Money Unpacked- What does the Bible Really Say?

Jesus didn’t have a place to lay his head, but he had a pillow. Sound confusing? It’s really not. What DOES the Bible say about money? A whole lot!

I love what Gloria Copeland said;

2 Corinthians 8:9—Rich Is Not a Dirty Word—It Is a Bible Word

1. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”
2. Genesis 14:22-23: “And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand unto the Lord, the highest God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.”
3. Deuteronomy 8:18 (NLT-96): “Always remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the power to become rich, and he does it to fulfill the covenant he made with your ancestors.”

a. To increase in goods
b. To have an abundance of outward possessions
c. To be richly supplied

Journey to Prosperity- Total Obedience Required

One morning in early May before the sun rose, I woke up early and prayed in the Spirit for about an hour. The Holy Spirit began to speak to me about transitioning from one church to another.

“Transitions take time. It moves you from one place to another, from one path to another. It is not quick, nor is it easy. Just as a growing child craves food as it is being weaned from milk, so you are being weaned. It is a time to stay steady, stay close to me. As you complete the fullness of the transition, you will find yourself in a happy place and your joy will be complete.”

We had been at the same church for almost 20 years. The pastor was a good man who knows the Word and flows in the gifts of the Spirit. Why was it necessary for us to leave one a church to enter into prosperity? Total victory requires total obedience to those things which he calls us to do. We are to obey by faith. At the wedding in Cana Jesus mother, Mary told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you to do.”

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Journey to Prosperity- Five Levels of Prosperity

I was accustomed to skimming books and hitting the highlights. It dawned on me about halfway through the first book that I was not going to receive the fullness of the anything that way. I went back to the beginning and started again. This time I read slowly and purposefully.

I changed my reading habits. I started meditating and studying what I had read. I was no longer going for quantity, but rather quality. One day as I was speaking in tounges and meditating on what I read, the Holy Spirit showed me five different types of prosperity. This was news to me;

  1. Evil prosperity– money made in the exploitation of others.
  2. Workingman’s prosperity where most of the world and many Christians live their financial lives; they educate themselves, they work, they save, they invest and their wealth grows. This group takes the credit for their prosperity. “My power and the wealth of my hands have gotten me this wealth. (Duet 8:17) This is toiling.
  3. Blended prosperity– the man who wavers between trusting God and his own ability. Tries to trust God, but really doesn’t have enough Bible truth within him to stand against financial adversity when a crisis comes. They fall back upon themselves when the pressure is on. Between their faith and actions, they get enough relief to maintain, but never truly step into God’s prosperity. They receive a measure of God’s prosperity, but never experience a true breakthrough. (This is where we found ourselves for so many years.)
  4.  Prosperity through the Covenant– the group who have spent the time studying, meditating, praying and confessing God Word for long enough that they have built within their heart an unshakeable scriptural foundation concerning Gods will to prosper. When temptations come to fall back into the natural to relieve financial pressure they do not bow. Financial pressure us one of the strongest pressures we face. Most never make it to this level because the pressure is great. It can be very uncomfortable, embarrassing and even inconvenient.
  5. Superabundant revelation and supply -It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven. We have misunderstood this scripture. It is metaphorical. God’s definition of rich is super-abundant supply; developing cities and regions as Abraham did.  There are very few men living who have lived who attain this level of prosperity. There are just a few on the earth now. Bishop Oyedoepo, Ken Copeland, to a degree Mac Hammond, Bill Winston, and others are rising. Their influence is far greater than a local church. It affects the region’s economy.  They have great influence on their world. They are like Abraham; “exceedingly prosperous.”

Journey to Prosperity- Habits that Help You

In my last blog, I wrote about our financial struggles when we first married. We soldiered on; speaking the Word, giving what we could and slowly growing in our faith. I confessed the Word of God regularly. Yet, like so many others, prosperity continued to elude us. We experienced financial miracles more than once and witnessed the delivering hand of God over and over, but we never broke through to consistent prosperity.  Over the years, as I observed the Body of Christ, I noticed that most people I knew were in the same situation, living with just enough to get by.

For many years, we confessed prosperity scriptures consistently. We knew and believed what the Bible said about prosperity, but our habits were hit and miss. Sometimes we confessed and believed, and sometimes we forgot. It is only now I understand that we were laying down the spiritual tracks. We were doing many of the right things. What I didn’t know was the rest of the story or have any idea what was ahead.

I’m going to digress a bit and explain a little more about where we were spiritually.  Our circumstances intensified in 2017 when my husband ran for political office, but it was not a financial pressure that was upon us. 

We soon learned that running for public office is not for babies. It is intense pressure. (That story is for another time.)  We hired a campaign manager in within a few weeks we knew it was a mistake. But, it took several months to correct that mistake. In the meantime, the Holy Spirit spoke to me to quit my job and become Dana’s campaign manager.

He said he would be my employer. Suddenly, I was responsible to hear from heaven for a political campaign! I was completely unqualified. My response to that pressure was to pray more. I prayed a lot more. I had faced hardship before, but not like this. When the pressure is on, we learn a lot about ourselves.  I found myself praying for 2-3 hours at a day in tongues. The pressure was intense. The attacks were continuous. The devil does not want the righteous in public office. My husband didn’t win that election, but we were changed forever! 

During that time, I taped into a vein of gold in prayer. I had been a person of prayer for many years already and I was accustomed to leading prayer groups. But, I was hearing his voice at a whole new level. It wasn’t a chore for me to pray that long. I usually woke up around 4 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. So, I just laid in bed and prayed in tongues. Then I would listen to faith messages on YouTube. It sustained me. That was my morning habit. When the race was over, I continued in the new level of prayer that I stepped into. 

Remember that old saying, “One word from God can change your life?” In January 2018, I was praying in tongues as is my morning habit and the Holy Spirit spoke a word to me that would change my life. 

Journey to Prosperity- One Word Can Change Your Life

In early January of 2018, the Holy Spirit began to open my eyes and show me how my perceptions were hindering our prosperity. In a moment of time, he revealed where my thinking did not line up with his. It was to be just the beginning…

“Your mind is always going over your mistakes and years of failures. It is a constant stream of negativity. The devil focuses on the years. Then he reminds you of how old you are. The constant barrage of negativity: it’s called buffeting. It’s relentless. It never quits.”

You turn his voice down and my voice up by intention. The voice of faith, the voice of hope, the voice of love must be louder. It takes a certain amount of my word just to balance the scale. That’s where you have been for several years. But, now it’s time to tip the scales. (That explained a lot!)

“The Word, the Word, the Word on prosperity. Don’t just double up, but I’m telling you, triple up on the Word on prosperity. 2018 is the year to make spiritual financial deposits into your spirit and follow the inward witness concerning giving and investments.”

IF, IF, IF you are diligent to follow my instructions, 2019 will bring an incredible breakthrough. I don’t look back and count time against you. I look ahead into the brightness of everyman’s future.”

Wow! I had very specific directions. We set out to immediately obey his instructions. I started my usual speed reading with Gloria Copeland’sbook God’s Will is Prosperity. Wrong!

Journey to Prosperity- The Early Years

 

Journey to Prosperity- The Early Years

My husband grew up in that kind of house. While his father made enough money, his mother always found ways to spend more than what he made. Consequently, they never had enough. They got saved later in life and were lovely people, but they died broke, living on social security. It was certainly not Gods best.

My parents, on the other hand, were planners. They had a plan for everything. But, my father was stingy and full of reasoning and logic and was always lecturing somebody about something. They were able to leave a small inheritance to their children when they passed.

When we married, we were recently born again. We are first generation Christians from unsaved homes and had no Biblical teaching to guide us. Neither set of middle-class parents taught us anything about the Bible or money. We never learned about budgeting, saving, or preparing for old age. We both had educated parents, but like so many others, we came to into our marriage with a financial learning deficit that we didn’t know we had.

We always struggled with money. The beginning was really tough on us. We carried the silent, yet weighty baggage of our childhood into our marriage.  I married young and without an education and I always beat myself up for that, feeling my early marriage was the reason we struggled so much financially.

But, after a few years of Biblical teaching, we developed enough in our faith and spending habits to pay our bills and buy a home. We continued to grow in our faith, and after 14 years of marriage, theLord led us to Oklahoma to attend Bible school. It was the best decision we could have ever made. We immersed ourselves in the Word of God and grew rapidly in so many ways.

We were faithful students and practiced what we learned to the best of our ability. Year after year, we gave and confessed what the Bible says about money. There were a few years where the finances were great. But, even during those good years, we still never had enough.  We never had enough to follow our ministerial dreams and definitely not enough to give much away. We wanted to give, and save, and plan for retirement, but it seemed like we always hit the wall of “not enough.” Our visions were stymied and stopped. But, we kept on because we knew the plan of God for his children was prosperity.