Money does not change you; it just magnifies who you are. If your habit is to spend all you make, then if you win the lottery, or receive a large pro sports contract or come into an inheritance, you will just continue as in the past. You just have more to spend. This is truly a poverty mentality.

It is the fundamentals that make and keep you prosperous. A lack of knowledge of the fundamentals keeps you broke. For instance, professional athletes make a lot of money, but many never instilled in their lives what to do with it, and thus many of them go broke.

Many of us did not grow up being taught the fundamentals of prosperity, how to properly handle money or how to invest it.

God does not teach us how to balance a checkbook in the Bible or how to invest our saved money.  God does teach us the fundamentals of giving, saving and being diligent or good stewardship.  As we put these principles to work in our lives, it is then up to us to study and learn how to see the prosperity grow that God entrusts us with. In the Old Testament, Joseph is a good example of a diligent and prosperous man.

In Joseph’s case, his father, Jacob, must have taught him well the principles of prosperity.

Genesis 39:2,3 And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian. And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand.

The LORD will be with us, too, as we apply the principles that make prosperity work.  Learning to give, to save, to practice good stewardship and diligence in our affairs, and learning how to wisely invest is another part of The Prosperous Life.

(Excerpted in part from Chapter 14 Poverty vs Wealth)