With money, attitudes make a large difference. In many areas of life, it is a known factor that success depends 80% on attitude and 20% on your technique. What is our attitude towards God’s willingness and ability to prosper us as we carry out His word? Consider the following: You are out of town and become stuck there and need a hotel room. Your mind may say, “I can’t spend the money on a hotel room. I can’t. I need that money for something else.” It causes a lot of angst in your life. However, if you took the Attitude, “I am glad I have the money, so I will get the room, and things will work out. God will supply.”, you relieve yourself of so much mental pressure, and then things just work better. Attitude.
Many people teach that economics is a zero-sum game. A zero-sum game is one where, in order for me to receive more, you have to have less. If the economy was a large pie, then for me to get a bigger piece of that pie, yours would have to be smaller. If that was true, who was the loser when God filled the woman’s pots with oil? God did not take from anyone to give that to her. That is why we call it a miracle. No, economics is not a zero-sum game. As we labor, we add value to the economy, and we are paid for our labor. Sometimes our labor produces products out of raw materials. Those products, with our labor added in, are worth far more than the raw materials. If in order for some to have more, others have to do with less, and there is only a finite amount available, what was available when the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock? Not much. But with their labor and the labor of the following generations, we became the richest nation on earth. We used the raw materials and added great wealth into the world and our nation. Attitude.
When looking at the topic of attitude, if you’re married, you need to work on the principles of prosperity together. It works the best if the husband and wife are on the same page. If one is pulling one way and the other is pulling in the opposite direction, you may make very little progress. Work together until you are both pulling in the direction of the Word. Read this book and other books together and discuss what you are learning. You can help and encourage each other with your understanding and with what God’s Word says on the topics. Attitude.
Remember, some people, rather than doing the work of learning about prosperity and rising up in their believing and understanding, find it easier to drag you down to their level of unbelief. Then they don’t look so bad. They will say, “See, he could not do it either;” “Giving was under the law;” “It did not work for him.” You come to realize that no matter what you teach them, they just do not want to do this stuff. Don’t argue with them; just let them be.
This is why sometimes it is best to keep your believing to yourself. Many times, you might take a lesson from the book, The Millionaire Next Door. If you have believing, have it to yourself before God.
Monitor your accounts every week to see growth or holes in your bag. (Read The Richest Man in Babylon.)
Sit down once a year and examine all that you are paying for.
Can you get rid of it?
Can you reduce the price?
Can you get it cheaper somewhere else?
(We have called our insurance agent several years in a row because of increases and in some cases saved some money.)
Although there may be many more topics I could include here on attitude, the last one I wanted to address is fear. One reason people are tight with their money is fear or pinched thinking. You overcome fear by putting the Word in your mind. Some of the ways this fear manifests itself are the following:
- A fear of going broke which is a failure to believe that God will prosper them.
- A fear of being wasteful or greedy.
- A fear that they won’t have enough to pay their next large bill, so they do without, or they don’t tip, or they buy cheap, or they don’t pay current small bills out of fear that they won’t be able to pay the next large one, or they don’t give much.
Ask yourself, where these fears and thoughts come from, and then correct them. Attitude.
If our Father is a God of abundance, and His Word clearly states that He is, then why should we ever suffer any lack? It’s only because of our own pinched, limited thinking and our own believing. We simply don’t trust that He will do what He has said. Attitude.
Once you recognize this, if you have that problem, then go to work. Put God’s Word in your mind: “My Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills.” Psalm 50:12. “Beloved, I wish above all things…” 3 John 1:2. You say to your mind, “This is our new standard.” “It may be uncomfortable at first, but this is how I am going to conduct my life.” When the thought or the feeling comes, “You won’t have enough,” just say, “The Lord will provide.” Attitude.
Then as you begin to give and save the money God blesses you with, the change in your attitude will enable you to see further down the road, and The Prosperous Life God intended for His children to have will become more real.
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