TEEN TREE OF LIFE
THE DOCTRINE OF PROSPERITY
Part 1
November 11, 2018

Before you begin, ask yourself a very important question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins? If you answered yes, you will need to be sure that you are filled with The Holy Spirit. How do you do this? You name your sins to God The Father in His Son’s Name. This is called rebound. As a Christian, you must rebound any time you sin. This is taught in 1JOHN 1:9: If we confess our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. N ow, if you have never believed that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins, all you have to do is say to yourself that you believe in Him and you are saved! The Bible verse which teaches us this is ACTS 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”

God is the Source of all prosperity. And as we have learned, He magnified His Word above His Name: I will worship toward Your holy temple, And praise Your name For Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. (PSA 138:2 NKJV) For this reason alone, as Christians, we should have the utmost faith in God’s Word; and we should also trust in His Word when it comes to prosperity. Dictionary.com defines prosperity as “a successful, flourishing, or thriving condition, especially in financial respects.” What do you think of when you think of prosperity? Is it wealth, success, or fame?

According to the Bible, God wants every believer to prosper. Are you ready to learn some Latin? A fortiori is a Latin phrase which is pronounced AH-FORT-EE-OREE. It means for stronger reason. It also means all the more so. This way of reasoning is used when you draw a conclusion that is understood to be even more certain than another. As an example, we could say that if your friend was able to give you a gift of one million dollars, it follows (under the principle of a fortiori) that your friend would be able to give you a gift of one hundred dollars. Under a fortiori, a comparison is used as an argument. It’s a conclusion compared with some other recognized fact. We could say that if someone can run twenty miles, it follows, a fortiori, that that person can run five miles, too. Look at this and think about it: if God gave us the greatest Gift – His Son – it follows a fortiori, that He will without any doubt, give us prosperity. A fortiori is used in ROM 8:32: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? The Message Bible puts it this way: So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?

One of the most important facts you will learn as a Christian is that there is no true prosperity apart from God. You will lust after money, a car, or nice clothes. And you’ll enjoy them, but they won’t make you happy. Job is one of the coolest stories in the Bible: There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil. Seven sons and three daughters were born to him. His possessions also were 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants; and that man was the greatest of all the men of the east. (JOB 1:1-3) Job was rich and influential. He basically had it all! And do you know what happened?? He lost everything, including all of his children and this is how he reacted: Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God. (JOB 1:20-22) How would you react? This is a question you should ask yourself throughout your life.

Always remember that Our Lord is The God of Prosperity and He has created all the wealth and abundance on the earth: The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,’ declares the LORD of hosts. (HAG 2:8) David wrote in PSA 24:1: The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. In PSA 50:10-11, Asaph wrote: “For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine.”

Prosperity and abundance are part of God’s Divine Nature. Throughout His Word, we learn how He has divinely blessed us with more than three thousand promises! These promises are assured because God can never lie: I, Paul, am God’s slave and Christ’s agent for promoting the faith among God’s chosen people, getting out the accurate word on God and how to respond rightly to it. My aim is to raise hopes by pointing the way to life without end. This is the life God promised long ago—and he doesn’t break promises! And then when the time was ripe, he went public with his truth. I’ve been entrusted to proclaim this Message by order of our Savior, God himself. Dear Titus, legitimate son in the faith: Receive everything God our Father and Jesus our Savior give you! (TIT 1:1-4 The Message Bible)

God never thinks in terms of shortages – financial or otherwise. He doesn’t want us to think that way either. If our minds are continually filled with thoughts of doubt and unbelief, how can we possibly enjoy prosperity in our lives? We have to persevere like Abraham did: When God made his promise to Abraham, he backed it to the hilt, putting his own reputation on the line. He said, “I promise that I’ll bless you with everything I have—bless and bless and bless!” Abraham stuck it out and got everything that had been promised to him. When people make promises, they guarantee them by appeal to some authority above them so that if there is any question that they’ll make good on the promise, the authority will back them up. When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock-solid guarantee—God can’t break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable. We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek. (HEB 6:13-20 The Message Bible)

Man was created in God’s image and if He created us to be just like Him, how can we doubt that He wants us to prosper? Moses wrote about just a few things God created for us in GEN 1:26: Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” The first chapter of Genesis tells us how God stocked the earth with fish, animals and birds and how He provided fruits and vegetables: Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with seed in them, on the earth” and it was so. (GEN 1:11) And these things are just the tip of the iceberg!! Stop and think about what God has given us! It’s mind-boggling! Think about your parents and how much they have given you and how hard they’ve worked to provide for you.

Everyone on earth is a sinner. You know that. The apostle Paul wrote: But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. (ROM 3:21-24) As sinners, we have the potential to be evil – all of us, including our parents. Now, we’ve already established how much parents do for us – gifts, love, home, clothing, food. So, what do you think God who is perfect will withhold from us? If He was willing to give us His only Son, it just doesn’t make sense to believe that He would hold anything back from us. Our Lord and Savior states: “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So, don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?” (MAT 7:7-11 The Message Bible)

{to be continued}