Build Your Financial Foundation
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers. — 3 John 2
Never try to build a house without first laying a foundation. If you don’t, that house will be so unstable it will soon come tumbling down. That is simple advice, isn’t it? Everyone with any sense at all knows it. Yet in the spiritual realm, people make that mistake all the time. They see a blessing God has promised them in His word; and they are so eager to have it, they ignore the foundational basics of godly living and pursue just that one thing.
That is especially true in the area of prosperity. Often, people are so desperate for a quick financial fix, they just pull a few prosperity promises out of the Bible and try to believe them—without allowing God to change anything else in their lives. Of course, it doesn’t work and they end up disappointed. Sometimes they even come to the conclusion that it wasn’t God’s will for them to prosper after all. But it is definitely God’s will for all of His children to prosper! That’s why He inspired John to write 3 John 2.
Notice there, however, that John didn’t just say, “I want you to prosper.” He said, “I want you to prosper as your soul prospers.” He tied financial prosperity to the prosperity of our mind, will and emotions. God’s plan is for us to grow financially as we grow spiritually. He knows it is dangerous to put great wealth into the hands of someone who is too spiritually immature to handle it. Proverbs 1:32 says, “The prosperity of fools shall destroy them.”
God wants us to increase financially at the same rate we increase spiritually. He wants us to outgrow our fleshly foolishness, so our prosperity will bring us blessing and not harm. If you need financial help fast, then get busy growing. Get busy building your foundation for prosperity. How? By finding out what God says in His Word and doing it. The foundation of prosperity is a continual lifestyle built on the Word of God. It is doing whatever God tells you to do, thinking whatever He tells you think, and saying whatever He tells you to say. Godly prosperity is the result of putting God’s Word—all of it, not just the parts about financial prosperity—first place in your life. It comes when you apply His principles on a continual basis—not just because you want money, but because Jesus is your Lord and you want to follow Him. It comes when you start obeying the instructions Jesus gave in Matthew 6:25-33.
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? . . . Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? . . . Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” — Matthew 6:25-33