BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

God is rich! He is the Creator and Possessor of heaven and earth. His resources are unlimited, and the Bible makes it clear that He has always been faithful to prosper His covenant people. Even under the Old Covenant, in Deuteronomy 28:1-14, He told the Israelites that as long as they walked with Him, they would be blessed coming in and going out. He said He would bless all the work of their hands and they would always have a surplus of prosperity. He promised they would have plenty of crops. Their livestock would increase and multiply, and He would cause their enemies to flee before them. God didn't say He would only be able to do those things for them if the world's economy was doing well. No, He told them, if they listened to and obeyed Him, He would see to it that they had plenty and were blessed in every area of life. And all throughout the Old Testament, we can see that He did! He hasn't changed, either, and He never will. He said Himself, "I am the LORD, I change not" (Malachi 3:6). So, He's still doing today what He always did. He's still providing abundantly for His covenant people. The only difference is that it's even easier for us, as believers today, to receive from Him. We have an advantage over the people of God who lived under the Mosaic covenant in the Old Testament because in Christ we have a "better covenant" than they did (Hebrews 8:6). As New Covenant believers, we have available to us everything God made available to His people in the Old Testament…and more! They had a promise of the Savior. We have the Savior. They had the promise of THE BLESSING of Abraham, but it was dependent on them keeping the Law of Moses. THE BLESSING of Abraham has already come upon us because Jesus fulfilled the law on our behalf. They had to worry about falling prey to the curse if they failed to obey God's Old Covenant laws because their Redeemer hadn't yet come. Our Redeemer has come, so we don't have to fall prey to the curse. If we sin, we can instantly repent, receive forgiveness, be cleansed by Jesus' blood, and keep right on living in THE BLESSING because, as Galatians 3:13-14 says: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." We, as God's New Covenant people, are the most blessed people who have walked the earth since Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden. We truly do not have anything to worry about! God Knows the Difference Even so, many Christians continue to worry—especially about finances. Why is that? Very often it's because they've heard wrong things about God. That's easy to do these days. Even though there's more good Word-based teaching available than ever (you can hear it 24/7 on VICTORY Channel, for instance) it's also easy to hear things being said about God that aren't true. In some Christian circles, you might hear it said, for example, that God doesn't really care about our financial condition, or that poverty pleases Him because it makes people holy. You might even hear it said that God sometimes puts poverty and lack on His people for their own good, as a blessing in disguise. People who say such things may be sincere, but they're sincerely wrong. You won't find any place in the Bible where lack is equated with blessing. You won't find a single scripture that says poverty pleases God. On the contrary! God hates poverty. In Deuteronomy 28, He said it's part of the curse. "Well," somebody might say, "for people in some countries, poverty is just a normal way of life." It may be a way of life people have accepted, but no matter what country you live in, not having any money is bad. Not having enough to feed, clothe and provide for yourself and your family is bad. The opposite is also true. No matter what country you live in, having enough to take care of your family and be a blessing to others 2 8 : B V O V

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