Prosperity - Our Covenant #6

Last week we were teaching on "Activating Our Covenant of Prosperity." So let's just pick up right were left off.

A) Well, in 2nd Corinthians, we find God's plan on how to put your covenant to work or you could say how to activate your covenant.

1) 2nd Corinthians 9:6-8.

(a) The Word grace in verse eight doesn't mean some feeling of spiritual goodness or anything.

(i) The Bible's definition of grace is an impartation God's power and ability in your life. It's God's power taking over where your ability ends.

2) (2 Corinthians 9:8) (Amplified New Testament) "And God is able to make all grace (every favor and earthly blessing) come to you in abundance, so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation]."

(a) Financial abundance and financial freedom are the Will of God for your life.

(i) God wants you to be a vessel through which he causes financial prosperity to flow. He wants you to be that financial avenue to get his work done.

II) FULFILL YOUR OBLIGATIONS TO GOD.

A) You have a covenant with God, but just as with any promise or provision in the covenant, there are things you must do in order to receive and activate the blessings.

1) You have to fulfill your obligations in the contract in order to experience is prosperity.

(a) There are certain conditions you are required to meet.

2) It's like any other contract between two individuals: each person must do certain things to fulfill the contract.

(a) Your covenant with God is the same way. God tells you in the new covenant, or contract, what you must do.

3) Let me give you a list of them.

(a) First, from (James 4:8) which says, "Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you."

(b) 2nd, from (Luke 6: 38) which says, "Give, and it shall be given unto you."

(c) 3rd, from (Mark 9:23) which says, "All things are possible to him that believeth."

B) There's no such thing as a one-sided covenant or contract, with God.

1) It's never one-sided with God doing everything for you and you doing nothing for him. You do your part, and God will do his.

III) There we have the three main steps to financial prosperity.

A) First, "Draw nigh unto God and he will draw nigh unto you."

1) That would include following after God and the Lord, seeking Him and his Word, and keeping his commandments.

B) 2nd he says, "Give, and it shall be given unto you."

1) That's talking about giving to the work of God and God will multiply back to you. (Not just giving him a tip).

C) And No. 3, "All things are possible to him that believeth."

1) Faith is essential in believing, faith is essential in receiving.

2) (Hebrews 6:12) says, "That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises."

(a) Faith is essential in receiving the promises from the contract or covenant.

(b) God wants you prosper, but it's going to take for you to follow after the Lord and his ways, to give so that it can be given to you, and believe his Word with all your heart. And then God will begin to open the doors of his financial blessings.

(c) This is an important aspect of your contract with God that you need to understand.

(i) God is waiting on you. He has already made the first move when he sent Jesus.

¨ This is true with salvation. He made the first move. He sent Jesus. Now you need to do something. You had to believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

¨ It's true with healing. You receive it by faith in God and in his Word.

¨ And it's true with prosperity.

3) When we talk about Jesus redeeming us from poverty and purchasing for us the abundant life, many don't understand what this really means.

(a) It doesn't mean that the blessings of God are just going to be automatic in your life. You still have to do something.

(i) I'm not really talking about earning them but more to activate them.

(b) Let me see if I can explain it this way. Think of the worst sinner you can, the vilest person you know.

(i) If that person were to die today, where would they go? Probably, Hell. Why?

(ii) Didn't Jesus die on the cross to redeem them? Didn't he die so their sins could be washed away? Doesn't God care about them? Yes, he did. Then why would he go to Hell? He never activated the covenant. He had to do something. And of course, that was to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior.

D) If the laws of prosperity are not working for you maybe, it's because you're not working them.

1) Colossians 1:12-13.

(a) The Word "HATH" is obviously the past tense. God is not going to do it someday. He has already done it and he's done it for you.

2) The word "POWER" in verse 13 is the Greek word Exousia, which means "AUTHORITY, JURISDICTION, or REALM OF INFLUENCE."

3) God has already delivered you from the power, authority, jurisdiction, and realm of influence of darkness.

(a) This "darkness" is referring to Satan.

(b) God has delivered you out of the realm of influence of Satan, who causes poverty.

E) The moment you are born-again, you were translated out of the authority of Satan and brought over into a new kingdom, God's kingdom.

1) You are no longer part of the kingdom of darkness, your part of the kingdom of God.

(a) But you still have to work the system or operate within the guidelines of the system in order to be prosperous.

IV) God has a system of finance, an economic system, in his kingdom.

A) You have to function within the principles that govern God's economic system in order to activate the promise of prosperity.

B) Joshua had a covenant with God, part of that covenant involved success and prosperity.

1) But just because Joshua had a covenant with God did not mean he would automatically experience prosperity. He had to get into the flow of God's system.

2) Look at what God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8.

(a) Notice there was a condition. He had to speak God's Word and meditate on it day and night.

(i) The Word "MEDITATE" means, "to moan, growl, utter, muse, mutter, meditate, devise, plot, speak."

(ii) Joshua had to speak the Word or confess the Word of God to activate the covenant.

(b) Last half of Joshua 1:8.

C) Let's look at another verse Psalms 1:1-2.

1) His law is the Word. And again, he uses the Word "MEDITATE," which means, "to moan, growl, utter, muse, mutter, meditate, devise, plot, speak."

2) Now look at Psalms 1:3.

(a) You need to delight in God's Word, meditate on it and speak it out loud. Then everything you do, everything you put your hand to, will prosper.

3) We're not in this world system any longer, were in God's system.

(a) (ACTS 17:28) says, "In Him we live and move and have are being."

(i) Even though Jesus has purchased for us the right to walk in covenant with God, we still have to fulfill its obligations.

(ii) For instance, Jesus said in (Luke 6:38) "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. (Or life)."

W. O. L. C. C. Sunday, November 18, 2001 from Marcus Bishop's book entitled, "Our Covenant of Prosperity," From Pp 51 through 55 through 61.