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, 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)

There are four genuinely nice promises about receiving when we give.

Malachi 3:10 ….  if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

2 Corinthians 9:6   But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

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.

These are four illustrations of the same truth: as you give, you receive back much more than you gave.

When we read about the windows of heaven being opened and blessings pouring out, I think sometimes we feel that if we give, God will immediately shower gold coins down upon our heads. Not seeing this come to pass right away can cause some to feel that giving does not work. But when God uses the illustration of sowing, we know that it takes a while once the seed is sown for the harvest to take place.

There is a rule in life that says that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.  If A equals D, and B equals D and C equals D, then A is equal to B, which is equal to C. So these four promises are all giving us more information on the same subject.

Very few things in life happen instantly. Prosperity is growth over time, like most of the rest of the things in God’s creation. Children take years to grow up. Crops take months to grow. Our prosperity is not in our paycheck. It is in what we do with part of the check. It may take us time to grow into the ability to learn how to steward and handle larger amounts of money.

According to Dave Ramsey, if you put $35.00 per week away in a savings account and invested it in a good growth stock mutual fund at 15%, you could retire in 40 years with $890,000.00 to $1.5 million.

This could be done on a federal minimum wage. A genuinely nice growth process.

If you worked at federal minimum wage for 40 years and retired a millionaire, could you feel like God opened the windows of heaven?

Godly prosperity is built over time rather than God being a cash machine whereby we give, and God then gives us rent money. This is not to say He will not or could not do that, but we need to take a long-term perspective on prosperity.  It is not how much you make, but what you do with what you make. Do you spend it all or save part?  It is a huge difference down the road.

So, as you give and save remember to be patient. You don’t reap a crop the day after you sow.  But it will come back to you, pressed down, shaken together and running over so that over time it will be like the windows of heaven are open to you.

Growing in our faithfulness and ability to handle money properly is all part of The Prosperous Life.

3 John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

In order to receive anything in life from God, the first thing we need to know is what is available. In 3 John 1:2, we find two of the promises in God’s Word concerning health and prosperity.  A computer with a good Bible program such as e-Sword and a cup of coffee can reveal many more promises on the same subjects.

So, for your study, is prosperity available from God?  Is it only for certain people or is it available to all who ask?

Once we understand prosperity is available to all God’s children regardless of who they are or where they are from, the next thing we need to find out is how to receive that abundance into our lives.

First, it would be good to confess Jesus Christ as lord and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.

(Thus, eternal life … the greatest prosperous move you can make!)

Second, we would learn from studying God’s Word that all His promises are available by “believing”; that what God promises is true and available to all. But His promises are not automatic.  In other words, we should “expect” to see God bring His Word to pass in our lives. Like your children expect you to do what you have promised. Have you ever heard, “Daddy you promised!”

(Chapter 6 of Poverty vs Wealth covers this subject of believing in more detail.)

Third, we need to know what to do with the things of God once we receive them.  In our study here, what are we to do with the prosperity once we receive it from God?

1.    God asks us to give 10% back to Him. In other words, tithe 10% to the church or fellowship we attend.
2.    We are to be savers of part of that abundance.  If our goal is to give 10%, we could have a goal to save 10% in an account where it is invested for the long term. You are the one that did the work, you deserve to get paid, too.

Fourth, our needs, wants and desires should be parallel with God’s Word.  In any area where we have need, our desire should be on the same level as the promises God has given in His Word. If we have great need, we should have great desire to see and expect God to bring His promises to pass in our lives.

As humans, we are very adaptable.  Many times, it is easier to adapt than to rise up in our believing. We become comfortable in our needs, our poverty or our ill health. Our situation becomes our comfort zone. Then our desires are not on par with what God has promised. In other words, we don’t have much expectation of seeing God bring His Word to pass in our lives.

To see the promises come to pass, we may need to reframe our thinking, our expectations, and the words that come out of our mouths. Since believing comes from the heart, it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. If you want your life to change, you have to change!

Are you one that says, “I am no good at handling money?” Read some good books, listen to some audio, make a study of how other prosperous, righteous people handle their money and copy them. Expect God to teach you and prosper you as you set out to see His Word come to pass in your life. If need be, find a good Christian financial advisor/mentor.

Are you one that says, “I never feel well, I get sick every winter?”  Read some good books, listen to some audio, make a study of how others have overcome what is bothering you.  Expect God to teach you and deliver you as you set out to see His Word come to pass in your life.  Find a believer to minister healing to you. If need be, see a doctor. Just get delivered. It is God’s wish above all that you be in health even as your soul prospers.

In so many words, the greater your need is, the greater your desire should be to see yourself delivered and prosperous.  Your desire should be parallel with what God promises in His Word.

Many times, the answers to our problems will come as we are attempting to move in the direction of deliverance.

Jesus never said poverty was a virtue, and God said, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”

So, get out of your comfort zone, rise up in your believing and move into the arena of The Prosperous Life.

Have you ever received some nice amount of money as a gift or a bonus, put it in your bank account, forgot about it, and a couple of weeks later, you looked at your balance, and it was all gone?  Where did it all go?

Money, by its nature, flows like water.  It flows through our economy and through our hands and lives.

Have you ever noticed how much we talk about money as if it were water? Think about it: we say things like “cash flow,” “liquid assets” and “frozen accounts.”

In many ways, money is like water.  It flows in and out of our hands.  

Some say that if you worked at minimum wages from 18 to 65, 2 Million dollars would have flowed through your hands.  WOW!!  How much do we capture?

It comes in from our paychecks and out to pay bills and buy the things we think we need.  Cash in and Cash out.

If you tried to drink by using your hand as a catch for the water coming from the tap some will slip through your fingers. Someone invented the cup to be more efficient in catching more of the available water.

We need to set up systems to catch more of the money that flows through our lives.  This is a Godly thing to do.

One of the great things you can do is keep a notebook for a month and write down every cent you spend.  This will tell you where the money is going.  You might be amazed at how much you spend on certain things in a month, like coffee on the way to work or buying your lunch out every day. What did those expenses cost you in a month? In a year?  Over 20 years? Compounded by interest.  Probably enough to retire on!!
When you add that extra money up, like say $4.00 for coffee, and times it times 5 and then times 52 that is about $20,000.00 in 20 years.  What if you had captured that amount in a “cup” and put it to work at 8% each year? That is just one example of capture.

As we have cut down on needless expenses, we have had the additional amount deducted from our checking account automatically each month or week and deposited into a savings account.  This was added to what we were already saving.  

It does not do much good to save $4.00 each day if the money stays in your account and just gets spent on something else.  Capture it.  You won’t miss the money; you have been spending it anyway.

So, how do we keep our money from slipping through our fingers? With the proper systems and strategies in place, we can make our money go where we want it to.

Ben Franklin said, “Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”

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

Once you have tithed, you need to save some of what you have worked so hard for.  Save some money. This, too, is part of The Prosperous Life.

There is a difference between paying off debt and saving money. With debt you are paying off a purchase you could not afford to pay for with cash.  Plus, you are paying even more than the purchase price because of the interest added on top.  This is what good consumers do.

With saving you are getting paid interest on your own money.  This is what producers do. Your money is producing income for you in the form of interest or dividends.

It seems like you are getting ahead in both cases, but technically, one (paying off debt) is actually buying something with an interest premium added on top, and the other is saving.  It is not the same thing.  

It may make more sense to pay off the debt before you save because of the interest you are paying on the debt.

BUT once the debt is paid off, you’re still broke.  You still have not followed the biblical admonition to save part of your income.

Proverbs 21:17 He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.

However, if you save money, you have something to invest, you have something for your labor, you are following the sound wisdom of Proverbs.

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

Saving part of your income is a great habit, and it does something for your self-image to have money that you have saved in the bank. Believing God at His Word brings joy to the heart. Try it.  Pay off the debt, but save at the same time, so that by the time the debt is paid off you are well into the habit of saving.

When it comes to prosperity, this is another small piece of The Prosperous Life.