God's Whole Prosperity Message
© 1981 by Marilyn A Ellsworth
When we, my husband and I, first began to hear Jesus’ full gospel prosperity message in 1979, we welcomed it with open hearts. It was as welcome as had been our Lord’s message of salvation to our lost ears years before.
Some of today’s greatest charismatic teachers then were teaching only a portion of God’s prosperity message, which we found, through experience, has been taught incompletely. Here’s the bondage-breaking truth about God’s prosperity message and how we found it.
Let me say, first, that this is not a “method” for just becoming wealthy; and secondly, it only pertains to Christians. All of God’s promises are based on supernatural “laws,” and on an intimate knowledge of one’s relationship to God through Jesus.
Anything attainable simply by obeying natural laws is not particularly of God, though He rules nature... and prosperity is most assuredly built into that! In Matthew thirteen, Jesus, Himself, expounds on the law of Sowing and Reaping, the primary spiritual law of the Bible. Everything pertaining to us (Christians), Biblically speaking, is obtained through this law: absolutely everything; and as with money seeds, the seed of the Word of God, takes root, springs up and bears a harvest after its own kind, through this process, in our hearts, bringing forth its fruit of repentance from dead works: salvation in peace, joy and love: and eternal life.
Psalms One, explains what kind of person receives God’s blessings: one who walks only with godly counselors, refrains from entering freely into sinful paths, and does not enjoy leisure with arrogant fellowship. One who experiences actual delight in their Heavenly Father. Verse four clearly states that “the ungodly are not so...” [blessed].
The blessings of God are listed clearly in Deuteronomy [1].
Christians are New Testament Israelites: and as such, are heirs of Old Testament Israelis' promises, by faith, as clearly seen in Galatians [2] which says, "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham,” and Galatians [3], “That the blessings of Abraham might come on the gentiles through Jesus Christ.” St. John [4] says, “But as many as receive him [Jesus], to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” Romans [5] says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” First John [6] says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”
Once we realized that Jesus not only saved us from eternal damnation, but had actually allowed us to be adopted as brothers; that He’d freely given us the right to become sons to His own Father, we realized that we really were heirs of His Father’s wealth. All we had to do was become spiritually mature enough, by the renewing of our mind by His Word, and being experientially exercised in it, to deserve the responsibility of handling His wealth properly. Psalms [7]gave us a precious promise in this regard that we hung on to: “NO GOOD THING will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
As we studied the scriptures intently, we saw financial laws emerging. [Actually, all kinds of laws that govern the spirit of everything, for everything begins in the spirit, and is later manifested in the earthly [8].] God began to convict us of the necessity to obey those laws: the Biblical Laws of Success!
The most basic law regarded tithing, which we already knew. Malachi [9] says, “Bring [a command] ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and PROVE ME now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I WILL [an absolute] rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.”
So, simply as an act of faith and obedience, we began to tithe [give ten percent of our gross income]. Then, we heard the message called the “hundred-fold return.”
It begins with Luke [10], which says, “GIVE, and it SHALL [an absolute] be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall MEN give into your bosom. For with the SAME MEASURE that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” If you give small, you get small!
Another scripture that went right along with that is Matthew 13:23, “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth The Word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some AN HUNDRED, some sixty, some thirty.”
A one hundred percent return on 1 cent is 2 cents. A one hundred-fold return on 1 cent is $1.00, and a one-hundred-fold return on $10.00 is $1,000.
The most basic principle underlying everything in the bible is that of seed-time and harvest. In the Garden of Eden, God created every thing to bear seed after it’s own “kind,” [natural species designation]. Spiritual things also bear after their kind, all originating with “words,” which are spirit. Jesus said, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. [11]”
We heard messages about sowing “seed faith” to have your ‘NEEDS’ met: sowing out of your need rather than out of your abundance. There... giving got complicated to us.
The premise for this lesson was, erroneously, drawn from Mark [12], the story of the widow giving two mites, which was all she had to live on. Our teachers misconstrued this teaching in that they assumed too much that this scripture does NOT say, and not knowing any better, we believed our teachers until God, Himself, taught us differently.
We were taught that if you had a “need” for rent, food, utilities, bills, etc. and you only had a portion of that on hand, you were to “sow” what you did have, into the church, to get what you needed. So, we did. All we got was deeper in debt, and late in our payments! This went on for almost a year before reality set in. (Youth is like that!)
By that time, we had learned to ask God what He thought of what we heard, and He had already answered, “Be ware what you hear! [13]” and “Be ware how you hear! [14]”
We had been hearing amiss and hadn’t understood the whole prosperity message God wanted us to know. The prosperity message we had been “hearing” had become a stumbling block to us.
We knew those scriptures were in His Word! We saw them as promises we had inherited, but something was wrong in our application of them, and we didn’t know what it was. After a while we began to petition God fervently, as to why these solid biblical principles were not working according to His promises, which can not fail. Since He is never wrong, we knew it had to be something we were, or were not, doing!
One day my husband, Horace, came to me and said God had revealed to him what the incomplete portion of the prosperity message was. The key was in Romans [15]. “Render therefore to all their dues;” and “Owe no man anything but to love one another.”
Very simply, God was saying that the “seed” we had been sowing had not been ours to sow in the first place! So, He had to pass “the blessing of abundance” on... to the seeds’ rightful owner, our creditor. This took the form of our interest and late payments going to the person to whom our money was actually due. We had given the “Abrahamic abundance” to the world’s system. Drat!
THIS IS THE FIRST KEY: The bible never said the widow owed either mite to another soul! It had always been hers to give away, and God honored her sincerity because that’s His law. She had known that! We had not! She knew her return was sure.
When this basic truth sunk into our hearts, we determined to only sow from OUR abundance, and doubled our workload until we could catch up our debts. We sold things we no longer needed, or used, to help along the way.
Our perspective changed. The things we had once valued as possessions became burdensome trappings, now good only for the unloading, to gain our freedom!
Finally, the moment of truth came. Our creditors were not paid off, but payments were up to date for the first time in years. [My bout with cancer had set us back severely several years earlier.] Tithing had kept us from incurring additional debts, and provided additional jobs by giving us favor with men [Proverbs 3:4].
Our first seed faith offering was meager, but we prayed over the five-dollar bill [by laying our hands on it and making a wave offering of it before the Lord], and agreed together that we were sowing into God’s kingdom, expecting Luke 6:38 to be manifest in our lives from that day forth.
My husband had needed new eyeglasses badly for some years but had never felt free to buy them because of our debts. Within that first week, a sister in our congregation gave him the money he needed for them because she said God told her he needed that amount of money!
Later that same week, I received a a notice from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida. They said that my coverage had been "re-evaluated" and someone had “discovered” a special clause in our policy. That provision allowed Major Medical coverage to assume responsibility for 80% of our unpaid 20% balance [of about thirty-thousand dollars, from three surgery bills!]. En-total, it amounted to about a five-thousand-fold return on our five-dollar bill! Definitely worth our investment!
To receive anything from God we all have to learn to understand THE SPIRIT OF HIS LAW. This spirit of the law is always interpreted through the “filter” of love and mercy that is in God’s heart toward mankind, where the letter of the law is always interpreted through the “filter” of His judgment.
There is a vast difference in the two, for it is written “And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter [of the law] killeth, but the spirit [of the law] giveth life. [16]” The letter of the law is therein called “the ministration of death [KJV].”
God can not honor our intentions when our ignorance gets in His way! [“MY PEOPLE [not just the heathens] are destroyed for lack of knowledge. [17]”] We must learn to ask Him to teach us His truth... all of it. [18] We must rely on our relationship with Him.
THIS IS THE SECOND KEY: Only then can, when we have asked Him, and waited for His answer, and they relied upon it, does He take us beyond our “needs” into the “abundance” of the “second sowing!”
God alone, through His Holy Spirit [His Governor in the earth to teach us the ways of our homeland Kingdom [19]], is our authorized teacher, our guide, and our comforter! Men can only teach in part, where God can reveal in completeness what He wants us to know. All we have to do is be diligent, and honest, with Him; learn of Him, and obey Him out of love.
When we operate in God’s love, we loose sin-consciousness. To borrow is not a sin. To borrow, and not repay as promised, is a sin. Sins can be forgiven, but there is still a penalty to pay. Let’s learn to be prosperous by God’s design, and keep His money in His Kingdom! Besides, “A good [credit] name is rather to be chosen, than great riches. [20]”
Godly wealth is not a sin. It is a legacy, and an inheritance, to those who go the distance in God. To obtain godly wealth, we must enter into the realm of the “second sowing.”
The principle of the “second sowing” is found in the book of Matthew, chapter thirteen, beginning at the seventeenth verse. It is the historic setting of the boy who gave his five loaves and two fishes to feed the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus speak.
Now, you have to understand, this boy was probably a Jew. So, one can assume he had already tithed his original tithe. Yet when The Master, Jesus, said He needed more, the boy gave all that he possessed. It was his to give. Verse 20 states, “And they [all those present] did all eat, and were filled; and they took up of the fragments [of the second sowing from the boy] that remained: TWELVE BASKETS FULL.” The boy had to have twelve men help carry home his hefty return, on the same day it was given!
Come, brothers and sisters... let us enter into the season of the “second sowing” for God’s full measure of prosperity! Remember, it’s our inheritance.
“Freely you have received, freely give!”
True biblical prosperity requires these elements to acquire. One must understand that IF there is a True Prosperity, there must be, of necessity a False Prosperity. Pastor Dollar distinguishes the two this way: False Prosperity comes with bills attached. God’s True Prosperity comes outright with no troubles added!
In order to get God’s True Prosperity, these numbered elements must be in place and operational in our lives:
FAITH (which is dead if that’s all you have) Jam 2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
It needs the following to be functional:
WORKS (the corresponding action to FAITH) Jam 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Jam 1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
“Work” is acting on your faith in a correct corresponding way. It is diametrically opposed to any action that is beyond your faith level, or an incorrect corresponding act. (One has to believe God for $10.00 before one can believe for $10 million.)
It is in the faith stage where we must sow our seeds for the future harvest we expect in accordance with God’s Word. But it is Man who will respond to that seed.
Mat 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
Mat 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
*******************Footnotes:
[1] [28:1-4]
[2] [3:7]
[3] [3:14]
[4] [1:12]
[5] [8:14]
[6] [3:2]
[7] [84:11]
[8] Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
[9] [3:10-11]
[10] [7:38]
[11] John 6:63.
[12] [12:42-44]
[13] Mk 4:24.
[14] Lu 8:18.
[15] [13:7 –8]
[16] 2Co 3:4-7.
[17] Hosea 4:6.
[18] Mat. 7:7-8.
[19] According to the book “The Most Important Person on Earth.” By Pastor & Teacher, Miles Munroe.
[20] Proverbs 22:1.
When we, my husband and I, first began to hear Jesus’ full gospel prosperity message in 1979, we welcomed it with open hearts. It was as welcome as had been our Lord’s message of salvation to our lost ears years before.
Some of today’s greatest charismatic teachers then were teaching only a portion of God’s prosperity message, which we found, through experience, has been taught incompletely. Here’s the bondage-breaking truth about God’s prosperity message and how we found it.
Let me say, first, that this is not a “method” for just becoming wealthy; and secondly, it only pertains to Christians. All of God’s promises are based on supernatural “laws,” and on an intimate knowledge of one’s relationship to God through Jesus.
Anything attainable simply by obeying natural laws is not particularly of God, though He rules nature... and prosperity is most assuredly built into that! In Matthew thirteen, Jesus, Himself, expounds on the law of Sowing and Reaping, the primary spiritual law of the Bible. Everything pertaining to us (Christians), Biblically speaking, is obtained through this law: absolutely everything; and as with money seeds, the seed of the Word of God, takes root, springs up and bears a harvest after its own kind, through this process, in our hearts, bringing forth its fruit of repentance from dead works: salvation in peace, joy and love: and eternal life.
Psalms One, explains what kind of person receives God’s blessings: one who walks only with godly counselors, refrains from entering freely into sinful paths, and does not enjoy leisure with arrogant fellowship. One who experiences actual delight in their Heavenly Father. Verse four clearly states that “the ungodly are not so...” [blessed].
The blessings of God are listed clearly in Deuteronomy [1].
Christians are New Testament Israelites: and as such, are heirs of Old Testament Israelis' promises, by faith, as clearly seen in Galatians [2] which says, "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham,” and Galatians [3], “That the blessings of Abraham might come on the gentiles through Jesus Christ.” St. John [4] says, “But as many as receive him [Jesus], to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” Romans [5] says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” First John [6] says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”
Once we realized that Jesus not only saved us from eternal damnation, but had actually allowed us to be adopted as brothers; that He’d freely given us the right to become sons to His own Father, we realized that we really were heirs of His Father’s wealth. All we had to do was become spiritually mature enough, by the renewing of our mind by His Word, and being experientially exercised in it, to deserve the responsibility of handling His wealth properly. Psalms [7]gave us a precious promise in this regard that we hung on to: “NO GOOD THING will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
As we studied the scriptures intently, we saw financial laws emerging. [Actually, all kinds of laws that govern the spirit of everything, for everything begins in the spirit, and is later manifested in the earthly [8].] God began to convict us of the necessity to obey those laws: the Biblical Laws of Success!
The most basic law regarded tithing, which we already knew. Malachi [9] says, “Bring [a command] ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and PROVE ME now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I WILL [an absolute] rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.”
So, simply as an act of faith and obedience, we began to tithe [give ten percent of our gross income]. Then, we heard the message called the “hundred-fold return.”
It begins with Luke [10], which says, “GIVE, and it SHALL [an absolute] be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall MEN give into your bosom. For with the SAME MEASURE that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” If you give small, you get small!
Another scripture that went right along with that is Matthew 13:23, “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth The Word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some AN HUNDRED, some sixty, some thirty.”
A one hundred percent return on 1 cent is 2 cents. A one hundred-fold return on 1 cent is $1.00, and a one-hundred-fold return on $10.00 is $1,000.
The most basic principle underlying everything in the bible is that of seed-time and harvest. In the Garden of Eden, God created every thing to bear seed after it’s own “kind,” [natural species designation]. Spiritual things also bear after their kind, all originating with “words,” which are spirit. Jesus said, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. [11]”
We heard messages about sowing “seed faith” to have your ‘NEEDS’ met: sowing out of your need rather than out of your abundance. There... giving got complicated to us.
The premise for this lesson was, erroneously, drawn from Mark [12], the story of the widow giving two mites, which was all she had to live on. Our teachers misconstrued this teaching in that they assumed too much that this scripture does NOT say, and not knowing any better, we believed our teachers until God, Himself, taught us differently.
We were taught that if you had a “need” for rent, food, utilities, bills, etc. and you only had a portion of that on hand, you were to “sow” what you did have, into the church, to get what you needed. So, we did. All we got was deeper in debt, and late in our payments! This went on for almost a year before reality set in. (Youth is like that!)
By that time, we had learned to ask God what He thought of what we heard, and He had already answered, “Be ware what you hear! [13]” and “Be ware how you hear! [14]”
We had been hearing amiss and hadn’t understood the whole prosperity message God wanted us to know. The prosperity message we had been “hearing” had become a stumbling block to us.
We knew those scriptures were in His Word! We saw them as promises we had inherited, but something was wrong in our application of them, and we didn’t know what it was. After a while we began to petition God fervently, as to why these solid biblical principles were not working according to His promises, which can not fail. Since He is never wrong, we knew it had to be something we were, or were not, doing!
One day my husband, Horace, came to me and said God had revealed to him what the incomplete portion of the prosperity message was. The key was in Romans [15]. “Render therefore to all their dues;” and “Owe no man anything but to love one another.”
Very simply, God was saying that the “seed” we had been sowing had not been ours to sow in the first place! So, He had to pass “the blessing of abundance” on... to the seeds’ rightful owner, our creditor. This took the form of our interest and late payments going to the person to whom our money was actually due. We had given the “Abrahamic abundance” to the world’s system. Drat!
THIS IS THE FIRST KEY: The bible never said the widow owed either mite to another soul! It had always been hers to give away, and God honored her sincerity because that’s His law. She had known that! We had not! She knew her return was sure.
When this basic truth sunk into our hearts, we determined to only sow from OUR abundance, and doubled our workload until we could catch up our debts. We sold things we no longer needed, or used, to help along the way.
Our perspective changed. The things we had once valued as possessions became burdensome trappings, now good only for the unloading, to gain our freedom!
Finally, the moment of truth came. Our creditors were not paid off, but payments were up to date for the first time in years. [My bout with cancer had set us back severely several years earlier.] Tithing had kept us from incurring additional debts, and provided additional jobs by giving us favor with men [Proverbs 3:4].
Our first seed faith offering was meager, but we prayed over the five-dollar bill [by laying our hands on it and making a wave offering of it before the Lord], and agreed together that we were sowing into God’s kingdom, expecting Luke 6:38 to be manifest in our lives from that day forth.
My husband had needed new eyeglasses badly for some years but had never felt free to buy them because of our debts. Within that first week, a sister in our congregation gave him the money he needed for them because she said God told her he needed that amount of money!
Later that same week, I received a a notice from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida. They said that my coverage had been "re-evaluated" and someone had “discovered” a special clause in our policy. That provision allowed Major Medical coverage to assume responsibility for 80% of our unpaid 20% balance [of about thirty-thousand dollars, from three surgery bills!]. En-total, it amounted to about a five-thousand-fold return on our five-dollar bill! Definitely worth our investment!
To receive anything from God we all have to learn to understand THE SPIRIT OF HIS LAW. This spirit of the law is always interpreted through the “filter” of love and mercy that is in God’s heart toward mankind, where the letter of the law is always interpreted through the “filter” of His judgment.
There is a vast difference in the two, for it is written “And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter [of the law] killeth, but the spirit [of the law] giveth life. [16]” The letter of the law is therein called “the ministration of death [KJV].”
God can not honor our intentions when our ignorance gets in His way! [“MY PEOPLE [not just the heathens] are destroyed for lack of knowledge. [17]”] We must learn to ask Him to teach us His truth... all of it. [18] We must rely on our relationship with Him.
THIS IS THE SECOND KEY: Only then can, when we have asked Him, and waited for His answer, and they relied upon it, does He take us beyond our “needs” into the “abundance” of the “second sowing!”
God alone, through His Holy Spirit [His Governor in the earth to teach us the ways of our homeland Kingdom [19]], is our authorized teacher, our guide, and our comforter! Men can only teach in part, where God can reveal in completeness what He wants us to know. All we have to do is be diligent, and honest, with Him; learn of Him, and obey Him out of love.
When we operate in God’s love, we loose sin-consciousness. To borrow is not a sin. To borrow, and not repay as promised, is a sin. Sins can be forgiven, but there is still a penalty to pay. Let’s learn to be prosperous by God’s design, and keep His money in His Kingdom! Besides, “A good [credit] name is rather to be chosen, than great riches. [20]”
Godly wealth is not a sin. It is a legacy, and an inheritance, to those who go the distance in God. To obtain godly wealth, we must enter into the realm of the “second sowing.”
The principle of the “second sowing” is found in the book of Matthew, chapter thirteen, beginning at the seventeenth verse. It is the historic setting of the boy who gave his five loaves and two fishes to feed the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus speak.
Now, you have to understand, this boy was probably a Jew. So, one can assume he had already tithed his original tithe. Yet when The Master, Jesus, said He needed more, the boy gave all that he possessed. It was his to give. Verse 20 states, “And they [all those present] did all eat, and were filled; and they took up of the fragments [of the second sowing from the boy] that remained: TWELVE BASKETS FULL.” The boy had to have twelve men help carry home his hefty return, on the same day it was given!
Come, brothers and sisters... let us enter into the season of the “second sowing” for God’s full measure of prosperity! Remember, it’s our inheritance.
“Freely you have received, freely give!”
True biblical prosperity requires these elements to acquire. One must understand that IF there is a True Prosperity, there must be, of necessity a False Prosperity. Pastor Dollar distinguishes the two this way: False Prosperity comes with bills attached. God’s True Prosperity comes outright with no troubles added!
In order to get God’s True Prosperity, these numbered elements must be in place and operational in our lives:
FAITH (which is dead if that’s all you have) Jam 2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
It needs the following to be functional:
WORKS (the corresponding action to FAITH) Jam 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Jam 1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
“Work” is acting on your faith in a correct corresponding way. It is diametrically opposed to any action that is beyond your faith level, or an incorrect corresponding act. (One has to believe God for $10.00 before one can believe for $10 million.)
It is in the faith stage where we must sow our seeds for the future harvest we expect in accordance with God’s Word. But it is Man who will respond to that seed.
Mat 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.
Mat 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.
*******************Footnotes:
[1] [28:1-4]
[2] [3:7]
[3] [3:14]
[4] [1:12]
[5] [8:14]
[6] [3:2]
[7] [84:11]
[8] Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
[9] [3:10-11]
[10] [7:38]
[11] John 6:63.
[12] [12:42-44]
[13] Mk 4:24.
[14] Lu 8:18.
[15] [13:7 –8]
[16] 2Co 3:4-7.
[17] Hosea 4:6.
[18] Mat. 7:7-8.
[19] According to the book “The Most Important Person on Earth.” By Pastor & Teacher, Miles Munroe.
[20] Proverbs 22:1.
True Prosperity Versus False Prosperity in the Kingdom of God
by Marilyn Ellsworth
We learned a lot of these principles from Rod Parsley’s “BREAKTHROUGH” TV evangelism program, and Dr. Creflo Dollar’s teachings on prosperity, among other topics and teachers. Rod Parsley had Dr. Nasser Saddiki (an ex-Moslem, now Christian, businessman & advertising expert, turned millionaire) on his program, teaching principles from his book Kingdom Principles of Financial Increase. That has been DYNAMITE. That started this study of my own.
Initially, it’s important to understand that in the Kingdom of Light in the earth, everything is done according to “seedtime and harvest.” That is why Jesus so often used the parable of the sower.
1Co 15:36-48 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
Blessings are only for the obedient persons of God’s Kingdom who by faith are seeds of “Abraham” and through him, heirs according to God’s promise to him ([1]). Those obedient sons are called “Sowers” by the Word of God. Those who keep what finances they get are “Keepers,” and are called “unfruitful branches” and “worthless servants.”
God wants us to be abundant fruit bearers! But, true prosperity, God’s way, requires that we have an intimate relationship with Him. According to John Hagees’ ministry we either produce fruit or burn up in our trials ([2]).
Without obedience to His laws and principles, [through knowledge of what is holy, all of which works by love,] one has no real “prosperity.” God’s prosperity is for three specific purposes in the Kingdom: Sending forth His Word, sending forth his miraculous power, and saving souls. Being prosperous is our responsibility [Yes! “RESPONSIBILITY” according to Pastor Parsley!] to the Kingdom of God.
Deu 8:18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
2Co 9:6-9 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
If you are not using His money, which He gives you, to establish His covenant promises in the earth, He is under NO obligation to give you more funding.
Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Gal 6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption [corruption is indicated by a lack of prosperity]; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
God can not pervert or fail to fulfill His word, and even though He is “need-meeting” by nature, even He must abide by His Word. His Word never fails! So, the only other thing that can stop you blessings is your lack of understanding or your disobedience. Prosperity is your responsibility.
According to Creflo Dollar, God’s heirs that do NOT mature in Christ, to the eating of the Word of God with understanding and good works in evidence, do not get their inheritance, and differ none from indentured servants. Paul says, in 1Co 13:11 “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” That’s what we are expected to do.
First, in the plan of salvation Almighty God set forth, He desires that every ungodly man be saved, so our salvation or lack of it is our personal choice. Perpetuating the Plan of Salvation, for a Christian, is NOT OPTIONAL. If we can’t do it ourselves, we must support ministries that do or we are not obedient to the laws of God, and like the proverbial fruit tree, we will be cut off and burned as unfruitful branches! Our lack of prosperity is our warning for our disobedience. God can not operate outside His own law! To not submit to the requirements of God to join His Kingdom is not a wise choice for anyone.
The tithe is part of that original plan. The book of Malachi says:
Mal 3:9-10 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me [by withholding tithes: 1/10th of your gross income], even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse [a place of mutual ownership for all God’s people], that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Psa 1:1-6 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly (not particularly wicked men, just without our God in their lives), nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff, which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
3Jo 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Our soul prospers when we feed it the nourishing “food ([3])” which is God’s Word, and do it to the exercising of our spiritual muscles of faith ([4]).
Second: We need to understand Who we are, first as a member of the species of Man, and second, Who we are as the offspring of God in Christ as Christians.
Gen 1:26-29 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
First of all, God created Man-kind as creators. We are the same “kind” [a species designation] as He is.
Mat 12:50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
Dr. Saddiki stressed that when we gave ourselves to God in Christ, He got our lives, our souls, our house, our car, our bank accounts: everything, and they then came under His Kingdom laws of “seedtime and harvest.” We are no longer “owners” but “stuards” of them. The moment we decide how much of what we want to sow we’ve taken “personal ownership” of what is God’s to give us. That’s HOW we write a check to receive his abundance from the account He has laid up in store for us. Remember, God is not obligated, according to Dr. Saddiki, to bring a harvest on what we keep in the sower’s bucket (our bank account); but only on what is actually sown into good ground!
If you wonder who to give your money freely to, that scripture tells you, very clearly. You share with your brother according to this following scripture:
Luk 6:38 Give [cause], and it [whatever you gave-the seed you sowed ([5])] shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall [that’s a promise] be measured to you again.
God’s goal is, and always was, to make Christians prosperous beyond our wildest imaginations, but He can only do it when we obey His laws of financial increase: sow His word... and our finances... into three kinds of harvests: 1) our personal finances for perpetuating His gospel around the world ([6]), 2) His miracles for getting the unsaved’s attention, and 3) the last day harvest of souls of men.
For years all our tithes and offerings have been invested into writing, producing and distributing gospel tracts, books and online websites for the good of the Kingdom of God. Retirement has afforded us the luxury of studying, teaching and preaching the gospel of Almighty God full time from our home. But this week, we ventured again into investing in other’s ministries, according to recent instructions of righteousness we received.
We sent to $10.00 checks in to some of the TV Christian teachers we've been learning from yesterday, and the principles worked the first day for us.
1) I finished a little (47 pages) publishing job for a friend today and when she went to pay me, I asked for $50.00 and she said "That's not enough!" She made the check out for $75.00 and said even that wasn't enough!
2) Another guy called back about a book quote I'd given a month or six weeks ago for $2,800 and said he was reconsidering, did I still have time. I told him I would in a month or so.
3) Another lady called to donate about 50-75 books to me on writing, from the prestigious Writer's Digest series!
That's probably several thousand-fold return on that $20.00 seed faith investment we made. I'm finding everything works on a "seedtime and harvest" principle laid out in Genesis, chapter one. The laws of God, like the laws of nature, work for whomsoever will work them.
I feel more hopeful now than in months!
Here are some of those principles:
God is not obligated to bring a harvest on what we keep in the (seed-sowing) bucket (our bank account). When we gave ourselves to God He got our lives, our souls, our house, our car, our bank accounts, everything: and they then came under His Kingdom laws of “Seedtime and Harvest.” He doesn’t watch over our word to perform it. He watches over “His Word to perform it.”
The moment you decide what, and how much, to sow into something in His kingdom, you’ve taken ownership of what is His! (That’s the way you write a check on His heavenly account and access all that He has.)
Obedience to His Word (laws) is required. See Job 36:11. If you want God to get involved in your harvest, you have to involve him in sowing your seed!
Mary, Jesus’ mother, when at the wedding where they ran out of wine, said to the servants, Joh 2:5 “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” He had already identified the need, and was about to meet it.
And of the Prophet Elisha who lodged with the Shunammite woman’s family [in 2 Kings 4:8-11,] the woman fed and housed the prophet and his assistant on many of his journies through her territory, and one day the prophet asked her what she wanted as a harvest. She couldn’t think of any befitting harvest that she could possibly expect to receive so she denied any need. So, the prophet, knowing she’d been sowing for something, asked his assistant what she wanted, and he told him, “a child.” So that’s the harvest the prophet spoke forth, and that’s exactly what she got, even though her faith could not fathom it, the prophet’s faith could.
Jer 1:12 Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.
Deu 28:1-14 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. 1) Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and 2) blessed shalt thou be in the field. 3) Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and 4) the fruit of thy ground, and 5) the fruit of thy cattle, 6) the increase of thy kine, and 7) the flocks of thy sheep. 8) Blessed shall be thy basket and 9) thy store. 10) Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and 11) blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. 12) The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. 13) The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and 14) in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall 15) bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways. And 16) all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and 17) they shall be afraid of thee. And the LORD shall 18) make thee plenteous in goods, 18) in the fruit of thy body, and 19) in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the 20) fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The LORD shall 21) open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and 22) thou shalt lend unto many nations, and 23) thou shalt not borrow. And the LORD shall 24) make thee the head, and not the tail; and 25) thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Job 36:11-12 If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.
One can’t get much clearer than that.
Two final thoughts from Dr. Saddiki: “Going from GLORY to GLORY is never a downward movement!”
If you wonder “what should I sow?” ask yourself “what harvest to I want to reap?” and be specific when you designate (on your check) the purpose you are sowing seed for.
Part 2 [With Endnotes rather than Footnotes]
When we, my husband, Horace, and I, first began to hear Jesus’ full gospel prosperity message in 1979, we welcomed it with open hearts. It was as welcome as had been our Lord’s message of salvation to our lost ears years before.
Some of today’s greatest charismatic teachers then were teaching only a portion of God’s prosperity message, which we found, through experience, has been taught incompletely. Here’s the bondage-breaking truth about God’s prosperity message and how we found it.
Let me say, first, that this is not a “method” for just becoming wealthy, and secondly, it only pertains to Christians. All of God’s promises are based on supernatural laws and on an intimate knowledge of one’s relationship to God through Jesus.
Anything attainable simply by obeying natural laws is not particularly of God, though He rules nature... and prosperity is most assuredly built into that! Psalms, chapter one, explains what kind of person receives God’s blessings: one who walks only with godly counselors, refrains from entering freely into sinful paths, and does not enjoy leisure with arrogant fellowship. One who experiences actual delight in their Heavenly Father. Psalms [i] clearly states that “the ungodly are not so...” [blessed.].
The blessings of God are listed clearly in Deuteronomy [ii]. Christians are New Testament Israelites. As such, are heirs of Old Testament Israelis' promises, by faith, as clearly seen in Galatians [iii] which says, "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham,” and Galatians [iv], “That the blessings of Abraham might come on the gentiles through Jesus Christ.” St. John [v] says, “But as many as receive him [Jesus], to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” Romans [vi] says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” First John [vii] says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”
Once we realized that Jesus not only saved our scrawny necks from eternal damnation, but had adopted us as brothers; that He’s given us the right to become sons to His own Father, we realized that we really were heirs of His Father’s wealth. All we had to do was become mature enough to deserve the responsibility of handling wealth properly. Psalms [viii] gave us a precious promise in this regard that we hung on to: “NO GOOD THING will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
As we studied the scriptures intently, we saw financial laws emerging. Actually, all kinds of laws! God began to convict us of the necessity to obey certain of those laws: Biblical Laws of Success!
The first and most basic law regarded tithing, which we already knew. Malachi [ix] says, “Bring [a command] ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and PROVE ME now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I WILL [an absolute] rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.”
So, simply as an act of faith and obedience, we began to tithe [give ten percent of our gross income]. Then, we heard the message called the “hundred-fold return.”
It begins with Luke [x], which says, “GIVE, and it SHALL [an absolute] be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall MEN give into your bosom. For with the SAME MEASURE that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” If you give small, you get small!
Another scripture that went right along with that is Matthew [xi], “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth The Word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some AN HUNDRED, some sixty, some thirty ([7]).”
A one hundred percent return on 1 cent is 2 cents. But, a one hundred-fold return on 1 cent is $1.00, and a hundred-fold return on $10.00 is $1,000.
We heard messages about sowing “seed faith” to have your NEEDS met: sowing out of your need rather than out of your abundance. There... giving got complicated.
The premise for this lesson was, erroneously, drawn from Mark [xii], the story of the widow giving two mites, which was all she had to live on. Our teachers misconstrued this teaching in that they assumed too much that this scripture does NOT say, and not knowing any better, we believed our teachers until God, Himself, taught us differently.
We were taught that if you had a “need” for rent, food, utilities, bills, etc. and you only had a portion of that on hand, you were to “sow” what you did have to get what you needed. So, we did. All we got was deeper in debt and late in our payments! This went on for almost a year before reality set in. (Youth is like that!)
By that time, we had learned to ask God what He thought of what we heard, and He had already answered, “Be ware what you hear!” and “Be ware how you hear!” We had been hearing amiss and hadn’t understood the whole prosperity message God wanted us to know. The prosperity message we had been hearing had become a stumbling block to us.
We knew those scriptures were in His Word! We saw them as promises we had inherited, but something was wrong and we didn’t know what it was. After a while we began to petition God as to why this solid biblical principle was not working according to His promises, which can not fail. Since He is never wrong, we knew it had to be something we were, or were not, doing!
One day my husband, Horace, came to me and said God had revealed to him what the incomplete portion of the prosperity message was. The key was in Romans [xiii]. “Render therefore to all their dues;” and “Owe no man anything but to love one another.”
Very simply, God was saying that the “seed” we had been sowing had not been ours to sow in the first place! So, He had had to pass the blessing of abundance on... to it’s rightful owner, our creditor. This took the form of our interest and late payments going to the person to whom our money was actually due. We had given the “Abrahamic abundance” to the world’s system. Drat!
THIS IS THE KEY: The bible never said the widow owed either mite to another soul! It had always been hers to give away, and God honored her sincerity because that’s His law. She had known that! We had not! She knew her return was sure.
When this basic truth sunk into our hearts, we determined to only sow from OUR abundance, and doubled our workload until we could catch up our debts. We sold things we no longer needed, or used, to help along the way.
Our perspective changed. The things we had once valued as possessions became burdensome trappings, now good only for the unloading, to gain our freedom!
Finally, the moment of truth came. Our creditors were not paid off, but payments were up to date for the first time in years. [My bout with cancer had set us back severely several years earlier.] Tithing had kept us from incurring additional debts, and provided additional jobs by giving us favor with men [xiv].
Our first seed faith offering was meager, but we prayed over the five-dollar bill, and agreed together that we were sowing into God’s kingdom, expecting Luke’s law [xv] to be manifest in our lives from that day forth.
My husband had needed new eyeglasses badly for some years but had never felt free to buy them because of our debts. Within that first week, a sister in our congregation gave him the money he needed for them because she said God told her he needed that amount of money!
Later that same week, I received a notice from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida. They said that my coverage had been randomly audited and was therefore "re-evaluated". Someone had “discovered” a special clause in our policy during that audit. That provision allowed Major Medical coverage to assume responsibility for eighty percent [80%] of our unpaid twenty percent [20%] balance of about thirty-thousand dollars, from three surgery bills!. En-total, it amounted to about a five-thousand-fold return on our five-dollar bill! Definitely worth our investment!
To receive anything from God we all have to learn to understand THE SPIRIT OF HIS LAW. He can not honor our intentions when our ignorance gets in His way! [Hosea [xvi], “MY PEOPLE are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”] We must learn to ask Him to teach us His truth... all of it [xvii]. We must rely on our relationship with Him.
Only then can He take us beyond “needs” to the “abundance” of the “second sowing!” God alone, through His Holy Spirit, is our authorized teacher, our guide, and our comforter! Men can only teach in part, where God can reveal in completeness what He wants us to know. All we have to do is be diligent and honest with Him, learn of Him, and obey Him out of love.
When we operate in God’s love, we loose sin-consciousness. To borrow is not a sin. To borrow and not repay as promised is a sin. Sins can be forgiven, but there is still a penalty to pay. Let’s learn to be prosperous by God’s design, and keep His money in His Kingdom! Besides, “A good [credit] name is rather to be chosen, than great riches. [xviii]”
But, godly wealth is not a sin. It is a legacy and an inheritance to those who go the distance in God. To obtain godly wealth, we must enter into the realm of the “second sowing.”
The principle of the “second sowing” is found in the book of Matthew [xix]. It is the historic setting of the boy who gave his five loaves and two fishes to feed the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus speak.
Now, you have to understand, this boy was probably a Jew. So, one can assume he had already tithed his original tithe. Yet when The Master said He needed more, the boy gave all that he had. Verse twenty [xx] states, “And they did all eat, and were filled; and they took up of the fragments [of the second sowing from the boy] that remained: TWELVE BASKETS FULL.” The boy had to have twelve hefty men help carry home his return on the same day it was given!
Come, brothers and sisters... let us enter into the season of the “second sowing” for God’s full measure of prosperity! Remember, it’s our inheritance.
“Freely you have received, freely give!”
Horace & Marilyn Ellsworth
Looking Unto Jesus Ministries
[1] Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Gal 3:26-29 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Gal 4:1-7 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
[2] 1Pe 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
[3] Joh 4:32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Joh 4:33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?Joh 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
[4] Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
[5] Every seed needs two things in order to grow unto a harvest: Good ground [spiritually, a gospel ministry] and nutrient [in the spirit this is “faith” and “faith” is very specific about it’s manifestations. ]
[6] 2Ti 3:16-17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness [i.e. regarding finances in this instance]: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
[7] The return is in accordance with the faith nutrient the seed is planted with. Some can only believe for a small return.
[i] 1:4
[ii] 28:1-4
[iii] 3:7
[iv] 3:14
[v] 1:12
[vi] 8:14
[vii] 3:2
[viii] 84:11
[ix] 3:10-11
[x] 7:38
[xi] 13:23
[xii] 12:42-44
[xiii] 13:7-8
[xiv] Proverbs 3:4
[xv] 6:38
[xvi] 4:6
[xvii] Mat. 7:7-8
[xviii] Pr 22:1
[xix] 13:17
[xx] 13:20
We learned a lot of these principles from Rod Parsley’s “BREAKTHROUGH” TV evangelism program, and Dr. Creflo Dollar’s teachings on prosperity, among other topics and teachers. Rod Parsley had Dr. Nasser Saddiki (an ex-Moslem, now Christian, businessman & advertising expert, turned millionaire) on his program, teaching principles from his book Kingdom Principles of Financial Increase. That has been DYNAMITE. That started this study of my own.
Initially, it’s important to understand that in the Kingdom of Light in the earth, everything is done according to “seedtime and harvest.” That is why Jesus so often used the parable of the sower.
1Co 15:36-48 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
Blessings are only for the obedient persons of God’s Kingdom who by faith are seeds of “Abraham” and through him, heirs according to God’s promise to him ([1]). Those obedient sons are called “Sowers” by the Word of God. Those who keep what finances they get are “Keepers,” and are called “unfruitful branches” and “worthless servants.”
God wants us to be abundant fruit bearers! But, true prosperity, God’s way, requires that we have an intimate relationship with Him. According to John Hagees’ ministry we either produce fruit or burn up in our trials ([2]).
Without obedience to His laws and principles, [through knowledge of what is holy, all of which works by love,] one has no real “prosperity.” God’s prosperity is for three specific purposes in the Kingdom: Sending forth His Word, sending forth his miraculous power, and saving souls. Being prosperous is our responsibility [Yes! “RESPONSIBILITY” according to Pastor Parsley!] to the Kingdom of God.
Deu 8:18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
2Co 9:6-9 But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:
If you are not using His money, which He gives you, to establish His covenant promises in the earth, He is under NO obligation to give you more funding.
Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Gal 6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption [corruption is indicated by a lack of prosperity]; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
God can not pervert or fail to fulfill His word, and even though He is “need-meeting” by nature, even He must abide by His Word. His Word never fails! So, the only other thing that can stop you blessings is your lack of understanding or your disobedience. Prosperity is your responsibility.
According to Creflo Dollar, God’s heirs that do NOT mature in Christ, to the eating of the Word of God with understanding and good works in evidence, do not get their inheritance, and differ none from indentured servants. Paul says, in 1Co 13:11 “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” That’s what we are expected to do.
First, in the plan of salvation Almighty God set forth, He desires that every ungodly man be saved, so our salvation or lack of it is our personal choice. Perpetuating the Plan of Salvation, for a Christian, is NOT OPTIONAL. If we can’t do it ourselves, we must support ministries that do or we are not obedient to the laws of God, and like the proverbial fruit tree, we will be cut off and burned as unfruitful branches! Our lack of prosperity is our warning for our disobedience. God can not operate outside His own law! To not submit to the requirements of God to join His Kingdom is not a wise choice for anyone.
The tithe is part of that original plan. The book of Malachi says:
Mal 3:9-10 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me [by withholding tithes: 1/10th of your gross income], even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse [a place of mutual ownership for all God’s people], that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
Psa 1:1-6 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly (not particularly wicked men, just without our God in their lives), nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff, which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
3Jo 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
Our soul prospers when we feed it the nourishing “food ([3])” which is God’s Word, and do it to the exercising of our spiritual muscles of faith ([4]).
Second: We need to understand Who we are, first as a member of the species of Man, and second, Who we are as the offspring of God in Christ as Christians.
Gen 1:26-29 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
First of all, God created Man-kind as creators. We are the same “kind” [a species designation] as He is.
Mat 12:50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
Dr. Saddiki stressed that when we gave ourselves to God in Christ, He got our lives, our souls, our house, our car, our bank accounts: everything, and they then came under His Kingdom laws of “seedtime and harvest.” We are no longer “owners” but “stuards” of them. The moment we decide how much of what we want to sow we’ve taken “personal ownership” of what is God’s to give us. That’s HOW we write a check to receive his abundance from the account He has laid up in store for us. Remember, God is not obligated, according to Dr. Saddiki, to bring a harvest on what we keep in the sower’s bucket (our bank account); but only on what is actually sown into good ground!
If you wonder who to give your money freely to, that scripture tells you, very clearly. You share with your brother according to this following scripture:
Luk 6:38 Give [cause], and it [whatever you gave-the seed you sowed ([5])] shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall [that’s a promise] be measured to you again.
God’s goal is, and always was, to make Christians prosperous beyond our wildest imaginations, but He can only do it when we obey His laws of financial increase: sow His word... and our finances... into three kinds of harvests: 1) our personal finances for perpetuating His gospel around the world ([6]), 2) His miracles for getting the unsaved’s attention, and 3) the last day harvest of souls of men.
For years all our tithes and offerings have been invested into writing, producing and distributing gospel tracts, books and online websites for the good of the Kingdom of God. Retirement has afforded us the luxury of studying, teaching and preaching the gospel of Almighty God full time from our home. But this week, we ventured again into investing in other’s ministries, according to recent instructions of righteousness we received.
We sent to $10.00 checks in to some of the TV Christian teachers we've been learning from yesterday, and the principles worked the first day for us.
1) I finished a little (47 pages) publishing job for a friend today and when she went to pay me, I asked for $50.00 and she said "That's not enough!" She made the check out for $75.00 and said even that wasn't enough!
2) Another guy called back about a book quote I'd given a month or six weeks ago for $2,800 and said he was reconsidering, did I still have time. I told him I would in a month or so.
3) Another lady called to donate about 50-75 books to me on writing, from the prestigious Writer's Digest series!
That's probably several thousand-fold return on that $20.00 seed faith investment we made. I'm finding everything works on a "seedtime and harvest" principle laid out in Genesis, chapter one. The laws of God, like the laws of nature, work for whomsoever will work them.
I feel more hopeful now than in months!
Here are some of those principles:
God is not obligated to bring a harvest on what we keep in the (seed-sowing) bucket (our bank account). When we gave ourselves to God He got our lives, our souls, our house, our car, our bank accounts, everything: and they then came under His Kingdom laws of “Seedtime and Harvest.” He doesn’t watch over our word to perform it. He watches over “His Word to perform it.”
The moment you decide what, and how much, to sow into something in His kingdom, you’ve taken ownership of what is His! (That’s the way you write a check on His heavenly account and access all that He has.)
Obedience to His Word (laws) is required. See Job 36:11. If you want God to get involved in your harvest, you have to involve him in sowing your seed!
Mary, Jesus’ mother, when at the wedding where they ran out of wine, said to the servants, Joh 2:5 “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” He had already identified the need, and was about to meet it.
And of the Prophet Elisha who lodged with the Shunammite woman’s family [in 2 Kings 4:8-11,] the woman fed and housed the prophet and his assistant on many of his journies through her territory, and one day the prophet asked her what she wanted as a harvest. She couldn’t think of any befitting harvest that she could possibly expect to receive so she denied any need. So, the prophet, knowing she’d been sowing for something, asked his assistant what she wanted, and he told him, “a child.” So that’s the harvest the prophet spoke forth, and that’s exactly what she got, even though her faith could not fathom it, the prophet’s faith could.
Jer 1:12 Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.
Deu 28:1-14 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. 1) Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and 2) blessed shalt thou be in the field. 3) Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and 4) the fruit of thy ground, and 5) the fruit of thy cattle, 6) the increase of thy kine, and 7) the flocks of thy sheep. 8) Blessed shall be thy basket and 9) thy store. 10) Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and 11) blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. 12) The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. 13) The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and 14) in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall 15) bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways. And 16) all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and 17) they shall be afraid of thee. And the LORD shall 18) make thee plenteous in goods, 18) in the fruit of thy body, and 19) in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the 20) fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The LORD shall 21) open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and 22) thou shalt lend unto many nations, and 23) thou shalt not borrow. And the LORD shall 24) make thee the head, and not the tail; and 25) thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
Job 36:11-12 If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.
One can’t get much clearer than that.
Two final thoughts from Dr. Saddiki: “Going from GLORY to GLORY is never a downward movement!”
If you wonder “what should I sow?” ask yourself “what harvest to I want to reap?” and be specific when you designate (on your check) the purpose you are sowing seed for.
Part 2 [With Endnotes rather than Footnotes]
When we, my husband, Horace, and I, first began to hear Jesus’ full gospel prosperity message in 1979, we welcomed it with open hearts. It was as welcome as had been our Lord’s message of salvation to our lost ears years before.
Some of today’s greatest charismatic teachers then were teaching only a portion of God’s prosperity message, which we found, through experience, has been taught incompletely. Here’s the bondage-breaking truth about God’s prosperity message and how we found it.
Let me say, first, that this is not a “method” for just becoming wealthy, and secondly, it only pertains to Christians. All of God’s promises are based on supernatural laws and on an intimate knowledge of one’s relationship to God through Jesus.
Anything attainable simply by obeying natural laws is not particularly of God, though He rules nature... and prosperity is most assuredly built into that! Psalms, chapter one, explains what kind of person receives God’s blessings: one who walks only with godly counselors, refrains from entering freely into sinful paths, and does not enjoy leisure with arrogant fellowship. One who experiences actual delight in their Heavenly Father. Psalms [i] clearly states that “the ungodly are not so...” [blessed.].
The blessings of God are listed clearly in Deuteronomy [ii]. Christians are New Testament Israelites. As such, are heirs of Old Testament Israelis' promises, by faith, as clearly seen in Galatians [iii] which says, "Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham,” and Galatians [iv], “That the blessings of Abraham might come on the gentiles through Jesus Christ.” St. John [v] says, “But as many as receive him [Jesus], to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” Romans [vi] says, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” First John [vii] says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.”
Once we realized that Jesus not only saved our scrawny necks from eternal damnation, but had adopted us as brothers; that He’s given us the right to become sons to His own Father, we realized that we really were heirs of His Father’s wealth. All we had to do was become mature enough to deserve the responsibility of handling wealth properly. Psalms [viii] gave us a precious promise in this regard that we hung on to: “NO GOOD THING will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
As we studied the scriptures intently, we saw financial laws emerging. Actually, all kinds of laws! God began to convict us of the necessity to obey certain of those laws: Biblical Laws of Success!
The first and most basic law regarded tithing, which we already knew. Malachi [ix] says, “Bring [a command] ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and PROVE ME now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I WILL [an absolute] rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.”
So, simply as an act of faith and obedience, we began to tithe [give ten percent of our gross income]. Then, we heard the message called the “hundred-fold return.”
It begins with Luke [x], which says, “GIVE, and it SHALL [an absolute] be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall MEN give into your bosom. For with the SAME MEASURE that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” If you give small, you get small!
Another scripture that went right along with that is Matthew [xi], “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth The Word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some AN HUNDRED, some sixty, some thirty ([7]).”
A one hundred percent return on 1 cent is 2 cents. But, a one hundred-fold return on 1 cent is $1.00, and a hundred-fold return on $10.00 is $1,000.
We heard messages about sowing “seed faith” to have your NEEDS met: sowing out of your need rather than out of your abundance. There... giving got complicated.
The premise for this lesson was, erroneously, drawn from Mark [xii], the story of the widow giving two mites, which was all she had to live on. Our teachers misconstrued this teaching in that they assumed too much that this scripture does NOT say, and not knowing any better, we believed our teachers until God, Himself, taught us differently.
We were taught that if you had a “need” for rent, food, utilities, bills, etc. and you only had a portion of that on hand, you were to “sow” what you did have to get what you needed. So, we did. All we got was deeper in debt and late in our payments! This went on for almost a year before reality set in. (Youth is like that!)
By that time, we had learned to ask God what He thought of what we heard, and He had already answered, “Be ware what you hear!” and “Be ware how you hear!” We had been hearing amiss and hadn’t understood the whole prosperity message God wanted us to know. The prosperity message we had been hearing had become a stumbling block to us.
We knew those scriptures were in His Word! We saw them as promises we had inherited, but something was wrong and we didn’t know what it was. After a while we began to petition God as to why this solid biblical principle was not working according to His promises, which can not fail. Since He is never wrong, we knew it had to be something we were, or were not, doing!
One day my husband, Horace, came to me and said God had revealed to him what the incomplete portion of the prosperity message was. The key was in Romans [xiii]. “Render therefore to all their dues;” and “Owe no man anything but to love one another.”
Very simply, God was saying that the “seed” we had been sowing had not been ours to sow in the first place! So, He had had to pass the blessing of abundance on... to it’s rightful owner, our creditor. This took the form of our interest and late payments going to the person to whom our money was actually due. We had given the “Abrahamic abundance” to the world’s system. Drat!
THIS IS THE KEY: The bible never said the widow owed either mite to another soul! It had always been hers to give away, and God honored her sincerity because that’s His law. She had known that! We had not! She knew her return was sure.
When this basic truth sunk into our hearts, we determined to only sow from OUR abundance, and doubled our workload until we could catch up our debts. We sold things we no longer needed, or used, to help along the way.
Our perspective changed. The things we had once valued as possessions became burdensome trappings, now good only for the unloading, to gain our freedom!
Finally, the moment of truth came. Our creditors were not paid off, but payments were up to date for the first time in years. [My bout with cancer had set us back severely several years earlier.] Tithing had kept us from incurring additional debts, and provided additional jobs by giving us favor with men [xiv].
Our first seed faith offering was meager, but we prayed over the five-dollar bill, and agreed together that we were sowing into God’s kingdom, expecting Luke’s law [xv] to be manifest in our lives from that day forth.
My husband had needed new eyeglasses badly for some years but had never felt free to buy them because of our debts. Within that first week, a sister in our congregation gave him the money he needed for them because she said God told her he needed that amount of money!
Later that same week, I received a notice from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida. They said that my coverage had been randomly audited and was therefore "re-evaluated". Someone had “discovered” a special clause in our policy during that audit. That provision allowed Major Medical coverage to assume responsibility for eighty percent [80%] of our unpaid twenty percent [20%] balance of about thirty-thousand dollars, from three surgery bills!. En-total, it amounted to about a five-thousand-fold return on our five-dollar bill! Definitely worth our investment!
To receive anything from God we all have to learn to understand THE SPIRIT OF HIS LAW. He can not honor our intentions when our ignorance gets in His way! [Hosea [xvi], “MY PEOPLE are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”] We must learn to ask Him to teach us His truth... all of it [xvii]. We must rely on our relationship with Him.
Only then can He take us beyond “needs” to the “abundance” of the “second sowing!” God alone, through His Holy Spirit, is our authorized teacher, our guide, and our comforter! Men can only teach in part, where God can reveal in completeness what He wants us to know. All we have to do is be diligent and honest with Him, learn of Him, and obey Him out of love.
When we operate in God’s love, we loose sin-consciousness. To borrow is not a sin. To borrow and not repay as promised is a sin. Sins can be forgiven, but there is still a penalty to pay. Let’s learn to be prosperous by God’s design, and keep His money in His Kingdom! Besides, “A good [credit] name is rather to be chosen, than great riches. [xviii]”
But, godly wealth is not a sin. It is a legacy and an inheritance to those who go the distance in God. To obtain godly wealth, we must enter into the realm of the “second sowing.”
The principle of the “second sowing” is found in the book of Matthew [xix]. It is the historic setting of the boy who gave his five loaves and two fishes to feed the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus speak.
Now, you have to understand, this boy was probably a Jew. So, one can assume he had already tithed his original tithe. Yet when The Master said He needed more, the boy gave all that he had. Verse twenty [xx] states, “And they did all eat, and were filled; and they took up of the fragments [of the second sowing from the boy] that remained: TWELVE BASKETS FULL.” The boy had to have twelve hefty men help carry home his return on the same day it was given!
Come, brothers and sisters... let us enter into the season of the “second sowing” for God’s full measure of prosperity! Remember, it’s our inheritance.
“Freely you have received, freely give!”
Horace & Marilyn Ellsworth
Looking Unto Jesus Ministries
[1] Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Gal 3:26-29 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Gal 4:1-7 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
[2] 1Pe 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
[3] Joh 4:32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Joh 4:33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?Joh 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.
[4] Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
[5] Every seed needs two things in order to grow unto a harvest: Good ground [spiritually, a gospel ministry] and nutrient [in the spirit this is “faith” and “faith” is very specific about it’s manifestations. ]
[6] 2Ti 3:16-17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness [i.e. regarding finances in this instance]: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
[7] The return is in accordance with the faith nutrient the seed is planted with. Some can only believe for a small return.
[i] 1:4
[ii] 28:1-4
[iii] 3:7
[iv] 3:14
[v] 1:12
[vi] 8:14
[vii] 3:2
[viii] 84:11
[ix] 3:10-11
[x] 7:38
[xi] 13:23
[xii] 12:42-44
[xiii] 13:7-8
[xiv] Proverbs 3:4
[xv] 6:38
[xvi] 4:6
[xvii] Mat. 7:7-8
[xviii] Pr 22:1
[xix] 13:17
[xx] 13:20