Prosperity is quite a word in Christianity. There are Christians on both sides of the isle who will either embrace prosperity wholeheartedly, or denounce it completely. This kind of dichotomy is interesting since prosperity is mentioned and explained in the scriptures. However there is a certain caution that is latent regarding prosperity that the scriptures don’t demonstrate.
Prosperity is not evil. God is truly the most prosperous entity in all of existence! And furthermore, He is the giver of all good gifts, according to James 1:17.; which also includes prosperity.
And Jesus specifically stated that our Father in heaven will never give us dangerous or evil gifts, in Matthew 7:9-11.
Knowing this, we can therefore conclude that prosperity, as a gift and blessing from our divinely perfect and good Father God, cannot be wrong, evil, or bad.
How then does prosperity come to us? By what avenue does it travel? Many people need prosperity today, and because they haven’t been receiving, they erroneously conclude that God isn’t prospering anymore, or that His prosperity is only ethereal.
So we are going to explore this today, and get a better idea of how we prosper in Christ today.
Communion, one of the most mysterious and interesting Christian rituals in all of scripture. But why did Jesus institute it? Was it merely do give us something to do so we wouldn’t become bored? There must be more to it. God would not give us a useless tradition or a meaningless ritual. He knew exactly what He was doing, and why He was giving us the remembrance of Communion.
Today we are going to explore the amazing blessings contained within Communion, and how it’s an amazing proclamation of what Jesus Christ has accomplished for us.
Throughout my years in the ministry, I’ve had a lot of conversations with people regarding healing. Healing and finances are actually the two most popular topics – and we have numerous resources on both because of it.
What I have experienced in my time, is that people place healing on a strange pedestal, as if it were somehow more difficult to receive than other blessings, or even more difficult than receiving salvation itself!
This is another classic example of our human mind, reasoning and theology complicating what God has made simple. Healing is not as complicated as we make it out to be; and it’s actually easier than we think!
Join me today, as we explore, how to easily receive healing, as a gift from God, in Christ Jesus.
What is your view of God? Some people see Him as a mere observer or a bystander; someone who is watching your life go by, but not taking part in it. In this view God is seen as more of a score-keeper, someone who is just watching your life, seeing the decisions that you make and keeping a record of your performance in order to judge you.
With this view of God, it is very difficult (or even impossible) to have any kind of real relationship with Him. You can never really have any closeness with someone who has real power to affect change and offer assistance, but refuses to act, and instead just uses your pain to judge you. Would you even want to have a relationship with someone like that?
The real question is, is this idea of God truly accurate? Is this the picture of God that we see in the scriptures?
We will explore this today; and the answer may surprise you.
When you think of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, what comes to your mind? This is a question that I asked to a group of believers, and most of them had the same couple of answers:
- Forgiveness of sins
- The pain and suffering of the torture
There’s nothing too surprising with these responses. In-fact these are all that is typically mentioned on Sunday’s in most sermons. Many people see the sacrifice of Christ as little more than spiritual fire-insurance. You get a ticket on the Heaven-bus when it arrives.
The sacrifice of Christ becomes something that merely gets mentioned at the end of sermons in order to attracted new converts to the membership of the church, but otherwise it is ignored.
However I’m here today my friend to tell you that the sacrifice of Jesus is much more than simply fire insurance – it is much more than a tool to gain new converts – it is in-fact everything that you need. And it is more than enough to solve every problem.
Welcome to the fourth part of our series of studies on how because of the finished work of Christ, your healing is unstoppable.
So far, we’ve already seen some things that that have greatly strengthened both our faith and our belief:
In part one, we saw how sinful deeds cannot stop our healing, and we destroyed a big stronghold for a lot of people regarding this common false belief that sin can stop or block our healing.
Next, in part two, we continued this theme by seeing how living in a sinful world also cannot stop our healing, which is another common false belief, closely related to the first one.
Then in part three we moved to a more internal level, as we examined how our new identity in Christ is a fundamental principle of why our healing is unstoppable.
Now today in this fourth part, we are going to examine another popular idea… what about having not enough faith? Can having a lack of faith stop healing? Join me today, as we answer this important question.
Welcome back again to our series on how your healing in unstoppable. Last week we saw how the fact that we exist in a sinful world, cannot really stop or hinder our healing in any way because of the fact that we have been placed into a New Covenant, and we have been given a new status and title – even the right to approach the Father in the Name of Jesus. And we ended last week by looking at the verse of 1st John 4:17, which tells us that even our very identity and nature has been changed; which many people are not even aware of.
Today we are going to explore this fact in more detail, as we continue seeing how because of the finished work of Christ, your healing is indeed unstoppable.
“Don’t Worry, Be Happy!” advice that is constantly given out whenever one person wants to encourage another… but would it surprise you that the first person to offer such advice was actually Jesus? And He doesn’t just tell you to not worry and be happy, but He actually gives you the reason why you can safely and securely cease your worrying and have both joy and happiness, because of the truth of Christ and the fact that you have a Heavenly Father who actually loves and cares for you.
You see, the message of “don’t worry, be happy” really doesn’t carry its full weight, until you understand precisely why you can do those things. Without the foundation, it will often crumble to the daily stresses of life. So what I want to share with you today, is what Jesus said about letting go of your worry, and how to be truly happy.
When talking about sickness, many people take a hopeful cautious attitude. “It’s raining outside, and the weather is cold, I hope I don’t get sick.” – “Gee, that virus is going around, I hope I am not next to get it.”
These statements are the norm, and they may even seem logical. However, are these attitudes really the way that God wants us to live? Is this the kind of abundant life that Jesus suffered and died on the cross for us to have?
What I want to share with you today, are some thought-provoking questions like the ones I just mentioned, and some scriptures that will open your awareness and increase your perspective regarding healing and health. Because Jesus didn’t suffer and die on the cross so that you would continue to suffer and die – but in-fact He has redeemed you from the curse, and as His ambassador, you should be walking in His blessings (all of them) and bringing them to others also.
As believers, I think it is safe to say that all of us want to know the will of God. We all want to know what His desire and His intentions are in every area and in every situation. Many times we cry out to God asking Him to reveal His will to us, and we preface our prayers with “Lord, if it’s your will...”, and we pray this way because we do not know His will… we are unsure of what His will is. However it is very difficult; some would even say impossible, to act with boldness and confidence if we are not sure that God is backing us up. It’s very difficult to step out in faith if we are uncertain whether God’s will is for us to do that.
The good news is that He knows that we want to know – and He has not left us wondering what His will is. God has given us the perfect image and example of His will. And as we look at the living image of God – Jesus – we will know what the will of God is, and not be in doubt or uncertainty any longer. This is what we will be studying today.