Biblical Prosperity

We have already discussed how we should pray and believe for more than enough finances and then ask God what to do with the surplus. Luke records Jesus sharing a parable of a man that didn’t know what to do with the more than enough that God had provided for him. Let’s read that story.

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16-21).

In this parable Jesus never rebuked the man for having more than enough. In fact he gave no indication that this would not be the normal pattern. He was teaching about what to do with the surplus that God so graciously provides for us. The rich man in the parable moved right out of living the life of faith and giving and moved into self-preservation, materialism and greed. He didn’t realize that it was prosperity with a purpose. He did not realize there was a reason for the surplus he was experiencing.

Remember, giving is the very thing that breaks the power of money as an idol in our lives. So, by hoarding it, the rich man actually was empowering money to become a god in his life. He had no knowledge of what to do with the more than enough.

Let us examine another account in Jesus’ ministry of more than enough. One day as Jesus was teaching from a fishing boat, He wanted to make a practical example for everyone to understand. We find the story told by Luke in his gospel.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink (Luke 5:4-8).

Fishing was the disciples’ job. It was how they earned their living. They were not out fishing all night long for a Bible lesson. No, they needed money for their daily provision.

Jesus more than met their financial need. If the fish catch of that day was so big that the nets began to break, and it was so big that it overfilled both boats to the point of sinking, it was definitely more than what they were expecting. Traditionally, most of us have only looked at the later verse where Jesus said the disciples would become fishers of men as the significant spiritual truth taught here. While it is absolutely true that Jesus was teaching this, we cannot overlook the fact that Jesus provided more than enough money for the disciples’ paycheck that week. He taught and modeled more than enough.

Is this too good to be true? Does God really want to bless us and our families with more than enough money to do all that He has put in our hearts? Sometimes people have difficulty believing that God loves them that much. As I have been teaching what the Bible shows us in the area of financial prosperity, people sometimes ask me if this is just an Old Testament thing. After all, wasn’t the revelation of El Shaddai an Old Testament revelation to Abraham and the children of Israel?

I can understand the question. If what I am teaching about the nature of God is valid, it must appear as a theme throughout the whole Bible. These truths do appear numerous times in the New Testament in the ministry of Jesus and Paul. Let’s first take a look at a familiar Bible story.

As evening approached, the disciples came to him [Jesus] and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”      Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”  “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children (Matthew 14:15-22).

In this story of the feeding of the five thousand, it states that they all ate enough food and were satisfied. This is how God wants to feed His people—more than they can eat with extra left over. In this case, it was twelve baskets of food that were left over.

We find El Shaddai in the Old Testament again by looking at the book of Malachi.

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty (Malachi 3:10-12).

The Lord promises to pour out so much blessing that we won’t have room for it. Here again we find the God of more than enough linked to the tithe. How about more than we can carry? Does that qualify as more than enough? In 2 Chronicles 20, the Lord gave Jehosaphat the victory over Moab and Amman. With his enemies defeated, he advanced to acquire the spoils. When Jehoshaphat and his men attempted to carry off their plunder—a great amount of equipment and clothing and articles of value—it was more than they could carry. In fact, there was so much that it took three days to collect it.

I want to solidly establish the fact that the scripture teaches God to be a God of more than enough. The scripture must be our foundation and our guide. In future weeks we will find the God of more than enough in the New Testament as well.

In Psalm 23, we read “I shall not want” and “my cup will be overflowing.” If a cup is overflowing it means there is more than enough to fill it. Sometimes I joke with people that they need to be careful if I am pouring a drink for them at a social gathering. I am getting such a revelation of more than enough, I just might keep pouring after their cup is full and overflow it. We find the same principle of overflow in Proverbs.

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine (Proverbs 3:9-10).

Brimming over? This sounds a lot like what we read in Psalm 23 where cups were overflowing. An overflow of new wine sounds like a good thing to me. Overflowing barns? Remember Joseph who had the overflowing crops for seven years as the minister of agriculture in Egypt? He saved up enough to last for the next seven years of drought. I recall Jesus talking about a guy that had his barns overflowing in the New Testament. In both cases the barns were overflowing, but there was a different use for the surplus on each occasion. Expect surplus. But what do we do with the surplus…that is a question we must ask the Lord?

When Elisha helped the widow of one of his prophets with financial provision, he instructed her to gather as many containers as she could find for the oil that was going to be poured out. Let’s read the story.

A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves. ”So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil. ”Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few.  And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.” So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.”

The oil only stopped flowing when she ran out of containers.  This is a familiar Bible story, but here again is this principle of more than enough. How much oil did she have? She had more than enough oil, more than she had containers to fill. Her expectation of God’s blessing coincided with how much she received…so lets have really high expectation of God’s financial blessing. He loves us that much.

Now that we have defined from the Bible what “blessing” is, let’s look at what the Bible says “curse” is. Curse is defined in the next few verses in Deuteronomy 28. What we are going to find is that poverty is included in the list of curses.

However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

     You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and ravish her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.

      You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

      The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail.

      Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you (Deuteronomy 28:15, 30, 38-39, 43-44, 47-48).

In these blogs we are biblically defining blessings and curses. We find that prosperity is a blessing from God and poverty is a curse from the enemy. We are laying this out as two very clear, distinct, mutually exclusive, separate definitions. This might seem elementary to some, but some Christians get confused about this and start to think that it is more spiritual to be poor and in lack. How can this be when we just read that poverty and lack are the results of disobedience and not obeying the Lord? We must allow the Bible to define these terms for us.

What is blessing? If we look at Deuteronomy 28, we find both Lordship and prosperity. The first verses speak to fully obeying God (Lordship) and the verses that follow define God’s blessings. Let’s study this together.

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The Lord will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they will fear you. The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you. The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them (Deuteronomy 28:1-14).

If you obey the Lord, all these blessings will come upon you and accompany you. He will grant you abundant prosperity. The Lord will open the heavens to send rain on your land. If you lend to many and borrow from none, that means you have more money than what you could use for your physical needs. You have surplus to make available to others. God’s intention for the children of Israel was blessing, prosperity, freedom and healing. In many ways it is parallel to what we found earlier in 3 John 2. This is blessing. This is God’s heart for us.

If our thinking is ruled by thoughts of poverty and lack, some of what we are saying might be hard to swallow. If this doesn’t make sense right away, then put it on the back burner, meditate on it and let it cook for a while. See what God shows you. It is a good thing for our thinking to be challenged as we look at the Word of God. We have to allow the Word of God to change us. Listen to what God speaks to Moses and the children of Israel in Deuteronomy. Read these words…

He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you. You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young (Deuteronomy 7:13-14).

Does this sound like El Shaddai? “You will be blessed more than any other people.” The key word here is “more.” The next chapter states this even more clearly. Let’s continue to read in Deuteronomy 8:6-11.

Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.

Here we find similar words describing God’s abundant provision. Phrases like “you will lack nothing” and “when you have eaten and are satisfied” simply state this truth in a different way. When you “are satisfied” it means you have more than enough food to satisfy your appetite. It means a smorgasbord, an all-you-can-eat buffet! It signifies you have food left over. This is the pattern that God wishes to establish for us if we will let Him. As God challenges and changes our belief system, our thinking will change. If our thinking changes about finances, our actions will change.

Is the name El Shaddai found in every book of the Bible? No…but the  nature of a God of abundance is found in every book of the Bible…we have found specific Bible references to El Shaddai in Genesis and Exodus. Now let’s look in Leviticus.

I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new (Leviticus 26:9-10).

Verse 10 is what we are looking for…“You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for this year’s harvest.” This sounds like more than enough to me. Last year’s harvest was more than enough to meet the needs of the year. The surplus will have to be moved to make room for the new harvest. Amen. Enough said.