Prosperity

Prosperity

God’s people were to work for abundance according to the promises of God.

“And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.” Deuteronomy 28:11

The promises of God are precious, and very great. Throughout their journey in the wilderness, God pointed His people to days of blessing and prosperity. He demonstrated His ability to deliver on such promises by meeting all their needs in the desert. His promise of blessing was not simply one for “getting by.” God promised His people that they would prosper within His Covenant, according to His Law.

Prosperity was thus to be both an outlook and an expectation for the people of Israel. This would have affected everything they did and all the ways they did it. People who expect to prosper work diligently, and with excellence and efficiency, to maximize their resources and strength toward what they expect to realize. God taught His people to realize prosperity, and we can be sure that those who faithfully expected such from the hand of God bent their labors and strength toward realizing prosperity in every aspect of their lives.

Today it seems that many of God’s people have settled for a kind of “good enough” experience of God’s Covenant. The Lord promises exceeding abundantly more than we could ever ask or think, but we seem content with a faith that assures us of eternal life and provides a modicum of peace and happiness here and now.

But what if we really expected to prosper in all the power and presence and blessings of the Lord? What if we really expected to be increasingly transformed into the image of Jesus Christ? His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven? His to churches to grow increasingly in unity and maturity? His enemies to be placed under His feet? His goodness to be seen in the land of the living? Our world to be turned upside-down for King Jesus? Would such an outlook and expectation affect the diligence, excellence, and efficiency with which we seek the Lord and His blessings?

We can only believe that it must be so.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.