How and Why we Prosper and Succeed (248)

0:00 I want to welcome you to the Quality Christian Living Podcast. I am your host, David Friend. We are continuing our series on success, prospering, and abundant living. Today we are going to discover where God's Word approves of success and prosperity. We are going to try to understand why some prosper quickly while others do not. We are going to see how the words patience and trust and faith help us achieve prosperity and success in our life. We will learn the key to spiritual and financial growth and how we can have them both or we can have it all. As a matter of fact, there is going to be a podcast coming up pretty soon.

0:41 It might be the next one entitled, How to Have It All. What that means is people sometimes will tell me they basically can do one thing or they can do something else like they can tithe or they can pay their bills on time. You don't have to look at it that way. You can tithe and keep your bills current. You can give money to the church and still have all the things that your once needs and desires will be met. So I just think we misunderstand that sometimes and I am a big believer that God wants us to have as much blessing in our life as we possibly can. And in this podcast I will address how and why we can on our able to prosper. But before we get into that, we need to pray, put the Lord first and ask for his guidance. Heavenly Father, once again I thank you for who you are.

1:22 I pray that you would bless this podcast today. And for those who are listening in, I pray the Holy Spirit would come in a very special way. And I surrender to the Holy Spirit now, surrender and submit all my thoughts and plans, what I ve worked on, what I ve prepared and the notes I have for myself to stay on track, that you would bless it, that you would do whatever you desire to do with it and take us in the direction you would have us to go. If you change the focus, I invite you to do that. I surrender totally to you and ask for the Holy Spirit's leading and guidance and I ll be careful now to give you praise for the wonderful results I expect to take place this day. For ask these things in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. I believe it s important to point out that because the word of God has thousands of references, literally thousands of references to success, to prosperity and abundance, the proper use and the improper use, I felt a need to offer a concise list of reasons why and how Christians can prosper.

2:16 The first reason is because God says it s okay for all of us to prosper. As a matter of fact, his word tells us on and on again that he wants us to prosper and I close out every podcast with a statement, I pray that we ll all prosper and be in good health even as our soul prospers. That s the word of God. Now, however, even though he wants us to be blessed, it s important. As a matter of fact, the most important thing to remember when we re talking about these issues is that we must never seek prospering or success or abundance. We re not to seek it. We re always to seek God first. Remember Matthew 6.33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and it says then all these things shall be added unto you. You see, we do not need to seek prosperity because God s word has a plan to bring it into our lives.

3:03 Think about that. If we follow his word, we will have success. We ll have prosperity both spiritual and physical and financial prosperity and we ll live abundantly. Now the second reason why and how Christians will prosper is to let others see that our God loves us and blesses us and he wants to bless those who follow him and live by his word. It s kind of important to think about this. If every Christian lived in poverty, why would non-believers want to be Christians? Why would they look at us if we were just constantly living in poverty? We were constantly having problems. We couldn t pay our bills. We had no success at all. Why would anyone want to be a part of that?

3:45 The third reason why and why we can prosper is because God placed the Holy Spirit in us so that we can be successful, we can be productive Christians and we can prosper spiritually, financially, physically, marriage-wise and all the areas of our life can prosper. Now, there is a powerful parable in God s word that we have all heard and we ve heard this parable probably many times in church or on with the TV, evangelist or wherever it might be. It s a parable that s found in the 25th chapter of Matthew verses 14 through 30. It s about the three servants who were given talents or money. One translation says they were given silver.

4:26 Another one says talents. Others just say it s really money that they were given and how they handled it and how they used it. So let s get into that. I normally don t spend this much time reading that many verses in the scripture but I think in this podcast it s crucial that I read all these verses. It will only take a couple of minutes to do that. So let me read from Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 through 30 in the new international version. This is called the parable of the talents. I think I mentioned that earlier. Verse 14, again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. Through one, he gave five talents of money to another two talents and to another one talent, each according to his ability.

5:06 I think that s a very important point. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. Verse 17, so also the one with the two talents gained two more. Verse 18, but the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master s money. Verse 19, after a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. Master, he said, you entrusted me with these five talents and see I gained five more. His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things I will put you in charge of many things.

5:51 You see, I m going to stop here for a second because that s how God does it. If we re faithful with little, he ll reward us with much. If we re faithful with our finances and giving first to him, to help the church, to take care of the bills and the needs that we have, to help other people if we have the possibility of the ability to do that, if we do those small things then God will reward us, I believe, with even more. Now it says here, come and share your master s happiness, he says. Now there s another wonderful scripture, isn t it? Come and share your master s happiness. Just think about that. Jesus is our Lord and Master, amen. And we would like to certainly join in his rejoicing and his happiness. Verse 22, the man with the two talents also came, master. He said, you entrusted me with two talents. See, I have gained two more.

6:33 His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master s happiness. Verse 24, the man who had received the one talent then came. Mastery said, I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed, so I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground, the gift you gave me. He says, see here, it is what belongs to you. 26, his master replied, you wicked, lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I return I would have received it back, maybe with a little interest.

7:20 Verse 28, now this is the words of Jesus, by the way, I didn t say that at the beginning, I should have. Verse 28, take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more and he will have an abundance, whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now we ve all heard that weeping and gnashing of teeth before and many times it will go on to talk about what hell is going to be like and about the misery that comes with it and the weeping and the sadness and the sorrow and no joy and no presence of the Lord. But here we are having a story that tells us so much, there are so many things that we can learn from this particular parable that Jesus talked about.

8:06 First of all, the parable shows us that success comes from hard work. You know, we might receive a little bit from our boss, but some people have a tendency to just spend it all quickly and then don t have anything left over and that s a lesson that we need to learn that we need to at least put back something of what we have. Now I know there s a lot of people out there who have very difficult finances and you got to take every penny that you ve got just to basically keep the roof over your head and put food in your mouth, but if you re faithful with that and just maybe just give a little bit to help the work of the Lord at your church, I think that God will see that. I know he ll see that and he ll reward you openly. I believe that. So we need to remember even though we re going through difficult times, we can give at least something of what we have.

8:48 Remember the story of the widow who gave the mites. Those are basically like a penny today. That s all she had, but she gave it. And that story has gone on to give an example of how God blessed her and said she was so generous because of what she had done because she gave all that she had. We need to understand that if we want to receive blessings from God and we want to receive prosperity from God and success from God, we need to put Him first in everything we do. Another lesson that we receive in this is found in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10. I m going to read that very quickly. It s found in the new international version, for we are God s handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepares in advance for us to do.

9:28 Now from that parable of the talents, we see something also in Ephesians chapter 2 and chapter in verse 10. And that is that for we are God s handiwork, I mean he made us and we re His creation and we were created in His image and we were blessed because of our relationship with Jesus and it s to do good works. It s not just to be good people, but it s also to do good works. And these are works that God prepared in advance for us so God has already prepared a plan for our life. He has placed talents in us, He has gifts ready for us, He has things He wants to pour out upon us, but He s wanting to be sure that we are trustworthy. You know a lot of people, when I ve counseled them over the years, God was a banker for many years and I did a lot of counseling in the area of finance.

10:09 As a pastor I did a lot of spiritual and biblical counseling in the area of families and those types of things. And people come to me and they say, well, you know, I m just not so sure that I can help the church or trust my finances over to God to give something of what I have and that type of thing. And they ll say, you know, I just want God to bless me. What they re saying is that they don t trust God, but they want God to trust them. And that s really, we must never think that. Now this podcast is not all about you just giving a bunch of money to your church. That s really not what I m talking about. But what I m talking about is there s some things that need to be done and the ways and the house to receive prosperity and success in our life, both spiritually and financially. And these are found throughout the Word of God and I m just using a few examples.

10:53 Another lesson that we learned from this parable that it reveals that everything we work for must bless the kingdom of God, not just ourselves, not just our wants, needs and desires, but everything we work for must bless the kingdom of God. Now these people who received the talents and then did something with them and then gave it all back and said, here it is, they gain greater blessing after that. The one that got the most turned around and received the most from God. So I believe the Bible tells us that those who sow sparingly will then also receive sparingly. But if we seed bountifully, then we will also be blessed bountifully. So there s a great lesson there that what we have, we must do our best to maintain it and to increase it and to bless the kingdom of God and not just us.

11:39 See those servants were ready to just give everything they have back. They want to just give it all back. But the master said, nope, nope, I m going to bless you. But the person who did nothing with what they had, the talent or the money that they had, he took it away from him. And another thing, and there s many points, we ll just take one more that we learned from this parable, is that God has a reason to bless us and to give us finances. And the reason that he has for us is that it will be a blessing obviously to us, but also that we ll have a blessing to give more to others. When we receive a financial blessing, it s not just for us. It s so that it can come into it, us and go through us. I look at this situation as a conduit. That s like a pipe, a big piece of pipe, where the blessing comes in, one in, goes through and blesses whatever it s carrying through and then at the end goes out and blesses something else.

12:27 So we are a conduit of the blessings of God coming into us and going out, not just applying to money, but applying to our talents, our abilities, our strengths, those things that we can help if we re a person who loves to help people or pray for people, then we need to use that. And that desire to help others and God will bless this and he ll pour back probably more than what we can imagine or even think is possible. Now God always gives his followers what they need to accomplish his purpose for them. I inserted that because it s important to understand that if you re lacking right now in your area, you don t have the prosperity that you desire, the success or the abundant life that you re wanting to live, then I want you to understand that, that God will always give a blessing to those who accomplish his purpose for them.

13:11 So if your purpose is just simply to be faithful to your church and to your family and to your community and to your children and to your relatives and your friends, to be faithful to them, be kind to them, be nice to them and reach out and help them in some way that you can, if that s your purpose then God s going to bless that and he s going to, I believe, give us more when we operate in the gifts that he s given us. Let me give you an example of when we have a purpose in our life and if we step into that purpose and fulfill it, that we re going to be blessed. We re going to prosper. We re going to have success in various ways, not just to all money, but we re going to have prosperity in our life. Let me think about a church. God puts on the heart of an individual to start a church or start a ministry.

13:51 God would not call that person to build a church or a ministry if God did not have a plan to bless them with several blessings. One is a place to meet, or a place to worship, or people to minister to and talk to and visit with and teach and help out. You see, God s not going to just put on your heart, you know, you need to start a church, you need to go out there and do this or do that or it might be and you re on your own. Go out and go do it on your own. No, he s going to help us as long as we stay in his will and his plan and seek his guidance and direction and we grow spiritually, preparing ourselves for the other blessings that God has in store for us. You know, it s the same thing with marrying someone. A lot of people come to me and they re a couple and they say, well, we can t afford to get married or we can t afford to have children or we can t afford to do this or do that.

14:34 But I always tell them you ll never be able to afford to get married or never be able to afford to have children. You just have them when the Lord leads you to do that. So if the Lord places on your heart to marry someone, you meet a wonderful, godly, Christian person and the two of you marry and then the Lord puts up on your heart to get a home, he s going to provide for that. If the Lord puts up on your heart that you need to have children, he s going to provide for that. He s always going to bring the blessing when he s the one that put that on you to step into that area so that he can then turn around and bless you. Does this make sense? I hope it does because I m a big believer of it because I ve been in ministry for half of my life and I ve been in business for a large portion of my life and it s exciting to see and look back where God stepped in.

15:17 When we stepped out in faith, he stepped along with us and took care of us because we were operating in his will. There s an old saying that I ve heard in the church for many, many years. It s about God providing funds for ministry. The saying says this, money follows ministry. What that means is if God puts it on your heart to have a ministry, to have a marriage, to have a business, to have children and he s the one that puts it on your heart, then he s going to provide the funds for that marriage, for those children, for that home and for that ministry. That s what I believe and I believe it s true and it ll prove out. When it comes to ministry, first we are called to minister to others. If our motives are pure and if we know God s purpose for us, the Lord will provide whatever we need, our finances, whatever it might be.

16:03 I want you to think about that. As a matter of fact, think about that in relationship to whatever you want to see happen in your life. You might be a person who s always wanting to have your own business but you ve never felt that you could ever step out to do that. Well, if God s put that on your heart, there s things you need to do. There s what we call due diligence. Those are the things you do to go about planning and making the plans necessary to get yourself prepared to start a business. If you d like to know more about businesses and how to start one and how to see God bless one, you go to my podcast and I ll explain at the end of this podcast and tell you about about 20 podcasts that I did for Christians, either starting businesses or trying to grow a business and how that can take place. It s a wonderful guide because I ve had so many years of experience at God s given me that.

16:45 Of course, we got the word of God, which is our instruction manual for anything we want to do in our life. So, if you want to be blessed, whatever it might be, maybe you re thinking about buying a car and you need to make sure that you are s in God s will. You kind of know when it s in God s will or when you have peace about something. A lot of people say, well, how do you know? I know I m kind of getting distracted a little bit here but I think it s worth moving down this little bunny trail for a second. Some people will come to me and they ll say, how do you know when you re operating in God s will? The first thing I like to tell them is, are you at peace spiritually? Are you at peace knowing that God is able to do what He s able to do? It s called the peace of God that passes all understanding and it will guard our hearts and guard our minds in Christ Jesus. If you re at peace with that, you know you re operating in God s will.

17:28 To follow up with that, get us back to our podcast today if we re operating in God s will and doing the things He s called us to do and pleasing Him. If our ways are pleasing to the Lord, then He will help make our path straight, will guide and direct us and He will bring the prosperity that we need into our life, the success that we need and the abundance that we need, success, prosperity and abundant living. The primary reason I believe that the Holy Spirit wants me to speak on success, prospering and abundant living is to help Christians understand that there is nothing wrong with having these in our life. Provided, they always include God s will and His plan and His purpose for our life and we keep Him first.

18:09 The reason why some may experience prosperity sooner than others is whether or not they follow the instruction manual on prosperity. Now that instruction manual is the word of God. We may wonder why we know of Christians who have greater possessions than us, but possessions are not what is true wealth or prosperity. God looks at the heart, not our possessions, true prosperity and true success and true abundance will always bless God and glorify the kingdom of God. Let me kind of wrap some things up here. We must all have patience, trust and faith in God to help us live a successful abundant life.

18:52 Isaiah 55 tells us that God s ways and God s thoughts are better than and higher than our ways and our thoughts. So let s trust God for those things. How, why or when we prosper is determined by many things, but patience, trust and faith in God must be our foundation to receive the blessings of our Lord. Now God s word is filled with examples of Him desiring to success people and bring prosperity into their lives. These are some points I d like to make through some scriptures as we kind of wrap up this podcast. Psalm 374 says this, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires and petitions of your heart. So therefore if you need help from God, delight yourself in Him and when that happens, He is going to bless you.

19:36 Here s another one that gives us examples of how God wants to bring success and prosperity and abundance into your life. Deuteronomy 28, 13, the Lord will make you the head, which means the leader, and not the tail, which means the followers, and you will be above only and you will not be beneath if you listen and pay attention to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today to observe them carefully. Now there s a great example. That s Old Testament stuff, but think about that. That s so real today. If we want to have those good things in our life, those blessings from the Lord, we ve got to follow what His instructions are and He does have an entire book of instructions with a few thousand references to the things that we re studying in this particular podcast.

20:17 Now let s look at Job 36 and 11. You might think, well, why would I use Job when it comes to prosperity? Because isn t he the one that lost everything? Yeah, he was. He was wealthy. Then he lost everything, but then he gained it all back twice of what he had before because he never gave up on God. Here s what Job 36 verse 11 tells us. If they hear and serve Him, they will end their days in prosperity and their years in pleasantness and joy. Isn t that nice? Just think about that for a second. You may be only 20 years old or you might be 80 years old, but think about that. It says if they hear and serve Him, we will end our days in prosperity and our years in pleasantness and joy.

21:04 We ll have the joy of the Lord. When that happens, because we ve lived according to what God s word says, that doesn t mean we lived a perfect life. It doesn t mean that we re flawless people. It just means that we ve done everything we could, did our best to follow what God said, faithful to the house of God, faithful to reading His word, faithful to have prayer, and faithful to reach out to other people and use the talents that God has given us. Those are the conditions for God to pour more blessing in us. Here s another scripture. 3 John 1 and 2, beloved, I pray that in every way you may succeed. Now, that s an interesting word because I heard some of the other day tell me you ll never find the word succeed in the Bible. Well, they have it down and they haven t looked very hard. There are many translations that use that word frequently in the word of God talking about prosperity.

21:48 It says you may succeed and prosper and be in good health and physical condition just as your soul prospers. I want to add to that spiritually. The key to this teaching and this is so crucial, if you don t get this, you re going to miss the whole point of this particular podcast on the hows and the whys and the wins of prosperity and success and abundance. These things should not get into our lives until we ve prepared ourselves spiritually. I did an entire podcast on spiritual prosperity leads to financial prosperity. I believe that teaching, I believe it s based upon the word of God. We ve got to be focused on growing spiritually. If we grow spiritually, we ll do the things that God wants us to do.

22:30 If we mature spiritually, we ll be active in the things that God wants us to do. We will live according to his word. We ll live according to his plan for our life. We ll know our purpose in our life. But it all requires a focus not on just success and prosperity and abundance, but at first a focus on God. Remember earlier in this podcast I said one thing we must never do is to seek success, prosperity and abundance. If we seek that, we re messed up. We re on our own because God s word tells us so strongly to seek him first. Always put God first. Always have him first in your business, in your home, in your family, in your marriage, in your finances, in the work that you do, in the games that you play, in the friends that you have.

23:14 Keep God first. Make him one of the topics in your conversations. Sometimes I go out with a lot of Christian people for coffee or whatever and we talk and visit and sometimes we ll spend a couple of hours and very little is said about the things of God. We re talking about sports or politics or whatever. In the middle of it I have to say to myself, somehow I got to get this conversation headed back in the direction of putting our trust in God and seeking him first for these things. Then it says all these other things are going to fall in place. That s crucial for us and just absolutely vital for us in order to receive the type of prosperity that God wants for us, the type of successes that he wants us to have and the abundant living that he wants us to have. With all of that said, I m just going to say this, may the Lord bless you and keep you.

23:57 May his face shine upon you. May he be gracious to you and give you peace. Here s my favorite part and may you prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers. Thank you once again for listening into Quality Christian Living. I have been your host, David Fren. This is podcast number 248. May God richly bless you and bring forth success, prosperity, abundance according to his will in your life. Thank you once again for listening in. God bless you.