How you can prosper in a Recession
Bad
financial news is everywhere! With bank and corporate failures, stock market
losses and a depressed housing market, rising unemployment and inflation, money
problems burden more and more of us.
Yet note this biblical truth: The
God of the Bible wants everyone to truly prosper in the area of personal
finances!
Jesus Christ said one of the main purposes
for His being sent to Earth was that we “might have life” and that we “might
have it MORE ABUNDANTLY”
(John 10:10). The Apostle John concurred: “Beloved, I wish above all things
that thou mayest PROSPER and
be in health …” (3 John 2).
Prosperity is not a sin. It is a blessing. God is the greatest giver of
abundance and prosperity. It is His will that we prosper and enjoy the “good
things” in life.
Anciently, God made Job the richest man in
the East. Once Job repented of his sin, God gave him double his
original wealth (Job 42:10). God prospered Joseph abundantly (Genesis 39:2-3).
God promised the Israelites great material wealth if they obeyed Him (Leviticus
26:3-5). “[I]t is [God] that giveth thee power to get wealth,” Moses reminded
them (Deuteronomy 8:18). “Every man also to whom God hath given riches and
wealth,” noted Solomon, another exceedingly wealthy ruler, “and hath given him
power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes
5:19).
If
God wants everyone to prosper and live abundantly, then why are so many wracked
by debt and weighed down with financial worries?
There are reasons!
What
Most Don’t Know
God
will not bless anyone who is breaking His laws. If we are breaking the Tenth
Commandment by coveting goods we cannot afford, for example, then we will be
far likelier to overspend and go into debt. If we are putting material goods
before God, then God, in order to correct this, may curse us by withholding the
prosperity He would much rather give us!
Do you realize that God, the Creator of all
things including the air you breathe, claims ownership of all that exists?
Understanding this important biblical principle is in fact the first key to
financial success!
In Exodus 19:5, God Almighty says: “[A]ll the
earth is mine.” Through Moses’s inspired pen, we read, “Behold, the heaven and
the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with ALL THAT THEREIN IS”
(Deuteronomy 10:14). “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle
upon a thousand hills. … [T]he world is mine, and the fulness thereof,” claims
our Maker (Psalm 50:10, 12).
According
to the Bible, “your” money—“your” income—rightfully belongs to God. “The silver
is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:8).
This principle is important to remember when
considering how we ought to manage our finances. What we may earn in wages or
receive as a return on investments is not really ours—that is, not until two prior
claims on our income are satisfied.
One claim is taxes. Jesus said that
Christians should “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s
…” (Matthew 22:21). But the first claim
is GOD’S claim.
Christ concluded that verse, “AND [PAY] UNTO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD’S.”
With this statement, Christ pointed to a
fundamental financial LAW that
we must keep if God is to be able to bless us with the prosperity He
promises—that is, the law of TITHING.
God’s
Law Regulates Your Income
God’s
law, confirmed throughout the Bible, is that the first tenth, or “tithe,” of
every individual’s income be paid to Him via His chosen servants.
God
is a God of love (1 John 4:8, 16). He knows your needs and wants. He has your
well-being in mind. He is concerned for you; that is why He has made this law
regulating your income.
God’s law concerning what you earn is, in
fact, a DEAL He
has made with you. Consider it: God allows you to work on His Earth, to use its
resources, its forces and energies—to use what others have extracted from this
planet, in manufacturing, distributing, selling, buying, investing. Whatever
your occupation or profession, you are actually working inpartnership with God!
When
we stop and analyze this, we must admit that God surely supplies about 90
percent of everything we produce—and our own thinking, planning and working
supplies, at best, perhaps 10 percent. Yet God doesn’t claim 90 percent of the
proceeds, or the income. He doesn’t claim 50 percent, or even 30 percent or 20
percent.
God is exceptionally generous. He has
reserved for His use only 10 percent of
your income. And after you
have been honest in paying God’s claim—HIS 10
percent—to His chosen representative (by the way, it is very important to prove
where God’s work is, and tithe to the correct church), only then does
God declare that the other 90 percent becomes legally yours. Our nine-tenths
actually does not belong to us until we
have paid God His tenth. That is God’s law!
How
You Can Prosper …
Although the Creator God has unlimited
resources, He has always conducted His workamong and through human
beings. Tithing (or “tenthing”) has been God’s financial system for millennia
and continues to be a binding obligation upon New Testament Christians.
Long
ago, even during the time of Abraham, God used the tithing system to underwrite
His work. In Genesis 14:18-20, we see that Abraham (who was not a Jew, but who
was the human “father of the faithful”; one who feared God and kept His
commandments) tithed 400 years before Israel was commanded to do so.
Leviticus
27:30 and Numbers 18:20-21 spell out the details of tithing and show how the
people of Israel were to tithe in support of God’s religious system. Even after
Christ’s death, the Apostle Paul called tithing, which was confirmed by Christ,
a law (Matthew 23:23; Hebrews 7:4-14).
Today,
God’s Church uses the same method to finance its commission to deliver a
warning message and preach the gospel of the soon-coming Kingdom of God—the
very message Christ preached—to this unhappy, debt-ridden world.
The
organization that sponsors this magazine is the very work of God (John
6:28-29)—and it is sponsored, financed and conducted God’s way, as God directs
in His Word. This work is funded and supported by a growing number of
co-workers who believe in the cause and gladly give of their incomes to support
it.
Each
week, our headquarters office in Edmond, Oklahoma, receives letters, e-mails
and calls from our co-workers telling us how they have been blessed for
supporting this work. Those who pay God’s tenth are prosperous—not necessarily
wealthy, but their needs are always supplied.
…
Even in Hard Times
Have
you ever wondered why financial difficulties are so prevalent in our economically
advanced age? These problems were foretold centuries ago in a remarkable
prophecy!
Notice what God asks through the Prophet
Malachi: “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have
we robbed thee?” And God answers, “In TITHESand OFFERINGS.
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation”
(Malachi 3:8-9).
There is a definite cause for
every effect. The United States has been the
wealthiest nation on Earth for many years. Tragically, it is slipping to a
second-rate status. The U.S. economy has been eclipsed by that of the European
Union. Bankruptcies are epidemic. Personal and collective debt is at an
all-time high, and financial troubles are wrecking families. Families that
should ideally have a minimum of three to six months’ income in savings in case
of emergency instead have virtually no savings—and are plunging even deeper
into debt.
If
you are suffering from a lack of abundance or blessings, how can you turn
things around and begin to prosper in these increasingly difficult times?
The
Bible gives us the answer. Continuing in Malachi 3: “Bring ye all the tithes
[the whole tenth of your gross income] into the storehouse, that there may be
meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, 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” (verse 10).
That is God’s PROMISE!
Why not put God to that test? Why not prove Him to see if He doesn’t increase
the value of your income in this looming recession so that your own 90 percent
God gives you will be worth more than your whole income now?
A
Spiritual Blessing
God’s system of tithing is a financial law.
It is sure to bring financial blessings. More importantly, though, it is
guaranteed to yield tremendous spiritual dividends!
Jesus
said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew
6:21). That, too, is a law. If your treasure is in this society’s
entertainments and pleasures—if you are spending “your” money—God’s money—only
on yourself and your own needs and selfish desires—then your whole heart and
interest is in this world and not in the Kingdom of God.
Jesus
also said, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (verse
33), and then all these material needs will be added to you besides. Seek God
first, and He will see that your needs are met—even in hard times. Seek His
Kingdom with all your heart, and your financial troubles will begin to melt
away; your life will become happy as you prioritize eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Yes, tithing is a LAW that
produces manifold blessings. Why? Because it reinforces God’s way of GIVE and
actually helps us to develop holy and righteous character.
Jesus
taught, “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” (Luke
6:38).
Notice this beautiful cycle! See how the
principle also applies to tithing: God gives to us—and we give back to Him on a
return circuit that which is rightfully His—and He gives us MORE!
There is no way we can ever out-give God.
Truly it is “more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). When we honor
God with our substance, then our own material needs—and even many of our wants
and desires—will be supplied. In addition, God will shower tremendous spiritual blessings
upon us.
Yes, God wants us to prosper spiritually most
of all. But He wants us to prosper in our personal finances too. Here’s the
key: We must learn to put God FIRST in
everything. Backing and supporting God and His work, which includes faithfully
paying our tithes, must take precedence in our lives.
When we invest our prosperity in God’s work,
we express our recognition of God’s rulership over our planet’s wealth and over
us individually. We show our cheerful adherence to the first great
commandment—worshiping the one true God and Him only. And the man or woman who
keeps God’s financial law will reap
the physical and spiritual blessings promised in His Word.
God will open the windows of heaven and pour
out blessings so great there will not be room enough to receive
them—guaranteed! ▪
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