Once I learned that the concept of saving money was Biblical and that it was what God said to do in His Word, it was a struggle to really incorporate that into our lives. There was so much I did not understand.

A great man once said, “If you want your life to change, you have to change.”

I am reminded of the verse in Romans 12:2 that states “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

This idea of changing our lives is very interesting. You have the popular stories of rags to riches. Then you have the stories of people that completely changed their way of eating and gained great benefits. You can find contractors that have had people walk on them and take advantage of them and then change to no longer being intimidated and standing up for themselves. All these changing processes take time and cause great changes in a person’s life. The person that participates in these changes cannot see or imagine the great benefits that will result down the road.

There were two events that really helped us change the way we saw and managed our finances. As we changed our thinking, our lives began to change financially.

Some of the changes that took place in our lives were:

The anxiety over day-to-day bills disappeared.

We were able to put a buffer in all our accounts so there was always money in there to protect us from overdraft fees.

We used to have to look at our bills and pay them one at a time as they came up. Now we pay this week’s bills on Monday or put them on autopay. We did not do this in the past out of fear that there would not be enough money in the account when it was deducted from the account.

We were able to put extra money on our loans to pay them off early.

It was a great relief not to be fearful all the time of overdrawing the account or being late on bills.

As we built our emergency fund up, there was less fear and anxiety as emergencies came up because now, we could pay for the event.

Our biggest change was the loss of fear and anxiety when it came to money.

Changing your thinking, your believing, and what is living in your heart can be difficult. If God’s Word directs your changes, you will see the results God has promised.

In one of the Martin Luther movies, his priest/father asked if Martin had found the answer he was looking for. Martin Luther said that he knew it in his head, but it was not yet in his heart. It takes a while to change our knowledge, our thinking, and eventually what lives in our hearts.

This is true when it comes to putting on the mind of Christ as well as when it comes to putting on the right thinking about money that God shows us in His word. It takes work and time.

The first event that really helped us turn our financial lives around was:  I had been saving my change in quart jars for quite a while. I had seen many people save their change in those 5-gallon water jugs with the small tops and always wanted to do that. Not having a five-gallon jug, I settled for quart jars. I had seen that God encouraged us to save money, so quart jars were where I started. Then one day, we needed money to pay a certain bill, so my wife asked if she could take the jars to the bank and cash in the change. I said, “No.” I told her that this is what we had always done. We would save some money and then spend it to pay a bill or put a down payment on a car. It always went to pay something. Then we had nothing, and we had to start over.

That day I said, “NO!” was a day that began to turn our lives around. I said, “This cannot be what God intended when He asked us to save.”  I decided God would have to figure out another way to pay that bill, but I would no longer have this cycle of “save and use it to pay a bill – save and use it to pay a bill.” I had just had enough! From that point on, we would save a portion with no intention of EVER spending it.

That day was a turning point.

The second event was:  We started to save a small amount of money in a savings account, and I felt good about myself. We were saving money. Then as I was telling someone about a teaching I did where I told people to save some money, and as the words “save some money” came out of my mouth, it was like God shouted them in my ears. “SAVE SOME MONEY!!” This was another turning point. Apparently, the small amount I was saving was just a token, so I could say I was obeying. It was like mental assent. From that day forward, we dramatically increased the amount we saved each month.

One thing we noticed as we looked back was that as we became committed to saving, our ability to save increased. We were able to put increasingly more away. As God has said, “To those that have, more shall be given.”

Can we as God’s children change? Obviously, we can, or God would not ask us to renew our minds or change once we are born again.

If you want your life to change, you have to change which can be difficult. This process involves changing your thinking, your habits, and what lives in your heart.

However, change requires hard work and opening yourself to new experiences. But we realize people don’t change instantly. I heard someone once say that when the great ocean-going ships come into a harbor, you don’t just whip them around to send them back out to sea. They attach tug boats to the hulls and turn them about very slowly. That is the way most of us change. We change very slowly. Unless you are like the Apostle Paul and get a great vision on the road to Damascus. He changed right then and there,

Speaking of the Apostle Paul, he helped many people become children of God. Did all these new converts to Christianity immediately operate all nine manifestations? No! This is why, to meet the needs of those new people, Paul performed special miracles. It takes a while to grow up into a new way of thinking and living our lives. Just as Paul took a few years to grow into his newfound understanding of Christ the Messiah, it was many years of study, learning, and thinking before Paul went on his preaching tours.

Why don’t we change then if there are great benefits?

The most common reason is fear of uncertainty or fear of new things. We can be afraid of the outcomes because they are unknown. We fear being outside our comfort zone of handling money the way we always have. We fear the loss of our sense of connection with others. (They are all broke, and we have a sense of belonging to that group.) All our friends and family live basically paycheck to paycheck, and we would become the odd man out. We could be afraid they would reject us, or that they would think we are now greedy because we save money. We fear being different. So, a lesson here is that as you begin to change and save and see more prosperity, keep your mouth shut. This is between you and God.

Romans says that if you have believing, have it between yourself and God.

Jesus Christ did not avoid people outside his group of disciples. He taught them, healed them, and offered them the way to eternal life. But he did not adopt their modes of thinking. We are to become Christ-like in our minds. Poverty thinking should be a thing of the past. We do not avoid others, but we can outgrow the old habits, and the old thought patterns, and enter a new level of understanding of God’s will and outline for our prosperity.

We may have to learn bookkeeping and learn how to invest that saved money. All of which can lead to a sense of uncertainty.

Some scientists suggest that uncertainty registers as an error message in our brains and needs to be corrected before we can feel comfortable again. So, we practice the new ways of understanding prosperity over and over until this new pattern becomes more comfortable than the old.

Anyone can have a day that turns their life around. It is a decision. If we change, our lives will change. The familiar and traditional ways of handling money will begin to disappear. Eventually, if we stay the course, the new way of thinking will become so real we will never go back. This is another piece of The Prosperous Life.

We have all heard the expression “Use it or Lose it!” over the years, but did you realize that this idea comes from God’s Word?

When Jesus Christ was interested in teaching his followers about faithfulness, he used money as his illustration. I have already covered the parable of the unjust steward. It might be good to review that as it goes along with this blog.

In the parable in Mathew 25 and the parable in Luke 19, Jesus wanted to teach his followers some aspects of the kingdom that was soon to come to pass. In these records, the master gave his servants certain amounts of money and told them to do business or trade with the money until he returned.

1. These men were servants which means in that day and time they were probably bought because they could not pay their debts. This man that bought them and put them to work in his business must have spent some time training them on how to properly manage money, and now it was show time. They were to show how much they had been paying attention and what they had learned. This could easily have been a trial to see if he wanted to keep them in his employment, were they profitable to him or did he need to let them go.
2. In the record of Matthew, their master gave them “talents.” This word is confusing in English. We think of talent as actors, those that play the piano, artists or that may have a talent for sports.

But the word has two meanings.

Talent has two principal meanings: (Wikipedia)

• Talent (measurement), an ancient unit of mass and value.
• Talent (skill), a group of aptitudes useful for some activities; talents may refer to aptitudes themselves or to possessors of those talents.

According to the Britannica:  talent, a unit of weight used by many ancient civilizations, such as the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The weight of a talent and its relationship to its major subdivision, the mina, varied considerably over time and location in the ancient world. The most common ratio of the talent to the mina was probably 1:60.

The Hebrew talent, or kikkār, probably of Babylonian origin, was the basic unit of weight among the ancient Hebrews. In the sacred system of weights, the Talmudic talent was equal to 60 Talmudic minas.

The original Greek word for “talent” is talantos, which refers to quantity.

So, in this record in Matthew, the word “talent” is used as a unit of weight or an amount of money.

3. Both records are parables which means they are not literally true stories. They are illustrations in story form to teach a specific point. In Matthew 25 Jesus’s point is about faithfulness again just like in the parable of the unjust steward.

So, let’s read the record from Matthew 25.

Matthew 25:14-30  For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. 15  And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. 16  Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. 17  And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.18  But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. 19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. 20  And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 21  His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 22  He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. 23  His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 24  Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: 25  And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. 26  His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: 27  Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. 28  Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. 29  For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. 30  And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If we see ourselves as stewards/managers of the prosperity God has given us, then we need to learn how to make that money grow. It is interesting that Jesus uses money as the measuring stick to see faithfulness. Money is easy to count, easy to see how much progress we have made.

The master gave his servants varying amounts of money depending on their abilities. In this record, two of the servants doubled the amount of money the master gave them. In the record in Luke, the master gave them each the same amount of money, but they brought back different amounts – one 10 times as much and one 5 times as much as they were given. In both records, one servant gained nothing by trading but went and hid his master’s money. They did not even put it in the bank to gain interest.

Jesus spent more time teaching about the two that did nothing than he did with those that were profitable.

In Matthew, the servant that hid the money accused his Master of being a hard man, thus he was afraid of Him. In other words, he put the blame for his inaction on his master. Fear is one of the enemies of believing. There are a great many promises in God’s word of His prospering us. He has promised that “everything we do shall prosper,” “He will fill our storehouses,” and our barns shall be filled with plenty, etc.

The first servants in this parable were not afraid. They must have trusted what they had been taught and went to work. Have you ever heard the expression “trust the process?”  So why be afraid of losing what you have saved? Learn how to invest and trade and have fun. Remember God as your Father is right there to teach you and guide you.

Sometimes wealth does sprout wings and fly away, but God is still our El-Shaddai, and He has great power to defend, to support and supply our every need. He wants to see us being faithful to grow what He has given us. And as we are faithful, God is able to give us even more to steward as He did with these men.

He wants us simply to use what He has given. Some have taught that to steward something is to return it in the same condition as when they received it, or perhaps a little better. God does not want us to return to Him exactly what He gave us. In fact, the servant that gave back to the master exactly what he was given was called “wicked and slothful.” Then the wicked and slothful had the money he had been given taken away, and it was given to the faithful. WOW!

When we don’t use our muscles, we lose them. When we don’t stay in touch with our friends, we lose our connection with them. When we don’t use our “abilities,” we’re cheating ourselves.

God has a great deal of investment in your life. He created you; He Shaped you, and He gave His only Son Jesus Christ for you. He has given us the principles of prosperity, and He wants you to use them. He wants us to generate income and to build up the church.

If we can learn to be faithful stewards of the things of this life, the unrighteous mammon, the prosperity He gives us, then we show ourselves to be faithful servants of our Father, and He can trust us with even more of the spiritual side of this life.

Use it – or Lose it! This too is part of The Prosperous Life.

​Deuteronomy 8:18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. 

We are being inundated daily with news of an imminent market crash and the end of the dollar as we know it. In the past, many have found their wealth gone overnight in a market crash. Some have been left on the street because their business went bankrupt, and that was their only source of income.

God gave us some great wisdom in what Paul wrote by revelation at the end of I Timothy, Chapter 6.

1 Timothy 6:17-18  Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but (trust) in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

Let’s look at these statements:

1. Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded

God tells us here that there are Christians that are rich or wealthy. He does not condemn them, but He does remind them not to have pride in their prosperity. They should remember how much work it was for them to get where they are, and that God was highly involved in their success. They did not do it all on their own

2. Nor trust in uncertain riches,

Then the big one I see here is that God reminds them not to trust in uncertain riches.

Mark 10:24b Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

Proverbs 23:5 When you set your eyes on wealth, it is [suddenly] gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings Like an eagle that flies to the heavens. Amplified Bible

God reminds us not to trust in our wealth; we are to trust Him, the provider of wealth. God calls riches “uncertain.”  Sometimes they just disappear. When the government outlawed the private ownership of gold in the 1930s, they ordered the banks to confiscate the gold in the safety deposit boxes one weekend. Monday morning the people’s gold was gone. Just like God said, sometimes it just flies away.

3. But (trust) in the living God

God, on the other hand, is trustworthy and stable. He will always provide for us. Many times, He provides us with money, but we are to trust in Him as the provider, not in the provision. We are to trust Him.

Psalm 18:2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Proverbs 18:10-11  The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit.

So, believers trust God when trouble comes. They do not trust the provision. They use the provisions, but they do not trust in them. It reminds me of this verse:

Proverbs 21:31 The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD.

The horse was prepared and was used in battle, but they knew at the end of the day it was not the horse that delivered them, but it was the Lord whom their safety came from.

The foolish that are wealthy trust that their wealth is a wall too high for trouble to climb. But as we have read, at times, what they have put their trust in just disappears.

So, we are to put our trust in the provider, God, not in what He provides.

Where I live, we have many storms that may include tornadoes in the spring. When the storms come, we do not trust the house will take care of us. No! We pray and remind God that He provided this home for us and ask Him to protect us and His provision. We trust God not the house.

The same would be true for money. We do not trust that the money will take care of us, but we trust God will take care of us and His provision.

4. Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.

This should be an end to the idea that wealth is evil. God says HE gives us all things richly to enjoy. If you follow God’s way of handling money, you will build wealth. There is no doubt that God’s desire for His children is to be very prosperous. When you read Kenyon’s book, The Father and His Family, Kenyon talks about how God put all the resources in the earth for His children to enjoy and use. Oil and gas, gold, silver, diamonds and pearls, copper, and iron.

Why does He give us these things? So, we can enjoy them.

We are His children, and He wants us to be prosperous and healthy. So, He gives us all things richly to enjoy. But He cautions us not to allow our trust to shift from trusting Him to trusting in His provision – the wealth He provides. He warns us about the snares that await us as we build wealth.  He shows us examples of those in the past that allowed wealth/prosperity go to their head. Then He instructs us on how to handle some of that wealth.

5. 1 Timothy 6:18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

He never asks us to give it all away. He never says we should feel guilty about His abundant provision. He gives us this prosperity so we can enjoy it, but He also instructs us to be giving, to be generous, and to share what He has blessed us with.

Proverbs 21:20 There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up.

Proverbs 10:22 The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.

There is a lot in these two verses in 1 Timothy. They are like a summary of the instructions on the handling of money that are given throughout God’s Word.

If you follow God’s way of handling money, you will build wealth. But building wealth is not the goal, it is the end result of being obedient to God’s instructions concerning money. Building a greater relationship with your Father is the goal.

Learning these things and embedding them into your heart is all part of The Prosperous Life.

On Wednesday evenings, we have been reading through the book of Proverbs in our fellowship.  As we feel the urge and for better understanding, we may read some verses from other translations and read the footnotes of some Bibles.

A couple of weeks ago, we read Proverbs 11:16:

Proverbs 11:16  A gracious woman retaineth honour: and strong men retain riches.

I had not really paid attention to this verse in the past, but that night we did.  We read it from other translations, and it got interesting.  Many did not read like the King James did at all.

For instance:  Where the King James said strong men, others said violent, ruthless, and terrible. Other places in the Old Testament where the same Hebrew word is used translated it oppressors.

Darby – violent retain riches.

RSV – violent men get riches.

New Living Translation – A gracious woman gains respect, but ruthless men gain only wealth.

New English Translation – A generous woman gains honor, and ruthless men seize wealth.

THE MESSAGE – A woman of gentle grace gets respect, but men of rough violence grab for loot.

However, Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible used the word diligent in place of strong. In my mind, there is quite a difference between strong/diligent and violent/oppressive and ruthless.

Proverbs 11:16 A gracious wife, obtaineth honour, but, the diligent, shall obtain wealth.  Emphasized Bible

 So, which is it? Diligent or violent?

We looked up the verse in EW’s Bullinger’s Companion Bible which is a Kings James Bible version. In his notes, he said that both the Septuagint and the Syriac used the word diligent just like Rotherham. Interesting! The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. It was translated into Greek during the Babylonian Captivity about 200 years before Christ was on the earth.  So, the Hebrew text used would have been very old compared to any available to modern translators.

The Syriac was translated from the Hebrew text about 400 A.D. according to Bullinger. Both translations translated the word strong in our Bibles into diligent in their work. Their work would have used much older texts than more modern texts.

E-Sword, a Bible software program, has the Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament. Their notes implied that there were two lines left out in the King James version that are included in other older translations.  That sparked my interest even more.

I wanted to read the verse from the Septuagint and the Syriac myself. So, I typed into Google “Septuagint version of Proverbs 11:16” and found this.

Brenton’s Septuagint (LXX) A gracious wife brings glory to her husband: but a woman hating righteousness is a theme of dishonour. The slothful come to want: but the diligent support themselves with wealth.

Then I looked to see for myself what the Syriac translation said. I did not find the Syriac, but I found this:

Proverbs 11:16. A gracious woman retaineth honour— The LXX, Syriac, and Arabic versions have two hemistichs (extra lines) which are here omitted; namely, the second of this, and the first of the next verse. They read, A gracious woman raiseth honour to her husband; but a woman who hateth righteousness is a throne of disgrace. The slothful, though rich, shall come to poverty; but the laborious shall retain their riches. (StudyLight.org)

This inspired me to then look at Lamsa’s translation of the Aramaic. He also included the two extra lines.

Proverbs 11:16 A gracious woman sustains the honor of her husband; a woman who hates the truth is the seat of dishonor. Lazy men are in want even when they are rich; and strong men retain knowledge. Lamsa

This information of the LXX and the Syriac was available to Rotherham and EW Bullinger; therefore, it was available to all that wanted to know who were also doing translation work.  Many times, preconceived ideas or mindsets greatly affect the way translations are done.  Since the 2^nd or 3^rd centuries, the consensus has been that the rich are evil or oppressive and do not walk with God.  They quote the record of the rich young ruler and preach that Jesus was a poor man and that we should follow his lead.

It is a good idea to read and study God’s Word for yourself. God is the same today as He was in the days of Joseph, Abraham, Solomon and David.  God says, “I am the Lord I change not.” God is consistent throughout His Word.

Whether the other two lines belong or not, I do not know, but it is interesting to see the support of the use of the word diligent and the use of support themselves. Instead of saying getting wealth or loot through the use of violence or oppression, and with the other two lines added in, it gives more support to the use of diligent. These older translations tie together the woman of 16A with the man of 16B by saying she brings glory or honor to her husband. Solomon as the writer and God as the author equates graciousness in women as an honorable attribute just has God equates diligence as honorable in men.

This diligence of the man is not simply hard work. Many good people work hard and are broke. This diligence would include being a giver, saving money and learning how to invest, and knowing how to make your investments grow and prosper as Joseph did for Potiphar and Pharaoh. Diligence is one of the themes that runs through Proverbs.

It is also interesting that Lamsa translated knowledge in place of wealth from the Aramaic. This is understandable as knowledge, wisdom and understanding skip through Solomon’s proverbs like the three Musketeers. These three together are the foundation of true wealth.

If you want to know how to do these things, just ask. God is more than willing to teach and grant you the wisdom you need to live The Prosperous Life.

”Ignorance is bliss” is a common saying. Another way of saying that is, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”  There are many expressions like this that we grew up with but that are wrong.  For instance, with the first expression, if you are ignorant of God’s Word, does that make for a blissful life?  On our deathbed, would it hurt us to have no knowledge of Jesus Christ and everlasting life?

Ignorance is not bliss! What you don’t know will hurt you. Ignorance of finances from God’s perspective can lead to a life of frustration and despair.  It is much better to know how God says to handle finances than to be blissfully ignorant of His instructions and wisdom.

Here is another one: “God helps those that help themselves.” This is not true. God sent His son to deliver mankind when mankind could do nothing about his fallen position because of Adam’s sin. There are many examples of people whom Jesus Christ healed that could not help themselves.  What we can do is learn what is available from God and learn how to access God’s promises. Then we can go to the Throne of Grace to find strength and His HELP in time of need.

The world has taught us that: “What you see is what you get.”  God says we are to live by faith and not by what we see.  Jesus Christ said, “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet believe.” We did not see Christ in his resurrected body, and we cannot see the promise of Christ’s return, but we believe both are true. We will receive this promise of Christ’s return at the appointed time. When you bring the tithes into the storehouse, can you SEE the windows of heaven open? No, but we live by trusting the promises of God (faith) not by what we see.

“You made your bed; you sleep in it.”  No, God made us a brand, new bed.  His “bed” gives us body, soul AND SPIRIT as well as everlasting life. I no longer have to live in the “bed” the devil helped me make.  I am now a citizen of the kingdom of God, and I will sleep in the bed, in the life, God has prepared for me.

Many Christians believe the idea that God is to keep the preacher humble, and their job is to keep him poor. Chapter and verse, please.

None of these sayings are found in God’s Word. These expressions and many more are the ways of the world.  They sound good, but they are not valid. Romans 12 tells us to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are to put on the thoughts of Christ, the mind of Christ.  We are to live by faith and not by sight.

Once you learn that what you have believed is not true, and you have learned the truth, you may be left with a set of negative emotions. Sometimes emotions may have more power over us than truth.

Here is an example of what I mean.  When I was a small boy, about five or six years old, my parents took me to a tent revival.  I heard the preacher say that even if you are born again and ask God to forgive you for your sins or a certain sin, and if you sin again and die in a car wreck on the way home that night before you can ask for forgiveness, God will send you to Hell because sin cannot be in the presence of God.  I also heard that when you die you will stand before the Great White Throne for judgment. The books will be opened and if you have too many sins, God will send you to Hell. This scared me to death. I felt I could never be good enough.

However, I learned as I got older that Jesus Christ paid for all our sins. He is a complete redeemer. We may sin while we are here on the earth, but when Jesus Christ comes back, all that are born again, all of God’s children, go home with Jesus Christ. We have already been judged and declared righteous by the work of Jesus Christ, so we will never stand before the Great White Throne. Instead, we as believers will stand before the judgment seat called The Bema to receive rewards for our labors of love while we await the return of the Son of God.

The problem I had for years was that even though I knew the truth that I am God’s child forever no matter what, I emotionally felt that God was cold and uncaring. Once again, emotions can be more powerful than our understanding and belief of truth. The wrong teachings from my youth left me with the feeling that God did not care at all whether you went to Heaven or spent eternity in Hell. I felt He just did not care.

Now, I knew that was not true.  God says in His Word that He is a God of love. The truth is that once we are His children, we can never be separated from God and His love no matter what.  But the emotion of His not caring was a struggle to overcome.

I talked to God about that many times and asked Him to show me what to do about that problem.  I thought to myself, if He paid off my bills would I then believe He loved me? No, because in 10 years or less, the bills would be back, and then what? He would have to do it again because it did not last.  Finally, one day He caused me to realize my problem was that I did not believe properly. Although I had learned and taught the verse that says God introduced His love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, I did not believe it. As I worked on that verse to believe it, the problem quickly left. I saw that God did not have to “do” anything to convince me of His love because He already had given the proof.   I was amazed at my own unbelief. If you would have asked me, ”Do you believe that verse?,” I would have said “Yes.”  But, apparently, I did not.

I gave the above example to say this:  You may find that what you were taught about money, or what you learned from the culture, your church, or family left you with the feeling of not being good enough before God for The Prosperous Life or a sense of hopelessness for example.  The way to deal with those emotions is to decide to believe and trust that what God says is the truth, not your feelings.  Ask God for help in that area, and He will.

So, when it comes to your money, don’t be content to be blissfully ignorant. What you don’t know or believe will hurt you.  Instead, go to work, begin to study what God has really said in His Word, and then read and study how other enlightened Christians have applied those truths in our day and time. Watch your life and finances begin to change as you apply the principles. Then you will see more of The Prosperous Life open up in your life.