Power To Prosper

POWER TO PROSPER

Dr. D. K. Olukoya

Deuteronomy 8:18:“But thou shall 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.”

In the foregoing, the Bible talks about power to prosper. It is a good thing to talk about prosperity and to preach about it. But the subject of prosperity must be balanced with the subject of holiness so that after we have prospered, we would not go to hell fire.

Psalm 84:11 says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Our God is clothed in glory and there is no reason why His children should wear rags; it does not make sense. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof: the world and they that dwell therein.” If God owns the earth and the fullness thereof, and I am His son, I must prosper. All the money in the world belongs to our heavenly Father. If you don’t have your own share of it now, perhaps somebody is keeping it for you, waiting for you to grow up before handing it over to you. But you will surely get it. The time has actually come for unbelievers to be removed from the positions of power, so that the gospel can prosper. Allowing them to be in control of the economy would certainly hinder the course of the gospel.

There are many people that have the keys of poverty in their hands and until they drop them, there is absolutely nothing God can do to help them. God has so designed His plans that He places first things first. A lot of people claim that Abraham’s blessings are theirs, the question is, will they allow God to run them through what He made Abraham to go through? Abraham first became a friend of God. He was righteous, he had faith and then God blessed him. Nowadays, people want to do it the other way round. They want money first. They want to be comfortable first before they serve the Lord. Unfortunately, it does not work that way. Anybody that cannot serve the Lord when he or she is poor will not be able to serve Him when he or she gets rich.

Let us look at the twenty keys of poverty. If you have these keys in your hands, you need to pray hard to drop them so that you do not labour in vain. Sometimes, what you think is a big problem is a small one. You must have sweated before discovering that it was just a simple thing you needed to drop for your life to be overflowing with blessings.

TWENTY KEYS OF POVERTY

1. Stinginess: Proverbs 11: 24 says, “There is one that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is one that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.” Stinginess leads to poverty. This is where God’s mathematics is different from our own mathematics. It is more logical to keep money, hoard it, or pile it up to become rich. But God’s law says that he that scatters,increases, but he that withholds, gets poor.

A certain man was on a salary of Five hundred naira and was paying Fifty naira as tithe per month. After some time, God blessed him and he started earning Five thousand naira per month and as such, he had to pay Five hundred naira for tithe every month. This man went to the pastor and said he needed counselling. The pastor asked him why he needed counselling and he said that five hundred naira was too much for him to pay as tithe every month because he felt that it could buy so many things. The pastor said, “No problem sir, let me pray that God should return you to your former income so that you will be able to pay fifty naira which you can afford.”

A lot of Christians treat God as if He is an errand boy who they give tips. God is not also a beggar. He does not need your alms. If you are reading this message and you are still stingy, stop it because the Bible says that a stingy person is cursed. The key to receiving is giving. Anyone who does not give is like a Dead Sea. The problem of a Dead Sea is that it does not give out, it keeps everything inside and so, it stinks because it is not refreshed.

2. Loving sleep: Proverb 20: 13 says, “Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.” If you want God to prosper you, and you still wake up every morning with the help of an alarm clock, something is wrong. Students who would love to excel above their colleagues will not love sleep. How can a Christian sleep for 12 hours a day? Such kind of believer needs deliverance from the key of sleep.