BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

* * * * article from p. 27 continues * * * * So? Your job is not your source. God is and He doesn’t pay minimum wage. He supplies you with seed to sow (that’s what your job is, it’s your seed) and then multiplies it back to you in the form of a thirty, sixty or hundredfold harvest (Matthew 13:23). He increases you supernaturally until you’re “enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion” in ways that bring forth thanksgiving to Him (2 Corinthians 9:11, "New International Version"). What’s more, you don’t even have to talk Him into doing it. Prospering you was His idea. He’s always wanted His family to live in abundance. You can see that just by reading about the Garden of Eden. God richly supplied Adam and Eve with more than they could ever need and all of it was very good! Not only was the food there abundant and perfect, it grew on trees. Adam and Eve didn’t have to toil over it or even plant it. It just came up by itself. The Bible even tells us there were precious stones in the Garden. It says there was gold in that land, and the gold there was good (Genesis 2:12). Sadly, of course, when Adam and Eve sinned, the situation changed. Because they rebelled against God and bowed their knee to the devil, they brought a curse on the earth. After that, mankind had to strive and sweat to make it produce. Even then, though, God made covenant with those who would live by faith in Him. He spoke to Abraham and said, “I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). Then, through Jesus, He ultimately made us New Testament partakers of that same BLESSING. He redeemed us from the curse and promised that if we seek first His kingdom and His ways of doing and being right, everything else will be added to us as well (Matthew 6:33). Say Something Is God really able to keep that promise? Certainly He is! First Timothy 6:17 says, “God…giveth us richly all things to enjoy,” and He can do that regardless of the size of our current paycheck and no matter what the natural circumstances around us may be. When it comes to increasing us financially, God can get the job done! If we’ll trust and obey Him, He’ll keep prospering us even if the economy of the world goes into a tailspin. He’ll do for us what He did for Abraham’s son Isaac in Genesis 26 and give us a hundredfold harvest on our seed right in the middle of a famine. Why? Because we’re His children, and He loves us. Plus, we’re Jesus’ joint heirs. In Him, we’ve inherited everything God owns. Most believers just haven’t realized that yet. Even though 1 Corinthians 3:21 says to us plainly that “all things are yours,” we haven’t learned to think in those terms. Instead, we’ve had the mentality the elder brother had in the parable of the prodigal son. You remember that story. It’s about a father with two sons. The younger ran off and wasted his part of the family inheritance on riotous living. The elder stayed home and faithfully served his father, taking care of things on his estate. Eventually the younger son repented and came home, and his father was so glad to see him he said to the servants: “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:22-24). When the elder brother came in from working in the field and found out what had happened, he wasn’t happy about it. He refused to join in the party and said to his father: “Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And [the father] said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine” (verses 29-31). Look again at what the father said there. “All that I have is thine.” In other words, “What do you mean I never threw you a party? Everything on this estate belongs to you. You just haven’t made a demand on it. If you wanted a fatted calf, or a robe, or a ring, you could have had it any time. All you had to do was call for it.” 28 : BVOV

• Cover