There is a classic record at the end of 1 Chronicles that ties giving and thankfulness together. On this national day of Thanksgiving, I would like to share it with you. The setting for this is the prayer that David offered to God when David and the people gave of their prosperity the things needed for the building of the temple that Solomon was to build.

1Chronicles 29:10-14  Wherefore David blessed the LORD before all the congregation: and David said, Blessed be thou, LORD God of Israel our father, for ever and ever. Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name. But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.

Our times are different because our biblical administration is grace, not law, like in David’s time, but we too can have thankful hearts like these people did when we give.

Here is the beginning of a list of things to be thankful for:

Salvation
New birth
Eternal life
The food he provides
All spiritual blessings
Having His spirit born within
That He hears ALL our prayers
The manifestations of the spirit
How He walks and talks with us
God’s watchful care over our lives
For the prosperity He gives His children

In this record, these people and David gave willingly back to God for His service and what He had given to them. The people recognized all they had belonged to God anyway. So it was with a thankful heart that they gave.

The best motivation for giving is not because we were told to or because we would feel condemnation if we don’t or out of fear that God won’t love us or accept us, but we give because we believe His word. We give because the One that gave us eternal life asked us to. We give from a thankful heart. We give because of our love for Him.

To give back to God from a thankful heart because we believe His Word is all part of aligning our minds and hearts up properly in pursuit of The Prosperous Life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Many years ago, I heard part of the 73^rd Psalm:

Psalm 73:3-7 For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.

I thought, if this is what being wealthy is like, I want nothing to do with money. But I soon came to realize that you must work – your family must eat! But still, I wanted nothing to do with money. I was tithing but still very broke. I did not know what to think or believe. As I began to learn the truth about prosperity, my wife and I had the challenge of changing our minds on several levels.

Part of the challenge of prosperity is the changing of our minds to see the possibility of wealth in a whole new light.

Years ago, our culture adopted the religious “Christian” idea that to have much money is wrong. Our culture believes that the wealthy are greedy, are not honest and obtained their wealth in the gray areas of the law if not illegally. Thus, we have wealthy people depicted in the movies as Dr. Evil and the TV show, American Greed. Sometimes they are referred to as the filthy rich.

Additionally, Christianity has taught and believed that to be truly humble and walk with God you must give up all worldly goods and live from hand to mouth.

God tells a completely different story in His Word.

When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God wanted a family. Children that He could walk and talk with. Children that would love Him. Thus, when He put man on the earth, He also put within the earth everything His man and His family would need to live a healthy and prosperous life.

God put iron, coal, and oil in the earth in such abundance, that without these we would have never had an industrial age. God created and put within the earth all the precious minerals, like gold, silver, and platinum. God created all the inert gases that light your fluorescent lights and make your party balloons float away. God put in and on the earth, everything man would need to be able to enjoy his life here.

Then God put His spirit in man. God gave the man a body and soul so that His man could live here and enjoy the earth He had created for him, and then God put His spirit in man so He could communicate with His family. Then God made Adam His under ruler … in essence, Adam became the god of this world.

When Adam sinned by eating from the forbidden tree, he committed high treason against God. Adam handed over the dominion of the creation to the devil.

Once the devil had dominion, he began to funnel much of the wealth of the world to his people. These people are the ones spoken about in the 73^rd Psalm that we read earlier.

AND the devil began to cloud the minds of God’s people about the truth of what they had a right to. As we have seen in other blogs, the devil may be the temporary god of this world, but our Father still is the one that owns the silver and gold and the cattle on a thousand hills.

Once we understand this is true, it is easy to just mentally agree with that truth but not really act on it. Some call this mental assent. The challenge is to not only agree but to believe that what God lays out in His Word is the truth about money and then line our lives, our thinking, and our believing up accordingly.

If these truths become part of your life, then you would tithe/give, save, get out of debt, and learn how to invest and see the prosperity your Father gives you grow. That would involve changing the mind from not only agreeing with these truths but acting on them as well day after day for the rest of your life – living as the sons and daughters God designed us to be.

God’s truths about wealth and prosperity must be retaught in each generation because our mutual enemy puts the church to sleep concerning them over and over. Therefore, much of Christianity is poor when our father’s great wish above all things is for us to prosper and be in health even as our soul prospers.

I will conclude with this quote which seems appropriate:

“One often encounters the viewpoint that anybody who loves God and who believes what God’s Word says is either destined or duty-bound to be poor. What a shame it is that Abraham was excluded from that particular destiny or duty! Abraham had believed what God had said. He had gone where God had told him to go. But he was NOT POOR, rather he was VERY RICH – in cattle, in silver, and in gold. Something must have been wrong! Perhaps what is wrong is not something which was wrong with Abraham, or it is not something which is wrong with God, but perhaps it is rather something which is wrong with our understanding. Abraham was VERY RICH, and he was called by God in Scripture “the Friend of God”.

So, the challenge presented here is to read the records and verses in God’s Word for yourself and then act upon the principles God has laid out in His Word. The reality will become clearer and clearer that God has called us to His family, and His great wish for us is to enjoy The Prosperous Life.

Many years ago, I taught someone about tithing/giving on a Friday night. They went home and shared what they learned with another young man. He tithed for the first time in his life on Sunday. On Tuesday, his pager went off and found they had a liver for him. He was jaundiced and needed a liver very badly or he would die. Now he had one. Coincidence? NOT! He was already born again and had manifested the spirit within, but he needed to learn about tithing/giving to receive what His Father wanted to give him back. A huge repayment for a small gift/tithe.

Apparently, each of us has different pieces of the puzzle we need to put together to see the promises of God come to pass in our lives.

Personally, we had to learn to save our money. Save part of what God gave us back as He promises to do in His Word. In Proverbs, God teaches us that we are to honor Him with the first fruits of all our increase, and then He promises to fill our barns (storehouses) for honoring Him — keeping Him first in our lives. I finally saw that a barn or storehouse in our day and time was more like a savings account. Once we diligently started to save, as we were paying off debt, our lives became dramatically different — more prosperous.

I recently read a book by a well-known preacher that God had to teach him personally about prosperity. This is because, overall, the church does not teach what God really says in His Word about how to prosper financially.

That man had laid out his bills before God and said, “You promised if I was obedient and willing, I would eat of the fat of the land.”  He told God his car had been hauled off for junk, and he was afoot. His children were not well fed or clothed, and his family was not well housed. God told him you have “faith” (we might say believing) for healing and I can see that, but you have none for finances. You have “faith” to see people born again and to teach them how to manifest the spirit born within, but you do not apply that “faith” (believing) in your finances.

When God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam dominion over everything. Adam, through a treasonous act, gave his dominion over to the devil. Now the devil is the god of this world. As the god of this world, the two main places he can mess with the lives of God’s children is their finances and their health. Partly, how the devil has messed with the prosperity of God’s children is through wrong teaching/wrong doctrine in the church. You cannot believe beyond what you are taught. If you are taught wrong doctrine, that really impedes your growth financially, as that is our topic here.

The preacher said God told him the devil is the god of this world, but that God still owns the cattle on a thousand hills. God says all the gold and the silver are His. God did not put all this abundance on the earth for the devil and his cohorts. God put these blessings here for His children, His family. We just need to claim what is rightfully ours.

In the 23^rd Psalm, it says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not WANT.” That is more than just having food and clothing. God has also promised that He will supply all our needs in Christ. Malachi says God will rebuke the devourer for our sake. Perhaps if you have tithed, saved and endeavored to believe all God has said concerning prosperity, you may need to ask Him to rebuke the devourer and trust that He will. Then expect to see the promises of God come to pass in your life.

Perhaps, we could take a lesson from George Muller and start with small requests. As our trust and believing grow, we can ask for bigger needs to be met and trust God there also.

Each of us may have different areas we need to rise up in. There is much to learn in our walk with God as we grow in our understanding of The Prosperous Life, and as we wait for the return of our lord from heaven.

(Copied from: https://www.gotquestions.org/saving-money.html)

The Bible teaches that saving money is a wise practice for many different reasons. God is our source and provider for everything we need. “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). One of the main ways God provides for us is through money, and it is our job to steward that money well (Matthew 25:14–27).

We are accountable to God for how we use everything He gives us in this life, including money. Saving money demonstrates good stewardship of the resources God gives us. Saving money allows us to be prepared for the future, and being prepared for the future is good. Proverbs 6:6–8 shows us that this principle is lived out even in nature: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and its food at harvest.” Planning ahead and saving money makes it easier to accomplish goals and allows us to be more effective in ministry (see 1 Corinthians 16:2). When we don’t plan ahead and save money, we are more prone to go into debt, which the Bible tells us is unwise (Proverbs 22:7).

Of course, there are plenty of wrong motives for saving money. If we’re saving money out of fear of the future, it shows we’re not really trusting God to provide (see Luke 12:7; 2 Timothy 1:7). Miserliness is sin, and it’s foolish and arrogant to make money our security. “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it a wall too high to scale” (Proverbs 18:11), yet riches “will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle” (Proverbs 23:5). First Timothy 6:10 warns against greed, saying, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

To fully understand the value of saving money, we must remember what the Bible says about giving. God desires His people to be cheerful givers (2 Corinthians 9:7). It’s impossible to out-give God! “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38).

Sometimes when God gives us things, be it money or something else, it’s intended for us to give away. Other times, He gives us things that are meant for us to keep for ourselves and use in His service and for His glory. It’s wise to hold everything God gives us loosely so that we can give it away if He asks us to.

I remember years ago when I did the finances for our home.  I was self-employed.  Some jobs would be three or four days, and some two to three weeks.

The short jobs were nice.  I could get paid once or twice a week and had the money then to pay off my bills, buy food, gas, etc.  But the longer-term jobs presented a problem. By the time the job was finished, I had quite a stack of bills and needed to go shopping for food, so I really looked forward to getting paid.  So much so that I pinned a lot of hope on getting that check to solve my problems without much thought about God.

When I would finally get paid, I was elated.  I felt that now everything would be set right, and life would be lovely.  But as always happened as I set down to pay the bills and by the time I was done, all the money was gone.  This was very disheartening. It took all the wind out of me.  The feeling of elation was gone.  This feeling of hope was just a feeling and not a logical thought.

I did not like the disappointment, the letdown. It took that happening repeatedly over several years for me to understand that this way of seeing things was wrong.

As I thought on this, finally, I realized my thinking/feelings were all wrong.  I was putting my hope for paying my bills in my job and getting paid. As I pondered this dilemma, I realized our trust for our sufficiency should rest on God not on getting paid.  I finally thought to myself, “What happens if after the three weeks you don’t get paid for whatever reason?”  Do you starve? Lose your home?  Is God out of business?

I finally understood that as we work, we look to God to provide.  It is like the verse that says:

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

In this verse, the man prepared the horse and perhaps himself by great training, but at the end of the battle, he knew that the reason he was safe was because God had provided for his safety.

We likewise do our diligence to work and run our businesses, but at the end of the day, it is God that provides.

We pray and God will help. This is part of learning the process of applying God’s word to everyday life.

Think about this: we let our requests and prayers be known to God, and at times he supplies those requests through people.

Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Exodus 3:21-22 And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians

Job 42:11 Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.

In these verses, we see God supplying through people.

Many times, He may provide by you getting paid for your work.  But He also provides in many different ways. God provided Abraham a ram in a thicket, so Abraham named that place, and it became one of the names of God. “The Lord will provide.”

Genesis 22:14 – Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh, the LORD is my provider. As it is said to this day, “In the LORD’s mountain it will be provided.”

He provided Israel with manna in the wilderness.

Psalms 23:1 – The Lord is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing.  (We look to God)
Psalms 34:9, 10 – Oh fear the LORD, you his saints, For there is no lack with those who fear him. The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger, But those who seek the LORD shall not lack any good thing.

Here is another great example of God’s supply in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 25:20-22 And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year; until her fruits come in ye shall eat of the old store.

How do you explain how the land brought forth so much that year?  If you have a really great year money-wise, it might be wise to put a lot in the bank.  You can not see what is coming tomorrow, but He can.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 Thus says the LORD: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose trust the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

Our trust is in God to supply.  We work our butts off, but at the end of the day, we realize that He is the one that provides.

As it says in the 121st Psalm:

…From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

We do our due diligence to work heartily, but we keep our eyes upon God and put our trust in our Father.  Even if we did not get paid, He is still the Lord that provides.  Learning some of these things and setting our minds on the right paths are all part of learning to live The Prosperous Life.