Emotions or feelings play a large part in our lives. Negative emotions or feelings can have a devastating effect on our response to God and His Word. Nowhere in God’s Word does God say to follow your feelings or emotions. Yet emotions are powerful and can be stronger than our logic or stronger than what we know to be true from God’s Word.

Let’s look at how Israel responded to the promise of God as given to them by Moses.

Exodus 6:6-9  Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:  And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD. And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.

This last verse tells us why they did not believe what God said. “For anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage.”

Other translations give us even more understanding of that verse.

…because their spirit had been broken by their cruel slavery. GNB

but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and hard labor. NET

Other translations put it this way:

…discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.

…broken spirt and harsh slavery.

…they were too discouraged and mistreated to believe him.

There are many feelings or emotions that can get in our way of believing the promises of God’s Word. Sometimes it is because of wrong teaching or understanding of what was written.

Negative emotions can be described as any feeling which causes you to be miserable and sad. These emotions can make you dislike yourself and reduce your confidence and self-esteem.

Here is just a short list:  discouragement, anguish, gloom, despair, agony, sadness, depression and or hopelessness.

1 John 3:21-22  Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

I have heard it said and been told the reason we don’t see the prosperity one would expect is because we are seeking the blessing and not the Blessor – condemnation and discouragement.

• I have heard it said that if you save money, you are not trusting that God will meet your needs in the future. If you are older and staring at retirement in the face, this teaching could cause confusion and despair.
• I have heard it said that if you do not see prosperity, one might expect it is because of your believing – frustration.
• Some have taught that we are to be content with our station in life now and God will reward us in heaven – hopeless.

Maybe you were raised in a not-so-prosperous family and were never taught the fundamentals of money management.

All these statements carry a certain amount of condemnation with them. They can make you feel you are not good enough to prosper or no matter what you read in the Bible, it is not God’s will for you to be well off here on the earth. These comments can make it appear like your lack of prosperity is all your fault, even though the statements are made by people that lack understanding of the principles of prosperity.

Thus, you have some confusion in your understanding as to what to do and believe. But there is always hope, no matter how long you have not prospered. Do you still believe God will help and prosper you?

John 5:1-6  After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? 

In other words, do you still believe God will heal you? After all these years? Do you still believe it is God’s will for you to prosper? Many just learn to live with their circumstances. The slavery of Egypt was uncomfortable but familiar. Rather than rising up and believing, Israel wanted to go back into slavery. This man could have just wanted to stay at the pool.

So many times, we may know the right verses, but our emotions destroy our believing. The verses of prosperity can seem to be idle words. A great quote is “Poverty is a disease that is handed down from one generation to the next.”  If we choose to rise up and believe, we can break that curse of the generations in our families.

Part of the problem is that we cannot see down the road where obeying God will take us.

I saw a video the other day of a therapist working with a small boy of about 2 ½ who could not walk. He held the boy’s body while he forced the boy to move and exercise. The boy cried the whole time. But you could see his slow progress. The therapist ignored the crying. If the therapist did not do his job the boy would face life in a wheelchair. With the therapist forcing the boy’s body to get stronger and learn how to walk through all those tears, the boy was going to have a life where he could walk and have the freedom to move and do what he wanted. But the boy could not see that, so he just cried because it was so hard. The therapist knew where the exercise would take him, just like God knows where our obeying His Word will take us.

We all have choices to make. We cannot see down the road where following God’s instruction on prosperity will take us, but we can step out of our comfort zone like the man at the pool and rise up and believe even though we may have given or tithed for years, and not seen what we expected. We can push the emotions aside and put into practice the principles of giving, saving, debt reduction and investing, and over time we will step into a life of more freedom than we could have ever imagined.

Here is what God said happened to Israel in the wilderness, and He wrote this down for us to learn from.

Hebrews 4:1-3  Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

God wants us to have rest in this world. He wishes, above all things, that we prosper and have great health. We have rest in the new birth, and we can have rest in the life we live now. Find the promises of prosperity and believe. Our challenge is to not be guided by our feelings and wrong teachings but to rise up and believe what God has said and see what He has in store for us now as we wait for His son and enjoy The Prosperous Life.

Pro 8:21  That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.