Devotion: Claim Prosperity!

It is so amazing that when there is talk about good health (III John 1:2), wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18), and total life prosperity (Joshua 1:8), the nay-sayers come out of the woodwork to denounce these messages.  They believe that as children of God, we do not have a right to these things.  They claim that if these things were “of God,” then there would be no sickness, no poverty, or the like.  They do not acknowledge the fact that there is a thief, an adversary, that is come to kill your good health, steal your wealth, and to destroy your total life prosperity (John 10:10).  If these be not those things, then what be the things that the thief is come to kill, steal, and destroy?

According to scripture, God has given us or provided for us, everything we need.

“So don’t be proud of following the wise men of this world.  For God has already given you everything you need.  He has given you Paul and Apollos and Peter as your helpers.  He has given you the whole world to use, and life and even death are your servants.  He has given you all of the present and all of the future.  All are yours, and you belong to Christ, and Christ is God’s” (I Corinthians 3:21-23 TLB).

God has already made provision for us in every area of life.  He has prepared and given us everything that we need or will ever need.  Scripture says that we have the whole world to use, but for some reason, some teach that we are supposed to live in a state of poverty and humbleness.  God created enough abundance for all mankind.  While we see many believers struggling with financial problems, health problems, and your basic life problems, we must understand that these issues have little to do with God himself.  We have to know that God is not withholding anything from us.  However, our problem is a two-fold one.  First, we are being “destroyed because we lack true knowledge” (Hosea 4:6) about our new covenant promises, which by the way includes prosperity, amongst many other things.  The second is that we fail to remember that we have an enemy that wants to kill us, an adversary that wants to destroy us, and a thief that wants to steal our covenant promises.  We need to fight to keep all of our covenant promises, once we find out what they are.  By faith, we need to take our good health, our wealth, and our total life prosperity just like we would reach up and take fruit off of a fruit tree.  God has provided all of these things, this fruit, in abundance, and it is your responsibility to take or claim it as yours.  Do not allow your lack of knowledge or your adversary, your enemy, or the thief to keep or take it from you.  It is yours, so claim all of it.

Keep in mind that Paul said it was “no great thing for men to appear as false apostles, workers of deceit who were able to transform themselves to appear as Apostles of Christ.”  He told us that even “Satan himself is able to transform into an angel of light, so it is nothing for his servants, his ministers to transform into ministers of righteousness” (II Corinthians 11:12-15).  It is these servants of Satan, these ministers of righteousness and Satan, himself that have deceived the many.  We will be the first to admit that there have been many who have abused “the so-called prosperity message,” but should the behavior of these abusers be used to invalidate the truths contained in God’s word?  We think not.

As you meditate on today's inspirational message, do not allow the mere mention of the word “prosperity” to affect your ability to remain open-minded either; for a closed mind can only grow within the limits of its enclosure; an open mind grows with endless possibilities.  This message is a little different from most messages on this topic, but we believe that you will enjoy it and that it will minister to you if you allow it to.  Amen.

If this message has been a blessing to you, please share it so that others may be blessed by it as well.  Blessings.

Enjoy your blessings - KW