish it. My brainstorm was for our family to eat rice and beans for a whole month and give the balance of the money we would save on groceries to missionaries. We had visited South America a number of times on mission trips and enjoyed eating rice and beans as the main food staple while there. I thought it would be a great project for us to do as a family and would model a giving life-style for our children. It seemed like a profoundly spiritual idea to me.

When I shared this deeply spiritual idea with my wife, she gave me an incredulous look and replied, “You can eat rice and beans for a month, but I am not, and I am not going to try and get our children to do it.” Quickly realizing that my great idea was not meeting my wife’s approval, I remember piously thinking how unspiritual she was and giving up on the idea. As I look back on this embarrassing incident, I would probably have made a good Pharisee that day.

It only hit me a couple of years later how much the spirit of poverty had affected my thinking. I literally wanted to take food away from my wife and children so that we could give a few extra dollars to missions. Just what was wrong with this idea? I discovered this to be a form of poverty thinking. Let me explain why.

I didn’t believe that God could supply more for us so that we could give more. In my thinking, we were limited to my paycheck. I looked at the income we had and saw that as a fixed ceiling rather than believing God for more money. So I wanted to take food from my children’s mouths and give it to missions. What picture of God (the Father) does that give to my children? It shows them He is a stingy Father, who gives us just enough or barely enough to survive. This is not a biblically accurate picture of God. I realized it was not right for me to show my children this tainted portrayal of God.

Thank God for my wife who could see this was not an appropriate course of action. Although it seemed so spiritual at the time, I should have been raising my faith to lift the ceiling and believe for more—lots more—not just a few dollars to give to missions. The truth is, I don’t want to give $5 more a month to missions. I want to give $50 more a month or $500 more a month. This revelation has helped us to increase our giving significantly.

To be clear the Christian life is one of self-sacrifice and surrender to His Lordship and our children need to see that modeled before anything else. How we spend our finances is part of that and obedience to His direction is essential. If God is directing you to save some money out of your budget by sacrificing something, then do it wholeheartedly. However, maybe you want to pray about increasing your inflow so you can give significantly more.

When my son was learning to play the trumpet we needed to purchase him one. If we bought the trumpet outright and paid for it in full, it would cost us $400. However, if we did not have the $400 and used the $20 per month payment plan the music store offered us we would end up paying $600 for the trumpet. The question is, “Do we want to pay $400 or $600 for the same trumpet?” Four hundred dollars of course!

This is an amazing truth to grasp. When you have money you can live on less! This leaves more money for what we really want to do with it; like give and be a blessing! We have to cross-over from living in lack to experiencing God’s abundance; it will allow us to accomplish more.

Could it be that we have more available to us in the area of financial provision than we have asked for? Listen to Paul’s words as he is writing to the Ephesian Christians. “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”1 Somehow the Ephesian Christians were missing part of their inheritance. Paul was praying for their eyes to be opened to it.

Is it possible that we, like the Ephesians, have missed part of our inheritance in Christ? Has the progress of our mission been slowed because we haven’t asked for the tools we need to complete it? Has the spirit of poverty blinded our eyes and kept us from even asking for the finances needed to do the job?

God has asked His church to fulfill the Great Commission. Would God ask us to fulfill the Great Commission and not provide the resources that we need to complete the job? I do not believe He would. It is against His nature, as I understand it from the scriptures, to frustrate and tease us by asking us to complete a job and then not give us the tools to accomplish that task. Money is simply a tool the church needs to complete its job description. As we examine the scriptures, we will find good reason to expect the financial provision needed for us to complete the task assigned to us.

As you read these blogs I hope that you are developing a healthy dissatisfaction with your level of income and your ability to finance God’s Kingdom at the level you would like. Dissatisfaction with the status quo is a very helpful first step to bring about change because it will generate desire and passion; which in turn will cause us to focus on solutions, which is what is offered in this book

The scriptures teach us in Timothy that godliness with contentment is great gain. I believe this means we should not complain about the place God has us in life. However contentment does not mean we should pick up the paralyzing animistic belief of fatalism; the idea our state in life is fixed and should not be improved. We should desire to advance and improve our life and the lives of people around us. It is a good and godly desire to prosper. It is good for you. It is good for your family. It is good for your neighborhood. It is good for the Kingdom.

Research shows that Christian women are 300% more generous than the average American. This is according to the National Christian Foundation website. In a nationwide study, over 7,300 women shared their opinions about why they give and why they don’t.

According to the survey, “Women own it, marry it, inherit it, earn it, save it, and spend it. As much as 90 cents on every dollar will pass through the hands of women. She inherits the family wealth: An estimated 70% of $41 trillion in wealth transfer will go to daughters. She receives the marital assets: The average age of a widow is 57. And she’s growing in personal earning capacity: 70% of women work outside the home, one in eleven working age women is an entrepreneur, and the majority of degrees are earned by women. Women are increasingly becoming the richer gender.

In a recent blog we discussed a wealthy woman who cared for the prophet Elisha. The Bible also talks about women traveling with Jesus and providing for him. We know one of them, Joanna,  was wealthy as she was married to Herod’s steward Chuza.

…The twelve were with Him, ² and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, ³ and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means. Luke 8:1-3  NAS

The same survey indicated the #1 driver for generosity among women is personal spiritual discipline – As women grow in Biblical knowledge, their giving grows in lock step. Those that rated themselves as high on biblical knowledge gave an average 13.6% of income to charity.

You Go Girls!

http://www.nationalchristian.com/1351

In these posts you have read me referring to the spirit of poverty. I realize that not everyone is familiar with this terminology. Let me give some explanation. I call it a “spirit” and it is demonic but it is usually appears more as a pattern of thinking that is ingrained into our thinking, like a rut or groove from which we cannot escape. What is it and how can we identify it? Let’s consider what Darrow Miller, in his book Discipling Nations, talks about concerning patterns of thinking that define the existence of peoples around the world.

So why are people poor and hungry? Except for catastrophic events such as war, drought, or flood, physical poverty doesn’t “just happen.” It is the logical result of the way people look at themselves and the world, the stories they tell to make sense of their world. Physical poverty is rooted in a mindset of poverty, a set of ideas held corporately that produce certain behaviors. These behaviors can be institutionalized into the laws and structures of society. The consequences of these laws and behaviors is poverty. Those with a poverty mind see the world through the glasses of poverty. They say or their actions say for them, “I am poor. I will always be poor, and there is nothing I can do about it….”   

Rick Joyner, in his book Overcoming the Spirit of Poverty, takes this definition a step further. He states “the spirit of poverty is a stronghold established for the purpose of keeping us from walking in the fullness of the victory gained for us at the cross, or the blessings of our inheritance in Christ.” The accuracy and truth of this definition resonated inside of me when I read it.

The spirit of poverty is a specific and strategic obstacle from the enemy to keep us from growing and prospering. Is it more spiritual to be poor? I used to think it was. But the Lord has convinced me otherwise. I discovered that it does not take much faith to be poor and in lack. It seems to happen automatically. In fact, I started to wonder, “Is it really selfish and lazy for us to settle for just barely enough finances to meet our needs?”,  especially when we have the capacity and ability to raise our faith and believe for much more in order to advance.

Discipling Nations, Darrow L. Miller, (Seattle, WA: YWAM Publishing, 1998), p.67.

Overcoming the Spirit of Poverty, Rick Joyner, (Charlotte, NC: MorningStar Publications, 1996), p. 4.

Someone recently suggested to me the idea that function can sometimes follow form, though somewhat counter intuitive it is worth examination. In the Wall Street Journal this week (May 21, 2012) is an example of a steel mill in Burns Harbor, Indiana that was bankrupt in 2002 but is now in full production by twinning with a steel mill in Belgium and implementing Belgium technology.

In 2008, Burns Harbor was “twinned” with a hypermodern mill in Gent, Belgium. The weaker mill is ordered to copy the practices of the better mill, while the stronger is told to keep its edge. Over 100 U.S. engineers and managers were flown across the Atlantic and told: Do as the Belgians do. Change in technology became the core transition with Burns Harbor moving from 80% back and 20% brain power to 80% brain and 20% back power.

In an interesting twist of the traditional form follows function linear theory, a new form was imported and resurrected a function that was dead. As Miller (2012) states in his article:

“Burns Harbor now enjoys record output. Its furnaces…are run with software developed in Belgium. Robots are in. Pencils are out. Workers are learning to make the same amount of steel with nearly half the people it employed three decades ago. Productivity is nearing Belgian levels”.

Though often criticized as the destroyer of US manufacturing, in many cases globalization puts pressure on U.S. factories to become more efficient to keep up with global competition, making it possible for them to survive. Jim Collins in his book Good to Great describes Kimberly Clark’s decision to sell the mills and focus on consumer products as one that would pit them against “world class competition…and would force them to achieve greatness or perish” (pg. 20). Ultimately Kimberly Clark did achieve greatness and became one of Collin’s Good to Great companies. Though Kimberly Clark did this voluntarily, Burns Harbor was forced by bankruptcy, and a new owner, to compete globally and to survive. The jobs of 3,700 people were preserved.

Though the general pattern of form follows function will remain the standard, in some cases this is reversed and with great benefit.

References

Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t. New York (NY): Harper Business.

Miller, J. (2012). Indiana Steel Mill Revived With Lessons From Abroad. U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, May 21, pg.A1

C. Thomas Anderson is the founder and senior pastor of The Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona. He tells the story of a young man from his church who chose not to attend a wealth seminar they were putting on at the church.

“With a tone of superiority in his voice, he explained that he had not been to any of the sessions, because he was not interested in money. That wasn’t where God was leading him. Exactly twenty-four hours later he was back at the church with tears in his eyes, asking if the church could help with some money for his neighbor. A fire had destroyed everything she had owned and she was left destitute with several children to care for. Suddenly money mattered. If this young man had seen the importance of money in ministry somewhat earlier in his life, he might have been in a better position to minister to his neighbor without having to ask others who did care about money.”¹

In 2 Kings we find Elisha had a wealthy woman who took care of him so he could be effective in his prophetic ministry.

One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. She said to her husband, “I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us” (2 Kings 4:8-11).

How could this woman and her husband add a room on to their house for the prophet? Simply stated, they had the financial means to do so. This arrangement was a blessing to Elisha and also to the well-to-do woman as she later had a son that was raised from the dead by the prophet. A proper perspective on finances will help us to have the resources needed to obey God when opportunities come our way.

1 Dr. C. Thomas Anderson, Becoming a Millionaire God’s Way, (New York: New York, Faith Words, Hachette Book Group USA, 2006), p. 19

I have a friend whose sister teaches the third grade. The following was one of her students’ essays about money.

I am thankful for all the money we have, all the one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred dollar bills. And also, all the cents and coins, all the pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars and 100 cent coins, and also all the kinds of money around the world, also all the checks and credit cards. Also all the people that invented money and coins. If the new $1,000 bill comes, I will be thankful for it, also for gold money, also rings that are worth money.

This child might have a healthier attitude toward money than a lot of us adults. If we could be honest, we would acknowledge that it takes money to finance God’s Kingdom. I used to be fond of giving a disclaimer when someone was fundraising for a project. I sometimes would respond by saying if I had $1000 dollars I would give it. It sounded really spiritual and made me feel good about myself, but the honest truth was that I didn’t have the money to give. Then I read Proverbs 25:14.

Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give.

Oops…I realized I was defrauding others by “boasting of gifts not given”. I have since stopped saying these words and instead focused on trying to have funds available when needs come around so I can freely give.

God loves the whole world but He has an agreement (or contract) with those of us who are Christians. Let me explain by talking about the owner of our local professional sports team. The owner has a general relationship with the fans and invites them to come to the games and enjoy them. He wants them to come and he does his best to put a winning team on the field for them to enjoy. If some fans get disappointed and mad, they can just stop coming to the games and it is no big deal. However, the owner of the team has a written contract with his players and coaches. There are specific commitments and expectations for both sides. They are legally bound to this commitment.

In the same way, God has made an agreement with us through his word to provide abundantly for more than just our needs. Though we know he loves the whole world, he has a contract with those who have taken his offer and signed on to his team.

Jesus was well taken care of by his Father. Jesus was not destitute and poor. He was born in a manger because the Inn was full. It was a symbolic act because he was the Lamb of God. His earthly father (Joseph) was a businessman going to pay taxes along with everyone else. Later, the wise men came to visit him in a house.

“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh (Matthew 2:11).”

Jesus himself was self-employed until age 30. He was not homeless and poor. If it is more spiritual to be poor as some Christians think, then we would have to say that Jesus wasn’t very spiritual!

Jesus took time to meet the needs of both wealthy men and poor beggars, however when he called his disciples he spoke only to men who were successful, working businessmen. We find out at his crucifixion that he wore clothing that was valuable. It was valuable enough that hardened soldiers did not want to destroy it. People followed Jesus because he had authority and knew where he was going. He had wealthy women traveling with his party. In fact, Luke indicates that the wife of the manager of Herod’s household was traveling with Jesus and financially supporting him.

“After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means (Luke 8:1-3). ”

Do you think that Joanna slept in the dirt? I don’t know, but I doubt it. She was married to Herod’s treasurer. I am inclined to think about what happens when we go to the mountains for a week-end with friends. When it is just the guys in the mountain for the week-end it is okay to rough it a little and just take the bare essentials. But when our wives accompany us things tend to be a little more comfortable.

Jesus had a treasurer named Judas who carried a money box. I suppose we could say that the money box was empty, but do you really think Jesus would have had someone carry an empty money box around? I don’t think so. Many Christians will say God is good, but because they have always struggled financially, they have developed a mindset that God is a stingy and holding back blessing. Just the opposite is true.

Permit me to introduce a term that many Christians consider to be a selfish, secular term—financial independence. Let’s define “financial independence” as having the resources on hand that will be needed to obey God’s voice. Too many times we have dismissed or not taken seriously the visions and ideas God has given to us because we do not see a way for them to be financed. Our excuse for not obeying God is a helpless, “That would be great, but we can’t afford it.” It is essential that we permanently delete the words “we can’t afford it” from our vocabulary. These words should be replaced with a positive petition, expecting God’s provision, by asking instead, “How is God going to provide?”

Let’s look at Noah, when God asked Noah to build the ark, He was at a place in his life of sufficient resources to obey. He was financially independent. There are no scriptures indicating Noah awakened one day and the ark was miraculously finished. There is no record of ravens flying in with pre-cut gopher logs to be fitted into place. The ark was built with manual labor over a period of years. Actually, it seems like Noah did not work on the ark much himself because he was busy preaching. So either his family or hired laborers constructed the ark.

It took significant financial resources for Noah to obey God. Could it be that God wants to provide for us in a similar way? I believe He desires that we have the resources on hand to accomplish His purposes as He reveals them to us.

A similar example from the New Testament is that of Joseph from Arimathea. He was a rich man, a member of the Sanhedrin, who was a disciple of Jesus. Joseph was ready and available when called upon to take Jesus’ body and give it an appropriate burial in a rich man’s tomb that had never been used before. This was significant because in Bible times, tombs were used multiple times. His availability and his financial resources played an important role in the death and resurrection of Jesus and the unfolding of the kingdom of God.