The Doh Of Prosperity
February 15, 2006
We talk a lot about it being God's will that we prosper, which is, or should be, abundantly clear from any, even a cursory, reading of the Bible. Here's a scripture
3 John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Well you'd have to have a degree in theology to misunderstand that.
But how does God prosper us? What does God do to get prosperity to us? We pray for material things but how do the material things come? Well, money isn't going to just fall on us out of the sky. The things we need are here on the earth, so for God to get them to us He has to work here on the earth. That basically means He has to work through people. (Now occasionally God may work through animals, ravens brought food to Elijah after all, but that's not the normal way God works. And even in the cases involving animals people still had a part to play.) So God works through people. There are two categories of people He works through, us and others.
God can move on others to help you. God can give you favor with others so they will like you and do things for you. Like Kate McVeigh says, one day of favor is worth a thousand days of labor. God can even move on people to give you things, give you a job or even money and gifts.
Sometimes we focus on this last part, people giving us things or money and it is this part which makes people think that receiving God's prosperity is like winning the lottery. But unless you're in a profession where people are in the habit of giving to you, like a lot of pastors and ministers, this probably isn't going to be the main way that God prospers you. One way you can measure the likelihood of this is to look at your own giving. How often have you given complete strangers a thousand dollars? How often have you given a thousand dollars to people that you know? Not very often? Well, even if God does move on someone to give you a thousand dollars there's probably going to be a lot of resistance there. Another way of thinking about this is this: You don't have faith to believe for someone to give you a thousand dollars until you have the faith to give someone a thousand dollars. With what measure you measure it shall be measured to you.
The other category of people God can work through is usins. God can lead us to prosperity. God can give us ideas. God can give us favor. God can give us abilities. God can give us grace, or graces, i.e. that which pleases and gives joy. You want to prosper? Be pleasing and give joy.
Now, I said all that to say this, in the Bible prospering is often analogized to sowing and reaping, planting and harvesting. Our giving is referred to as sowing our receiving as reaping or harvesting.
2 Corinthians 9: But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. 7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
When we read these scriptures we often imagine money falling out of the sky. We think that we gave and now all we have to do to reap is sit back and wait for the money to come in. But that's not going to happen. That isn't how God prospers. In fact the scripture quoted above says that, "…God is able to make all grace abound toward you…" The result of this grace abounding toward you is described next, "…that ye , always having all sufficiency in all things…" That's prosperity, having all sufficiency in all things. But what gets you there. God causes all grace to abound toward you.
What is grace? Well, briefly it's ability, giftedness or anointing, which causes people to be pleased with you. The grace God gives you causes people to experience joy with you or your product or service. Grace is the ability to create pleasing things or experiences. Here's an example of how grace works. Last Sunday Becky and I went to the mall, (Wow we actually have a mall. Is that incredible or what?) we stopped by the Clinique Counter at Dillards to look at some makeup. That's one of my favorite pastimes, looking at makeup. The young lady that helped us did an excellent job. She was attentive, kind, knowledgeable, polite and funny. She was pleasing to us. She brought us joy. She had abundant grace and as a result we were moved to buy her product.
God will cause grace to abound towards us in whatever He leads us to do. This grace will result in us being prosperous and successful. Begin to believe God for this grace in every area of your life. Begin to say God causes all grace to abound toward me. He causes me to be pleasing to people, to bring joy to them. He cause my work to be pleasing to people. God causes all grace to abound toward me.
So God causes all grace to abound towards us and this grace causes us to be successful. But guess what? If that girl had stayed home instead of going to work the grace that God gave her wouldn't have done her a bit of good. Her harvest would have come and she would have just let it rot in the field. And she could have gone away thinking, ' I guess God doesn't really want me to prosper.'
I think we do this a lot. We believe for God to prosper us, and then He gives us an idea or a direction or a gift which will cause us to prosper and we think, yeah wouldn't that be great. Then we go back to watching T.V. and forget all about it. Harvest time came and we left our harvest in the field.
God wants us to prosper.
How does he prosper us? By leading us in the way we should go, but we have to do the going.
How does God prosper us? By giving us grace, i.e. the ability to do something in a manner which is pleasing to other and brings them joy. But we have to use this ability.
How does God prosper us? By giving us wonderful money making ideas. But we have to harvest the fruit of these ideas and that requires work on our part. Harvest time is work time. If you want to reap an abundant harvest you've got to be willing to work.
If you want to experience the prosperity that God wants you to have, then when harvest time comes, when he gives you an idea, or an opportunity, or direction, or grace, get to work. Harvest time will eventually pass and your opportunity to reap the prosperity that God wants you to have will pass with it.
God wants you to prosper.