I couldn’t find the place in the Bible where God promised Abraham that He would give Abraham power to become rich.
I was stumped.
Then, while studying the idea of Biblical blessing and cursing, I came across this from the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
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So after 15 years of studying the issue I was convinced that the Bible teaches that God wants us to prosper. Now, I’m so convinced of it that opinions to the contrary seem really silly. Silly, except I used to think the same things. Let me show you what I discovered the Bible says about prosperity.
Let me start with this scripture, because it will eventually lead us to connect with the Christian scriptures in the New Testament.
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One scripture, that seemed to say that God was against us having money, was this:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24, KJV. (The modern translations translate mammon, apparently an Aramaic word, as, money, wealth, riches.)
Most people take it to mean that you have to choose between God and money. You can have God or you can have money, but you can’t have both. They take it that God and money are opposed to each other. But that interpretation has more to do with Christian traditions about money than anything Jesus is saying.
If you study it out you’ll see that what he’s saying lies in the opposite direction. Jesus is saying, serve God and he’ll take care of your money needs.
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Faith is a fight.
Fights don't usually end with one good punch,
Or we'd call them beatings.
When you've entered the ring full of confidence…
Landed some of your best blows…
And your opponent is still standing…
And he's starting to land some of his own…
And you feel like curling up in a corner…
That's when you know you're in a fight!
Fight the good fight of faith,
So you can lay hold of what God wants you to have.
Don't throw away your confidence,
All you need is to endure,
So you can inherit the promise!
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(This is Part 3 of a longer series,
Part 1, Doing The Works of Jesus,
Part 2, Jesus Wants To Reign Right Now.)
Jesus said that we who believed on him would do the same works he did and even greater works:
John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do…
What works did Jesus do? He healed the sick delivered the oppressed, stilled storms, worked miracles.
Jesus said we’d be able to do these works…
John 14:12… because I go unto my Father.
By which he meant not a change in location but his exaltation, his being seated at the right hand of the father, far above all principality and power and every name that is named both in this world and that which is to come; his being given a name above every name; his exaltation to the place of supreme authority in heaven and in earth. With that in the minds of his disciples, he turns to them and says:
John 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
Whatever his disciples ask in his name he, as the great King over all the earth, will make it so.
We miss the importance of what Jesus is saying partly because the translation is off and partly because we have an incorrect picture of how Jesus did his works and how we, his disciples are supposed to do his works.
Continue reading "Whatever We Decree In Jesus Name He Will Do It" »
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God wants to answer your prayers, don’t let people talk you out of receiving what God wants you to have.
The Resurrected Dog
M.’s family has a bunch of dogs, some Pit Bulls some Chihuahuas. A few weeks ago they discovered one of the Pit Bulls with its mouth locked around the neck of one of the Chihuahua’s, her daughter S.’s pet.
By the time they removed the Chihuahua it wasn’t breathing, it had turned blue, its eyes were bulging out, its tongue was hanging out, and there was a hole behind its head where one of the Pit Bulls teeth had penetrated. M. said her only thought was to bury it, but her daughter S., a senior in high school, became quite upset and insisted her mom do something.
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The only unforgivable sin is not acknowledging your sin, not owning your sin, not recognizing that you have sinned, trying to say your sin isn’t really sin. That’s what John is saying here:
Continue reading "Bible Tidbit, The Unforgivable Sin, 1 John 1:5-10" »
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(I've been working on this for a while, it mirrors what I've been teaching at church for the last several months, but it was getting a little long so I'm going to break it up into four parts for easier consumption.This is part two, part one, Doing The Works of Jesus is here.)
Jesus said those who believe on him would do the same works he did. They'd heal the sick, cast out demons, still storms, multiply loaves and fishes…:
John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. 13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”
Why would they be able to do the same works and even greater works? “…because I go unto my father…” What does that mean? We get a clue in the previous chapter:
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(I've been working on this for a while, it mirrors what I've been teaching at church for the last several months, but it was getting a little long so I'm going to break it up into four parts for easier consumption. This is part one.)
Doing The Works of Jesus
We have a tendency to read the Bible as though it’s always addressing us and our needs, but it’s often addressing us as the disciples of Jesus, explaining how we are to meet the needs of others, how we are to collaborate with God in causing the Kingdom of God to show up on the earth, how we are to do the works of Jesus, the works of the body of Christ. That’s the case with this passage:
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