INTRODUCTION

From the moment raw recruits step onto the ground at boot camp, they are subjected to the loud voice, disrespectful comparisons, and swift punishment from their drill instructor. The DI forcefully despises their civilian mentality – their wrong thinking, distrust, and selfish willfulness. 

Boot camp is intended to build up recruits mentally as well as physically. They are taught military bearing, trusting obedience to orders, and sacrificing for one another and larger units.

Poverty is evidence of an ungodly existence. It’s the result of wrong thinking, distrust of God’s authority, and selfish disobedience. It’s the failure to follow God’s plans for prosperity.

My intent is not to chew out the reader like a DI but to offer a way of thinking that leads to success in creating wealth.

This requires changes in thinking. Proverbs 23:7 (KJV) says, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” In 1937, Napoleon Hill wrote the book, Think and Grow Rich, based on this idea.

God has provided the resources and abilities needed for people to succeed in Life and to create wealth. He only requires trusting obedience and generosity to others.

GOD PUT RESOURCES INTO EARTH

Creator God placed an extravagance of resources into the Earth. He laid out vast lands filled with rich soils, bedrock for foundations of buildings, quarries of building stones. He created pockets and veins of minerals, metals, and precious stones: mica, silica, and bauxite; gold, silver, and other precious metals; diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. God put salts and minerals in the seas.

The Creator lavished the Earth with plant life: forests for lumber; grains, vegetables, and fruits for food; herbs for flavor and medicine. He brought forth teeming animal life: food animals and fish, pelt bearers, working beasts, and pets.

GOD PUT VALUE INTO HUMANITY

Finally, God Almighty formed Humanity and put great value into each of us. He gave us physical strengths: muscles, senses, and opposable thumbs. He bestowed on us non-physical strengths: intelligence, determination, and wisdom. 

Above all, God Most High gave Humanity dominion over all the Earth. He told us to rule over all the animals and sea creatures, insects and lower life-forms but NOT over each other. Cooperation with – service to – one another was meant to be totally voluntary.

GOD PUT VALUE INTO YOU

When God knit you together in your mother’s womb, He put into you the usual human qualities of strength, intelligence, and emotions. He also gave you dominion in the various spheres of your life, along with a measure of trusting obedience. He wants you to exercise that trusting obedience in ruling over those various spheres of your life.

God also made you unique. He put into you unique strengths, unique ways of thinking. He placed you in unique circumstances and situations. He arranged unique challenges to survive and overcome.

Finally, God Most High created you for a unique purpose. There is a problem or set of problems in society you are to work on solving. At an early age, He gave you dreams of desired work. He bestowed on you the ability to plan for and act on that purpose, those dreams. He made available to you resources to sow toward that success.

GOD WANTS YOU TO EXCHANGE THAT VALUE FOR WEALTH

As with Abraham, El Shaddai wants you to sow generously into other people. 

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

(Genesis 12:2)

He wants you to sow into God’s people in need, other people in need, and His work on Earth.

Jesse DuPlantis taught Four Ways to Give.

• first tenth of income. God will protect your resources from being destroyed (Malachi 3:10-12).
• first whole of any increase. This firstfruits offering enables God’s favor on the increase that follows (Deuteronomy 26:1-3).
• needs of the poor. Mercy to the needy is a loan to God, and God pays back those loans in full (Proverbs 19:17).
• sow into God’s work (Philippians 4:15-20).

PRODUCE AND EXCHANGE VALUE

God wants you to work at your purpose, grow in excellence, and create value. In a free market, you can offer that value to others in exchange for the value they have. This creates wealth for both of you.

Creating wealth is not an ungodly activity, despite what religious people and Marxist liberals say. All of us are meant to create wealth to live on and to pass on to others as God’s middle men. Prosperity is success in accomplishing God’s work for us, giving value to others, and receiving wealth in return.

VALUE I HAVE CREATED

My book, From Economic Bondage to the Promised Land of Prosperity, compares God’s deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt and preparation in the Wilderness to His process of delivering poor people from bondage to poverty. He takes them through their own Wilderness Experience to prepare them to enter into and conquer their own Promised Land of Prosperity. This inspirational nonfiction is available for purchase here.

 In my novel, Joshua & Caleb: Journey to the Promised Land, I take the two heroes with Israel out of Egypt through the Wilderness and to Hebron on their spy mission for Moses. Along the way they take on a youth as a guide and make surprising discoveries about Gever, themselves, and the forces behind the Canaanite city. This novel is available for purchase here.  

QUESTIONS

Have you discovered the reason God created you? Have you discovered your WHY?

What holds you back from pursuing that purpose? Fear of failure? Lack of resources? Laziness or lack of desire to leave your comfort zone? All these are symptoms of evil unbelief.

Are you pursuing your WHY but truly need resources or guidance? These things are available.

Shalom