God does not bless anybody with poverty. However, the general mentality is that Christians are the poorest people. There can be nothing further away from the truth than this.
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Abraham was wealthy.
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Isaac sowed and was blessed one hundred fold.
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Joseph was abundantly rich.
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Jacob, Daniel and the rest were not beggars.
We want to proclaim that poverty, shabbiness, and misery etc. are curses. Believers are not a cursed people. Material prosperity is God’s
gift to the spiritually progressive.
When a believer is poor, it is an attack from hell. Salary decreases and economic crises are not a blessing from God. If anything, they are a curse because of sin.
God’s normal way is to bless people spiritually and to bless them materially. Christians are not to be financially frustrated. They are to be materially blessed. It was the devil that destroyed Job’s property and health. It was God who visited, healed him, and doubled his former wealth.
The normal thing is;
“And My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19.)
Leadership is tied to giving. A leader must give. Think of a pastor who cannot give food to the hungry because he is poor. A pastor has a house assembly that is as large as his house.
We have sent, are sending, and will send missionaries. It took, is taking, and will take money to send missionaries. If there was no money, we would not be sending out missionaries. Poverty does not advance the kingdom of God. Poverty is a calculated attack from hell against the gospel.
Imagine poor husbands who can neither feed their wives nor their children. You call that being blessed? I do not! It cannot be!
We are to resist poverty as we resist sin and all the other works of hell. God has ordained us unto greatness. We cannot compromise with poverty.
The Bible says,
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8.)
All grace here involves material wealth. It is
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financial grace,
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academic grace,
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material grace,
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relational grace
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etc.
Grace for material wealth and spiritual wealth. Grace to have all that you need, so as to abound in every good work.
The perfect will of God is that his children should live in abundance. To live in abundance is to be able to provide for all one’s needs and do good works.
When you go to buy something, buy the best and most durable. This is the way of wisdom. Buy what within the years will still be desirable. Your measure should be the wealth of Christ. Your limits should be the wealth of God.
Do the right and the noble deeds in Christ. Dress and build your house according to how it contributes to the accomplishment of the call of God in your life.
ASKING AND RECEIVING
Believers are to ask in order to receive. They are to ask clearly in order to receive clearly. Be specific in your prayers, so that God’s answers may be specific. Be as exact as possible. Ask and receive that your joy may be full. There is joy in receiving.
It is not spiritual to ask God of the poorest things. No. No. No, it is carnality. When you go to God ask according to his greatness, but as you spend it, do it to please him. Every believer is to labour with God in order to get out of poverty. He is to ask for the needs of others as well.
I want to challenge you; make a list of those who lived in need and poverty in the Bible. The believers in Jerusalem were not poor because they were believers. It was their actions in independence from God that plunged the church into poverty. It was their mismanagement of what they had that led to their problems. Nowhere else did the believers trade their property away as in Jerusalem. It was not an example to be imitated.