To Prosper, Put God First

Hello Brethren,

I hope this message meets you well.

I am back with another post, as is my usual way of doing. Today, I am going to talk about prosperity. Yes, today I will be discussing the topic that many gospel preachers love to preach about: prosperity. The biblical perspective on prosperity is that it comes from the place of serving God and being obedient to the word of God. Most of you must have heard of the bible verse that says “put God first and everything else would be added onto you” – that verse is Matthew 6:33. However, what many people do not know is that sometimes people can find themselves in a phase of profitless hard labor when they do not put God first. God is able to bless us so that every effort brings forth massive payback. Alternatively, God is also able to hold back his blessings and when this happens the result is profitless hard labor. God can make hard work easy. I know it is called “hard” work but with God’s blessings it can be extremely easy.

The Bible says in Genesis 26:12

¹² When Isaac planted his crops that year, he harvested a hundred times more grain than he planted, for the Lord blessed him.

However, when God holds back his blessings, there is no prosperity, we see this in the book of Haggai, when the people refused to build the temple of the Lord but they built themselves nice houses, and God was not happy about what they did.

The Bible says in Haggai 1:5-11

5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. 9 “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. 10 Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. 11 I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”

Brethren, to prosper, we need to seek God’s blessing. We seek God’s blessings in the place of obedience, working for his Kingdom, and putting God first. Do not hold yourselves back by forgetting what matters the most.