If you believe a lie, you will devastate your life.
You
simply cannot afford to believe a lie about money. Sadly, the so-called
“prosperity gospel” tells one of the biggest whoppers ever known to humankind.
It is this: God makes you rich by your giving. Now I know some of you have
your feathers ruffled and you may even have testimony to the opposite i.e. you
may have given to God and seen it return multiplied to you. That’s nice. I have
testimonies like that too. I didn’t say God wasn’t in the multiplying-back-to-you
business. I said it was a lie that God makes you rich by your giving.
If
you give God £1 coins and He keeps giving you back £100, any fool can work out
it won’t be long before you can be called rich. But that still isn’t how God
makes you rich. God made you rich long before you ever got into the
subject of prosperity. 2 Corinthians 8:9 tells us that Jesus was made poor so
that we can be rich. This refers to the cross, where Jesus experienced the
Roman sentence of crucifixion. Crucifixion wasn’t meant just as a capital
punishment; it was an economic judgment designed to imprint on the minds of
those who saw crucifixion victims the power of Rome to utterly strip them of
everything they had and were. Our sanitised pictures of the crucified Jesus
allow Him the dignity of a loincloth, something the Romans definitely would
not. Nakedness was a symbol of the impoverishment experienced by those who
dared oppose Rome.
Jesus
became poor at the cross so that the blessing of Abraham could come upon the
nations. This blessing was, in modern parlance, a billionaire blessing since
Abraham’s wealth was off the charts even in his day. If it offends you that the
Holy Spirit inspired Galatians 3:13,14 to get this marvellous truth across to
us, then you need to deal with religiosity. The simple truth is that financial
and economic success is our covenant right and is in the atonement. Jesus had
to endure utter impoverishment at the cross so that God’s compact with Abraham
and the fathers could be actualised in our lives. The glorious reality is that
every believer is thus rich BY GRACE!! Note that 2 Corinthians 8:9 says just
that – “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ...”
Prosperity
is thus a grace issue, not a performance issue. You don’t have to give to
preachers – me included – to get rich. I tell my folks this and guess what?
They are getting rich! By that I mean they believe they are rich already and it
shows up in their lives. One member of our church recently got a happy
five-figure surprise when he went to the ATM! And you know what they do? Shrug
their shoulders, say “Oh that’s Abraham’s blessing manifesting AGAIN. Thank
You, Lord!” and then they move on, believing for more.
There
is no “getting rich” for the Christian. The truth is, you GOT RICH at Calvary.
And money was by no means all of it or even remotely the most precious part of
it. But it is an important part. You need money to function and perform the
task God has called you to do. When you understand that you don’t “get” rich –
you ARE rich – it strips the potency of avarice over your life. You don’t have
to get rich anymore! You just believe you are funded. It works!! You need faith
for salvation, for healing, for deliverance and for everything God gives. Why
would you suppose prosperity would be any different? But so-called prosperity
preachers will tell you that you have to give to God before He gives to you.
That
is a lie from the pit of hell and I don’t apologise for saying so.
But
let me say this. You should give to preachers and ministries (i.e.
good ones) because it is biblical and God-ordained to do so. And God will
certainly see to it that your money is multiplied back to you when you sow in
good soil. Because giving is designed by God to make you richer. You
already got rich at the cross. But now you can use the power of multiplication
to get even richer. It is the continued pouring-in of grace and favour that
makes you rich (see 2 Cor. 9:8); then it is in your hands to multiply it even
more by giving (2 Cor. 9:8-11)! God will even multiply your seed for sowing, as
well as your seed sown i.e. He will supernaturally multiply your seed before you
sow, thus multiplying your harvest!
This
isn’t splitting hairs. You cannot afford to believe that God makes you rich
because of something you do i.e. give money to ministries. That means your
wealth is based on your works. You must believe the Word – that He makes you
rich because you are blessed with Abraham’s blessing. When Abraham first heard
this good news, he just accepted it in faith! And God accounted it to him for
righteousness! In other words, Abraham’s right to walk in the billionaire class
was by simply believing that God said he could! And the wealth showed up in
Abraham’s life to back up what God said.
If
you will simply believe you can walk in the same deal as Abraham, it will show
up in yours too!
For biblical proof and extra-biblical
evidence that Jesus walked in Abraham’s billionaire blessing, please request my
book: Jesus: Millionaire
