In recent years the nephew of a famous preacher has gained reputation by insisting that the “God of Prosperity” is not the God of the Bible. This man’s parents worked lifelong in ministry. He maintained that they were not saved because they hadn’t rejected the “Prosperity Gospel” and embraced his doctrines of anti-prosperity as commonly taught by the faith movement. Many, many people trumpeted his teachings as worthwhile. The question then is God a God of prosperity or poverty?
Psalms 66:12 … we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.
King David believed that God was the source of all wealth and that under the guidance of His Spirit, the believer would be brought to their wealthy place. Now the first objection that poverty lovers will bring is “that is talking about ‘spiritual wealth’ and has nothing to do with natural things. Their passion for poverty is compelling, and most Christians upon hearing this will not object; however, a word study in the original language will often repudiate these false ideations.
The Hebrew word for wealth here means “to be satisfied, have abundance, to be wealthy.” There is no slant in this verse that implies that it speaks of the ethereal and not the natural. Let’s look at another verse:
[Deu 8:18 KJV] 18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for [it is] he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as [it is] this day.
This verse says that God establishes His covenant with us by giving us the power not to endure poverty but to get wealth. Again the Hebrew word for wealth here does not imply in any way “spiritual wealth.” The original language word defines as “resources, wealth, goods, and riches.” Now at this point, those who don’t agree will be boiling over with religious indignation, and to them, I would say “you are excluded.” If you don’t want the covenant of God established in your life as defined by scripture, so be it. Of course, the fact is that these people will NEVER volunteer themselves or their loved ones to be beneficiaries of the poverty message they preach – their world only makes sense when YOU are impoverished (and not them.) One more verse:
[2Co 8:9 KJV] 9 For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
At this point, the poverty preachers will peel back their lips and lob accusations of blasphemy that there is NO WAY this verse has ANYTHING to do with natural prosperity. Let’s look again at the original language wording and not only that – the context. The above verse appears in a lengthy passage that concerns nothing other than natural wealth, giving, and temporal blessing, resources, and wealth (you might go read that for yourself). What about the Greek word in this verse for riches? We need to know what it means because the riches spoken of accrue to the believer by virtue of the work of redemption just as important to God as being saved from hell, from sin or to receive divine healing.
The word here for riches is extracted from a Greek word meaning to be “wealthy and abounding in material resources, to be abundantly supplied, to be a rich man, enriched with material benefits…”
What about you? Are you walking in this blessing? People who have given up on God’s best embrace the poverty preachers’ message. I want to encourage you. God wants you to have His best and have all that the Cross affords, and that includes material resources in an overflowing supply to meet your needs and to have plenty left over to meet the needs of others. God spoke to us years ago that He would show us how “money moves by the Spirit…” and that we would be not just a “repository of limited resources to meet our own need” but a “conduit of resources flowing out to the initiatives of the kingdom.” That’s what God wants for you. He loves you, and one important aspect of the work of the Cross was to bring you as the Psalmist says, “into your wealthy place!” Mix this word with faith and purpose to put that faith into action today. Don’t let the sun go down until you have broken out of the poverty prison and made a demonstrable step of faith that acknowledges your confidence in God’s promise in this area.
