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How You Can Break Off
Poverty & Embrace Prosperity
6 Lies That Keep You Poor
and How to Reverse them
From
“Releasing Kings for Ministry in the Marketplace”
by John Garfield & Harold Eberle
About 70% of Americans
live paycheck to paycheck. Kings cannot be content to live the
typical, month-to-month, barely-get-by lifestyle. For Kings, it
represents a poverty mentality and denies the abundance that God
has for them—the very abundance that they require to carry out
God’s business. For all Christians, and especially Kings, God’s
promise for prosperity must be embraced and strongholds that
keep them from receiving God’s abundance must be removed.
God’s Promise for
Prosperity
When we read promises
of financial prosperity, such as those below, we should
understand that they pertain especially to Kings, whose
ministries require such promises. Kings not only believe for
financial prosperity, they embrace the conditions that make
these promises a reality. Each of the following verses have both
conditions and promises. Kings read both.
So if you faithfully
obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the LORD
your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all
your soul—then I will send rain on your land in its season,
both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your
grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in the fields
for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.
(Deut. 11:13-15)
Give generously to
him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this
the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in
everything you put your hand to....
(Deut. 15:10-11; see also 14:28-29)
The blessing of the
LORD brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it. (Prov.
10:22)
“Will a man rob God?
Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes
and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of
you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into
the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me
in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not
throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much
blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will
prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in
your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD
Almighty.
(Mal. 3:8-12)
But seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well. (Matt. 6:33)
And everyone who has
left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or
children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times
as much and will inherit eternal life.
(Matt. 19:29)
“Give,
and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down,
shaken together and running over, will be poured into your
lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to
you.”
(Luke 6:38)
Holding these promises
for abundance, the King advances with confidence in this
specific sense. He believes that God’s favor is on His life and
he expects to find opportunities that will bring wealth.
Strongholds
That Prevent You
from Being Prosperous
In addition to claiming
God’s promises for prosperity, you must also make a consiouc
effort to recognize specific mentalities that threaten to keep
you chained to a poverty mentality. Here are six of the most
common “lies” that have infiltrated our socity:
Lie #
1: The Resource Pie Is a Fixed Quantity
This erroneous economic
theory implies that a larger slice of the resource pie for you
means a smaller slice for me. The concept of supply and demand
assumes that there is a finite supply of a commodity and that
demand governs both its price and the rate at which the supply
will be exhausted.
An example of this is
oil. Our economy routinely experiences various swings of
confidence in our oil supply. These swings are based on the fear
that if oil supplies were exhausted, our whole standard of
living would take a big step back toward the Stone Age! Since we
believe that the resource pie is fixed—that the supply of oil is
finite—we’ve made the Middle-Eastern nations that sit on the
world’s oil supply incredibly wealthy.
What we fail to realize
is that although the supply of oil is finite, the supply of
energy—what oil truly is to our economy—is anything but fixed.
Economies historically have corrected themselves when the supply
and demand drove a commodity out of existence. Several centuries
back, the civilized world relied on whale blubber to supply oil
for lamps and a multitude of other energy uses. As this finite
supply diminished, a new technology dawned. Consider the words
of Paul Zane Pilzer in his book God Wants You to be Rich:
The world’s first major
energy crisis struck in the middle of the nineteenth century,
when the worldwide supply of whales dwindled, mostly as a result
of the Yankee efficiency in harvesting them. In 1859, over ten
thousand whales were harvested from the North Atlantic alone;
this caused a worldwide shortage in whale products on both sides
of the ocean.
But in 1859, just as the
doomsayers were predicting the end of their economies, due to
the shortage of whale products, another burst of Yankee
ingenuity came onto the scene with a lower-cost substitute for
virtually all whale-based products. Col. Edwin L. Drake drilled
the world’s first successful oil well in Titusville,
Pennsylvania, on August 27, 1859, ushering in the modern
petroleum age.
In a similar vein, coal
was a major energy resource for domestic and industrial power,
including railroad power, until 1950 when supplies gradually
diminished. Again, our economy moved on to other supplies of
energy. Throughout history, when a resource became exhausted, a
different (and usually better) resource always has been found.
God did not have failure
in mind when He created the universe. We are not going to run
out of something we truly need—in this case, energy. In every
crisis, God will use the ingenuity of Kings to find the needed
resources. Although we are currently an oil-based economy, the
day will come when technology will open a new source of energy.
Before the drought even starts, God sends His Josephs to prepare
for the needs of His family.
We serve a God of
abundance. Creativity united with faith opens our eyes to see
Him and His answers.
Lie # 2: It Is Spiritual to
Be Poor
The cousin of “the
resource pie is fixed,” is another form of the poverty mentality
that holds poverty as an esteemed spiritual quality. Related to
this, Christians often judge abundance to be excessive
materialism.
Most people think of
Mother Theresa as the epitome of humility and generosity. And
this is true—she really was humble and generous. She also had
access to her own air transportation, a support staff, and made
million-dollar decisions. She was a King in disguise! Mother
Teresa outwardly disavowed power, fame, and wealth, and yet she
became powerful, famous, and generated enough wealth to support
a worldwide organization with 4,000 employees. Her ministry
targeted the poor outside the Church, and she expanded the
Kingdom of God by reaching out to them. But to say she shared a
life of poverty denies the reality of the resources that flowed
to and through her.
Lie #
3: The Wealthy Are Arrogant
Too often we’ve looked
at Kings with their wealth and assumed they were proud,
unapproachable, and consumed with selfish materialism. We need
to rethink this stereotype of the wealthy.
The reason they have
wealth in the first place is usually because they already are
tapped into a spiritual principle…at a deeper level than some of
their poor but pious critics! God promotes humility.
God
opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
(James 4:6)
…humility comes
before honor.
(Prov. 15:33)
Before his downfall
a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.
(Prov. 18:12)
Humility and the
fear of the LORD bring wealth and honor and life.
(Prov. 22:4)
He mocks proud
mockers but gives grace to the humble.
(Prov. 3:34)
Lie
# 4: God Automatically Will Transfer Wealth in the Last Days
This is a belief which
some Christians hold that God will transfer wealth from the
heathens to Christians before Jesus’ return. Some of the verses
used to support this belief are listed below. This emphasis is
unbalanced, however, because it focuses a negative faith toward
the lost instead of a positive belief in the real source—God.
A good man leaves an
inheritance for his children’s children, but a sinner’s
wealth is stored up for the righteous.
(Prov. 13:22)
He who increases his
wealth by exorbitant interest amasses it for another, who
will be kind to the poor. (Prov. 28:8)
To the man who
pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but
to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up
wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God....
(Eccl. 2:26)
In certain Christian
circles, the transfer of wealth is preached in a way that
directs the faith of its adherents to envy, and at some levels,
to curse non-Christians. The real heart of God is to reach the
lost, regardless of their financial status. The heart of God is
best seen in His promise to Abraham.
“I will make you
into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your
name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those
who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all
peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”Gen. 12:2-3)
Great wealth is coming
to the Kingdom of God through Kings, but it will not be at the
expense of others. It will be for the blessing of others. All
peoples on Earth will be blessed through Kings such as
you.
Instead of transferring
wealth from heathens to Christians, God is transferring
blessings from Christians to every nation, tongue, tribe, and
people. That’s the essence of the Great Commission. We’re here
to export good news. We’re not here to announce to the world
that their wealth is flowing out of their pockets and into ours.
That kind of message does not make converts. Kings are examples
of Christians that have wealth, leadership, and influence. And,
these use those attributes to make others successful. Kings are
“servants” with some really good news and the ability to make
the good news a reality for others.
And then he told
them, “You are to go into all the world and preach the Good
News to everyone, everywhere.”
(Mark 16:15 TLB)
Lie #
5: Businesspeople Are Not as Spiritual as People in Full-time
Ministry
Jesus was no less
spiritual while He was a carpenter than when He launched His
three-year ministry. Kings operating in the secular world are no
less spiritual than biblical examples of Kings such as Abraham,
David, and Paul. This particular stronghold will crack when
Kings begin to show themselves in the mission of expanding the
Kingdom.
Lie #
6: Priests Have the Vision, While Kings Have the Provision
This stronghold presumes
that marketplace ministries have no more use than to bring
finances into the Church to expand its ministries under the
direction of the pastor (a Priest). The fallacy is that Priests
didn’t have the vision for the exploits of Kings. A Priest’s
focus is in the Temple; a King’s focus is expanding God’s
Kingdom to fill the Earth.
Many great examples of
Kings and Priests working together exist in the large churches.
Nearly every large church has a pastor who has inspired Kings to
work with him and see the vision of the local church come to
pass. I wholeheartedly endorse such teamwork. My only
reservation is that the call on Kings is far bigger than funding
the church building program. Kings are God’s instrument to
expand the Kingdom outside the church. We must build strong
churches with dynamic pastors. But to reach the nations, we’ve
got to start turning our cities upside down. This will be costly
and time consuming. It goes far beyond the scope of what any
local pastor or group of pastors could support. It will take
pastors, Prophets and Kings working together….acknowledging and
respecting the differences in their roles.
Ways to Change your
Mindset
& Embrace Abundance
What would your life
look like if there were no remnants of the poverty mindset? What
would you have to do to stop living paycheck to paycheck and
build wealth?
Here’s the biggest
secret of people with wealth: They are usually more frugal than
the stereotype would suggest. Materialism is not the disease of
the wealthy; it’s the disease that causes the pay checkers to
keep themselves broke. Wealthy people save (or borrow) money to
buy “income generating assets.” The poverty mindset causes
people to save (or borrow) money to buy assets that lose value
or cost them money – cars, boats, houses, vacations, etc.
Here are four specific
ways you can redirect your spending (time and money) to buy
something that will return wealth:
1. Start a business
2. Invest
3. Buy real estate
4. Network marketing
So go ahead and start
dreaming about how the Lord wants to lead you to abundance. Lay
down a solid foundation and root out all the poverty so that you
can embrace the prosperity and abundance God has in store for
you.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
WANT
TO KNOW MORE?
Find out more about how to tear down the strongholds that keep
you chained to a poverty mentality and how to use your gifts to
serve God in the marketplace in my book “Releasing Kings for
Ministry in the Marketplace” available at:
http://www.releasing-kings.com
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Releasing Kings
shows how you can be part of the next global revival that is
beginning in the marketplace
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The marketplace is
an exciting new frontier for those called to ministry and
evangelism…and business
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You will begin to
understand the new global perspective that is enabling
enterprising business leaders to impact generations by
passing their financial and spiritual heritages on to
others.
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Releasing Kings will
help you understand your eagerness to pursue bold, creative
and competitive ministry goals. You’ll connect with the
desires of your heart in a practical way.
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You will discover
new opportunities that are opening for mentoring others and
sharing the secrets and benefits of Christ centered
business.
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Learn how to
discover PASSION for your CAREER. You’ll connect your
vocation, ministry, and your life purpose for the very first
time.
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John Garfield
You can get your copy of Releasing Kings
for Ministry in the Marketplace at
1-800-308-5837 (or)
www.worldcastministries.com |
