Contents Foreword Preface Introduction I Questions Christians Should Ask 1 Prosperity Gospel: Divine Revelation or Human Carnal Desire? 2 Whose Covenant Right? 3 God’s Righteousness in Worldly Riches? 4 To Make Money or to Earn a Living? II The Call of the Gospel of Christ 5 Understanding Stewardship 6 The Call to Separation 7 Life is not in the Abundance of Possessions 8 The Call to Contentment 9 Humility and Submission: A Cure for Worldliness 10 Work and Grace: The Basis for Provision 11 The Sovereignty and Wisdom of God 12 The Case for Christian economic Interdependence 13 The Call to the Rich III False Foundations of the Prosperity Gospel 14 Theological Immaturity and Apostasy 15 Age-­‐Old Deception of Faith for Riches 16 The Foundation of the Antichrist 17 False and Private Interpretations of Scripture 18 False Conceptions of Sowing and Reaping 19 Superstition and Extra Biblical Beliefs 20 The Commandments and Promises of the Law IV The Fruits of the Love of Money 21 Gospreneurship 22 The Deception of Materialism 23 Mask of the American dream 24 A Doctrine of Carnal Desires V The Gospel to the Poor 25 Where is the Gospel to the Poor? 26 We are not exalting Poverty 27 Christ Identifies with the Poor 28 Irrelevancy of the Prosperity Doctrine 29 Christ did not die to Reform Present World Economic Systems VI Promises of the New Covenant 30 The Promise of the Gospel 31 The Blessing of Abraham 32 The Promise of the Spirit 33 Blessed with all Spiritual Blessings 34 The Bondage of the Body of Death VII Prosperity in the Gospel 35 Uniqueness of the Gospel of Christ 36 The Prosperity of the Gospel of Christ 37 Prosperity of the Inner Life 38 The Prosperity of Service to God VIII Kingdom Faith 39 The Glory is yet to Come 40 The Presence of the Kingdom 41 Seeking First the Kingdom 42 The Faith of a Pilgrim 43 Dying to the World 44 Lean not on your own Understanding 45 We Await a City! Foreword
This is not the first book that deals with the prosperity heresy and I am quite sure it will not be the last.
However, this book is unique as far as I know, for it deals with the subject from a specific African
perspective. Because of the way the world’s economy has been skewed by those with vested interests,
there is a special challenge for those living in a continent that is still being colonised and raped, albeit by
more subtle means. Anyone can ‘prosper’ in the first world. It neither requires or signifies God’s blessing
and those who import this doctrine into Africa pretending wealth is God’s will for all believers are
practitioners of evil who need to have their heresy exposed.
I am diligent to recommend this book. Thomas is well versed in Scripture and he has arrayed a mass of
Word based evidence to demonstrate the truth of his thesis. I also know him to be a servant of the gospel,
a man of integrity with a zeal for bringing the truth to those who have been led astray. Read the book. If it
challenges your previously held theology then good. If you disagree with Thomas then contact him and
show him where he has strayed from Scripture-if you can.
Patrick Collins
Polokwane
March 2012
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Preface
These chapters were written over a period of twelve years and which began as a work in which, as a new
believer in the Christian faith at that time, I sought to understand the meaning of the true gospel in light of
the strong declarations of the material and financial prosperity teaching so prevalent within large sections
of the visible Church. With time, and the teaching of God Himself, the conviction to defend the true
gospel against a call to present earthly glory in the name of faith grew in me to result in the publication of
this present work. This book represents part of the work in which I am engaged in defence of the gospel
against various errors being propagated in its name.
The desire is not to condemn anyone, be it in their individual capacity or otherwise, but to contend
earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. “For we do not fight against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places.”
Thomas R. Augusto
Harare
July 2012
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Introduction
Twisted, wrong and false teachings in the area of money, riches and possessions among Christians have
a negative effect of producing twisted, wrong and false desires, attitudes, affections and ambitions. Error
and false teachings in our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the context of the believer’s
relationship to the present physical world have a tendency of directing love, faith and hope away from
God to present earthly glory.
To ignore the important fact that Christ’s work on the Cross also saves the believer from this present evil
generation and from the love of the world and of the things in the world, leads to an unbalanced and
unhealthy attitude towards the world and its riches. It has resulted in many, who profess the Christian
faith, turning human carnal desires for the riches of this world into a physical need for the Christian as
they direct their lives and those of others towards self-enrichment and indulgence in the abundance of
money.
The lack of appreciation of the revelation of Christ as being the final, complete and perfect will of God,
and as being the believer’s fullness and completeness of blessing apart from one’s economic and financial
status in this present age, has resulted in some seeking to add to their blessing of Christ and in the name
of faith the abundant possession of money and the fleshly symbols of wealth that come with it. This they
have done in conflict with the Lord’s declaration that a man’s life cannot be measured through the
financial symbols of this world or by the abundance of such symbols.
Ignorance on the believer’s life as finding its basis in the Covenant of the blood of Jesus alone, as well as
deliberate false teachings, have led many people to attempt to claim the fleshly and temporal promises of
the Law of Moses. They define prosperity from a purely Jewish and earthly perspective and through the
misinterpretation of Old Testament events in the history of God’s dealings with man before the revelation
of Christ. They purposefully and deceptively overlook the basis of the believer’s life as contained in the
New Covenant and God’s promises made in it, both for this life and for the one to come. They would use
the Scriptures only as a means to use God to achieve their desires and not for the knowledge of God’s
own desires, plans and purposes among those that have been redeemed from the world into a life of
service in a new kingdom.
This book does not argue against the revelation that God does call some rich people into His kingdom and
from whom much also is expected of their wealth. It also does not contest the fact that God can make His
grace to abound for wealth creation to some Christians according to His call of stewardship (His purpose
for them), sovereignty (unquestionable choice) as well as according to His infinity wisdom and through
the Christian’s own honest, godly and righteous labour and business and as submitted to God’s will and
ways. However, to claim and teach on worldly riches (according to the relative definitions of each
society) as available to all believers who desire them through faith, as a so-called covenant right and
through the giving of money to church institutions and to preachers, worse still, for the personal
enrichment of certain preachers and church and denominational leaders and for the servicing of lifeless
things, clearly reveals a great departure from the meaning of the good news of Jesus Christ and of the
purpose of the believer’s good works and financial generosity in Him.
To use worldly, carnal and perishable riches as an element of the measure of a believer’s glory,
blessedness and prosperity in Christ is to greatly miss the mark and is a belief that sets itself against the
revelation of Christ in the believer’s life as the only and true prosperity irrespective of one’s socio3
economic status in this present age. It is also a teaching that enslaves people to desires and expectations of
the illusion of fulfilment through material possessions that cannot be satisfied.
To ignore the effects of a world still in bondage and whose systems keep the majority of its people as
servants to a few rich masters and owners of the world’s scarce resources and among whom many are
only able to work for the basics of life, and to accuse those whom God has blessed with all spiritual
blessings of a lack of faith and of being cursed because they do not possess the world’s subjective
symbols of financial glory and do not give money according to the commandments of man, is to
deliberately and deceptively ignore God’s revelation and His promises in Christ for this present age.
From the perspective of the New Covenant and of the African poor, this book exposes the so-called
prosperity ‘gospel’ in its emphasis on the use of worldly riches and other economic and financial symbols
as elements of the measure of a believer’s faith, blessedness and prosperity in Christ. This book seeks also
to proclaim, within the revelation of the gospel, the counsel of God (His thoughts) as touching the nature
of the believer’s relationship to the present world and to the things in the world. It is the author’s desire to
contribute to a better understanding of the meaning of the true prosperity that is in Christ and to give
encouragement to those who are not the masters over the economic and financial affairs of this world that
the glory is yet to come at the revelation of the Lord Jesus. We should not trivialise the Sin problem, the
meaning of the Cross of Christ and the Hope of the believer’s call by making fleshly, perishable,
measurable, variable and deceitful worldly wealth a natural outworking of the purpose for which Christ
gave His life.
May the Spirit of God give you insight as you read even as you search the Scriptures for the truth of the
gospel. The Scripture references in each chapter (those not quoted in full) can preferably be read all at the
same time after the complete reading of the chapter to avoid flipping back and forth between the book and
the Bible. Take heed to yourself, for many in our generation do not give attention to sound doctrine but
prefer teachers who tell them tales and who teach and prophesy to suit the carnal desires of their hearers.
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I
Questions Christians Should Ask
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1
Prosperity Gospel:
Divine Revelation or Human Carnal Desire?
If there is a subject that the New Testament Writings deal with at length, it is the Christian’s relationship
to money, riches and possessions. Many of the Lord’s lessons are dedicated to protect His followers from
wrong and evil desires towards the things in the world. Someone noted that a third of the words of the
Lord Jesus in the gospels (the words in red in some Bibles), are connected to money, riches and
possessions. The Lord Jesus warned against the love of money driven mostly by the unquenchable desire
for riches. He taught His followers on the corrupting influence of the desire and pursuit for earthly
treasures and of physical wealth itself. He taught on the love of money as the greatest tangible competitor
against God for the hearts and minds of men, and even of Christians. The Lord forcefully emphasised
time and again, and later through His apostles, that a man’s life, blessedness and prosperity in Him is not
to be counted in the abundance of worldly possessions. The gospel of Christ repeatedly calls us to
holiness as in separating ourselves from the love of the world and of the things in the world. It warns us
on the dangers of the hunger for riches and un-Christ like attitudes towards money, riches and possessions
as these lead to covetousness, which is idolatry. As it is written:
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt 4:4). Believers in
Christ are not to live for the sole satisfaction of their physical needs (not to speak of the desire for
riches!), but must live for the will of God who gives us the power to work for our needs in the first place.
We are warned not to live for bread alone, less still, for the desire for wealth accumulation. “Do not lay up
for yourselves treasures (earthly prosperity) on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal” (Matt
6:19 italics mine). We are not to waste time living to make money but to be content in earning a living
and putting our time in those things which will bring us a reward at the revelation of Christ (Matt 6:20,
21). Riches (and the desire to be rich) are deceitful and they tend to choke the Word of God (Matt 13:22).
The Lord taught us, through the example of the rich young ruler who could not give up his riches to
follow Him, that “it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matt 19:23). Riches have a tendency to
become a god in our lives. It is hard to have them (or even to desire them as we are commanded by some)
and not be ruled by them or by the mere desire. It is not possible to live for the illusion of wealth
accumulation, self-enrichment or in desire and be able to serve God at the same time (Matt 6:24).
Inasmuch as some would defend their idolatry by claiming that they want to serve God with the money,
riches have never been revealed as a prerequisite of serving God. For if their claims were true, we would
also say that we only start living when we have accumulated a certain quantity of financial and material
possessions, which is not true either. God is served by people working together as stewards of His grace,
whether poor, not rich or rich. Moreover, whether we like it or not, nature will always have a way of
reminding us that riches, and even high incomes (within the definitions of society) will remain in the
hands of a few. God Himself has chosen mostly the poor to be inheritors of His kingdom (James 2:5). He
is not ashamed to be called the God of the poor and of those who have rejected the desires of this present
world, for He has prepared a city for them.
The desire to be rich and to have great possessions has a habit of making itself the centre and light of our
lives at the expense of God’s light. The Lord warned that, “if therefore the light that is in you is darkness (of
Mammon and the desire to be rich and as driven by the prophets of material riches), how great is the
darkness” (Matt 6:23 italics mine). However, “godliness (spiritual and inner prosperity in Christ) with
contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we carry nothing out. And having food and
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clothing (apart from
riches) with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich (anyone you know?) fall into
temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of
money (that comes from the desire to be rich) is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some (put prosperity
movement) have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Take heed and
beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses ...as obedient children, not
conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy (separate
from lusts) in all your conduct” (1 Tim 6:6-11; Luke 12:15; 1Pet 1:14-15 italics mine).
The Lord Jesus points out that, at the end of the day, the important issues of life do not centre on what we
shall eat, drink and put on and less still what goods we shall possess. Basic work and labour should be
able to cover the basic and real needs of life and which work is expected of every man (and woman where
need be) whether we believe in God or not, whether we follow Christ or not. Even children can work and
they do in many societies, especially helping in the fields, where most of our people get their sustenance.
Work is as basic to life as the air we breathe and the ground we walk on. However, there is a higher
dimension to life than these things and to which we must set our minds, hearts and souls. Therefore, my
brethren, “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? For after these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father
knows that you need these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things shall be
added to you” (Matt 6:25, 32, 33). Unbelievers live for the sole purpose of fulfilling these basic needs and
our Father knows that we need to work to meet our needs. However, we are to centre our lives, plans and
purposes, not on acquiring goods, but around living for God’s purpose and His rule and values alone and
to know that food, drink and clothing shall be added from that which is basic and expected of all of us,
work and labour. “Let your conduct be without covetousness (worrying and envying over what others and the
world seem to have); be content with such things as you may have (the earnings from whatever labour you are
engaged in). For He Himself has said, I will never live you nor forsake you... and that you aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind
your own business, and to work with your hands, as we commanded you, that you may walk properly toward those who are
outside, and that you may lack nothing. But we command you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus, that you withdraw from
every brother who walks disorderly and not according to tradition which he received from us. For you yourselves know how you
ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labour
and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves
an example of how you should follow us. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work,
neither shall he eat” (Heb 13:5, 6; 1 Thess 4:11, 12; 2 Thess 3:6-8 italics mine).
The problem in our time is not that poor Christians need to aspire for riches. The challenge is the need for
Christians to learn to minister to one another and through church structures and finances as to create
economic and financial opportunities amongst themselves. We must learn to esteem love for one another
better than using resources for the enrichment of preachers and for the servicing of lifeless things such as
expensive and luxurious buildings and musical instruments, for these things are not the church of God.
Against the call of the Lord to a life of simplicity and contentment as we work with our hands to meet the
necessities of life and serve Him, and to a life of completeness in Him alone apart from present earthly
glory, and the warnings on the futility of toiling and grasping after the wind of riches, and the Scriptures’
own confirmation of the exploitative and warfare nature of human economic relationships that keep the
majority economically powerless (Col 2:9, 10; Eccl 4:6; 5:10-12; James 2:6; 5:1-6), it is critical that we
question whether it is really a divine revelation that God desires to make every Christian financially rich
as claimed by the prosperity movement. Is the material prosperity gospel a revelation from God or is
founded in the natural and carnal desires of man for riches?
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In the light of the strong statements of the Scriptures and of the revelation of the believer’s life as
contained in the Covenant of the blood of Jesus (the Last Will and Testament of God), it is of the utmost
importance that we question the scriptural validity of the fashionable so-called prosperity gospel. We
should question the teaching in which faith is paraded as a passport to the riches of this world (as the
world defines riches), and worldly financial and material wealth as a ‘covenant right’ of every Christian
in this present age through the payment of tithes and offerings and the giving of gifts to preachers and
church leaders and to the religion of Babel of “let us build and make a name for ourselves.”
Is it God’s will to turn the Christian poor into the new upper class in this present age in the name of faith?
Is it God’s determination to give all Christians, through faith, access to the ownership of the
world’s oil fields, mineral wealth, global financial and technological industries, where the true
riches of the world lie? Should poor African Christians and in their generality, aspire to the control of
the world’s financial wealth in the name of claiming the promises of the gospel? Has God really ordained
that the poor should be rich in a faith for the glory of this world? Should Christians organise their lives
around the making of money and in the pursuit of the glory of this age in the name of possessing the
promises? Do the Lord Jesus and the apostles agree that ‘there is a star of economic wealth’ (as privately
interpreted from Matthew 2:2) awaiting every Christian in this age only if they believe because all things
are possible to him who believes? Does the Lord really call us to a ‘blessing’ and to a life in Him in
the abundance of what He described as unrighteous Mammon? Does the Lord call us to the pursuit of
abundance of money and possessions as a means of finding fulfilment in Him? Is the seal of the Holy
Spirit a guarantee of our desires for the wealth of this present age? At the judgement seat of Christ,
will the Lord assess a Christian’s works of faith by the Christian’s ability to have accumulated great
quantities of possessions and accessed the best socio-economic services on earth?
And this I ask, to those that preach the financial prosperity gospel, what riches do they have themselves
and to which they are calling the rest of us? Is it a luxury house of brick and cement in the most upmarket part of the city, or a new posh car? Are these the riches to which every poor Christian should
aspire for in the name of faith and through tithes and offerings? Maybe they have their own private
spaceships, are the owners of all the oil and diamond fields of this world, or have houses made of pure
gold so that perhaps we can call them rich? To what riches exactly are they calling the poor? Is it the size,
location and the cost of the form of our shelter and the luxury of the means of transport and the finery of
the clothes and the lavishness of the food that they describe as the prosperity good news of Christ? Are
they telling us that in Christ he who owns his own car is richer than another who uses public transport? Is
the one who lives in the most expensive residential area of the country more blessed than another who
lives in a rural hut? Is the one who lives in rented accommodation poorer than the one who owns the
house? Is the one who can afford the ‘best’ socio-economic and recreational services more blessed than
another who cannot? Is this how God measures our life, faith and blessedness in His Son? How far do our
financial and material achievements in this present world reflect on our relationship with God?
Is the success of the gospel of Christ and its fullness to be determined by the financial and economic
glory of believers in this present age? What riches can the preachers of wealth show us in their own
lives apart from things obtained on the back of the financial contributions of the flocks they fleece? Is
there a sphere of this world, of carnal Christian dominion, where we can all get rich through tithes,
offerings, and living ‘clean’ lives without being subject to the negative physical, social, political,
economic and financial processes of this age? Is there such a realm where the ‘faithful’ can rise to this
world’s glory without being subject to the world’s systems which, God, in His unquestionable
sovereignty, has allowed to be dominated by unbelievers and to be under the active control of this world’s
rulers (James 2; 6; Ps 73:3, 6, 12)?
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Was Christ’s resurrection and the blood of the Covenant designed to give believers power over the
economic and financial destiny of the present and corruptible world as claimed by many a modern
prosperity preacher? Is the power of God in the gospel meant for salvation from lack of worldly riches
(Rom 1:16)? Is money and the abundance thereof a symbol of the success of one’s faith in God? Did
Christ die to give us trees, sand, stones and metals as a blessing of the abundant life? Will the
transformation of these things into economic and financial value of money, houses and cars make them
more of a blessing of the New Covenant for which the blood flowed on the Cross? Are not all these
natural things of this life that we must naturally work for and in submission to God’s will, plan and
purpose through our life as to meet our needs and help others?
Where in the revelation of the gospel did Christ promise and command present worldly riches as an
indispensable blessing and inheritance of the New Covenant? Does the Lord Jesus purpose work as a
means of getting riches and acquiring abundance of possessions? Is the prosperity gospel a divine
revelation or merely an expression of frustrated human carnal desires? Did Christ die to reconcile us to
the world that it should give its wealth to every believer who so desires and who pays his tithes and gives
money to churches and preachers? How can something as uncertain and as elusive as worldly
treasure, that the moth, rust and thieves of inflation, recession, war, exploitation, corruption,
imperialism and climate change can steal and destroy, be classified as a blessing for which Christ
died on the Cross?
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Whose Covenant Right?
If Christians would take but a moment to meditate on the Scriptures’ own statements as touching the
riches of this world and the reality of our present life, they would be surprised to find out that the real
wealth of this present age is more a ‘covenant right’ (if we are to use their term) of unbelievers, the
children of Adam, to whom this is their only inheritance. The Psalmist asked God to deliver him from
“men of the world who have their portion in this life, and whose belly You fill with Your hidden treasure. They are satisfied with
children, and leave the rest of their possessions to their babes.” As for him, he only desired to see God’s face in
righteousness and to be satisfied in awaking in God’s likeness (Ps 17:14, 15).
For is it not God who allows the wicked to prosper over the righteous? Who has permitted the wicked
dominion over the distribution of the world’s riches? Is He not the God who has allowed the wicked to be
the rulers and lords over this present world and over its political and economic destiny? Are not these the
same systems that keep the majority of the world’s population politically and economically powerless,
marginalised and deprived, Christians among them? Is this not the mystery of God’s sovereignty,
allowing those, most of whom will eventually reject His love, to be the masters over this present world
(James 2:6, 7; Ps 73:3, 5, 6, 12)? This is the sovereignty that the prosperity movement would want to
reject by calling God to turn believers in Christ, and as a body, into the new masters of this condemned
world. But what will it profit the world’s unbelieving rich to have all the wealth that they now possess
only to eventually lose their souls? And if Christians have won their own souls and the glory to come,
what will it profit them to be the new masters over the political and economic affairs of a world
soon to be destroyed by fire?
One of the great truths that our professing generation of Christians needs to hear and get into their hearts
is that much of this world’s riches are in the hands of those without Christ. Whether one lives in the
developed or developing countries, a call to faith in financial riches is a call to fight with the rich for the
world’s resources. It is a call to fight against those who wield political and economic power. It is a call to
fight with those who have access to, and are in control of this world’s wealth. I thank my Lord and
redeemer who delivered me from such attempts when I was still in the world and immature. I boast only
in the Cross of Christ “by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). I work with my
hands, not to be rich, but to meet my needs and help others. If I come into financial abundance, I know
that I am only a manager of God and should submit everything to the working of His will and purpose.
It is a misinterpretation to expect the wealth of the world’s unbelievers to be transferred to the righteous
as their inheritance in this present age as some interpret from Proverbs 13:22. This Scripture may mean
that God has a way of making ill-gotten wealth end up in the hands of those who will use it better, but is
not a guarantee that believers will see mass wealth transfer in their favour from those who hold the
world’s financial and economic power and as many falsely and wrongly preach. Moreover, will the meek
not inherit the new earth whose present form is dominated by unbelievers? The New Testament writings
do not make a reference to this Scripture with the context it is used in the modern church and why should
we? Christ is our exceeding and great riches.
God, in His sovereignty and wisdom, has planned for the Christian faith to be lived and exercised in a
world still in the bondage of injustices, inequalities and economic turbulence (John 16:33; Rom 8:22).
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These factors are the very ones that keep the majority of the world’s population as the not rich and even
poor and only able to work for the basics of food, clothes, simple shelter and other basic needs such as
sending their children to school. Who has not been affected by a depression in the economy in which they
live? Which Christian in Zimbabwe was not negatively impacted by the world record levels of inflation
registered at the height of the economic meltdown in the first decade of the new millennium? Who is
immune to global recession and rises in the cost of living because they have faith, or because they pay
tithes and offerings?
As long as our economies are stagnant, we as Christians are also affected, and when they improve,
we too benefit. In all this, whether one lives in urban America, Asia or rural Africa, we must always be
vigilant against the dangers of Mammon to lure us into evil desires for material wealth as advocated by
the prosperity prophets. The Christian must always be alert to the corrupting influence of Mammon, of
lust and covetousness and the pride of life and feelings of superficial power that come with abundance of
money and to which we are now being called as our “covenant right” (1 Tim 6:9, 10; 1 John 2:15-17).
However, to be fulfilled in God, even without abundance of money, but having food and clothing, with
these the Christian should be content. There is more danger in the perilous times of false doctrines
and heresies than there is in stagnant or underdeveloped economies. The latter serve to shape us
through their trials, and in which the hardships of this life are servants for our spiritual growth (James
1:2-4). On the other hand, falsehoods such as the deceit of faith for riches only drag us into uselessness.
The struggles of this life, especially in the area of money, are part of the instruments that God uses to test
and perfect His faithful children. God has not granted any promise to specially favour believers in their
economic and financial lives in relation to those in the world.
In as much as many would desire it, God has not risked making His children, as a body, the masters over
the carnal wars for this world’s perishable wealth. He promises sufficiency to all who would put their
trust in Him and for all, rich or poor, to submit their lives to Him and whatever else they may possess, for
His glory. God has called us to pilgrimage and to see ourselves as strangers in this world in as far as the
desire to amass worldly prosperity is concerned. The prophets of worldly wealth love to tell us not to limit
God but not perceiving that God is the one who limits Himself and us until He brings everything under
the feet of the Lord Jesus (Heb 2:8, 9).
A faith based on the desire for worldly riches will not stand the winds of war, turmoil, exploitation of the
poor by the rich, sanctions, natural disasters, economic recession, communism and imperialism. We are to
be careful of the outwardly sweet doctrine of material wealth by faith. Such a doctrine is meant to take us
to the slavery of the love of money and the love of riches and from which love the Lord came to deliver
His elect. True faith is to seek God’s will alone and to be content with the earnings that come from our
labours in God’s will. God’s covenant through Christ is not in the riches of this world but in the
revelation of Christ in the believer’s life. The things of this world are no different from the air we
breathe and the ground we walk on with the exception and added burden that we have to labour
and toil for the right to use money.
Being a disciple of Christ in a fallen world, a world still in bondage and where the carnally powerful have
dominion over its affairs, is a costly business. The Lord clearly warned anyone who would follow Him to
count the cost. If we are to be truly prosperous in Christ in this present age, then we have to be prepared
to ‘fail’ or to deny ourselves in many things of this world. Being a true disciple of Christ will have
‘negative’ economic, financial, social and physical implications upon our lives. Even financially rich
Christians will eventually have to accept God’s demands upon their wealth if they are to be faithful in
their stewardship of the life of Christ and of the wealth they possess.
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God’s Righteousness in Worldly Riches?
Christ, in the days of His flesh, fully demonstrated God’s righteousness (Rom 3:21, 22; 1 Cor 1:30). And
this I ask; did the Lord, at any time, in the days of His flesh and after His resurrection, give the
impression that His life and righteousness in the believer would consist in the abundance of worldly
wealth as the prosperity movement implies? Has God, in the person and work of Christ through the
Cross, manifested His beauty, revealed His power, or demonstrated His greatness as consisting in
the wealth of this age and in the glory thereof? Is abundance of material possessions and worldly
wealth a component of the measure of the glory, righteousness and image of the Christ life? Has the
righteousness of God, who is Christ, revealed Himself through the power over economic and financial
resources as to make all His children filthy rich in corruptible Mammon?
In truth, these people cannot show us, in the spirit of the New Covenant (for which Christ died to bring
about), that the riches of this world are an eternal inheritance of the kingdom and of our glory so that we
may be justified in setting our hearts and desires on them (Phil 3:20, 21; 1 Pet 1:4). For are they not
implying that the pursuit of earthly riches is of ultimate significance towards Christian fulfilment? If
financial wealth is a covenant right, it makes such wealth an integral part of the blessings of the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and we would be justified in also pursuing it first as the rest of the
kingdom’s riches. Why would the Scriptures speak of the necessity of work in earning our bread and to
meet other needs if financial riches are an integral part of the blessings bestowed on every believing soul?
In reality, the prosperity movement is an attempt by some to use Christianity to excuse their covetousness
in the name of faith, a faith for Mammon!
The teaching of faith for worldly riches is an effort to add to the gospel, counting Christ as not being
sufficient in Himself to provide complete satisfaction, peace, life and the ability to earn a living and be
content in it apart from the desire and pursuit for material wealth. It is a teaching that would draw us away
from finding our greatness in Him alone. For does not the New Covenant tell us that we are complete in
Him (Col 2:10)? And if the world’s financial glory reveals or complements God’s righteousness, wisdom
and glory, then we are not complete in our possession of the life of Christ. For it is only in the life that we
already possess in Him that we are to be perfected and to be finally glorified.
The form of faith for worldly riches lies only in those whose desires are set on earthly things and in their
perceived power to come up with beliefs in a god of worldly success and wealth. It is a belief that if one
believes hard enough, gives money to his pastor and pays his tithe, then all their carnal desires would
come true without any link to the truth of the Spirit of the Word of God. It has become a matter of
“believe in whatsoever your greed and covetous heart desires and it will be done for you.” This is in
contrast to true faith based in God alone and in what He has done for us in His Son, to provide complete
salvation to the elect independent of their socio-economic status in this present age.
People who preach the gospel of material riches should be taught that in Christ we are complete.
Moreover, the Scriptures nowhere teach the desire for an increase in goods and wealth or incomes and
access to the best of the world’s services as completing us in Christ. They preach it because something in
them is lacking, they are not complete apart from their covetousness and are not content with what they
have. They are ignorant as to Christ being the perfect and complete blessing in a Christian’s life apart
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from the existence of riches, wealth or even high incomes. The gospel also does not call believers to an
increase in one’s material status to find its fullness and perfection. This is the very reason why the New
Covenant, in the place of teaching us how to accumulate worldly wealth, concentrates in showing us how
to use what we have because of the blessing of the life of Christ we have received irrespective of our
status in the economic ladder (2 Cor 8:9). “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which
God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). We are blessed already in God with the Christ
life so that we, like the Macedonians, though we may be poor economically, may abound in the riches of
liberality, whether to the poor or for the sake of the preaching of the gospel (2 Cor 8:1-4).
The teaching of faith for worldly riches has its basis in a desire of some to hedge themselves against
future uncertainties. Thus, they have built a doctrine of protective financial security and for most, an
imagined life of wealth, comfort and luxury, distorting desires and the affections of many. They have
twisted the concept of Christian blessing to imply any carnal desire and appetite of the flesh. Many
assume to claim for themselves so-called covenant rights based on misunderstood and misapplied Old
Testament promises. They have diluted the spiritual with the physical, law and grace, the shadow and
reality, and it has become so obscured that only by the Spirit of God can one be made to see.
Those who preach the prosperity gospel work at forcing Christians, through threats of the law, to
approach God continually (through the preachers of course), with the same percentage payments and
offerings month after month, year after year and to give financial gifts to church leaders and preachers
without which they claim that we can never see the goodness of the Lord. They deceive us that riches
among Christians are a sign of faith and blessedness, but as Stewart Lane, in his book “Woe to ye rich!”
put it: “riches among Christians are not a sign of God’s prosperity; they may even indicate that
these people have abdicated true prosperity in favour of the degraded and degrading pleasures of
Mammon.” They glory in their claims to have increased in goods, not knowing that they are poor and
naked and the most pitiable of all people whose glory is in the corruptible things of this world (Rev 3:17).
They boast in brick and cement, and moving metal objects and call these riches. Somebody is said to be
rich because he has a number in some bank that tells him that he is rich. The billionaires of this world
cannot even use all their money in a lifetime and it remains a mental concept that they are rich. Solomon,
the richest king ever in Israel had this to say on this point; “When goods increase, they increase who eat them; so
what profit have the owners except to see them with their eyes? All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not
satisfied” (Eccl 5:11; 6:7). What profit do they have from all their labour in which they toil to accumulate
so much wealth? Is it not all vanity and grasping for the wind as Solomon himself discovered? They may
eat fine food, put on fine clothes and live in expensive palaces, but at the end of the day, what is still
needful is just food, clothing and shelter. Moreover, after we have been given this sign of faith, preferably
in millions of American dollars, would we not cease to offer the same payments? Or do we need to keep
appeasing God so that He does not take the comforts away from us?
The so-called prosperity doctrine calls the currently exploited, despised, and rejected majority poor to
compete with the few owners of this world’s resources. Worse still, they base their claims to the world’s
wealth through presuming on what God has not promised and through their own merit of the payment of a
determined percentage sum of money from whatever earnings they have. Yet, these same people have to
go back to their not so well paid jobs in which, realistically, the riches promised by the Mammon
prophets can never be attained. Are they then to change their jobs, seek to go into business and hope to
build trans-national corporations and global finance houses from the low incomes that characterise the
lives of the majority? Let them dream on!
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4
To Make Money or to Earn a Living?
The Scriptures are very clear that “those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and
(1 Tim 6:9). Incorrect teaching in the area of money,
riches and possessions in the church has resulted in the upholding of distorted desires, values,
habits, attitudes and behaviour. The promotion of wrong doctrines has but one objective - to affect
negatively Christians’ relationship with God, seeing that money is a competitor against God for our
loyalty and the love of our hearts (Matt 6:24).
harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition”
Money plays an essential role in the modern life as a means of exchange in accessing goods and services.
Because of its many carnal benefits, money is also a subject that easily provokes emotions, fires up
desires and sends many into dreamland of all that it could do for them in the hope of finding a fulfilled
life. Money commands other things and its possession is assumed to open the door to everything elsecomfort, enjoyment, influence and power. It is said of money that it ‘makes the world go round,’ and
Solomon, the king of Israel, described it as an answer to everything, however at a carnal and superficial
level in similar manner he describes wine as giving happiness (Eccl 10:19). Without money, it is almost
impossible to live in a modern and global economy.
However, how much of money is desirable as to make us contented with what we have? To what extent
are we prepared to go to have it, the sacrifices that we are ready to make as to become rich as the
prosperity prophets encourage us? How far are we ready to pursue financial wealth and earthly glory
in the light of the teachings and warnings of the gospel on money, riches and possessions?
Money is the most desired of all the world’s commodities, the centre and goal of people’s affections, of
the utilisation of the world’s resources and is at the heart of the exploitation of man by man. As the most
desired, the pursuit of money is also the greatest catalyst of the wickedness in and among men, of
frustration, anger, conflict, turmoil, sorrow, lust, covetousness (which is idolatry), and the neglect of the
things of God (1 Tim 6:10; James 4: 1-3). Very few, the world’s rich and Christians included, can
handle money properly, and many are they who are enslaved by it, whether in possessing or in the
pursuit of it. Many have an illusion that once they possess large quantities of money they will be
masterful and influential but not perceiving that it is money which will master them and make them
unconscious slaves.
It is also an obvious observation from the experiences of life and from the teachings of God in nature and
in the Scriptures that, even as the most desired, money is also very elusive and very few ever possess it in
enough quantities to answer all their needs, whether real or perceived, and their ‘wants’ and ‘greeds’
(Prov 23:5). Fewer still are the people sufficiently content with the money they earn or possess. Many
want more and more of it; few get more of it beyond what their jobs give them. Many must be content
just to live by, to wait for what they get from selling their wares, from what their employers give them or
what they can get from selling produce from their fields, for are not the majority of our people found
among the informal traders, working class and rural subsistence farmers? All of them must eventually
accept what life has given them and get on with it. This acceptance is not to be taken as a surrender to
poverty but an acknowledgement of one of life’s harshest and most obvious facts and the most ignored;
riches (large quantities of money even in African local currencies), are for a few. This has always been
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true throughout the history of humanity. The glory of this present age (political, economic and
financial power) has always belonged to a very small minority, dubbed the “1 percent of New
York’s Wall Street.”
Because of the world’s symbols of success, the acquisition of money, and more of it, is at the core of most
of the struggles which man has to endure in this life (Luke 12:30). The pursuit of money (and not just for
meeting needs), is at the centre of many people’s lives, Christians included. Wealth, honour and glory in
the world are related mostly to how much money one has in the bank or how much of it is translated into
the status symbols of mansions, the latest cars, exotic holidays, trendy fashion and all the gadgets of
worldly prosperity so cherished in the modern world. These symbols of wealth are now openly taught as a
Christian’s right to run after in imitation of the rich and unbelievers, albeit now in Christ’s name! The
prosperity movement teaches that to be content with what we have from our jobs, even for the rest of life,
is a lack of faith and a giving in to poverty, and which poverty they define as not living according to the
world’s status symbols.
One of the chief difficulties Christians face in coming to the Lord Jesus is that the whole of life prior to
the knowledge of the truth had been programmed from an early age to live for this world, to live for the
mere acquisition of money and its use. People are prepared from birth for this very purpose. The whole of
life revolves around Mammon and it is not easy to escape even after the new birth. We have been
indoctrinated that our glory is in having, in possessing more of money and its accompanying carnal
benefits. Many are not simply content to work for food, clothing and shelter (1 Tim 6:8), but luxury food,
more expensive and varied clothes and more costly and bigger accommodations and all the symbols of
worldly prosperity (Phil 3:18, 19). Many of the world’s population, Christians included, go through life
carrying the frustration of the ‘failure to achieve’, afflicting their souls with unnecessary grief because
they do not define life from God’s perspective. They do not have a proper understanding of blessedness as
they wrongly link it with money in desire, acquisition and use. Many others involve themselves in
questionable practices as a quicker way of ascending to the temple of Mammon and they then testify of
God’s blessings!
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II
The Call of the Gospel of Christ
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5
Understanding Stewardship
The resurrection of Christ and our service in Him was not designed by God to give Christians power
over the economic and financial affairs of this present and corruptible world. “For the earnest expectation of the
creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom 8:19), and only then shall it be delivered from the
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:21). This will happen with the
appearance of Christ with whom our lives are hidden in God and which He will bring when He appears
with us in glory (Col 3:3, 4). These are God’s thoughts and plans for us, for glory and not for the
corruption of this present age (Jer 29:11). Christ redeemed us from the world as to give us sonship with
God and an eternal inheritance kept for us in the heavens (Rom 8:23; 1 Pet 1:3, 4).
In the present age, the resurrection is God’s power for faith, love and hope in the believer for the
fulfilment of God’s will in serving others and in a world in which most of us fall short of the world’s
prosperity. Christ did not come to save people from their lack of worldly riches nor does He promise socalled financial favours to those that serve Him. He came to save those who were separated from God and
enemies in their minds by wicked works and to reserve for them a new city in the glory to come. He
promises His care over their lives but has not promised riches in the present age as an indispensable
blessing of His Covenant. Christ, as the one who owns our lives, is not in the business of acquiring riches
for us but is interested with things of eternal significance (John 18:36; Rom 8:18; 2 Tim 2:10). He has
His own riches that he wants to manifest through believers. A true believer only exists as an extension of
the life of Jesus and should not desire his own life in this world. As far as the world is concerned, the
Christian is supposed to be dead to it and alive in spirit to express divine desires, plans and purposes and
not those of his own dead self.
Financial resources obtained in a righteous manner are mere additions to our labours according to the
measure of God’s grace, the working of God in one’s stewardship in the fulfilment of His purpose and
according to His sovereignty and wisdom. We give, share and are generous, not so much because of the
things we have but because of what God has done for us in Christ (2 Cor 8:9). Moreover, our giving is
not to God but to our fellow man in Jesus’ name to the glory of God, as it is written: “And whatever you
do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col 3:17). For how
can we give money to God when it is God Himself who calls us to use money in His name and on His
behalf? The New Covenant does not call us to offer thanksgiving of money to God but to use money
righteously as His ministers and priests. The exercise of true generosity towards others is an acceptable
sacrifice to God for it results in glory being given to His name (2 Cor 9:12, 13; Phil 4:18).
We should understand however, that, the greatest and most important aspect of our lives as
Christians is the stewardship of the knowledge of God through Christ and not money (1 Cor 4:1, 2;
2 Cor 4:5-7). We should not be deceived by preachers who are after our money but are not concerned
about the equipping of believers as a priesthood of ministers of the mysteries of God. We should beware
of false prophets who emphasise the giving of money (to them and to their physical temples masked as
church) as the most important thing in the Christian life, for it is not. The error of much of modern
preaching has been to restrict Christian stewardship to money, further restricting financial stewardship to
giving and distorting the concept of Christian generosity to centre it on the giving of money to pastors, the
denomination and for the servicing of lifeless things. Christians should be taught that the sharing of the
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knowledge of God and the witnessing of the power of the life of Christ to others is the exercise of true
stewardship irrespective of our state of the giving of money. Moreover, a true steward will always strive
to be generous with money as much as he has and to use it in his service as a minister of the knowledge of
God. We should be careful however not to think that only others can use money on our behalf in our
service to God or that we can only serve God with money, worse still through those who live to promote
their own kingdoms, self-enrichment and self-indulgence with other people’s money (OPM).
Money, riches and possessions are allowed into our lives in quantities that are according to God’s grace,
wisdom and sovereignty for those who have submitted themselves to Christ’s Lordship over their lives
(Rom 12:3, 6-8; 1 Pet 4:10, 11). Money or a large quantity of it in our lives is only an instrument and
strictly speaking, a Christian cannot claim to be rich in things over which he is only a steward.
Moreover, faithfulness in serving God (seeking first) is not promised as a way of obtaining the riches of
this world. The apostle Paul was faithful in his service to the Gentiles yet remained dependent on other
believers for his welfare in the things of this world (Phil 4:10).
In the area of money, our lives as individuals and as groups of believers in fellowship are like government
ministries and God as Government or central authority. Government ministries do not desire to be rich for
their own sake, but whatever the central authority allocates, they use it to serve the people through their
ministerial responsibilities. In this way, the central authority aims to achieve its goals through the various
ministries. Each ministry’s work demonstrates the central authority’s work through it. The ministry uses
some of the money allocated to it for administrative purposes and salaries, but this is a small portion
compared to what is used in the service of the people, assuming good governance of course.
The lack of understanding of Christian stewardship in the area of money can be likened to a bank
manager who keeps buying luxury cars, houses and fancy gadgets, and involves himself in farming
activities using his employer’s resources and without authority, in the name of making the bank rich. The
bank manager is blind to the fact that these activities are not his bank’s business. If this were to happen in
the real world, many would be quick to criticise it as very bad business. However, Christians would have
to be last to judge because the majority of us live as this fool of a steward in relation to the kingdom of
God. Unfaithful Christians who live by the desire for self-enrichment and indulgence, as well as
churches that exist only to give money to preachers and for the servicing of lifeless things, should
never point a finger, for example, at politicians for bad governance. Their own transgressions are
worse because they pertain to matters of a higher kingdom. Many Christians’ lives only reflect their
desire for continual accumulation and are worse than the unfaithful servant in the parable of the talents
who at least did not use up the talent entrusted him (Matt 25:25).
If we try to find our life by living in the manner of unbelievers in the chasing after the elusive
earthly abundant life, we will lose it (Matt 10:39). On the other hand, if we dedicate all our life with all
that we have in the fulfilment of God’s will, we will find God faithful to meet our needs according to His
purpose. If we neglect to seek first and only the kingdom, God will leave us to the grief of the struggles
for Mammon (James 4: 3, 4; Ps 78:32, 33). We may even advance in the things of this world, but with it
always comes the judgement of a lean heart and spiritual uselessness. True spiritual well-being can only
come at the expense of sacrificing our lives for the sake of others and forsaking the desire for the world in
the name of the One who died and gave Himself for us. God desires that we use the material and physical
things that may come into our lives to meet needs and in the fulfilment of His spiritual purpose rather than
for our own self-enrichment and self-indulgence (Luke 12:20, 21). In Christ, we are already rich beyond
measure and financial abundance cannot complement the riches in Him (Eph 1:3-14; Col 1:17, 19). In
desiring self-enrichment through the things of this world, we will be found to be poor and fighting against
the very God in whom we think we have faith (Rev 3: 17, 18).
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Someone may say that there is nothing wrong with the desire to be rich. The answer is yes and no. No,
there is nothing wrong in the sense that riches are not sinful in themselves and they do bring many carnal
benefits in a world that revolves around the use of money. However, the desire for the riches of this world
is not the focus of the will of God for His people, more so in a world where there is no rule of God’s
righteousness in the distribution of its resources (Luke 12:14, 15). God’s desire for believers is that they
work to meet needs and not live for the desire to amass wealth. The life we live as Christians is not our
own, but belongs to another, and He desires that we allow Him to use us according to the good pleasure
of His will, and not according to our own desires for the satisfaction of the appetites of the flesh (1 Cor
3:16; Col 3:3; 1 Pet 1:18, 19). We are not who we think we are until we know that Christ lives in us and
we belong to Him. The person you thought was you and for whom you desire riches is not really you but
is the temple of the One who dwells in you. So you may feel cheated that, in your zeal to escape the
clutches of the prince of darkness, you may not have had time to read the terms and conditions of the
Contract that the Prince of light made you to sign and that handed over to Him the rights to your life. For
the Covenant that you agreed to clearly states: “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ
who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Col 3:3, 4). You sold the franchise of your life
my friend and you now belong to another. You ceded your every right to Him who delivered you from
darkness. If you feel cheated, the prince of darkness is waiting in the wings for you to sign his own
contract of death and the misery of sin, of slavery and bondage and take you back to his prison (John
10:10a; Eph 2:2, 3)! It is better and more blessed to accept the yoke of the Lord, for it is lighter, full of
light, joy, peace and righteousness in the Holy Spirit, and never seek to exchange it for all the gold in the
world (Matt 11:29, 30). The Lord can be trusted to continue providing food and clothes, even as we work
with our hands (Heb 13: 5, 6). A Christian should not desire the riches of this world as the work of Christ
in everyone, for it is not. We, as Christians, cannot desire to use worldly financial glory as a measure
of a life which does not belong to us in the first place and which measure of glory the owner of that
life does not pursue on our behalf (Luke 12:14; Rom 8:22-25). The poor, the not rich and the rich have
all been given a measure of faith as to reflect the image and glory of God in the world independent of
one’s financial status. The world’s riches are not riches in God’s sight or a reflection of His glory but are
a measure of the responsibility that the believers who so possess them have towards others in Jesus’
name. To whom much is given, much will be expected, whether money, knowledge or skills or whatever
it is, God will want an account of its use.
We must make every effort to live the simple life against all the complications of the desire for riches and
luxuries to which the prophets of Mammon are calling us (Matt 13:22; 1 Tim 6:9, 10). Such a call only
reveals a spirit of covetousness, which is idolatry (Eph 5:5). God desires that we live in the example of
His own simplicity as seen in His Son. Even the rich of this world in Christ must learn to come to a point
of no reputation with the use of their riches. Why do we think that the Lord’s abiding presence by the
Spirit changes His values and views from those He expressed when He walked on earth and in as far as
money and riches are concerned (Luke 12:15; John 18:36)? We were created in Christ and for Christ, to
live for Him and for His own good pleasure rather than ours in the desire of the pursuit of riches. Being
born again is finding one’s true purpose as a vessel of God’s mercy. We were not created for our own
good pleasure but for His alone. If riches come, let them come by the working of God’s grace rather than
from our presumption (falsely called faith) and desires to obtain such riches.
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6
The Call to Separation
The
Christian call in Christ is one of separation or holiness. Holiness is not some mystical and
impossible characteristic or one that we must fervently pray for to obtain or only possible with the final
redemption of the body. When Peter wrote to encourage his readers to “be holy, for God is holy” (1 Pet 1:16),
he was not calling us to some difficult to achieve way of life, but simply to separation (Rom 12:1, 2; 1 Pet
1:14). As we look at the Christ of the New Testament and His attitude towards this present world,
holiness is a call to separation to God and away from the world and from the desires thereof, as seen in
the life of Christ Himself. It is a separation from the love of the world, from the love of the things in the
world and from the corrupting influence of all that is in the world through lust (Gal 5:24). It is a
separation to God for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose in contrast to the longing to find our life
in the world and in the fulfilment of our desires as in our former ignorant life as unbelievers (2 Pet 1:3,
4).
Separation, and not the presumption of fleshly fights of verbally shouting at the devil taught as
spiritual warfare, is key to a victorious life over the enemy of our souls (James 4:4, 7). The New
Testament writers exhort us repeatedly not to conform ourselves to our former lusts nor to the patterns of
this world, nor to its ideas of success and wealth, but to allow Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith as in
organising His life in and through us (Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 1:13-21). This is true separation, and which, in
our days, is being contested in the modern church by a call to love the world and the things in the world
masked as the “material prosperity gospel” or such other terminology that they use to call us to the desire
for the glory of this world (Phil 3:18, 19; 2 Pet 2:18-22).
Many, true to biblical prophecy, have been deceived into a life of worldly desires in the pursuit of riches
in the name of faith and a false abundant life of financial and material wealth, rejecting the values of the
Lord Jesus of the Scriptures and setting their hearts and affections on Mammon, shipwrecking their faith
in the process (2 Thess 2:11, 12). Claiming not to want to limit God, they have become the slaves of
Mammon worship and blind to the true incorruptible and invisible prosperity of God’s kingdom.
Our life in this world as Christians is not about our success or failure in the things of this present age, but
is about the work of Christ and for which He sends us into the world. We are to count all things, including
our former desires and ambitions, loss for Christ and to know that our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:8,
20, 21). Christian life is a call to faithfulness in accomplishing the purpose of Christ of bringing the good
news to the world and the building up of believers. Each Christian has a role to play in the fulfilment of
the work of calling the world from darkness and in discipling other believers. World financial wealth is
not a prerequisite to be fully used of God or to find prosperity in Him. The Lord Jesus proved in His own
life how one could lack the world’s wealth and even be poor in the things of this world and yet be able to
fully walk in the perfect will of God. Christ is our supreme model. Though possessing the worlds, He
made Himself a bondservant as to serve, save us and give us sonship with God. We too, even if we
possess riches or high incomes, must use these, not only for ourselves, but for others as well. Moreover,
many other godly people down the ages have accomplished great feats for God in modest socio-economic
conditions. The testimony of the followers of the Lord Jesus, as revealed both by life and teaching in
the writings of the New Testament, should not be ignored in our understanding of the whole counsel
of the Lord in matters that pertain, not only to money, riches and possessions, but to our whole
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understanding of the gospel. We disregard the testimony of the saints at the cost of our own spiritual
well-being.
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7
Life is not in the Abundance of Possessions
The call of Christ to believers is to life in Him which does not consist in the abundance of worldly
possessions or riches (Luke 12:15). This is a statement from the Lord which does not need a degree in
theology to understand it. The error committed by many modern Christians has been to take natural
things, given by God as His gifts in nature and to the whole of humanity, and for which we must
physically work for, and to equate these with New Covenant blessings given to us through the sacrifice of
Jesus. As it is written: “the eyes of all look expectantly to you, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your
hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing... He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just
and on the unjust” (Ps 145:15, 16; Matt 5:45). They claim an increase in natural things as part of our
inheritance in Christ. Someone is said to be successful and to be ‘blessed’ of God because he is increasing
in the glory of financial and material wealth. Men will praise those who seem to be doing well or are even
‘blessing’ themselves (Ps 49:16-20; Prov 13:7; Rev 3:17, 18). However, the careful study of the New
Covenant will reveal that even the word blessing itself is not used with reference to the things of this
world as misused in the modern church.
What Christians need to know is that material possessions and availability of money are the fruit of our
labour, sacrifice, sweat, effort and hard work, opportunities, chance, inheritance, education and state of
the economy (Gen 3: 17-19; Ps 128:2; Prov 14:23; 2 Thess 3:6-12). The important thing for the Christian
is to acknowledge God’s sovereign will and the revelation of Christ in one’s life in the working out of
these factors (1 Tim 6:17; James 4:7). This is true both for the rich and the rural peasant, for those in the
developed world and in the underdeveloped countries. God has called us to submit our whole life,
including the earning of money and its disposal, under His rule, will and purpose (Luke 12:20, 21). This is
important because the accumulation of money and possessions often results from false ambition, greed
and covetousness and outside the will of God. For Christians, He has also promised that in whatever work
they do, and as they organise their lives around the gospel and its values, He will always be faithful to see
that their work bears the necessary fruit according to their needs and those of serving Him in the world in
agreement with the counsel of His will (Matt 6:33; Luke 12:24, 27, 28; Heb 13:5, 6). To those who
choose to give themselves to the gospel, from the gospel they shall also earn their bread, and as it is
written: “Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock
and does not drink of the milk of the flock? Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel (not just
Sunday delivering of sermons) should live (not get rich) from the gospel (1 Cor 9:7, 14 italics mine). God has
not promised riches through the gospel to those who will labour in the preaching of the good news of
Christ. Preachers who live by the true gospel and labour in it daily, must be seen as people in need
of support with the basics of life and not as lords to be made rich and as mediators of other
believers’ financial ‘favour’ with God. Moreover, preaching the gospel does not mean we cannot work
with our own hands or engage in business so as not to burden the people of God (2 Thess 3:7-9).
We have to rid ourselves of tendencies for self-enrichment, the desire to be rich for the mere satisfaction
of ever increasing fleshly appetites. Improvements in our financial status must be seen as a call to
increased stewardship and not for self-indulgence. Moreover, and from God’s point of view, one who
lives in a two-roomed house, a rural hut or even a shack, has the same shelter as another in a king’s
palace. God does not define abundance of life, success or blessing in the quantity, cost, or luxury of what
one possesses. What matters before God is not the amount of possessions we have, but firstly, the manner,
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circumstances and motives under which we acquire these possessions. Are we neglecting the kingdom of
God and His righteousness and values, as well as love for our neighbour as we work only for our lives
and strive to be rich or to possess? Secondly and most importantly, how do we use what is sovereignly
permitted into our lives? For true blessing is in the generosity exercised with what we have. The blessing
is in the giving away of our money to the poor and in the sharing of our goods, homes and any such thing
with those in need. Love for our neighbour in the goods of this world implies that we must always seek to
let others benefit of our material and financial possessions as much as we benefit from these things. Love
is the blessing.
The Lord Jesus described money as unrighteous Mammon (Luke 16:11) given its nature as a tool used by
the enemy of our souls to divert people’s attentions away from God in their love and pursuit of financial
wealth. Unfaithfulness in the area of money and the use of ungodly principles in its acquisition and
disposal is characteristic of lovers of money, the covetous and idolaters. Our attitudes towards money
easily unmask the state of our hearts (Matt 6:21). Infidelity in the handling of money implies that we
cannot be trusted with the things of God (Luke 16:11, 12). This is the reason why many are blinded to
spiritual realities and trapped in false doctrines of prophecy on demand in their desire for Mammon
greatness. The prosperity prophets major in flattering their audiences with false prophecies of financial
riches, but which are meant to feed their own greed for money. The love of money is the most dangerous
enemy that the church faces in our time. As world economic conditions worsen, the situation becomes
even more critical. Many have chosen to make money become the light to guide and control their lives.
The Scriptures warn us that if we live for money and the desire to be rich as the light and centre of
our lives, then we are in more spiritual darkness and danger than we can possibly imagine (Matt
6:22, 23)! We are neither to prioritise living for the mere accumulation of possessions, nor to place
priority on them to the detriment of the plans, will and purposes of God. We must distrust our desires for
worldly wealth. We should protect our hearts against ungodly attitudes towards the things in the world
and allow the revealed will of God, the knowledge of His character, plans and purposes to shape our
desires. Whether it is shelter or other possessions, we have to live under God’s will and way of simplicity.
We have to live within God’s will and purpose and we are neither to burden ourselves with unnecessary
debts nor to desire luxury. We have to reject using possessions for worldly glory and instead, learn to be
rich towards God with them (Luke 12:21). Improvements in our income and the possibility of changed
conditions must come by grace according to the counsel of His will and not by covetousness, lust or out
of the desire to be rich and of the love of the things in the world (Matt 6:8). We must see changed
conditions as a call to continued stewardship and faithfulness rather than as coming from merit (because
we gave at church) and for selfish purposes. We must distrust our fleshly nature to seek abundance of life
in worldly possessions.
Material things are not to be equated with spiritual blessings of the life in Christ. Trees, sand and stones
are not blessings in themselves, and their transformation into, for example, a house, does not give the
house the status of a blessing. The blessings of the gospel can neither be reduced to the
transformation of natural resources into things of monetary and economic value nor be measured
by the abundance of such things. Money is not an inheritance of the kingdom of God to make it a focus
of our faith in God and a fountain of blessings as is falsely taught by many a modern false prophet. These
antichrists of our time are deceiving millions of people into hungering for the abundance of the things in
the world in one’s life as natural and indispensable components of the Christian’s inheritance in God’s
kingdom and of the presence and expression of the new life by His adopted children in the present
dispensation. In this manner, they have changed the glory (and riches) of the incorruptible God into
images made by man-of money and the symbols of the modern materialistic world like luxury cars,
mansions and advancement in the social and economic spheres of this present corruptible world.
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In making present earthly glory the focus of our faith in the Lord Jesus (as to see Him as the author and
finisher of such glory), we are as the ungodly described in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans
as we exchange the truth of God for lies and make the gospel a means to financial wealth. On the other
hand, Christians should use all that they are and have, whether little or much, for God’s own glory
according to each one’s calling and measure of grace. To see and desire abundance of money, riches and
possessions as God’s own glory and for which we must strive for in faith, is not of God but is earthly,
sensual and demonic. God in Christ has not spoken of abundance of the things of this world as His glory
in His children. We have been called by God’s own glory and virtue and by which have been given to us
great and precious promises, that through these we may be partakers of God’s own nature, having escaped
from the corruption of the world’s glory that comes through the lusts of the flesh for the things in the
world (2 Pet 1:3, 4). “For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life- (and as
manifested and promoted through the so-called prosperity gospel) is not of the Father but is of the world. And the
world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:16, 17 italics mine).
Those of the prosperity movement love to uphold certain public Christian businessmen as models for all
Christians to look up to. The problem with this is that it gives public glory to God for wealth which no
one knows how and for what purpose it’s being accumulated. They associate the riches of these people as
godly merely because they are Christians or purport to. Secondly, they remove the focus away from
Christ as the only and true role model for the Christian life and of our walk in God.
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8
The Call to Contentment
Contentment is a subject that is almost never preached by the false prophets of the prosperity movement
for it conflicts directly with the false teaching of faith for abundance of financial wealth and material
possessions. To be content with what we have means among many things; to accept our position in life as
far as our incomes or earnings are concerned (1 Cor 1:26); to allow God to organise our lives and to
control changes for His good pleasure (1 Sam 2:7; Prov 3:5, 6); to esteem ourselves properly and accept
that riches are for a few (Rom 12:3, 16; 1 Cor 1:26, 27 ); to know that there are greater riches in a godly
but simple life; to be content with food, clothing and shelter, with those things that are really necessary
for the physical life (1 Tim 6:6-10; Phil 4:11-13); not to fall into despair because of the lack of those
worldly goods which in God’s eyes are not really essential; not to lose God’s peace and joy in the pursuit
of financial greatness (Phil 4:6; 1 Pet 5:7; Matt 6:25).
To be content means to acknowledge that we are what we are by the grace of God and most of us
are not what we would wish we were in this world (Rom 9:16; 1 Cor 1:26). Our incomes are dependent
on the type of jobs we do. Moreover, the majority of people are found among the working class, informal
sector traders, street vendors and peasants, earning modest lifetime incomes that can only afford them the
basics of life. The gospel of Christ does not give people false hope in this world but works with them in
the reality of their socio-economic conditions (1 Tim 6:7; James 2:5; Prov 27:24).
We are called to contentment for the simple reason that the things of this world have a transitory and
insignificant value (Matt 6:19-21; 1 John 2:17). Their worth is only temporary and they are prone to loss,
wear and tear, and need always to be renewed for man to feel an illusion of satisfaction. Besides, and at
the end of the day, the concepts of poverty or riches are relative. One man’s riches are another man’s
poverty and vice versa. It is not of God to use such subjective measurements as an expression of His
glory and righteousness in Christ.
Contentment does not mean laziness, for we are to work with our hands and brains (1 Thess 4:11, 12; 2
Thess 3:6-15). It also does not mean that Christians cannot seek their income from multiple sources if it’s
in God’s will for them. However, the state of contentment is to be contrasted to greed, covetousness,
selfish and evil ambitions and evil desires for accumulation outside the will of God and against the
recommendations of the Scriptures (Heb 13:5). The absence of contentment is the real poverty that
afflicts a people enslaved by a materialistic culture. Many people’s appetite and greed for increased
abundance of possessions is their poverty! Without contentment, there is all manner of evil desire and
dissatisfaction with what one has, manifest in our day in the doctrine of prosperity and a getting onto the
rat race. The absence of contentment leads to the self-deception that to aspire for material riches is our
right, and we twist the Scriptures to suit our carnal desires and to express our discontentment with God’s
truth but veiling it in biblical terminology. The covetous live for the sole purpose of making money and
diligently seek it with all of their souls and strength. They are driven by blind greed, evil ambition, the
lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:15, 16; James 5:1-6). Covetousness does not leave room
for true sharing and generosity because one feels they never have enough.
Contentment also means to see the purpose of work as revealed in the Scriptures. The basic reason for
work, and the reality for more than ninety-nine percent of the world’s population, is not to get rich as the
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world defines riches, for if it were, all of us would be rich. Work was designed for us to be able to look
after ourselves and share with the needy (Eph 4:28; 1 Thess 4:11, 12). In this regard, we are called to
contentment in our work and in what it gives us for our sustenance for the simple reason that access to
the riches of this fallen world is a route tainted with war, corruption, greed, covetousness, pride,
lust and all manner of evil desire and ambition in which a very small number is able to navigate
without compromising themselves.
Beyond our income, be it daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal, the Lord exhorts us neither to worry nor to
be preoccupied with the needs of tomorrow as to be incapacitated to serve God (Matt 6:25, 34). We are to
put Him at the centre of our lives and worship and bring glory to His name. Tomorrow can mean our next
salary, or next sale. We have to be content with what we get from our labours and allow God to operate as
providing sufficiency for the day and the increase when necessary. If He looks after birds, which neither
sow nor reap, how much more of us who are designed to sow, reap and gather? If God dresses the flowers
of the field, which do not labour (Matt 6:26-30), how much more us who toil and spin? How much more
of us for whom Christ died?
The exhortation not to worry is a call not to see God as merely a provider of goods and services but as
Lord and Saviour in Christ who must be given the first and only priority in our lives (Prov 3:5, 6; Jer
9:23, 24). He is to be trusted with the work of our hands as to make His grace abound so that we may be
able to meet our real needs. The wicked are able to ‘prosper’ much more from God’s bounty in nature
because much of the acquisition of riches is done according to the world’s rules, values and standards,
which, more often than not, are contrary to the values of the kingdom of God. As in all things, the call is
to simplicity in the area of food and clothing even if we can afford luxury. The people of God are to be
different from unbelievers whose glory is in what they eat, put on, possess and in worldly
achievements.
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9
Humility and Submission: A Cure for Worldliness
The Scriptures describe humility as a great cure for worldliness. James counsels those whose friendship
with the world makes them adulterers and adulteresses and enemies with God, to humble themselves
before Him (James 4:4-7, 10). Humility is a cure because it calls us not to think too much of our own
importance or to esteem ourselves above others. We have to learn to scorn our lives in the world and to
know that our true greatness is in Christ alone and not in the pursuit of the greatness of worldly glory
through financial riches or any other route. Christ died for us so “that those who live should no longer live for
themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor 5:15). Humility is to accept God’s plans for our
lives and not seek the fulfilment of our own desires in the world.
The self-exaltation manifest through the love of money and of the things in the world, and the
desire to be rich, tends to open the door for the devil. On the other hand, if we reject to walk according
to the patterns of the world, it shows our humility before God, and the serpent will flee, for enmity with
the world is enmity with the devil (James 4:4). The love of riches, manifest in the prosperity gospel, is
enmity with God no matter what your self-titled pastor, prophet, bishop, reverend, apostle, archbishop, or
doctor deceives you to believe!
Humility will result in the lifting up by God as He uses conditions in our lives for His greater glory to the
praise of the riches of His grace and as it is written: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you
up” (James 4:10). The adverse political, social, economic and financial conditions existent in the world
and that affect the majority of its people, are the very ones used by God to humble and test Christians and
to refine their faith in God’s love alone. It is said of the children of Israel that God led them by the longer
and more difficult route of the desert for forty years to humble them and test them, to know what was in
their hearts, whether they would keep His commandments or not. “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger,
and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not
live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord... ‘My son, do not despise the
chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and
scourges every son who He receives.’ But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are
illegitimate and not sons. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the
peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Deuteronomy 8:2, 3 Heb 12:5, 8, 11). God
humbles us and allows us to pass through unfavourable conditions and uses the unpleasant circumstances
of life to chasten, discipline and correct us even as a man chastens his son that he loves. In all the trials of
life, we should know that God makes everything work out for the good of changing us into Christ likeness
(Rom 8:28). God’s ultimate plan for us is for good and not for evil.
We are in the world but we are not of the world. The apostle John was very firm when he wrote: “Do not
love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the
world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is
passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17). We live in it in the
flesh but we are not to identify with its values, attitudes, systems, symbols and behaviour patterns. As
Paul put it: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to the Lord, which is your reasonable service. Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable
and perfect will of God” (Rom 12:1, 2). Identifying with the world’s values is worldliness, which has a
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tendency to blind us to the love of God, for friendship with the world is a form of adultery and enmity
with God (James 4:4). We should only identify with the world as Christ did, by sorrowing over its sins
and playing our part in alleviating the sickness that affects humanity and separates them from the love of
God, as it is written: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
As far as the material world is concerned, submission means learning to submit our whole life to God; our
jobs, earnings, joblessness, children, possessions, our rural hut, two-roomed house or mansion. As we
submit, we must resist the love of the world, the love of the things in the world, the love of money, the
desire to be rich, the lust for the things in the world and the pride of life. The mind of Christ must also
be in us, who, though in the form of God, chose to make Himself of no reputation in this world and
poured scorn on its glory which the children of this world covet so much through the pursuit of
riches, political power, outward and visible honour and fleshly achievements (Phil 2:5-11). If we,
whether rich or poor, choose the same path of no reputation, we too shall reign with Him, as it is written:
“If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will also deny us” (2 Tim 2:12).
Whether one is rich, poor or earns a relatively high salary (as defined by the values of society and
economy), everyone has the same opportunities to manifest the life of Christ in their lives. Both rich and
poor are called to responsibility, faithfulness and to serve the Lord in whatever socio-economic status
they may be. All are called to place themselves under His Lordship in all their acquisition, giving and
spending of money and in the use of their possessions (Matt 6:19-21). A Christian should use money
according to the values of the kingdom, and for the relatively wealthy to recognise that their riches are for
the Master’s use and not a means for self-indulgence (1 Tim 6:17-19).
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10
Work and Grace-The Basis for Provision
He who does not work should not eat (2 Thess 3:10) and this includes many who claim to be in full time
Christian ministry just to receive support from other believers (2 Thess 3:7-9). Their definition of work is
the mere preaching on Sunday and the building of their own little kingdoms. Some are out of employment
because certain kinds of jobs are shameful to them yet it may be God’s will for them. Others are without
because they have not sought the will of God as to their purpose, which, for example, may be as
missionaries. Yet others are lazy from years of inactivity, or because they have decided to make it on their
own in the world and have not actively centred their lives on the kingdom. Thus, God also has left them
to their own desires and to struggle on their own as a form of chastening (1 Tim 6:10; Ps 78:32, 33). Yet
still, others have no jobs or access to resources because the economy is bad and they need the help of
others to access work and resources.
Man was designed to work, to labour, to sow, reap and gather (Matt 6:26, 27). The purpose of work was
pleasurable and only marred by sin. In Christ, we rediscover the purpose of work, which is not to get rich
as the world thinks, but to meet our needs and share with the less fortunate. Unlike those of the
prosperity movement, many who have been truly rich in this world, Christians and non-Christians
alike, did not set out to get rich but to work. Their work then led to increase, and increase led to
riches. Those who set out to be rich in the name of faith will only enrich others (their mediator preachers)
and bring sorrows upon their own lives.
God is the one who gives us the power to work and we are to see ourselves only as servants of the Most
High and not of man or of ourselves (2 Cor 9:8; Eph 6:5-8). We are to respect our employers and not
cheat them in anything. Christian employers are commanded to give their own employees what is just and
fair (Col 3:22, 25).
Our first obligation with our earnings is to our family and not to preachers or to the church (1 Tim 5:8).
We should not be deceived to neglect the needs of our family so as to satisfy pastors’ needs for cash.
From our family comes the poor, especially those among the brethren in our fellowship (Gal 6:10). From
here, we also contribute to the spreading of the true gospel and help those who have given themselves to
preach the gospel and live from it as we are led to give by the Spirit.
We must also be careful in how we earn money because God is interested in the whole matter of its
acquisition and use, for these are crucial in shaping the state of our hearts (Matt 6:21). In many modern
churches, the emphasis is ever on the giving of money to the institution but they do not concern
themselves with how the money is earned nor do they warn Christians about ungodly ways of earning and
using money; evasion of taxes, smuggling, payment of bribes, falsification of documents, participating in
illicit activities, addiction to work and to the making of money, have become as prevalent among
professing Christians as they are among sworn unbelievers. If you are a believer and have been caught up
in some of these things (as I have at certain episodes in my Christian life), you should repent and separate
yourself from all that would taint your walk with God.
Christians, as part of the created human order, have access, like everybody else, to God’s provisions in
nature. He makes His sun to rise on the good and evil, the righteous and the wicked! God does not
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prohibit Christians from using the resources in nature and in economic and educational systems.
However, God’s desire is that they must do so according to His will for them and according to the grace
given them for this life (Rom 12:3, 16). They must not work themselves to be rich at the expense of
serving God (Luke 12:20, 21). They must be wary of the desire to be rich, which is the seed of the love of
money (1 Tim 6:9, 10). They must not look at the riches of the wealthy and feel that they have been
cheated of their right to the same (Rom 12:16; Ps 49:6, 7, 16-19). Their work, the earning of money and
the acquisition of possessions must not be driven by the same unrighteous motives that drive many an
unbeliever. Their efforts, and even of education and training, must not be influenced by the pride of life,
the lust of the flesh and the eyes, by covetousness and evil ambition, but by the will of God (Rom 12:1, 2;
Heb 13:5; 1 John 2:15, 16). Christians will be made to account for their use of all that God has placed at
their disposal. The reward or lack of it will only be manifest at the judgement seat of Christ where all our
works will be tested as through a fire. One’s faithfulness or lack of it in this life will only be judged then
(1 Cor 3:13-15).
God provides for believers through His working in Christ (grace), His calling upon each one’s life and
through the work of our hands (Matt 6:33; Phil 4:19). Man has a responsibility to respond to God’s grace
in faith and faithfulness, by the practice of good stewardship. This is a call to the rich and the poor, the
urban educated middle-class and the rural peasant. This is the theme that runs throughout the Scriptures,
from Adam to Noah, Abraham to David. Man is always responding to what God has initiated. For “who has
first given to Him and it shall be repaid to Him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory
forever. Amen” (Rom 11:35, 36). For example, if a Christian is gifted with special talents, skills, knowledge,
ability or lives in a highly developed society that gives him access to a well remunerated job, work or
business, he or she must then respond, not by paying to appease God, or as giving Him what belongs to
Him by ordinance, but by living in imitation of the character of God. This would involve the practice of
good stewardship in the area of money (correct use of money and being generous as led by God), in
recognition of God’s righteousness, mercy, love, kindness, goodness and much more. Grace is the
complete revelation of God as First and Last. Man is always responding to God’s revelation of Himself in
one’s life.
One’s faithfulness is not synonymous with physical rewards in the present time. In like manner, one’s
unfaithfulness will not necessarily result in punishment or withdrawal of the grace of God. We are saved
by grace alone and in grace we continue, receiving what we did not even ask for or deserve. Man is never
an initiator of God’s mercy, material provision or wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18)! Man’s obligation is
always to respond in faithfulness to God’s revelation of Himself. Even when God tells us to seek first the
kingdom, it is because He has already empowered us in every way necessary. To those who can trust God
enough to forsake the vanity of world’s riches, He assures them that He would never leave them. To the
rich and those with means, to whom He has given the power to make wealth and to all who will give and
share liberally with others and for the sake of the true gospel, God promises to make His grace abound out
of the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus so that they continue in good works (2 Cor 9:8, 10).
When God makes His grace to abound for increased quantities of money in one’s life it is because He
expects the person to whom such grace abounds to use it according to God’s own desires. However, God
does not give the ability to make wealth to many Christians because very few of us are able to use it
wisely without shipwrecking our faith. Worldly riches have a tendency to divert our vision from the
true riches in Christ. Money, even little, has a tendency to compete with God for attention in the lives of
Christians. Is this not the reason why the Lord gives us so many warnings on the dangers of money and
the desire for its continual accumulation? Although many would want the ability to make wealth because
of its carnal benefits, God has not afforded this privilege to many (1 Cor 1:26). The majority of those
chosen in Christ are not the masters over this world or the owners of the means of production. But God
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has prepared something better than the lordship of a fallen and corruptible world. Does not nature teach us
too that riches are for a few? Even these few, if they are without Christ, their riches are the only
inheritance they have! Moreover, the riches of the Christian who obtains and uses them outside God’s
will are equally worthless.
My exhortation to the poor (and the not rich), for whom is the gospel, and for whom is the passionate
pouring forth in this book, is this: do not let the cares of this life nor the covetousness that is in the
material prosperity doctrine distract you from fulfilling God’s purpose in and through your life. Be
content with what God has permitted into your life and in what He continues to provide according to the
riches of His grace. Do not let the natural desire of the flesh to get rich overwhelm you. Do not allow any
prosperity prophet to cheat you of your reward as to bring you into the bondage of the lusts of the flesh.
Do not be lazy, but work with your hands and partake in the furtherance of the name of the Lord through
sharing what you may have, being hospitable and ready for every good work. Strive to discover God’s
will, plans and purpose through your life and focus on the reward that will be revealed in time with the
coming of the Lord. Endeavour to enter through the narrow gate of counting the world’s riches as rubbish
that you may grow in grace and all spiritual understanding. “For our present lack of worldly riches is not worthy
to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us, for our light deficiency is only but a moment, working in us an eternal
weight of glory. For we do not look at the things of this world that are seen and temporary, but at the unseen, which are eternal”
(2 Cor 4:16-18 Italics mine). The negative experiences that impact upon the outward man are the same that
make for the growth of the inner man.
Our deliverance from poverty takes us, not to the treasures of this world, but to the eternal inheritance
kept for us in the heavens. As it is written: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to
his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of
God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if
need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious that gold that
perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to honour, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:3-7).
Amen!
In relation to money, riches and possessions, more than the mere act of asking for these things, God
delights in a spirit of thankfulness, our show and state of gratitude for what He gives us out of His grace.
Unlike unbelievers, true Christians live in constant awareness of God’s continual provision. He is the God
who makes it to rain on the good and the evil. He is the one who gave us gifts to use to earn a living apart
from our faith, even before we knew Him. To some, He has allowed the riches of this world, to Christian
and non-Christian alike. The believer must live in thankfulness and according to what one has in true
generosity. To those that have them, money, possessions and riches become mere instruments in our
service to God. He is able to provide each instrument as we need it. Moreover, many of us already have
these instruments through our work and we must use them in accordance with the values of the kingdom
rather than as a means for self-indulgence. Little or much, we have to learn to use the additions from our
work to be rich towards God. Therefore, asking becomes more the attitude that we have towards life and
in thankfulness than the mere muttering of words to God complaining of those gadgets we do not have.
The Christian must use the earning of a living as a means to support his own service and ministry in
Jesus’ name and not for self-indulgence or for the running after riches. An unsubmitted life, and one
ruled by the covetousness of the desire for continual accumulation is idolatry and a sign of the lack
of spiritual life even though one may pretend to possess such life.
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11
The Sovereignty and Wisdom of God
The sovereignty of God determines our place of birth, our parents, and the circumstances under which
we live out our days under the sun (Acts 17:26; Jer 1:5). He chooses the factors that influence our
upbringing even before we become Christians. Some are born black, African and poor. Others are born
black, American and rich, yet others are born white, European and middle class. Some are born in stable
democracies where they enjoy many opportunities for economic advancement, while corrupt
governments, wars, droughts, famines and new faces of imperial domination, help to keep many Africans
economically and financial powerless all their lifetime. God has not promised economic restructuring
to favour believers (Luke 12:13-15; 21:11). Faith lives in the sovereign will of God and works through it
in the accomplishment of divine purposes (Rom 9:20). His sovereignty means that God does what He
wants and cannot be questioned. His desires overrule whatever else we may desire for ourselves (John
4:34). God makes one rich and another poor (1 Sam 2:7) and allows the wicked to prosper according to
His infinity wisdom (Jer 5:26-29; 12:1, 2). He appears not to care but all the time drawing us to faith in
the invisible (Rom 8:24, 25).
If any Christian or group of Christians enjoys more economic and financial opportunities (in
righteousness) than many others do, it is only a manifestation of God’s sovereign plan at work and not
because they merited it or because they were faithful in giving to some pastor or preacher in the name of
appeasing God and to receive such opportunities. The sovereignty of God determines the opportunities
and circumstances that come into our life. Our faith will determine what we choose to do with them (Heb
11:24, 25). How one uses the sovereign opportunities made available to them is what counts with God. A
man of faith will submit the working out of opportunities and circumstances to God, while those of little
faith will see them as a means for self-indulgence and self-enrichment.
God does not use the value system of the world, and we should be careful not to miss His ways by
conforming to worldly definitions of prosperity, success or beauty. The wisdom of God is in foolish
things, in things that the world despises and in the poor who are not esteemed in the world’s eyes (1 Cor
1:26-29). We do not need to be rich to witness to rich people as some falsely claim. If this were the case,
Christ would have come as the king whom the Jews desired, mighty and powerful in the flesh! Moreover,
even with little resources, the poor can achieve a lot if there is unity of purpose (Acts 4:32; 2 Cor 8:1-7).
Live the life that God intends for you and do not be distracted or deceived by the so-called prosperity
gospel. Christians must not have a faith as to imitate the lifestyles of the rich nor must Africans compare
their lives with those of western Christians where, for example, the possession of a car may not be a
luxury but a necessity. For most of the Christian poor in Africa, a car is something we see others driving
or in which we sit twenty people at a time. Remember, not many mighty, not many wise, not many
strong, not many noble are called. God has chosen the things that are not so that no flesh should glory in
His presence. “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God- and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption- that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:26-30). Let not your
righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, redemption and sufficiency be in material things or legalism of
obedience of works and righteousness from the law of tithes taught as the basis of favour with God. In
Christ, you are complete, whether rich or poor or whatever you are, you are complete in Him and have
complete access to God’s grace (Col 2:10).
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The Case for Christian Economic Interdependence
In the place of teaching the unachievable bad news of material wealth for everyone in this present age,
enriching church leaders at the expense of the flock and concentrating on the religion of Babel of “let us
build and make a name for ourselves” and the obedience of Sunday works (“impression management”),
Christians and Christian ministries should instead seek the revelation of the Spirit on how to imitate the
earliest churches in their unity of purpose in serving each other through material and financial possessions
(Acts 2:44, 45; 2 Cor 8:1, 2). Would the gospel not gain more from such endeavours? Would the name of
the Lord not be glorified when the saints begin to actively love one another through the economic
empowerment of the powerless among them and for ministry by all believers (2 Cor 9:12)? Should we
reject such a concept in favour of enriching a few wolves in sheep’s clothing masquerading as pastors,
prophets and healers? Should we abdicate Christians’ economic responsibility to each other and for
corporate service, in favour of the religion of Babel and its accompanying consequences of
obedience of works, the building of man’s kingdoms in the name of church and the glorification of
lifeless things? Would we rather work for self-centred lives characteristic of the modern generation of
“each one for himself and God for us all” than manifest genuine and active love for one another?
Modern preachers and pastors are not prepared for their congregations to help each other purposefully as
this would divert money from them and from their petty programs. The problem of lack of jobs and
economic opportunities among many African Christians has been relegated to a mere ‘spiritual’ problem
that needs to be prayed away than a practical one which needs the sharing of resources and opportunities.
It is the syndrome of “be warm and be filled” without doing anything practical about it. But this I say; if
believers and the poor in church fellowships are important in the giving of money, they are also important
in benefiting from it. Christians working in unity of purpose and under the direction of the Spirit of God
can achieve a lot more in channeling the world’s resources for use in the kingdom than as individuals and
in competition striving for the fulfilment of false desires for riches in the name of blessedness. We need
more practical love in creating work and economic opportunities among Christians than we need
so-called spiritual warfare of binding the devil as to be delivered from economic problems. How can
someone claim to be rich when he uses his riches or a large part of them only for himself? He is only rich
unto self. On the other hand, love is the fulfilment of all the work that we may do in the Lord as we bear
each others’ burdens and look out, not each for his own interests only, but also for the interests of others
(Gal 6:2; Phil 2:3, 4).The true spiritual warfare that must be fought by Christians is the manifestation of
true and practical love that promotes economic interdependence.
It is in the area of love that the devil has had most success against the people of God. Instead of practical
love for one another, he has managed to turn our attentions to the servicing of lifeless things in the name
of serving the church while the true church, the people of God, remain neglected in the ministry of the
things of this world. Wolves in sheep’s clothing have taken advantage of people’s ignorance as they
enrich themselves as custodians of the programs and rituals of churches made with human hands. Many
are deceived. The devil does not want Christians to know that the true weapons of our spiritual warfare
are not verbal fights against him, but are love for one another and separation from the love of the world
and the things in the world.
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After praying to God to provide people with jobs and economic opportunities, Christians should realise
that it is they themselves who have the mandate of being the channel of God’s providence. Moreover,
more than praying for God to bless people, we need instead to pray that our love grows more and more in
knowledge and all discernment so that we are able to be truly used of God to serve one another and to
create work for one another by faith working through love. Believers are the body of Christ, His arms and
legs to do His work on the earth. Many times we ask God to provide for things on behalf of others what
He expects us as Christians to provide for each other. We have been deceived to love buildings, musical
instruments and other lifeless things while the needy in our midst are merely prayed for. Why should the
finances we spend on these lifeless things take priority over alleviating socio-economic difficulties among
Christians in creating workable solutions towards fruitful employment?
I am assured in the Spirit of God that Christians coming together for each other’s welfare are bound to do
more in the world for the promotion of the gospel than as individuals fighting the world for selfenrichment. Christians need to share resources, opportunities and promote each other’s businesses for an
increasing life of interdependence that promotes jobs among themselves. For the truth is that if we put
our faith in a kind of material triumphalism for self in the name of Christ and as advocated by the
so-called prosperity gospel, we will sooner or latter be proven wrong. This false gospel only works
for those who live by other people’s sacrifices and who cannot prove the truth of this heresy in their own
lives apart from the Mammon they have accumulated as preachers. These are the same people who are not
accountable to their congregations for the money they receive in the name of the church. They may
deceive the gullible with their luxury cars and mansions as proof their so-called prosperity but the true
worshippers of God know that carnal and earthly glory profits nothing!
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The Call to the Rich
To expose the material prosperity heresy is not to deny that there are Christians who are financially rich,
neither is it to denigrate their riches and see them as evil. We are to recognise that God has called some
rich into the kingdom and given the ability to make wealth or earn relatively high incomes to others as
part of His purpose. But we are also to be aware that only a few are called in this way and certainly not all
of us have been called to aspire to the same as this false teaching leads people to believe. For not many
noble, might or rich according to the standards of the world are called into the kingdom (1 Cor 1:26). To
the few, it is not by their ability or faithfulness but it is of God who calls for His own purpose (Rom 9:16,
17). To those already in Christ, riches or high incomes are only as worthy as they are acquired by
His grace and righteousness and shared and used for good works.
The Word of God exhorts the rich and those with relatively high incomes (within a particular society), not
to put their trust in uncertain riches but in God who always richly gives us all what we need for our
enjoyment (1 Tim 6:16, 17). God is the source of everything that comes out of honest and righteous
labour and business.
The rich and the well-off are to see their position in the gospel as it as been delivered to the poor and seek
to identify themselves with them (2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:5-7). Such identification would mean sharing their
incomes and wealth with the needy, knowing that they are only stewards (managers) of what they possess.
They should seek to share their goods and incomes with others and not live merely for self. Their
generosity should not just be in token handouts, giving in small measures out of their abundance, but they
should learn to let others benefit from their privileged positions even as they themselves benefit from the
same, to love their neighbour as themselves. As with every aspect of the Christian life, this too must be
led by the Spirit so that their generosity touches those intended by God. The rich and those of means must
have the faith and discernment and learn to minister to the needy and for the true gospel on their own or
under their direct supervision. They should not give up their responsibility by merely giving through
greedy preachers and the kingdoms of men of service to lifeless things, rituals, ceremonies and the
promotion of false doctrines and practices and the exaltation of the images of mere men.
God does not call the rich to give to maintain their riches or to be richer still. Rather, to some, He calls to
forsake all and follow their Lord in dedicated service. To others, the call is to share liberally, to be
generous, not to trust in uncertain riches, but to be rich in good works. The rich must learn to come to a
point of no reputation in their riches, a place of not using their wealth for self-indulgence but for
the sake of others in Jesus’ name. The glory of this world is passing away and the glory of the rich or
the ‘well-off’ will not go after them. Only what has been used for the benefit of others in Christ’s name
and according to His will and values will bring an eternal weight of glory.
Given that riches are uncertain (1 Tim 6:17) and that they tend to choke the word through cares (Matt
13:22; Mark 4:19), and can never be a measure of the life of Christ in us (Luke 12:15), it is obvious that
God would never ordain a faith for their continual accumulation. We must also be clear that a Christian
can get rich outside the will of the Lord according to his own carnal desires. In fact, this is exactly one of
the things the heresy of prosperity is attempting to justify and remove the guilt of disobedience. It is also
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an attempt to deceive the rich to glory in their riches and self-indulgence rather than seeing their riches as
a stewardship to be used for God’s own glory.
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III
False Foundations of the Prosperity Gospel
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Theological Immaturity and Apostasy
The careful reader of the Scriptures would easily detect, sooner rather than later, the great
warnings
against devil inspired false doctrines and heresies (deviations from Scripture) leading to a turning away
from the truth. This apostasy (mass deception) reveals itself in the promotion of a love of the world and of
the things in the world in the church and a moving and falling away from the basic principles of grace and
life in the Spirit. It is even backed by signs and wonders to deceive many (2 Thess 2:9, 10). It is also
manifest in a lack of understanding of the believer’s new life in Christ as many attempt to claim the
promises of the Law of Moses without keeping the law itself. They would interpret Scriptures from the
Old Testament in isolation from the context of the prosperity, wealth, blessings and greatness that the
believer has in Christ Jesus alone and apart from the prosperity, wealth, blessing and greatness of the
world.
The Lord Jesus has already warned us that “many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. For false christs and
false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matt 24:11, 24). Peter
foretold of false teachers among the believers, “who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord
who bought them (as they worship at the altar of Mammon and give us a false christ of worldly glory
through riches), and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom
the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgement
has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness (wealth,
health and happiness, covenant right, divine financial favour e.t.c), they allure through the lusts of the flesh
(playing to people’s carnal desires), through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.
While they promise liberty (of the illusion of riches), they themselves are slaves of corruption (enriching themselves at
the expense of the poor and gullible), for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if
after they have escaped the pollutions of the world (including the carnal desire for riches), through the knowledge of the
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the
beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness (if ever they knew it!), than
having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true
proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit, and a sow (pig), having washed, to her wallowing in the mire” (2 Pet 2:1-3, 18-22
italics mine). We only ignore these warnings at our own spiritual peril! For the spirit of the lawless one is
already at work in our midst and many are being deceived as they seek fleshly, earthly and sensual
deliverance.
One of Satan’s strongest weapons against the church has been to mix truth and error and coming
as an angel of light, a light of worldly success and legal righteousness as to distort the practice of the
Christian life through doctrines which are inherently of the antichrist. With the availability of
technologies of mass communication, it has become so much easier and greatly increased the danger of
popular heresies spreading rapidly. Television preachers and popular American authors are in the
forefront of spreading questionable doctrines such as that of faith for the love of money. In the process,
they misrepresent the image of the Lord Jesus and of His mission, swaying many African preachers and
multitudes to their falsehood.
It has never been more critical than the present time, to walk in all discernment, to be on the watch for
apostasy and defend the true faith against falsehoods openly paraded as the good news of Jesus Christ but
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that are designed to deceitfully bait us to measure the success of the gospel of Christ in our lives through
financial and human worldly terms. One of the greatest needs of our generation is the battle against such
false doctrines and cunningly formulated stories and false foundations upon which many Christians are
being deceived to build their desires and prayers. These fables are shutting off Christ from being revealed
in the lives of many. Paul warned his disciple, Timothy, that “the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they
will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Tim 4:3, 4).We are living in such a time!
False foundations arise out of ignorance and immaturity among many in the knowledge and
understanding of the meaning of the most basic concepts of the Covenant of Jesus Christ and of our
relationship to the present world. They are built on private interpretation of Scripture to make it agree to
predetermined teachings. Unless there is an aggressive fight against the twisting of Scripture in the
promotion of popular falsehoods, it is not possible to build upon the true foundation that is Jesus
and be able to serve Him wholeheartedly (1 Cor 3:10, 11; Gal 1:6-8; Rev 3:17).
The problem with our generation is that many who claim to be Christians will only hear according to their
carnal desires. Many more live in the sin of laziness of not taking time to study the contents of the Will of
Jesus Christ. They will not accept the clear testimony of Scripture and God’s perfect, complete and final
revelation in Christ. They have come to believe a lie, deceiving and being deceived. This is worsened by
the fact that the gospel is being driven by an elitist group of people claiming to be educated (even in
Greek) but using the gospel to mirror their worldly dreams as they attempt to use the church and the
gospel as a platform for worldly glory and carnal influence. Paul described them as “men of corrupt minds and
destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself” (1 Tim 6:5). Their
followers are like the children of Israel who refused to be taught of God but would rather depend on men.
Many will accept almost anything without judging it as long as it is delivered from the pulpit and by their
pastor or prophet or whoever it is that has authority over them.
It is the Lord’s will that we all come to the knowledge of the truth and protect ourselves from the heresy
that would trap us into defining our faith through the world’s values, symbols of success and conceptions
of blessedness. The term “prosperity gospel” should raise an alarm among the elect of God as the term
itself shows that it is not the gospel of Christ but is another gospel of the world and of the things in the
world. The mystery of Christ is the revelation of Christ Himself as the good news to man and there
is no other good news, worse still, that of present worldly riches as a covenant right. The world
offers many enticing prospects in worldly achievements, outward and visible success and in the glory of
human technological advancement, but the message of the Cross is the only good news revealed in the
person and work of Christ. The Cross of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing as they hold on
to the mirage and falsehood of the gospel of worldly achievements. But to us who are being saved, though
we may be poor in the things of this world, it is the power of God for salvation. The so-called prosperity
doctrine only flourishes as much as it can appeal to those whose desires are set on things that are good for
their fleshly appetites, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise and prosperous (Gen 3:1-6).
It is only when we have a proper and biblical perspective as regards the world; have a correct New
Testament understanding of money matters; only then can we find true fulfilment in Christ and walk
according to the inner man who has been recreated in His likeness in true holiness and righteousness.
Only when we are able to see the vanity of chasing after riches and the arrogance of faith for worldly
success through financial wealth, only then can we be ready to seek first the purposes, will, plans and
mind of God and to be content with such things we may have from our labours.
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15
Age-Old Deception of Faith for Riches
Long have we been warned that many will come, who, “by covetousness, they will exploit you with deceptive
words, for a long time their judgement has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber”
(2 Pet 2:3). The so-called
prosperity gospel is not a new teaching or ‘revelation’ in the church but is an age-old deception. Those
who have studied history tell us that it is dotted with instances of men and movements who have
promised utopian possibilities in this present age through the exercise of faith and the use of God’s
power, a faith for unrighteous Mammon. The Israelites in Jesus’ time awaited a messiah who would
deliver them from Roman oppression by God’s power. They wanted a saviour who would usher in a time
of worldly glory and dominion for the chosen nation (John 6:15; Acts 1:6). They were disappointed when
the Lord Jesus could not meet their expectations but instead called them to a kingdom of the heart (Luke
17:20, 21; John 6:27, 32, 33, 35, 53-58; 18:36). For this reason, they supported His crucifixion. They
lacked an understanding of His ministry for the present age, in the same way that the modern prosperity
movement is equally ignorant.
In the apostle Paul’s time, they had already begun to contend in the new church with those who thought
that faith was a passport to financial riches. Paul’s exhortation to Timothy was to turn away from such (1
Tim 6:3-5). Peter spoke of false prophets trained in covetousness and speaking great swelling words of
emptiness to appeal through the lusts of the flesh (2 Pet 2:18). They are people who would want to use
the church to make money and would tell you it is your right as well, if you have the faith. It is an age-old
philosophy that is only resurfacing with greater intensity in these last times. This human philosophy is
finding eager and itching ears in a modern world swamped by the gods of materialism and financial
symbols of success and wealth, and where the worship of Mammon has the approval of Christianity,
albeit a distorted one.
The mind of these prosperity preachers can be summarised in the following words of one Charles
Fillmore, an American prosperity ‘preacher’ in the early 20th century whom I quote from Kevin Logan.
He is quoted to have written; “the Lord is my banker, my credit is good. He gives me the key to His
strong box. He restores my faith in His riches; He guides me in the paths of financial prosperity for His
name’s sake” (Joshua: Power to Win: Kevin Logan, Kingsway Publications, 6 March 1998). All over the
world, the prosperity prophets, in one form or the other, repeat these words daily to claim them as a
promise of the abundant life. However, is this what God was promising to those who choose to follow
Him? And as Kevin Logan asks, “does God want to tempt us to be centred on self and a preoccupation
with the riches of this earth?”
The devil has blinded the prosperity movement to the great inheritance they have in Christ by selling
them a faith for present material and financial wealth. The serpent has managed to make even Christians
desire to live by bread alone (Matt 4:4; John 6:27) and to blind them to the hope to which they have been
called. He has tricked them into a hope in things that are seen, which is not hope at all, and in false faith
(Rom 8:24). They are always deceived with flashy slogans and mottos splashed on posters and
television screens calling them to their version of the good news of worldly achievements and
deliverance from all economic and financial problems. They use catch-phrases like “it’s your destiny,
your season for greatness, appointed time to shine, your year of financial deliverance, claim your
blessing,” and such like to lure people into the desire for fleshly glory. They make bold, but false
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declarations of one’s ascendancy to Mt Mammon. They zealously court people to their falsehood so as to
fleece them.
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The Foundation of the Antichrist
From the earliest times of human history even as far back as the Garden of Eden, Satan’s intention has
always been to distort man’s relationship with the creator. He has done this by placing man’s will and
desires above God’s. The enemy of our souls has always worked to direct the will of man to seek his own
glory in the earth and independence from God. Satan’s preoccupation has also been to build the lie that
man can find fulfilment and completeness through the glory of a fallen and corrupted world. The Lord
Jesus was not spared the tricks of the devil as He was tempted to seek His own earthly glory and use
God’s power for His own carnal benefit and advance Himself in the world. The Lord was able to resist
these temptations for He was submissive to God’s will and did not seek His own desires (Matt 4:1-11;
John 4:34).
Having examined the financial prosperity teaching over a period of twelve years, I have come to the
conclusion and conviction that its whole foundation is built on the distortion and the turning upside down
of the whole of the apostles’ revelations on the meaning of the true gospel. Those of the prosperity
movement have formulated their own meanings in regard to the basic concepts of the gospel such as
Christian faith, love, hope, life, abundance, blessedness, among many others and defining these with the
single focus on the promotion of the desire for worldly glory falsely taught in the name of Christ as the
financial wealth gospel. In fact, almost all their declarations contest the revelation of the gospel in its
explanation of these basic fundamentals of the Last Will and Testament of Christ. It is as if they have
their own Scriptures apart from the revelations of the Holy Spirit through the apostles of the Lord. Worse
still, they have given us a falsechrist who stands as a high priest and mediator of a covenant of the glory
of the corruptible riches of this present fallen world and making Christians co-heirs to this antichrist
whom they have made heir of the wealth of this present age. They would teach us that abundance of
money and possessions are an extension of the glory of God, an expression of His righteousness and
a reflection of His image!
In essence, the prophets of the prosperity movement are calling believers to serve both God and their
desires for present worldly riches and in the process distorting the very faith they claim to be upholding.
By turning people’s attentions to chasing after financial riches in the name of faith and blessedness, Satan
is succeeding in distorting the very foundations of the Christian faith and of the gospel as he draws
affections and desires to the realm of the fleshly, sensual and earthly. While promising liberty to the naive
through the appeal of the carnal benefits that come from financial wealth, many have become slaves of
corruption, greed and covetousness but without feeling guilty about it because these sins are now
conveniently dressed in ‘biblical’ language and as Christian qualities and as long as you give financial
gifts and pay your tithes and offerings to the priests of prosperity. The working of the spirit of the
antichrist in our midst must not be taken lightly, especially through teachings that would call our
attentions and influence our desires towards the glory of this present world.
The love of riches can be noted in many who may claim to be Christians but whose desires, prayers,
fastings and sermons only reflect a desire, not to be used of God, but to use Him to advance them in this
world. They want the success symbols of the world while using Christianity merely as an added value
spiritual experience. They have deliverance ministries for people that are said to be bound by spirits
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of poverty but we never see similar deliverance ministries for people (and for the prophets of
wealth) bound by spirits of the unquenchable desire for wealth and the love of riches!
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17
False and Private Interpretations of Scripture
The prosperity movement has been built on the selective use and the private interpretation of certain
Scriptures and biblical events and to read into them the desire for worldly glory. Every Scripture that
speaks of prosperity, blessing and God’s goodness, is twisted so that we can read financial wealth into it.
They have not learned, nor has it been taught them, to interpret every Scripture from the context of the
person and work of Christ and the promises of God made in Him for this age and that which is to come.
Let’s examine a few examples:
Mathew 6:33 is falsely interpreted to deceive believers to ‘seek first’ the kingdom through tithes and
offerings and to believe that whatever else they may seek and desire, God would give it to them as the
additions. However, and in the light of the whole counsel of God and of His revelation in Christ, it is a
false interpretation that God should reward us for seeking first and for the giving away of money with the
very riches which He considers detrimental to our spiritual well-being (Matt 13:22). Many professing
Christians take the Scripture of Matthew 6: 33 away from its immediate context and from the perspective
of the whole counsel of God. They have shut their ears to the many warnings in the gospel as touching the
danger of the desire for riches and the corrupting influence of riches themselves. They are deceived into
equating the seeking first of God’s kingdom with the payment of tithes and the making of other financial
contributions to the ‘church,’ and taught to expect riches as “these things shall be added.” They have built
their own righteousness and covenant of works for nowhere does Scripture say that seeking the kingdom
can be equated with tithing. “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For
they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the
righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom 10:2-4). However,
seeking the kingdom is defined as making God king of one’s life, letting his will reign supreme and
to always trust Him for our needs. Since it is naturally expected for man to work, it stands to reason
that the additions are the fruits (earnings) that abound from our labours. Unbelievers use work as the sole
purpose for which they live and are consumed by the cares thereof, but the Lord’s call to believers is that
they centre their lives on the will of God and not to think that He will deprive them of the additions from
their work or other source if it is His will.
Third John 2 which reads “that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers,” is
misinterpreted by some as “that you may get financially rich even as your soul prospers.” Such private
interpretation is all too common among those who will make the Scriptures say what they want. They
ignore that it was the same John who wrote against the love of the world and the things in the world (1
John 2:15-17). In his opening greeting, John merely desired that things would go well with his friend and
that he be both in physical and spiritual health. He was neither laying a foundation of faith for materialism
as falsely interpreted nor was it a divine promise but the courteous greetings and wish of one man to
another. The prosperity desired by John for his friend can be lived by anyone regardless of their socioeconomic status. It can also be experienced in any occupation apart from one’s net worth in monetary
terms. Such prosperity means to be fruitful in one’s life or work but not necessarily to be rich. It is the
same as when the apostle Paul prayed for the Colossians and asked God that they might be fruitful in
every good work and increase in the knowledge of God (Col 1:10). This is the same prosperity John
desired on behalf of the one he was writing to. The Bible is its own dictionary and we should not presume
to make up our own interpretations as the crowd of the false gospel of Mammon is in the habit of doing.
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The prosperity prophets define abundant life as one filled with all the material things of one’s desire as
they falsely identify the riches of the New Covenant to encompass the perishable wealth of this present
age. They teach the abundant life of John 10:10 as the world defines abundance, claiming that the thief
comes to kill, steal and destroy your faith for, and covenant right to a more luxurious life, full of new
model cars, mansions and holidays in exotic places. They do not perceive that it is the devil that comes
to steal their hearts from God’s riches and concentrate them on the treasures of this world.
They claim riches on the basis that “the blessing of the Lord makes rich and adds no sorrow with it,”
using this Scripture to justify desires for carnal wealth as if they are not rich already through the blessing
of Christ. They teach the poor that Jesus became poor (2 Cor 8:9) so that they may become rich as
American dollar millionaires in this present age, deceiving them that by Christ Jesus they have gained
access into the rich of the riches of this world with boldness and confidence. They equate God’s riches
and glory in Christ with the corruptible wealth of this present age! They are totally blind to the
indescribable, imperishable, infinite and eternal riches of God that we have received by the sacrifice of
Jesus the Lord and through His Holy Spirit.
They wrongly and falsely claim earthly riches as part of the promise of the Lord to give a hundred fold of
things to those who have left everything to follow Him (Matt 19:29). They do not understand this promise
with the focus of the rewards to come in glory and as correctly interpreted by the New King James and
New International Versions of the Scriptures. Moreover, how many of these people can claim to have left
all to follow Jesus? And do they expect the addition of husbands and wives in this age in their desire to
attach a literal meaning to this Scripture?
Some claim that, since Christ has suffered, the poor must be able to ‘believe’ God for western style
materialism and aspire to the American dream veiled in Christianity and a worldly definition of
prosperity. Others teach that every Christian should expect the Lord Jesus to send them their own wise
men who would bring them gold as was the case at the time of the Lord’s birth in the flesh (Matt 2:1, 2,
11). Why then do we not receive such wise men laden with gold at the beginning of our Christian
experience if we are to follow the logic of their argument?
People are also trained in covetousness to desire worldly financial dominion on the deception that the
Lord Himself, in the days of His flesh, was very rich in the things of this world. They claim that, because
He had a money box and a ‘treasurer’ over it, and because the soldiers fought over His robes at His
crucifixion (John 12:6; 19:23, 24), they conclude, and without any scriptural basis, that He was very rich
in the days of His flesh. They deceptively claim that only a rich man would need someone to oversee the
money box and only over the expensive robe of a rich man would the soldiers have fought. Christ
dishonouring false prophets will twist every Scripture to conform to their carnal desires rather than accept
the whole counsel of God in as far as our relationship to this present world is concerned. They would
measure the riches of the Creator by a money box, a treasurer and a robe, such low standards which even
the world does not use as a measurement of riches! Private interpretation of Scripture is a trademark of
false teachers. Moreover, the interpretation that Christ was materially rich conflicts directly with the other
favourite Scripture of the prosperity movement that He became poor so that we may be rich. We have
already analysed this Scripture in this chapter.
One of the favourite pastimes of the prosperity movement is to declare riches as a covenant right based on
the lives of Old Testament characters like Solomon whom they use as examples for us to follow in
imitation of the visible glory of material wealth in their lives. They define blessing and prosperity from a
purely Hebrew understanding and not from the completeness of what Christ has done for us. They are
ignorant of the glory that far surpasses anything and everything that men like Joseph, Abraham or
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Solomon ever owned in this life. If in time past, God spoke to Israel through the carnal exaltation of
certain men, He has, in these last days, spoken to us only by His Son whom He has also appointed
heir of all things (Heb 1:1-4). We await the realisation of our hope as inheritors of all things through
Christ.
Closely connected to the doctrine of prosperity is the prevalent false belief of the building of human altars
after the example of Old Testament saints. Christians are encouraged to build their own altars, whether
personal or at church level where their sacrifices and offerings are said to bring the presence of God. The
problem with this teaching is that is conflicts directly with the one, true and only altar which the Lord
Jesus built and on which He offered Himself, once and for all, as the final sacrifice and offering for God’s
continuous presence and blessing in the lives of believers. Christians have access to the working of God’s
grace, not based on their own ill defined altars of raised platforms, church buildings and services or of the
giving of money to their denominations, but through the veil of the body of Christ sacrificed on the altar
of the Cross. The only portal or gate of heaven is the body of Christ Himself and of which we partake by
faith through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
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18
False Conceptions of Sowing and Reaping
The ministers of worldly prosperity love to tell us that as long as the earth remains (Gen 8:22), it is
within our power in the Spirit to reap the treasures of this lustful world. They tell us that we can reap by
making payments to God and buying the anointing of financial blessings in the name of giving to God.
The gullible are deceived to give up their properties and to believe that God would replace them with
abundance of other properties by appeals made to the lusts of the flesh, plunging them into misery! “For
when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who
have actually escaped from those who live in error” (2 Pet 2:18). They play to people’s natural carnal desires to
trick them into ‘exchanging’ their valuables in the name of sowing (into their kingdoms of course)
to obtain multiplier effects. It truly sorrows one’s heart to see those who would so ignorantly accept
such foolishness.
Every Scripture possible that relates to sowing and reaping is twisted as to distort people’s affections and
draw them to the love of money dressed in Christian language. Their version of the New Covenant is to
encourage people to ‘sow’ or put ‘seed’ of their money, cars, houses and even cell-phones into the
‘kingdom of God’ (under their administration that is) in the name of putting into practice ‘biblical
principles of abundance.’ They speak of people’s properties and money as a ‘precious seed’ that will
make God give them their ‘financial miracle.’ In the name of creating wealth for oneself, or getting a job,
gaining promotion at work, or seeing success in one’s business, people are falsely taught that they can
make it happen only if they put money into the care of their pastor, prophet, apostle or other such lords
with self-arrogated titles in the name of serving God. The uninstructed are even tricked to ‘seed’ money in
the name of securing the future financial glory of their children! I have yet to read from the Scriptures of
such miracles of worldly glory or of such promises made under the New Covenant of the blood of Jesus.
There are many stories told, across the African continent, of people whose lives have been ruined, and
their faith shipwrecked by such falsehoods. God is not going to honour promises that He has not made.
We can twist the Scriptures all we like but it will not make this false doctrine come true. “And for this reason
God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they may all be condemned who did not believe the
truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess 2:11, 12).
Christians must deliver themselves from the popular, but false belief, that financial well-being and
riches come through the giving of money to preachers or for the construction of buildings, buying
of cars for pastors or for the fulfilment of church programs. Generosity in Christ (which is meant
mostly for the poor) as well as for the sake of spreading the gospel and supporting those who have given
themselves to fully serve in it, must be founded on what God has done for us in Christ and on who we are
in Him as stewards (managers) of His grace. If we desire the riches of this world we should look to the
world and battle it out with the rest of those who are seeking after the illusion of fulfilment through
worldly treasures.
Christians must know that the ‘principles’ of sowing and reaping, even when used in the context of one’s
generosity, are not a foundation for worldly prosperity nor are they meant to be an exchange for God’s
goodness to care for us. In the context of the life of Christ in us, reaping, for those who sow generously
towards the poor, simply means that God will continue to manifest Himself in their lives so that the
generous may continue to have increased opportunities for giving and increasing the fruits of their
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righteousness (2 Cor 9:8-12). The faithful who continually sow into the lives of the poor, the widow and
the orphan are able to be used continually by God in money matters because they show that they are able
to handle money without distraction. They do not see it as a means of self-enrichment but for the Master’s
use and according to the values of the kingdom. In the process, God also allows them the opportunity to
partake of the outward benefits of money, for the farmer is the first to partake of the crop (2 Tim 2:6). The
Lord will continue to enable them in their work so that they continue sowing into the lives of others and
eventually reap unto eternal rewards.
I am convinced that God does not avail abundance of financial resources to many Christians to use them
as channels for generosity because the majority would just hoard for selfish consumption and selfenrichment in the name of the prosperity gospel. Well did James speak of such people saying: “You ask and
do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3). Most of us are like the
shepherd who bottles his master’s milk to sell for his own benefit. Moreover, many people’s idea of
sowing is with the motive of receiving a financial windfall from God rather than as the revelation of the
life of Christ in them. Their knowledge of generosity is guided only by the church leader’s desire for
money, teachings of legal righteousness (giving by law) and the obedience of works of allegiance to the
programs of physical temples of men. They esteem the giving of money to lifeless things of buildings,
musical instruments and the adornment of their physical temples as more important, forgetting that God
does not live in temples of brick and cement but in people.
When we look at those who sold their properties in acts of generosity towards the poor in the first church
at Jerusalem (Acts 4:32, 34), we see that they did not exercise charity to gain greater financial favours
from God, neither was such an expectation taught them. We must not take such Scriptures as “give and it
shall be given back to you” out of their context and in isolation from the whole counsel of God on money,
riches and possessions. The first thing to note about this particular Scripture in Luke’s gospel is that it
was made in the context of how the way we treat others will have an effect of bouncing back to us,
positively or negatively. It was neither a foundational promise for worldly riches as is popularly taught
nor was the Lord’s statement made in relation to the giving of money (Luke 6:37-42). Ironically, the
Lord’s word in relation to generosity with things was to give without expecting anything back (Luke
6:35)!
One of the greatest errors in the preaching of the Word of God in our time is the error of the
Pharisees of using the Scriptures and viewing their relationship with God as a series of laws to be
kept, a set of rules to be followed and religious (they call them biblical) principles to be applied and
not as the life of Christ to be lived in our mortal flesh. We diligently search the Scriptures to keep laws
and rules and apply principles and think by them we have life, blessing and prosperity but it is they that
speak of Christ and we do not allow Him to live His life in us (John 5:39, 40; Gal 2:19, 20). Instead of
seeing Him as Lord and Saviour to be followed in the leading of the Spirit, we have reduced Christ to a
series of commandments to obey thus making Christianity no different from the world’s religions. On the
other hand, Christians should know that the commandments of Christ are not laws, rules and regulations
or even principles. They are a revelation of what the life of Christ is and is not as to help us walk in His
perfect image. There are no principles of sowing and reaping as such, but rather, the whole Christian life
is a life of being sown into the ground in all things, being continuously delivered to death for Jesus’ sake,
that the life of Jesus also may be manifested (reaped) in our mortal flesh unto eternal life (2 Cor 4:10, 11).
Paul never taught on applying biblical principles but for people to walk in Christ according to the
revelation of His righteousness as inspired by His Spirit.
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19
Superstition and Extra Biblical Beliefs
There has arisen, within the prosperity movement, many strange doctrines based on beliefs borrowed
from the world, Eastern religions, the New Age Movement and from the cults of Mind Science to lend
support to the falsehood of faith for present worldly glory through financial wealth. These beliefs have
been introduced with such cunning and with the use of biblical Scriptures that many have easily accepted
their lies. Here, we will consider a few of these teachings.
From the cult of Mind Science, the prophets of Mammon have adopted the concepts of the teachings of
positivism and the manipulation of the mind over matter. The mind is conceived as a powerful tool that if
properly harnessed, will bring about our desires and control over matter. They teach that the continuous
speaking (or confession) of our carnal desires will bring about their fulfilment in response to the
manipulation of the mind. But this I ask, can we really have whatever we want by just speaking it in
accordance with a ‘positive’ mind? Let the prosperity prophets say “space ship” and allow us to test what
they teach. The belief of Mind Science as taught in prosperity circles attempts at giving man the
power to change things as the author and finisher of his own destiny through what he thinks,
confesses, claims and follows as a formula for the manipulation of divine power and sovereignty.
Faith in the heart based on inner insight, revelation and the leading of the Spirit are regarded as not
sufficient. Blessedness becomes a matter of human effort and knowledge of the right words and excluding
from such blessedness people who are mute or are not well versed in the letter of the Word. Sickness or
lack of money are said only to exist as a state of our minds and not real. They major in the demonisation
of human problems common to all men and from which the Scriptures teach us that we are not immune (1
Cor 10:13). The New Age and Transcendental cults have truly invaded the Christian church! They are
ignorant that the confession of faith is not the continuous muttering of words, but the steadfastness of
faith in the heart that comes by the renewal of the mind and not its manipulation as a formula for God’s
work in our lives. Christianity is not a formula or a magical principle to be used for divine intervention.
True confession of faith is to be “strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in
our hearts through faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
width and length, and depth and height- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that we may be filled with all the
fullness of God.” (Eph 3:16-19).
Some teach that there are certain times of the day when God gives “blessings” to those He “finds
praying” at such times. They claim that there are gates in heaven that are opened at specific times, and if
you ‘miss’ them it means the ruin of your day! Others are in the habit of sending so-called Bible based
‘good luck’ messages to each other through the internet and mobile phones. These messages are said
to bring blessings if you read them or pass them on, and ‘bad luck’ if you don’t. Such is the silliness of
those who will go to any length to support their greed and belief that they can manipulate God for their
own purposes and using Scripture as a good luck charm.
Some of the prosperity false prophets command their people to put on special ‘protective’ vests against
evil spirits while others are told to carry around little towels of ‘blessings,’ which they use to ‘swipe’
other people’s properties as part of claiming the world’s wealth for themselves. They have incorporated
superstitious beliefs and pseudo magic as part of the Christian faith and they must be exposed. The irony
of it all is that Paul’s use of the handkerchiefs and aprons in the event recorded for us in the Scriptures
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(Acts 19:11, 12), and from which they cite as an example to follow, was to glorify God through miracles
rather than as an act to obtain material things. Moreover, Paul neither used the towel as a formula for
healing, nor worse still, as a magic instrument for financial abundance. He clearly showed the necessity of
physical work to meet our needs and those of others (Acts 20:34, 35; 1 Thess 2:9; 2 Thess 3:7, 8).
We also find, within the movement of faith for earthly glory, the so-called dominion theology, a
favourite of many a prosperity preacher. This strange teaching is used to claim God’s approval for some
people’s carnal desire to dominate the world. They declare that God wants Christians to be the dominant
force in world affairs, from politics, economics, social and even recreational spheres of life. The
prosperity movement falsely interprets God’s promise to Adam to read into it a dominion of world affairs
by the bride of Christ in this present age. They fail to see that the children of Adam have dominated and
subdued the earth for thousands of years and have even gone as far as destroying it through excessive
exploitation and greed. They claim that God has decreed, by Christ, that none should be poor but
that all should come to the possession of this world’s perishable riches. They are ignorant of God’s
sovereign work through people in a world that still subjects them to inequalities in the distribution of the
its resources.
Christ is not the last Adam in the carnal sense, but as one who comes to restore the spiritual image of man
before God as to make him have dominion and fruitfulness in the spiritual realm (Rom 5:15-19; Eph 1:5,
6; 4:22-24; Phil 1:9-11; Col 1:9-11). Christ came, not to make the church the dominant force in politics
and economics, but to establish the kingdom of God in the hearts of those who believe and impacting
God’s nature and character (the fruit of the Spirit) in their relationships (Gal 5:222, 23; Eph 5:1, 2).
Christ refused to be ordained a judge over the distribution of this world’s riches (Luke 12:14). He rejected
to be made king over the affairs of the kingdoms of this present age (John 6:15). For this reason, even the
multitudes that had seen His godly work called for His death. Although He calls some rich and noble for
His own purpose, God has not promised to perform miracles in the financial world markets and change
the present injustices that oppress billions in economic powerlessness. He has ordained to make all things
new only at the end of this present age (Rev 21:1-6). Christ has not been made heir of present earthly
glory as to make believers co-heirs of the wealth of a fallen world. He is heir of all things that pertain
to God (given to us exclusively through the Cross) and to the coming age (Heb 2:8). In the meantime,
each believer is encouraged to work with his own hands to meet the necessities of life and live within the
sphere of God’s sovereignty as He works His will through each one of us, whether rich or poor, or
something in between. God does not bar Christians from desiring higher incomes but warns us against
evil desires, ambitions and the pursuit of self-enrichment. The modern church now openly parades these
sins as the gospel of Christ as Christians are encouraged to ascend to the heights of worldly glory in
Jesus’ name and in the power of His might. Many of the so-called motivational teachings are modelled on
the dominion theology, encouraging Christians to aspire to be the “best,” to believe that they can achieve
whatever they dream of and to esteem themselves highly. A close scrutiny of such motivational talk
exposes a doctrine that is centred, not on Christ as Lord, but on the achievements of self in the
world. Contrary to such worldly principles, the gospel of Christ teaches us not to esteem ourselves more
highly than we ought to, to esteem others better than ourselves, to associate with the humble, to be
content with what we have and to esteem the beauty of the inward man better than what can be seen on
the outward.
Other sections of the prosperity movement have also come up with the superstitious belief of
generational curses to blame our ancestors for many people’s present lack of financial power. Seeing
that many African ancestors died without knowing God through Christ, they are blamed for the modest
economic and financial conditions of many Christian individuals. False prophets teach that those who
have come to believe in Christ can still be affected by the sins and poverty of their ancestors to keep them
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poor and in bondage. Christ alone is not seen as fully able to release people from bondage at the time of
the new birth, but that they must constantly fight and pray for these ‘curses’ to be lifted. Lack of jobs,
financial problems and illnesses are often blamed on these so called generational curses. In addition to
constant so-called warfare of shouting at these spirits and curses, the gullible are also taught that making
financial contributions in the church and for the pastor go a long way in appeasing the devil to leave them
alone! Their freedom in Christ and the protection of His name are never sufficient for the restless lovers
of money. Patrick Collins notes that if Christians can still be affected by the spirits of their ancestors it
may show them to be demonically bound and still in need of repentance!
Those in the world can tell that the many falsehoods of prosperity are no different from the deliverance
work of traditional African witch doctors whose major work is to cleanse people of ‘bad luck’ so that they
can get rich or live ‘happily ever after’ in this fallen world. The Prophets of Mammon are ever inviting
and telling Christians to be delivered from demons of poverty, to have the cycle and chains of poverty
broken and other such statements unrelated to the life of one who is in Covenant with God through Christ.
They are attempting to do that which Christ has already declared finished. They fail to find rest in Christ
alone. They seek deliverance from the struggles of life whose solutions lie in work and in using the
resources of the church towards economic interdependence. Ironically, it is the false prophets
themselves that need deliverance from the spirits and bondage of the love of money and the love of
riches.
The truth of the gospel makes it abundantly clear that the belief and theory of generational curses has no
place among the people of God in which Christ imputes His own righteousness as our own and does not
count our sin against us. If He no longer charges sin against us, how can the sins of our own ancestors be
imputed against us as curses to keep us poor? “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be
against us? He who did not spare His own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all
things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is He who condemns? It is Christ who died,
and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us” (Rom 8:31-34).
The sins of the fathers upon the children (as popularly quoted from the law), points to the fact that
character flaws inherited from the past affect people. However, the believer in Christ becomes a new
creature changed into God’s own character as he submits himself to the workings of the Spirit of God.
The prosperity prophets also show themselves to be illiterates in ignoring the long-term effects of
colonialism, wars (physical and political), self-seeking politicians, corruption and the modern trend of
mostly western dominance of global economic and financial markets and access to resources. These are
the major factors keeping the majority from an equitable and just access to this world’s resources. They
see the prosperity of the worldly rich and assume this as the standard for everyone.
The danger of extra biblical beliefs is further worsened as some of these false ministers now come in
signs, wonders and divination disguised as prophecy. They use these as ‘proof’ of the validity of the
doctrine of the love of Mammon. However, the New Covenant Writings clearly warn that the “the coming of
the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous
deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved” (2 Thess 2:9).
This spirit is already at work in our midst. All prophecies, as well as signs and wonders made to give
support to the promotion of worldliness in the name of prosperity, are false and of the false prophets. We
would do well not to measure truth based on signs and wonders.
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20
The Commandments and Promises of the Law
The
prosperity movement prospers in its mass deception through misinterpreting and misapplying
promises of the Covenant of Law given to the Jewish nation, based on a lesser covenant of fleshly and
earthly blessings (Heb 8:7-13). They deliberately ignore that the Christian faith is founded in the New
Covenant of the blood of Jesus as they attempt to find blessing and so-called prosperity through the
commandments and promises of the Law of Moses and through the private interpretation of Old
Testament events in the history of God’s dealings with man.
The so-called prosperity gospel has been fuelled in large part by the imposition of one such element of the
law, the fleshly ordinance of the law of tithes. This has been imposed as a legal requirement in the
Christian’s giving of money for what is supposed to be for the preaching of the gospel and the sustenance
of those who give themselves to live by it. Many are blind to the fact that this law finds its force, not from
Abraham or the leading of the Spirit as many would want to justify, but from the law given at Mt Sinai.
The continuous giving of money in the church by a determined precept is not of faith but is of the works
of the law. (Please read the whole of Paul’s letter to the Galatians in the context of the present imposition
of giving by the law of tithes). The teaching of the law of tithes from the Law of Moses and from
Malachi’s explanation of the law, has taught Christians to expect a literal opening of the heavens as God
pours financial riches into their lives if their are faithful in keeping the tithe and curses if they are not.
Such a teaching works against God’s revelation of Christ as the only basis for our relationship and
blessing with Him and for the working of His grace in our lives for the accomplishment of His purpose
through us. It also ignores the fact that the former promises were only shadows of the good things to
come, but the substance, the riches and wealth and prosperity is Christ! Ironically, the curse (bondage of
law) is pronounced in the gospel upon every one who attempts to find righteousness and blessing with
God through elements of the Law of Moses and not by Christ alone (Gal 3:10-14; 5:1-6).
Christ is our only and true righteousness and the only basis of our relationship with God apart
from the Law of Moses and its elements however glorious that law was. As it is written: “But if the
ministry of death, written and engraved on stones (the Ten commandments and the fleshly precepts that it
represented) was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his
countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?” (2 Cor 3:7, 8 italics
mine).
The need of our times, and among those who keep law as a basis of obedience and favour with God, is to
learn and teach others to give, for the work of ministry and the sustenance of those who fully serve in the
gospel, and to be generous to the needy and to share, as well as to express the whole of the Christian life,
by the glorious ministry of the Spirit of God. We did not receive the Spirit by the works of the law but by
the hearing of faith. As it is written: “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by
the flesh? Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham” (Gal 3:3, 7). I speak this in love, not as
to deprive true ministers of their sustenance, but that people may be led by the Spirit in all things. For if
God’s work in our lives and goodness towards us is dependent on, conditioned by, or said to find its
basis in the law of tithes, then Christ died in vain. The ministry of the Spirit must be present in all
aspects of the believer’s life, including in his financial contributions for the work of the gospel. (I refer
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the reader to my other book “Christ our Righteousness apart from the Law of Tithes” for a much expanded
discussion on this important matter).
Many people approach the Old Testament (containing the Law of Moses and the general history of God’s
revelation in His dealings with man) through physical eyes, natural interpretation and in isolation from
His final revelation in Christ. “Their minds are blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of
the Old Testament, because the veil is lifted in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.
Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same
image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (not by the constraints of the law) (2 Cor 3:14-18 italics
mine).
Most dangerously, many others approach the Old Testament through what they hear of others who have
also approached it in like manner and not from what the Spirit teaches them in the context of the gospel of
Christ. An example is of someone who reads the blessings of the Law of Moses and immediately
“claims” them for himself without understanding their link to obedience to the same law and the
consequences of disobedience (Rom 10:5; Gal 3:10). He reads the Old Law with veiled eyes for he has
not used the eyes of the Spirit so that the veil may be lifted. He does not understand that the Law and the
Prophets contain a language that cannot be understood in isolation from the revelation of the New
Covenant and as explained by Paul in his messages to the churches.
The blessings promised under the Law of Moses were dependent on obedience to the same law while
Christian blessings have come to us in Christ alone through His obedience (Rom 4:5-8, 13; Eph 1:3;
2:10; Heb 8:6). We cannot trust in Christ for spiritual blessings and go to the legal righteousness of
the law to find favour for the things of this world. His work on the Cross is sufficient in itself to meet
all our needs, both spiritual and physical. The only condition is faith, to put our trust in Him as we allow
Him to organise our lives around service to God (Matt 6:33; Heb 11:6). Anything imposed as a
continuous obligation is law and against faith (Rom 4:14; Gal 3:10, 11). Keeping only certain aspects of
the Law of Moses such as the observance of days or tithes without keeping the rest of the ordinances of
the law is illegal and a transgression. We cannot be stewards of only a few elements from the law and not
of the rest of the law as the law itself demands. However, in Christ, we are free from such bondage as we
walk in the Spirit of God as stewards of the life of Christ in us.
Christ is life to be manifest and not a set of laws for be kept (Gal 3:13, 14; Phil 3:9; Col 2:6)! He
abolished in His own flesh the ordinances of the Law of Moses that kept Jews and Gentiles as enemies.
As it is written: “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself
one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the Cross,
thereby putting to death the enmity. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Having wiped out the
handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to
the Cross” (Eph 2:15, 16, 18; Col 3:14).
As far as the Old Covenant is concerned, God promised to make Israel, as a nation, and as stewards of the
promises, more prosperous outwardly than the other nations if they were faithful to the covenant
(Deuteronomy 28:2, 3). He did not promise riches for all but His protection over their physical well-being
in relation to the nations that surrounded them. Israel was to serve as an example of the presence of God
in which national prosperity was a sign of God’s favour. It was a prosperity guaranteeing the well-being
of their crops and animals, daily livelihood and protection from their enemies. In the New Covenant, God
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also promises His care over our lives but has not promised worldly riches as a blessing of the Covenant or
immunity from natural, financial and economic problems.
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IV
The Fruits of the Love of Money
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21
Gospreneurship
In our day, a breed of preachers and prophets of wealth, religious con artists, some of whom have global
organisations selling their brand of the gospel of worldly riches, has arisen to drive the prosperity
movement. In exchange for cash gifts, cars and immovable properties, which they convert to give
themselves luxurious lifestyles that are the envy of the world, they promise the gullible and the desperate
that God would pour miracles of financial wealth into their lives (2 Pet 2:18-22 ). In the words of one
Harare social commentator, Rejoice Ngwenya, writing in one of the local daily papers, the false prophets
are merely “lubricating their new-found capitalist fantasies through bigger bank accounts, larger homes
and fancier cars.” I fully agree with him in his description of this falsehood as a form of
‘gospreneurship,’ the selling of the goodness of God (as if it were possible), and a “subtle form of
blatant self-enrichment anti-Christ voodoo capitalism and consumerism masquerading as the gospel
of Jesus Christ!” (Religious Entrepreneurship: Rejoice Ngwenya, Newsday, Harare, 29th of March 2011
italics mine). It is voodoo magic capitalism because it deceives people to seek riches, not in the difficult
world of market forces, but through enriching preachers who stand as mediators between man and God’s
supposed financial favour.
In Africa, the Mammon prophets sell their distorted version of the gospel as the solution to the poverty
that afflicts the majority of the people on this continent, calling the poor to a false abundant life in Christ
of financial power. Instead of teaching the poor the merits of work and to be content in earning a living,
the prophets of Mammon deceive them that if they pay tithes, look after the pastor, church leader or
preacher, live a ‘clean’ life, participate in the physical temple rituals and have ‘faith,’ God will
miraculously pour riches into their lives! They teach us that to be poor is a curse and only for those who
do not believe. They define poverty as the lack of financial and material abundance even as the world
defines riches. They preach lack as not living according to the world’s symbols of success and prosperity.
They sell the physical riches of Abraham as every Christian’s right and forget Him who said; “before
Abraham was, I AM.” They are blind to Christ as the true wealth, being completely rich in Himself apart
from the fleeting treasures of this world (Col 2:10). Through Him, we too possess all things though for
now we may not see all things under Him. Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Jesus Christ and the riches
in Him even for the poor of this present age.
This false doctrine is a child of a class of false prophets and pastors making business out of Christians and
justifying their luxurious lifestyles, paid for by the people, as God’s will (1 Tim 6:5; 2 Pet 2:3, 14, 15).
By creating a ‘gospel’ of works based on the giving of money, they teach the people false hope of being
made financially rich if they are faithful in looking after the needs of these false teachers and their little
kingdoms. Some of these religious fraudsters masquerading as Christian preachers claim to possess
special and secret knowledge to worldly greatness which they say can only be unlocked into your life if
you partner with the supposed anointing upon them, put a special seed into their lives, serve them and
receive special prayers from them. God’s work and partnering in ministry is encouraged only if it
revolves around them. They have made themselves the new mediators who place themselves between
their fellow men and God’s “financial favour.” Such practices are in the spirit of the antichrist and not
God’s commandment. The success they boast of in their own life is based on the financial contributions
of the very people they are deceiving. These falsehoods create an increasing number of false preachers
ministering for material gain.
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22
The Deception of Materialism
The problem of the false doctrine of faith for earthly treasures is rooted in the spirit of materialism and
lust, which the old serpent, Satan, has always used to turn affections from God. The devil is only
reinventing it for the ‘modern’ Christian. It is a trick of the adversary of God to sidetrack Christians from
seeking the true riches of the Spirit (Matt 6:24; 1 Pet 5:8). The enemy of our souls knows that only
through the intangible and invisible riches of the Spirit of God can we have a fulfilled and victorious life
in Christ irrespective of the quantity of money we may have in the bank. As someone said, “Christians
whose lives are dominated by faith for material riches do not threaten the devil. He knows that
money is the best tool to deviate their affections from God to the world. Such Christians do not
have authority over the devil, though they may pretend to.”
We must stand up, shout at the top of our voices, and seek to show, to sincere seekers, the damaging
effects of the heresy of the prosperity gospel and its basis in the natural desire of the flesh for the love of
the things of this world. If it is difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom (Luke 18:24, 25), why
would God desire riches for every Christian at the present time, knowing that riches will only blind many
of them to spiritual realities? It is a trick of the enemy to make Christians discontented with what they
have and is designed to create jealousy and envy, covetousness and lust, driving Christians to evil desires
in opposition to God’s will. The whole idea is to place an obstacle on believers not to see Christ. It seeks
to draw people with low incomes (which are the majority of the poor) into the poverty of the mind and
psychological lack and destitution. This heresy deceives people to the false conception that the acquisition
of worldly riches is God’s righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit. They have diluted the offence of
the Cross and the scandalous nature of the gospel and have blended it with the success symbols of
the modern materialistic culture. Their “end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their
shame-who set their mind on earthly things” (Phil 3:19).
Let everyone who cares to hear, know that the so-called prosperity gospel is a direct attack on God’s
sovereignty, grace and purpose in His making a call into the kingdom of a people most of whom are poor
in the things of this world. The teaching of material riches for all calls poor Christians to desire and aspire
for equality with the rich in material things to which equality the Lord has not called them. For Africans
in particular, it would mean wholesale changes to the unfavourable socio-economic, historical, and
political conditions and the global context in which they live. I assert that, as Africans, and on a general
level, we cannot all become rich in the things of this world beyond the context of our environment. This is
where God was pleased to place us. If one is to speak for the majority poor, it is often difficult to escape
from the reality of our socio-economic environment and climb the ladder of true worldly prosperity. Only
as a more equitable society emerges can the poor hope for a better material life in this world. We would
all benefit from such a society, Christians included. However, this would not mean tens of thousands of
United States dollars in the bank account for everyone as the false prophets of financial prosperity would
have us believe. The Lord Jesus said that the poor would always be with us. Moreover, an equitable
society is difficult to attain in a world where the majority of its population, as well as most of its leaders
and the powerful, still walk according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who works injustice
in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:1, 2).
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To affirm worldly wealth as a covenant right of every Christian, as the error of faith for riches does, is a
call to God to transform countries as those of the Third World into a worldly heaven so that Christians are
able to benefit from the change. It is a call to God to miraculously give technology and worldly economic
and political power to Christians if the covenant right is to be a reality. However, not even the majority of
the working class in the western world have such a call or even ability to access riches which are in the
hands of a few. Even if Christians in those countries desired riches, many injustices exist in the First
World as well that are barriers against the majority working class making money as to get rich.
The world of sworn unbelievers can see through the falsehood of the teaching of the gospel of worldly
achievements as they themselves have the same fleshly desires, ambitions, lust and covetousness. The
only difference is that they are even more righteous than the crowd of the prosperity movement as they do
not attempt to use God and religion to justify their lusts. Because of those who preach the gospel of
Mammon, “the way of truth” is being blasphemed among unbelievers.
The prosperity gospel is no different from the doctrine of Hymenaeus and Philetus, who strayed from the
faith, saying that the resurrection is past (2 Timothy 2: 17, 18). By turning our attentions to the glory of
the riches of this present world, they take us away from the hope of the resurrection where our visible and
eternal riches lie. They also drive us away from the concept of pilgrimage as they encourage us to set our
roots in a world that is not our own. According to them, it is better to eat, drink and be merry. It is a
doctrine that makes good news of the things that belong to Caesar making it Caesar’s gospel!
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23
Mask of the American Dream
The material prosperity so-called gospel is also a direct result of attempts by Americans to dress the
American dream, the pursuit of wealth and happiness enshrined in their constitution, in Christian clothes
and to reject the offence of the Cross in counting riches as worthless as far as one’s blessedness in Christ
is concerned. Multitudes of Christians are being made to look for peace and liberty in things and in
possessions that the Lord never promised us. They are seeking for joy and fulfilment in what is seen,
which the world possesses so that they too can have security in it. Not content with what they have, they
are claiming for themselves the world’s riches, which never manifest for the majority of the claimants,
except perhaps for the church leaders. It is always a future gospel without present reality, especially for
the followers waiting for the day when God rains millions of American dollars into their bank accounts,
while their leaders can testify to their ‘success’ on the back of the money of their congregations! The
examples of success that are often paraded are the vain consumer riches of flashy cars and expensive
clothing of those whose glory is in what they eat, put on and possess.
For many people sitting under this doctrine, the riches remain an illusion. Having built their own
righteousness of works such as tithes and loyal adherence to church programs in the name of pleasing the
Lord, they wonder why they are not attaining to the riches promised. To rub salt in the wound, the
prosperity teachers will always tell them that they do no have enough faith, are not doing enough, or are
living in sin. Many are so preoccupied with physical success that they have been completely blinded to
spiritual realities. They are dry and empty but they will not come to the knowledge of the truth. They are
deceived to live by bread alone in the name of faith and they struggle through life with evil ambitions and
the illusion of worldly success. “For this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that
they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess 2:11, 12).
The problem we face in our generation is of the proliferation of professing Christians who have not
changed their desires, ambitions and expectations, but would want to use the gospel to achieve their old
goals. The ignorant are bewitched that they can become the new Christian noble class, American dollar
multi-millionaires of their communities. The prophets of Mammon tell the gullible that by faith it is all
possible to go to the top strata of one’s society in this world’s riches. It is a perversion from America to
adapt into the gospel, the American dream of posh cars, mansions and financial security, and to export it
to impoverished Third World countries where, for the majority of the people (Christians included), the
dream is just that, a dream. Even for the mainstream working and middle class in the developed
world, the desire for riches remains a mirage, burdening many with continual debts and
bankruptcy, and dragging the rest of the world into continual recession through the uncontrolled
hunger for self-indulgence in the name of prosperity.
This other gospel or rather bad news, is manifested in our day and in our part of the world in ‘faith’ and
motivational books and speakers and television preachers mostly from America, teaching false faith for
anything one lusts for and covets. Instead of judging the books and the preachers based on their
understanding of the New Covenant, many of the prosperity followers make private interpretation of the
Scriptures based on what they read in the books and the sweet things they hear in their itching ears. In the
end, they only understand the gospel from their covetous hearts as every Scripture is twisted, distorted
and manipulated to justify desire for physical and financial wealth. Many African preachers have been
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carried away with this hypocrisy. They come to believe a lie, always learning the same lies week after
week and for decades but never attaining to the riches they covet so much (2 Tim 3:7)! If only they
could seek truth by revelation, God would give it to them liberally if they seek it with pure hearts. Many
however, are double-minded, who would want to use Christianity as a passport to the glory of this world.
Let not these “suppose that they will receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:7 italics mine).
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24
A Doctrine of Carnal Desires
True to biblical prophecy, many have indeed come, bringing in destructive heresies and drawing many
away (2 Pet 2:1-3). The prosperity movement has a large following, and is able to present itself as the
truth on the back of numbers. However, the heresy of worldly financial prosperity for every Christian is a
carnal doctrine that calls believers to set their hearts and minds on the things of this world, to have faith in
Mammon, to desire what the world desires, and to trust in what the world trusts (Phil 3:18, 19). It is a
different gospel that plays to man’s natural desire for wealth, honour, status, image, earthly and visible
fleshly success. This false doctrine is fabricated to attract carnal minds, the unconverted middle class and
the desperate, weak, exploited, rejected and deprived poor of this world. They want to make
Christianity palatable to the unconverted world and to remove the offence of the Cross.
A fake gospel dressed in sheep’s clothing, the prosperity doctrine is a ravenous wolf full of all forms of
lust, greed and covetousness of man (Matt 7:15-20). They deceive the poor and the majority working
class Christians not to be content with food and clothing, but to use faith and the hope of the Christian
calling to gain financial riches and security, with accompanying honour and success as a sign of that faith.
People are misled to be satisfied only when they have acquired new Pajeros, Mercedes Benz C class,
American type mansions and estates.
Those of the prosperity movement are no different from the Israelites, who were freed from slavery in
Egypt, yet longed for the garlic and onions they received in captivity (Exod 16:3). They are willing to
become slaves to the desires of the flesh for earthly glory in the satisfaction of their carnal appetites. They
would want to force God to take them to the love of the food of their slavery, the hunger for selfindulgence in the glory of corruptible Mammon.
The Mammon gospel teaches Christians to try to serve two masters, God and Mammon, and deceives
them to believe that God will allow them to serve both, which the Lord Jesus says is not possible. For
what is the call to be rich in the things of this world as a covenant right, if it is not a call to more time,
effort and energy devoted to making money and robbing God of true worship and service? They teach the
poor that it is God’s desire, not just to meet their needs and help them lead a simple life, but to financially
and materially enrich them, preferably in millions of United States dollars so that they may be centred on
self and the riches of the world. They advise the poor that they can seek first financial glory through the
payment of tithes and offerings and later serve God with the money! To avoid the offence of the Cross
and all its implications, they falsely claim that, since Christ has already suffered, the lack of this world’s
glory is not a Christian’s portion. Pandering to carnal desires, this other gospel transforms itself into
an angel of true prosperity, with Mammon prophets holding nice sounding titles, using flattery and
divination to prophesy riches and wealth (Jer 5:30, 31; 14:14; 2 Pet 2:3). Their version of the gospel is
one of carnal wars and carnal fights for the comforts of the flesh that profit nothing. They turn
‘whatsoever you desire’ into ‘whatsoever you lust for according to your greed and natural inclinations,’
teaching that not to desire material riches and financial wealth is a sign of poverty, a lack of faith,
insecurity and destitution. They equate lack of financial glory with poverty as if not to be rich meant to
lack the basics of life necessary for our daily livelihood. But what do the Scriptures say? Godliness with
contentment is great gain even when we do not have the mansions, luxury cars or the security of fat bank
accounts they call prosperity.
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The gospel of materialism has the belly as its god, the belly of the supremacy of the comforts of the flesh
and perishable glory, and its proponents have ‘faith’ that God will allow them to worship at the altar of
the ‘blessings’ of Mammon. They maintain that these ‘blessings’ are with the enemy and one must claim
them from him in spiritual battle by shouting in ‘warfare’ that he let go, for example, of one’s dream
Ferrari! Sometimes the Mammon prophets will tell you to claim from God! It is a confused jungle out
there!
Most of those who preach the false doctrine of Mammon cannot prove the truth of it in their own lives
except through the financial donations of their members. Their preaching is in word only without the
power. They may prophesy riches in Jesus’ name, ‘casting out the demons’ of lack of financial wealth,
but will be told; “depart from me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt 7:22, 23). By telling us that it is our
covenant right to be rich, they deflect attention from themselves and avoid being judged for the
luxurious lifestyles they have chosen and which are built on the financial contributions of their
congregations. They then boast of their riches for faithfulness in serving God in front of the very people
who are blindly enriching them and who fail to see that they are the victims of a confidence trick.
The deceit of prosperity concerns itself with external and physical appearances, with pomp and success as
seen from the world’s point of view. The Scriptures describe it as “the lust of the flesh-” that preoccupation
with earthly comforts in the name of faith; “the lust of the eyes,” image, status symbol, that comes from
covetousness in the unsatisfied desire for what the world runs after; and “the pride of life,” as you hear
them boast in their faithfulness in paying tithes and the ‘rewards’ they have been ‘blessed’ with. They
boast in what they do, where they work, the latest of this or that gadget they have acquired by ‘believing’
God, boasting in worldly promotion, image and status in society. “Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become
wealthy, and have need of nothing’- and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev 3:17).
They may use the name of Jesus and verbally give God the glory for their lust, greed, and covetousness,
taking pride in the prosperity symbols of unbelievers, but God knows their twisted hearts. “For what is highly
esteemed among men (financial riches and the illusion of joy, security and liberty derived thereof) is an
abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15 italics mine).
They have turned Christianity into a world prosperity show- a display of the desires for earthly glory.
Their coveted ‘blessings’ are the heathens’ prized prosperity symbols. They have heaped up teachers for
themselves, deceiving and being deceived, hearing according to their carnal desires and lust for
abundance of money, riches and worldly possessions. But this I ask: What injustice have you found in
God, that you have gone far from Him, have craved after the idols of financial wealth, and have become
idolaters? Have you lacked food and clothing even as you have searched for Him diligently? Why have
you built for yourselves cisterns of materialism that cannot hold water? On every high hill and under
every green tree of materialism, commercialism, envy and covetousness, have they laid down, playing the
prostitute with the world. These are the belly worshippers described by Paul in the Scriptures as the
enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction. They refuse to reckon themselves dead to the
world, dead to the desires for the things in the world, and dead to the pride of life of unnecessarily
esteeming the insignificant riches of this world, making them enemies of the faith and of the gospel
whose riches are not of this world.
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V
The Gospel to the Poor
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25
Where is the Gospel to the Poor?
The great mass of
Africans, and by extension African Christians, find themselves trapped in limited
incomes as providers of cheap labour. Many are informal sector workers, working class wage earners and
civil servants, subsistence farmers, or work as mobile and street vendors buying and selling on behalf of
the formal and the big shops and businesses. The majority of these people are unable to meet other needs
and even little luxuries of life beyond the necessities of simple food, simple clothes and simple shelter.
Another large number is caught up in poverty and deprivation, struggling to meet even the most basic of
needs and need outside help to squeeze itself out. The visible and apostate church has mostly shut itself
from helping the poor as those with means run to feed the Babel monster of the kingdoms of men and as
preachers accuse the poor of a lack of faith, of sinfulness or of being cursed as a reason for their poverty.
The African poor have largely no control over the conditions in which they find themselves, as a
multitude of factors combine to keep many people on our continent economically and financially
powerless. These include historical under-development and colonialism, government corruption,
mismanagement, a self-seeking class of politicians enriching itself at the expense of the poor and big
business and multi-national global corporations whose only concern is to make as much profit as possible
that benefits a few individuals (mostly foreign) through the exploitation of African resources, cheap
labour and markets. Africa, more than any continent in the world, is the least developed, most corrupt and
where access to resources is limited mostly to politicians, their associates and the multi -nationals. It is a
war out there!
Where is the gospel to the poor and for the poor who have no hope in this world or in its wealth and
success and among whom the majority of the elect have been chosen from? For do we not see that in
God’s calling “not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, not many rich are called..for God has
chosen the poor of this world (the financially and economically powerless) to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom
which He promised to those who love Him (1 Cor 1:26-28; James 2:5 italics mine)? Where is the gospel of
Christ in its fullness, for the despised and exploited, for the economically and socially excluded and
dispossessed? Where is the good news for the poor who just want the opportunity of a regular income that
can put food on the table than the single American dollar per day most of them live on? Where is the
gospel for these people? Where is the gospel that would give the poor dignity of life and peace in
Christ even in their unfavourable socio, political and economic conditions? Where is the gospel that
would give them the abundant life in Christ even in their lack of this world’s symbols of wealth, the life
and quality of which is not measured by the value of financial resources in one’s life?
Why do we no longer hear preachers calling us to the gospel that rejects the desire for this world, with its
gold and silver and as inspired by the Holy Spirit and recorded for us, for example, in 1 Tim 6:9, 10; 1
John 2:15-17 ? Where is the good news that separates us from the world in its ambitions and aspirations
for material wealth, honour and worldly success, that would teach us to be holy (separate from the world)
as He who called us is holy (1 Pet 1:14-19)? Where is the gospel that calls us to differ from the world’s
spirit of materialism, covetousness and greed? There are some who would want to trouble us and distort
the gospel by taking us back to our former lusts “in which we once walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once
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conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath just as the others” (Eph 2:1-3).
Where is the good news of resting our hope fully upon the grace of God that is to be brought to us at the
revelation of Jesus Christ? Where is the gospel of forsaking the vanity of riches and which warns us
against the deceitfulness of wealth? Where is the gospel that calls us neither to put our trust, faith and
hope in mundane material and financial wealth nor to conform to former lusts for worldly prosperity as in
the days of our ignorance?
My heart longs to hear the gospel that calls believers to strive to enter through the narrow gate of
dedicated discipleship (Matt 7:13, 14), of self-sacrifice and partaking of the mind and sufferings of Christ
in His self-denial (Phil 2:5-9). I yearn to hear the gospel that glories, not in the wealth of this world, but
boasts in the offence and stigma of the Cross, as it is written: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world” (Gal 6:14). My ears ache
for the gospel that brought us death to the world and to all its symbols of success and prosperity. My heart
burns for the gospel that calls the followers of Christ to “endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may
obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim 2:10); a gospel of singleness of desire for
God’s interest to save humanity from eternal condemnation.
I desire to live in the gospel of the humility of Christ, of being spent on behalf of others that they may be
made rich in eternal and imperishable blessings (2 Cor 8:9). May God raise prophets who would call us to
lay up treasures in heaven and to set our affections, minds and desires on things above where Christ is,
and not on earthly, corruptible prosperity (Luke 12:33, 34; Col 3:1-6). That God would raise preachers
who will stand up and call Christians to set their desires on things of the Spirit and spiritual, things that no
eye had seen, nor ear heard, nor had they entered into the hearts of men (1 Cor 2:6-12). Let ministers of
the gospel teach and interpret correctly that the desire to be rich is the seed of the love of money, which in
turn is the root of all kinds of evil and which desire is being fuelled by the so-called prosperity gospel!
Where is the gospel that calls the poor not to worry about chasing after what unbelievers are chasing?
Where is the gospel that would teach the poor that they were not bought with corruptible things and
neither were they bought for the perishables of this world as to have hope in them (1 Pet 1:17-19; 2 Pet
1:3, 4 )? Where is the gospel of foolish things, of weak things and things that are not (1 Cor 1:26-28)? Is
the faith that God has ordained for the poor a faith for the pursuit of the things of this world? Why is the
prosperity movement calling the poor and the not rich to a faith in earthly and perishable wealth
and from which wealth the powerful of this world have denied and excluded them, and for which
the rich exploit them (James 2:6, 7)?
This book is a message for the poor (and the spiritually hungry and the not rich), for whom is the gospel
and God’s ordination that they be rich in faith (Luke 6:20). God’s faith is not for the perishable glory of
this condemned world, but faith in the eternal blessings that are in Christ Jesus. My message is to the
poor, being falsely taught to live their faith in anticipation of worldly standards of affluence and to direct
their desires to earthly artificial prosperity and glory. I write for the poor, whom the rich of this world
have marginalised through injustice, greed and naked exploitation and whose only hope lies in the coming
in glory of Him who has hidden their lives in Himself and who will then wipe away every tear and sorrow
from their present lives. I write for the poor who seek a state of blessedness with joy, peace and
contentment, even in modest outward financial conditions, realising the vanity of riches and the futility of
fighting for them with the powers of this present world. “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but
righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit,
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according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ”
Col 2:8).
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(Rom 14:17;
26
We are not Exalting Poverty
To reject the prosperity teaching is neither to exalt poverty nor see it as a virtue nor as a blessing nor to
say that those who actively oppose the heresy of prosperity are poor nor is it a demand on people to
choose between riches and being poor as the financial prosperity prophets would have people believe.
They would falsely teach Christians that the lack of worldly ambition is a sign of a lack of faith and a love
of poverty. However, to reject this doctrine is to esteem ourselves properly (Rom 12:3, 16) and to
understand and accept that God has chosen mostly the poor and that the majority of them, as well as the
not rich, will not be the masters over the economic affairs of this life (John 12:8; 1 Cor 1:26). We are to
recognise God’s sovereignty and strive to find and fulfil God’s purpose even in the midst of our modest
economic and financial conditions, instead of calling God to change them for our carnal glory, which He
has not promised (1 Cor 1:18, 21). The wisdom of God is foolishness to those who are ignorant of His
ways. We cannot build hope in people based on the desire for this world’s riches.
People need Christ who gives us access to God’s riches in His self-existence, which is not in what He
possesses, but in who He is (2 Pet 1:3, 4; Col 2:3, 9, 10). By giving Himself to us, He has enabled us the
ability to find fulfilment in Him alone apart from the level of our earnings. In this present age, the poor
can enjoy the fullness and abundance of life in Christ that is available on this side of glory even in the
midst of the hardships and the struggles of this world and in the lack of financial power (Rom 14:17).
Moreover, who can claim to be free of life’s struggles in our efforts at earning a living or even in the
desire of some to be rich?
Regardless of the negative natural, political and economic conditions existent in the world, which keep
the majority of the world’s people economically less-off, a Christian can still live in the fullness of the
riches of God’s life, love, righteousness, glory, wisdom, kindness, patience, longsuffering, joy, power,
self-control, understanding and peace in a self-existent God. God is completely rich in Himself apart from
the created order. It is to this wealth in Himself that He has called us even at the present time (Gen 15:1;
Ps 16:5; John 14:6). God came to give Himself to us in Christ Jesus as the true and only wealth and to
deliver us from our previous conceptions of riches according to the world’s definition. Even if Abraham
was rich in gold and silver (Gen 13:2), it was only from the world’s perspective. Even the patriarch
himself was waiting for the true riches that were yet to be revealed in Christ alone (John 8:56). If we
attempt to measure our relationship with Christ based on the pursuit of money as the prophets of
Mammon encourage us, it shows that money has become our god!
There is a concern for the poor (principally the destitute in my view) which is valid and biblical, but we
cannot help the poor by calling the physically destitute (or even the working class for that matter) to
believe God for the riches of this world. We cannot help the poor by calling them to fight it out with the
powerful of this world, while at the same time doing nothing to alleviate their need. We cannot fight for
the poor through the deceit of “give to physical temples and its ministers so that you can receive in
abundance” message. We cannot fight against poverty through exorcism. The fight against physical
poverty would need the people of God to awaken from apostasy and worldliness, from self-centredness
and spiritual slumber and begin to empower the weak and poor, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, create
jobs, and give the poor access to resources to help them help themselves (James 1:27; 2:14-17; Hosea
6:6). How many churches and Christian individuals with the goods of this world are doing this? Our
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gospel has become words only with no power of the good works that Christ ordained for us to walk in.
Rarely do those churches and Christian individuals who believe in ‘giving as to get’ practise true
generosity towards the poor themselves. Individuals are only encouraged to pour money into the
kingdoms of lifeless things and enriching church leaders in the name of serving God.
We must also be clear about the category of people we are classifying as poor or rich for these terms are
relative. There are people who may not be defined as rich or middle class in any particular society and are
working class and wage earners, but who have basic shelter and can meet their daily demands for food
and clothing and not much more beyond that. They may be poor in relation to the rich and middle class of
their society but they are not living in poverty. They may live in environments that the world may classify
as poor but they can afford the basic needs necessary to sustain their physical life. They too are rich in the
things that they have, being able to meet the real needs of life. If we have food and clothing with these we
shall be content (1 Tim 6:6). Godliness with contentment is greater gain than the aspiration for worldly
glory through financial riches, which drowns many in harmful lusts and remains an illusion for the
majority who run after it.
To reject the prosperity heresy is not to say that money is unnecessary to the life we live or that one
cannot desire change in the outward life through one’s labours. What we must vehemently resist is the
love of money manifest in this other gospel calling us not to be content with earning a living, but would
command us to live to make money according to the standards of the world. We must fight against the
doctrine that would call us to the pursuit of this world’s riches in the name of blessedness and faith. We
must resist the heresy that would call the poor and the not rich to have desires for things that are beyond
their lifetime incomes. Christians must refuse to accept teachings of coveting the world’s riches and
other people’s properties in the name of faith, well knowing that however hard most of them work
or have ‘faith’, certain things will always be out of their reach.
To expose the prosperity gospel as falsehood is to acknowledge that the true gospel is primarily a gospel
for the poor who have no hope in the attainment of the wealth of this world (James 2:5). Every one who
comes into the kingdom must see his position in the gospel as God gave it for the poor. For has He not
chosen the poor among the weak, the base, the foolish and the things that are not that He chooses? These
are the poor without opportunities of getting the riches claimed by the prosperity prophets, without an
adequate income, and who have no hope at all in this world nor do they choose to be poor. God has called
many poor into the kingdom as to reveal in them a quality of life that is not dependent on the acquisition
of abundance of possessions and wealth (Luke 12:15).
Those of the prosperity movement love to argue that God does not want anyone to be poor and that He
wants all of us to desire and aspire for material riches. The first problem with such a statement is that it
accuses God of injustice for leaving us in a fallen world where injustice, war, corruption, greed and lust
reign through the working of Satan. These factors are the reasons why many people are poor, whether we
believe it or not. The prosperity crowd is so illiterate and blind to the basic workings of the world as
they try to build a religious and carnal utopia through a counterfeit Christianity based on the
misinterpretation of Scripture that conforms to their carnal desires. Secondly, they do not perceive
that God’s perfect will and desire will only be accomplished when the Lord Jesus returns and for whom
we eagerly wait so that He may deliver us from the presence of sin and from the corruption of a fallen
world. Christ in us is the assurance of the glory to come (Col 1:27). In this age, it is more of how God
works through the existent negative conditions in the accomplishment of His eternal purpose in Christ and
through the church than it is about seeing all the perfect will of God fulfilled in this present world.
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27
Christ Identifies with the Poor
As far as our present life in this world is concerned, the general trend of the New Testament Writings is a
warning against the desire for earthly glory driven mostly by the craving for riches. Paul described the
love of money as having its origins in the desire to be rich (1 Tim 6:9, 10). Although the Lord does not
condemn riches themselves, the New Testament revelation is very explicit in its condemnation of the
hunger for riches, and nowhere does the Lord Jesus encourage, recommend, or approve an active longing
for self-enrichment among His people. The Lord knows that the yearning for riches is a symptom of the
desire for earthly glory and which works against true prosperity of the spirit (Matt 6:24, 26). On the other
hand, He recommends, approves and encourages the giving up of riches to those that possess them, which
He rewards. In the words of Stewart Lane, writing in his book “Woe to Ye Rich!”, “Jesus specifically
refused to be powerful in the world’s way of being powerful. He deliberately refused to influence or
control events in the world’s way, and by making Himself a victim, triumphed. He knew the corrupting
influence of economic or political power (Matt 20:25; John 18:36). In an arena in which only the
worshippers of Mammon can be victors, then it is more blessed to be a victim.” Jesus chose the
power of powerlessness even in the area of material riches (2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:5-8).
It is also the revealed truth of the Word that the majority of God’s people are last in the things of this
world. “For not many mighty, not many noble, not many rich according to the flesh are called into the kingdom” (Italics
mine). God has not changed His mind on this one. He is still in the business of things that are foolish,
through people who are weak, the base, and the despised of this world (1 Cor 1:26-31). His intention is
not to turn them into super millionaires and the new worldly nobility, but to reveal His Son in them and to
show them greater riches than what the world can offer and apart from their outward socio-economic
status. The poorest true Christian in this world is infinitely and eternally richer than all the world’s richest
unbelievers and their riches put together.
God, in the revelation of the New Covenant, has not given any doctrine encouraging the continual
accumulation of riches by His people. Riches are addictive because they demand a continual
multiplication to satisfy new experiences as old ones cease to please (Eccl 5:10; 6:7). Moreover, no
matter how faithful they tithe, live clean lives, work hard and believe God for material riches, it is
absolutely a lie that every Christian with a low income can become rich; not fifty or twenty-five or five
percent or even one percent of those who believe in this false doctrine will attain to the illusion of worldly
riches. Moreover, for what riches do we have to aspire? But if we have the means to obtain food, clothing
and shelter, then we are called to contentment.
The poor will never cease from the land, more so in a world that does not abide under God’s
righteousness to look after and protect its poor. The laws of the world actually favour the rich. The
Scriptures recognise poverty and oppression as realities that the majority of people in the world face. God
does not pretend to be blind to the injustices that keep many economically powerless, but neither
does He promise world economic restructuring to favour those who come to Christ for eternal life.
However, He promises His care to those who will put their trust in Him even as they seek to participate in
furthering God’s interests here on earth.
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To the poor and the economically struggling, the call is to identify themselves with the Lord Jesus, who,
in His birth and life, chose to identify Himself with them. Even today, He is still among the poor, walking
and talking to them in all their struggles to earn a living. This is a rallying cry to the poor and the working
class and the not rich, not to despair in their struggles, but to know that the same Jesus is still walking in
and among them. He says to the poor and the not rich, “take heart for I have overcome not being rich in
this world and all the struggles of this life that you may endure in it.”
The Lord calls the poor to esteem their suffering (which may be through lack or perceived lack), as only
but for a moment, building in them an eternal weight of glory. He is not ashamed to call the poor His
brethren. The Lord Jesus identifies with the poor as they face corrupt politicians and governments,
mismanaged economies, the effects of globalisation, difficult working conditions, low pay, exploitation
and deprivation. A Christian writer, writing in “Our Daily Bread” by RBC Ministries, speaks of a minister
of the gospel, who, while working with the poor and war refugees, observing the joyful singing of the
believers among them, came to the realisation that “God does not always lift people out of the situation.
He Himself comes into the situation. He does not pluck them out of the darkness. He becomes the light in
the darkness.”
The Lord’s call to the poor is that they should not place their hope for a better life in the accumulation of
worldly riches or the reformation of corrupt worldly systems, but in Him for true life (John 6:58). The
Scriptures encourage the poor and the not rich not to put their hope and desire in a more luxurious life in
this world, but to be content with food and clothing even as they should seek first the kingdom and God’s
righteousness. Whatever gifts and grace they have been given by God, whatever station in life they find
themselves in, whatever job they work at and their earnings, they should be faithful in using them
according to God’s will as they will have to account for them at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Instead of
giving in to the deceit of living to make money, they should be content with earning a living as is the
exhortation of the Word of God. He promises to meet their daily needs for food and clothing and asks
them to look to Him for strength to earn a living according to His grace. In all their struggles, they have to
know that the glory is yet to come, that no tribulation, or distress, or persecution or famine or nakedness
can separate them from the love of God in Christ. His love is the force that sustains us in all the troubles
of this world, including in the struggle to meet the needs of the modern life.
The poor must know that, and as Stewart Lane puts it, “although they may lack the securities and
protections that money can buy, they can gain the securities and protections guaranteed by God” when
they put their trust in Him and allow Him to work in their lives. To know that Christ is still among us in
all the troubles and deprivations of this world, should and must be a source of great comfort for all
Christians, especially for the poor. To know and live in this concept and to be joyful in it is, to the poor, a
true sharing in the fellowship of His lack. Above all, He has given us all the tools necessary to live in
godliness and through this life. The Lord promises to meet our needs but has not promised immunity from
the social and economic turbulences of the world, but assures us that He will always be with us, even to
the end of the world (John 16:33; Acts 14:22). Christ is our dwelling place and refuge, first and foremost,
from spiritual and eternal danger (Heb 2:14-17). He also came to reveal the superiority of the nonphysical over the physical and material and to show that abundance in physical and financial possessions
are not to be equated with spiritual riches.
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Irrelevancy of the Prosperity Doctrine
One
of the characteristics of the prosperity doctrine that marks it out as false is that it rejects the
revelation that the gospel is fully relevant in the unfavourable socio-economic and historical conditions of
many of the world’s poorer societies. The prosperity movement denies that the gospel can be wholly
relevant and lived among people whose life incomes just about meet their daily necessities (Luke 6:20,
21; 21:1-4; 1 Cor 1:27, 29; 2 Cor 6:10; 8:1, 2; James 2:5 ). They call instead for God to transform
societies as found in most of Africa into a paradise in this present age for the sake of His children and as
to bring about their version of the full gospel. But if this were God’s will, would He not have transformed
the believers in the early church into wealthy Christians? But what do we see instead? We see them
giving away what they had, counting it as rubbish for the sake of the knowledge of Christ (Acts 2:44, 45).
Their new-found prosperity in Christ alone enabled them to see the world’s goods for what they really
are-nothing. Do we suppose we have a better understanding of the Covenant than the apostles did? Some
modern fools actually boast that the apostle Paul did not have a revelation on the material prosperity
gospel, while others accuse him of having failed to claim the promises!
This other gospel ignores such socio-economic conditions of historical colonialism, under-development,
political and social upheavals, government corruption and mismanagement, a continent ruled mostly by
mafia politicians and multi-national corporations with the rest of the people (mostly unknowingly)
serving their interests. Are these not the factors that combine to deprive the masses of Africa of their
socio-economic rights? Or are we merely painting a hopeless picture? This is the world we live in, sin
ridden, and beyond repair and getting the more corrupt with the passage of time. It is in such conditions
and injustice that the so-called prosperity gospel teaches as God’s desire the making of all Christians
financially rich and secure, multi-millionaires even, telling us that the struggles of this life have nothing
to do with Christians. How can we expect Christians in war torn countries like Somalia to get rich when
they can barely afford simple survival? If we agree that war conditions are unfavourable to economic
prosperity then we concur that our physical welfare and access to riches depend on world affairs. If
physical war is a hindrance to physical prosperity, so is the economic and political warfare waged
by the rich a barrier that denies physical wealth and even simple living from many. Is God going to
work in a vacuum in making all rich that does not take into account present injustices? Is He not the God
who has chosen to identify Himself with our suffering and is even now working in us in our daily
experiences of life?
The gospel of millions of American dollars for every Christian on the basis of one’s faith (presumption to
be correct), has no relevance among the believers I live in and have met in many African communities
who eke out a daily living from the sale of firewood and plastic wrappers, from charcoal making and as
domestic help. It has no meaning to the security guard, farm worker, peasant, the unemployed housewife
and blind beggar and whose greatest achievements in life would be the ability to access basic shelter and
clean water. It has no relevance to the great mass of the working class; the teachers, nurses, manual
labourers, public service workers, factory workers, waiters and shop attendants. All these have lifetime
incomes that are not dependant on faithfulness in giving to the church or in believing God for riches but
on their employers. These people need something better to place their hope in than the fleeting riches of
this world. They need something more than just “pay up and believe and you will be made rich.”
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We need to make the gospel relevant for those who have been deprived of basic human socio-economic
rights, denied access to education by soaring costs, and deprived of access to resources by which many
would hope to improve on their socio-economic welfare. How can these people hope to compete for the
world’s riches in the midst of such exploitation, war, corruption and mismanagement and where worldly
wealth is for the carnally powerful? Do we go on to teach them to lust, envy and covet the things of this
world, which are in the hands of the politically and globally strong, all in the name of faith, that all things
are possible with God? But are all things profitable or even righteous? Has God not called them to
simplicity instead? Would we now call God to turn the stones in the backyard of each Christian’s house
into gold because we ‘shouldn’t limit God?’ How can they hope to access resources through the church
itself when all the finances of churches go towards the enrichment of preachers and church leaders and for
the servicing of lifeless things of buildings and musical instruments and the furnishing of temples made
with human hands? These human leaders may give a token show of generosity and blow their trumpet for
the world, but which very often is mere window-dressing! Such public stunts are often done for the sake
of publicity and usually given in the name of the preacher, prophet or church and denominational leader
as to build his image before the world.
The message of faith for financial wealth condemns the poor as faithless and sinful for their lack of carnal
glory. It insults those whose only hope lies in the coming of Christ who will, once and for all, deliver
them out of all the world’s struggles, deprivation, lack, grief and sorrow (Rev 21:4). It has no relevance to
the great mass of the African illiterate and uneducated whose survival is a daily chore. It has little
meaning to the poor whose only desire is access to fertile land, clean water and proper sanitary
conditions, and where hope of getting these is when the rich share a little with them and when Aid
organisations help them out and improve their present physical conditions. The world, more than the
church, has done a better job of helping the poor, the widows and the orphans. God’s visible people with
means have largely ignored their responsibility for the poor, and have instead placed increasingly
heavy burdens on the poor themselves to give money to the church. Jeremiah, a prophet in Israel, was
inspired to write about such kinds of people: “For among my people are found wicked men; they lie in wait as one who
sets snares; they set a trap; they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have
become great and grown rich. They have grown fat, they are sleek; yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked; They do not plead
the cause, the cause of the fatherless; yet they prosper, and the right of the needy they do not defend” (Jer 5:26-28).
The prophets of Mammon continually tell the poor that the reason for their continued lack and deprivation
is due to their lack of faith. The poor are accused of not believing God enough and being sinful in not
paying tithes or leading clean lives. It appears that nothing one does is ever enough to merit God’s favour
even for simple survival. Even those in the world cannot identify with such a God, for even unbelievers
know that God’s goodness and sovereignty provides for everyone’s access to the things of this world and
only man’s injustices prevent many from an equitable share.
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29
Christ did not Die to Reform Present World Economic Systems
To advocate for the possibility of material wealth for every Christian as the prosperity teaching does, is
to force God to change the present world economic and political order to favour believers. For it is only as
these systems are abolished that everyone can have equal access to the world’s resources. However,
nowhere in the gospel has God promised to reform the world for the carnal benefit of His children. In
fact, The Lord told of difficulties in the world for His followers (Matt 24:6, 7; John 16:33). It is through
the hardships of this life (economic powerlessness in relation to accessing goods and services on the part
of many) that we are to be refined and changed. Why do we not see miracles in the financial world
markets and corporations on behalf of the so-called faithful if it were His will to make every believing
soul rich? Has God not chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty;
and the base things and the things that are despised, to bring to nothing the things that are? Will God at
this time contradict Himself and reverse the situation, by making Christians the mighty, the strong and the
acclaimed, as far as the things of this world are concerned? Has God not instead made us heirs of a glory
yet to be revealed? “And if Children, then heirs-heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that
we may also be glorified together” (Rom 8:17). “Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the
kingdom which He promised to those who love Him” (James 2:5)?
Christ did not die to give previously financially dispossessed Christians present material abundance (Luke
12:14, 15; 1 Tim 6: 7, 8); nor did He die for reformation of this world. Instead, He came to judge and
place it under probation for destruction in the last day (2 Pet 3:7). Christ did not die with any focus on
giving this world’s corruptible wealth to previously dispossessed people who believe in His name.
He did not die so that those who believe upon Him and through their faith may have estates and luxurious
cars, be owners of industry and large-scale commercial farms, which hitherto they did not possess. Christ
did not die to give us worldly riches, but to give us eternal life whose blessings are also eternal in nature.
Christ died to deliver us from sin, from Satan, from the second death and from the love of this present
world. He died to give us fellowship with the self-existent God and the hope of future glory and to grant
us the fullness of the measure of life in Him alone irrespective of our present outward glory. Christ did
not die to repair the world but to repair people and reserve for them new heavens and earth. This present
world has been condemned to total destruction.
The prosperity teaching translates into a Christ who came to give us, not new desires that befit new
creatures, but to use our old and natural desires for wealth, but now in Jesus’ name. They would tell us
that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life to this world’s perishable wealth! Christians are constantly
being told that they lack something in Christ if they do not possess the treasures of this world. However,
those in the truth know that Satan’s power is not in denying people these things. On the contrary, the
devil’s power is in making people slaves to the desire for riches and for increasingly abundance of
possessions and to be satisfied with self-indulgence as the rich fool mentioned by Luke (Luke 12:1921). The devil’s desire, through false faith based on material prosperity, is to bring Christians into the
bondage of the sins of lust, covetousness, greed, envy, jealousy and all manner of the works of the flesh.
The false doctrine of the love of money advocates the fulfilment in the present time of conditions
promised in the coming glory (Rom 8:18-30; Phil 3:20, 21; 1 Tim 6:7, 8; 1 Pet 1: 3, 4), ascribing to the
Lord the reformation of this condemned world soon to be destroyed. It calls on the Lord to give
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supernatural ability to all Christians in making them wealthy in a world where, riches, in the most, are
obtained through the exploitation of man by man and the abuse of the world’s resources. The rich are the
ones destroying the world through selfish consumption and pollution of its resources. Their riches often
come through the neglect of others, exploitation of the poor and from profiteering. This was the reason
that James, one of the inspired writers of the New Covenant Scriptures, told the church not to show
favouritism to the rich for they are the ones who exploit the poor (James 2:6).
As the Jews expected a messiah who would deliver them from Roman oppression and economic
dispossession, so it is to the same expectancy that Christians are being called in these last days by the
prosperity movement. They are sold a Jesus who rewards the so-called faithful believers with mansions in
the most up-market parts of their cities, with B.M.Ws, with access to the best healthcare facilities and
other social services and unending exotic holidays in Aruba and Shanghai, if only they believe! They
promote works of merit as ways of gaining the favour of God contrary to the clear teachings of the New
Covenant of Christ and Him as the only mediator between God and men. They do not perceive that Christ
and His sacrifice of Himself is the only basis for God’s blessing and favour in a Christian’s life.
Distorted views of the importance of material possessions can be heard in many preachers’ sermons and
people’s prayers calling God to satisfy carnal desires, egos, selfishness, to back greed and covetousness.
Christians are taught that it is all about their security, comfort and carnal happiness. The Mammon
prophets blind the simple and gullible to the greater purpose of God in their lives by selling them a
perverted gospel of the satisfaction of fleshly appetites and the god of their bellies. Many professing
Christians have reduced the Lord Jesus to a deity of utility, looking to Him in the context of His
usefulness to give them what they want.
There is a growing trend among multitudes of deceived people who seek spiritual solutions to their socioeconomic problems and to use God as a means of fulfilling their own desires and without necessarily
repenting of their sins. Their hunger and thirst is not to be rid of the burden of sin but to use spiritual
power to solve problems while they remain under the power of Satan and dead in trespasses and sins.
They want freedom from the difficulties of life but not the true freedom that comes from the forgiveness
of sins. Their so-called prophets major in preaching this distorted version of Christianity with nauseating
regularity on television and in ‘churches’ as they deceive the simple with false prophecies and false
deliverance from the lack of the carnal glory of worldly riches. They deceive people to seek God for the
mere fulfilment of carnal desires but not to be saved from sin and the power of Satan which prevents them
from facing trials and tribulations in the power of the Spirit of God in the first place.
We must know that believers in Christ are not promised immunity from personal difficulties. However,
the difference between them and unbelievers is that true believers face trials in the strength, power and
stability provided by the life of God in them. Faith is not about getting rid of all of life’s problems as
modern false prophets teach, but is about facing them in the strength of “His glorious power for all
patience and longsuffering with joy” (Col 1:11). The teachers of the doctrine of Mammon deceive us
that to possess a fat bank account (preferably in millions of American dollars), to live in the most
expensive residential area of the city and to drive the latest posh car, are signs of faith and faithfulness.
There are many who would want to claim that this world has no limitations for anyone in Christ who
wants its glory. I once wrote to a certain brother in Harare who believes in this teaching. I challenged
him, not only to succeed and get ‘rich’ in his own life and business, but to be the best in the world, the
richest and most successful in his chosen field. For does he not claim God’s approval for his desires for
earthly glory? If we claim that a Christian can be all that he wants to be then we should be the greatest in
the world in our different fields of work or business according to the standards by which the world
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measures greatness! We should be careful however, not to call others to a glory which we ourselves do
not have or are unable to achieve! I write this in love so that people may have the common sense which
many ignorantly assume is not needed in Christianity. Faith is not the absence of reason, but rather,
faith is to reason God’s way and not the utopian way of deception of expecting everyone to ascend
to the illusion of present worldly glory in Jesus’ name.
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VI
Promises of the New Covenant
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The Promise of the Gospel
To advocate financial affluence for every Christian in the name of faith or through the payment of tithes
and gifts to preachers and pastors, is an effort to deceive Christians that one is never truly blessed until he
achieves worldly monetary glory, and that through merit. It is an attempt to blind us to the fullness of the
invisible life of God and to the greatnesses of the riches found therein and through which we possess the
power for a truly Christ centred life and the abundance thereof.
When God sent His Son into the world, it was not to improve the lot of Adam by giving every believing
soul equal access to the gold and silver of this present age. His purpose was to recreate man into the
image of His Son, “Christ in you, the hope glory” (Col 1:27). This was God’s eternal purpose which He
accomplished through the Cross of Jesus Christ. Christ became poor (2 Cor 8:9) so that man could once
again stand before God in holiness, love and without blame (Eph 1:4; Col 1:21, 22). He came to bestow,
on those who would believe, spiritual blessings prepared before the foundation of the world, before the
existence of gold and silver (Eph 1:3, 4). Food, clothing and shelter, and even riches, have always been
available to everyone through work, effort and the opportunities and circumstances accruing in each one’s
life according to God’s sovereign permission. On the other hand, spiritual blessings have their origin in
the heavenly realms and were prepared for us before time began and they will find complete fulfilment in
eternity future (Eph 1:3-5; 2:7; 1 Pet 1:4). What eye had not seen, nor ear heard nor had it entered into
the hearts of men the riches that God had prepared for us and which have been revealed to us by the Holy
Spirit so that we may know the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Cor 2:9-12). Through
these blessings and riches, we have the fullness of the Christian life, the abundant life promised by the
Lord apart from an imaginary success and prosperity in scaling the heights of physical material
abundance and financial greatness. Contrary to the claims of the false prophets of fullness of life in
physical wealth, in Christ is the fullness (Col 1:19).
Christians are children of promise and the measure of their ability to access the world’s goods and
services, both for their needs, for others’, and for the sake of the gospel, is sovereignly planned by God
and made available to them as they need it and as they seek the purposes of God. Some may choose selfindulgence over self-sacrifice for the sake of the gospel and see money or financial glory as ends in
themselves. God will judge them for such acts and He does chasten. Others may be struggling in life
simply because they choose to make it on their own in the world. Nevertheless, I believe that God still
looks after His wayward children as He does with the rest of humanity. We must be careful however, that
to live for the exclusive desire for worldly wealth and the pursuit of riches may show that we were never
truly saved in the first place because covetousness is idolatry.
To claim worldly wealth by faith, yet millions of Christians fall short of such wealth, is to claim that
the gospel and faith have failed, and worse still because of the weakness of man not to believe! If this
is not a satanic declaration then I do not know what is! The whole purpose of Paul’s letters to the Galatian
and Roman churches was to show them and us that the promise of the gospel cannot fail because of man’s
weakness, as did the Law of Moses (Rom 4:16; 9:11). He wrote to emphasise that the gospel, the good
news and the blessing of Christ, is given by promise so that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, succeed and prosper, not of works but of Him who calls. If physical riches are to become
every Christian’s covenant right, then they too must come to everyone by God’s purpose according to
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election and promise and not be dependent on the making of financial contributions to preachers, church
systems, programs and ceremonies. However, the truth of the matter is that it is not God’s purpose for the
elect to fill every one of them with the abundance of worldly presents and gifts. His purpose and working
of grace for each Christian will determine the sovereign circumstances and opportunities that He brings to
bear in each Christian’s life in as far as access to this world’s resources is concerned. How we use the
opportunities and circumstances for His glory will determine the rewards or lack thereof at the judgement
seat of Christ when He judges the saints for good works done or left undone.
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The Blessing of Abraham
“The blessing of Abraham” (Gal 3:14) is a much quoted and favourite phrase of those who claim, by
misinterpretation, that, as our father of faith (Rom 4:12, 16), Abraham’s cattle, gold, and silver (Gen 13:2)
must fall on Christians. Like the rest of the teachings of the prosperity gospel, this declaration is made on
the private interpretation of the meaning of the blessing of Abraham to make it into multiple cars, houses,
lands and millions of American dollars in bank accounts for all Christians. However, if this were true, and
the Christian’s blessings from Abraham meant physical riches, every Christian would be rich because
they would fall on us by faith alone at the time we believed in Christ and as a product of our justification
along the same lines of Abraham who believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness (Rom
4:9-25; Gal 3:1-9). It would not be of works lest anyone should boast but grace working through faith
(just simple believing) so that the glory is God’s alone (Rom 4:1-25). If riches are a covenant right of
every Christian, why do preachers still preach the giving of money as a condition of receiving from God?
If Abraham did not pay tithes or church participation fees for him to get his wealth, why should Christians
have to make offerings if his material blessings are a right, a prerequisite of the New Covenant? If present
material riches were part of the blessings of the gospel and our right through faith, it would imply all
Christians being rich in equal measure, at least at the starting point of each one’s Christian life. If
abundance of money is a blessing and a right, then its pre-existence must be a given fact so that only
faithfulness in its use would be required from Christians.
If we have any rights in Christ, it is only logical to expect them to be bestowed on us at the time of
the new birth and not be dependent on the giving of money to pastors, church leaders and human
religious infrastructural organisations. For why would we be universally clothed only with inner
righteousness and beauty at the time of the new birth and not with the supernatural power to the riches of
this world as well, if they are an inherent part of that Covenant? Why would the riches of this world, or
even our daily provisions, have to depend on work and effort still? Why does God not give us
supernatural insight into the world’s best economic and financial deals and stocks and shares? Why does
He not supernaturally reveal to the faithful tithe paying Christians where the gold and the diamonds are?
Even if such revelation did not exempt us from physical work, we would gladly dig for them in the
assurance of the location of the hidden treasure! However, the truth of our relationship with God is that as
Christians, we have no rights in Christ (Eph 2:4-10; Col 3:3). We surrendered any claim to our lives
when we exchanged our lives for His. We only have privileges that He has given us because of His great
love and mercy. Christians are vessels of mercy and cannot claim anything as a right (Rom 9:14-29; Eph
2:4-10). Moreover, all necessary blessings for the prosperity or success of the gospel in our lives have
already been given to us by the Spirit of God, who is the embodiment of the fullness of the blessing of
Christ.
The Spirit does not work through the works of the law, but through faith, and only those who are of faith
are blessed (spiritually and with life) with believing Abraham (Gal 3:6, 7). Christ has redeemed us from
the curse of the yoke of the law so “that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Abraham’s blessing was faith and through which we who
believe obtain the promise of God’s abiding presence, His Spirit. As far as his physical riches were
concerned, Abraham had to work, toil and sweat for them though God’s favour was upon Him as to
confirm the covenant that He had made with Him (Gen 12:5). The New Covenant is confirmed by the
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sign of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life and not by financial abundance (Eph 1:13, 14). The
Abrahamic covenant had a physical component relating to the flesh and a spiritual one fulfilled in Christ.
Others go as far as teaching that Christ came to restore the physical wealth of Abraham in this present
age. They claim that this wealth had been lost by the disobedience of the children of Israel. People will
privately interpret anything to satisfy their carnal desires. However, when we look at Abraham’s life and
that of Jacob, we see that, although they possessed a lot of material wealth, they were still desirous of a
real blessing from God, which their physical and temporal wealth could not give them. The outward glory
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was only a confirmation of God’s call upon their lives to be the patriarchs of
the chosen nation and as forerunners of the true riches that would come. The true blessing was in the
promise through which all the nations of the world would be truly blessed through the seed of Abraham,
even the Lord Jesus (Rom 4:1-25; Gal 3:1-29; 4:21-30). The blessing of Abraham is the spiritual
inheritance that we have received in Christ by the promise of God giving us sonship and making us heirs
of the glory and physical inheritance yet to be revealed. We have been redeemed from spiritual slavery
(Gal 4:4, 5) but we are yet to be delivered from the presence of a fallen world in which most of us live as
‘slaves’ in as far as most of us are not the masters over the riches of this present age.
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The Promise of the Spirit
Many
Christians remain ignorant of the implications of the New Covenant as establishing a new
relationship with God through the Holy Spirit as He lives, writes His laws and walks in them (Heb 8:10 ).
The presence of the Spirit of God makes it unnecessary for Christians to find righteousness,
sanctification, blessedness, favour, or wisdom from even the Ten Commandments. The Spirit of God is
our Ten Commandments so to speak, and is the most important and fundamental of all the promises of the
New Covenant. The gospel is about the good news of how the Lord Jesus comes to implement or fulfil
this promise. By destroying sin in the flesh, which kept man from God’s eternal desire of true union with
him, the Lord Jesus is able to deposit His own life in man through the Spirit and obtains for Himself true
companions, brethren and co-heirs of all that He is (Rom 8:3, 4). The consummation of the promise of
the abiding presence of God by the Spirit through the atoning sacrifice of the eternal Son of God is
the greatest gift that God has ever bestowed on His created beings. It is the richest of all the riches
one can imagine, both visible and invisible (Eph 1:13, 14). Through the same great and unspeakable
riches of the presence of God by His Holy Spirit, Christ in us, we have gained access to an infinite galaxy
of the riches of God’s grace that can never be compared to the riches of this world, which are rubbish in
comparison.
The life of the Spirit abides as a secret unknown to multitudes who profess to believe in the Lord Jesus as
many seek to draw their strength for life from the world, from the pursuit of financial greatness, from
religious activities and obedience of works, from the tangible, from externals and from codes and creeds.
God’s desire and purpose is for us to live in the knowledge and power of His riches in the Spirit, for now
and for all eternity to the praise of the glory of the riches of His grace. On the other hand, the hunger for
earthly riches has a tendency to draw our affections away from the riches of God. The enemy of our souls,
that old serpent, would want us to believe that the pursuit of the abundance of material possessions and
higher financial status will bring us peace and happiness. The devil’s desire is to blind us to the prosperity
of peace, joy, righteousness, wisdom and truth in the Lord Jesus. For in him is all the riches that anyone
could ever desire or need as we appropriate His life by the Spirit through whom He dwells in us and
through us (1 Cor 2:12; Eph 2:18).
The Scriptures are very clear that the new life in Christ does not consist in the abundance of material
wealth. Christ does not measure blessedness in the amount of goods or money one has as advocated by
the prosperity movement. We conclude therefore that material things are not part of the blessings that
Christ came to bestow on the world. Although we can use them as instruments to ‘bless’ others
through sharing as manifesting God’s love and kindness and bringing glory to Him, physical things
are not a blessing in themselves.
The gift of the Spirit and of the life of the Son of God through Him is the greatest manifestation of the
love of God. To have done it for sinful man, rebels and enemies of God is amazing. The magnitude of that
Love! There is no greater truth, riches or prosperity to be known than the love that God has for us in
Christ Jesus. How God desires that every Christian would come to know His love that passes knowledge
and to be filled with all the fullness of that incomprehensible love even if they are poor in the things of
this world (Eph 3:16-20)! The Holy Spirit is the certainty of our eternal union with God, the surety of our
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inheritance. For even now we do not know the extent of what we shall be, but we know that we will be
changed into the full likeness of Him in whom dwells the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form.
The power of a truly Christian life comes through the knowledge of the riches of God when the Spirit
illuminates the Scriptures to reveal the fullness of Christ and his purposes to the believer. The lack of
knowledge and of the power of life in the Spirit has led many to seek it in counterfeits of religious
obedience of works, legal righteousness and in the pursuit of material riches. All these are very poor
substitutes for all the spiritual prosperity that God has given us and in which we can begin to walk in the
here and now. Worldly riches can never replace or even complement the genuine abundant life of the
invisible life of God deposited in us and through Him abundance of righteousness, peace and joy in the
Holy Spirit, Christ in you, the hope of glory!
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33
Blessed with all Spiritual Blessings
How can we call people cursed whom God has blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly
places merely because they do not possess the subjective status symbols of the financial glory of this
present age? Who can curse those whom God has blessed? “For there is no sorcery (curse or witchcraft)
against Jacob, nor any divination against Israel. It must now be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘oh, what God has done!” (Num
23:23 italics mine). What was true of God’s people in the desert is even much more true for those sitting
with Him in the heavenly places!
In the abundance of the riches of the living waters of God, the followers of the false teaching of financial
wealth for all are thirsty for present earthly wealth and glory. We who believe give praise and honour to
God, not because He has given us all the corruptible wealth of this world and showered all believers with
earthly prestigious jobs (which He has not promised and to whose access most of the poor are excluded
by the carnally powerful), but because He has blessed, even the poor of this world, with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ for a fullness and complete life in Him even in their lowly socioeconomic condition (Eph 1:3). God has given us all the blessings that are true blessings. He has chosen,
among the street vendors, peasants, gardeners and mini-bus fare collectors, who are being preached as
failures by the false prophets of worldly riches, to be holy (separated to Him alone), without blame,
before Him in love (1:4). He has also predestined, among the toilet cleaners, the newspaper men, the
tomato and vegetable vendors and manual labourers of this world (who are despised by the Mammon
prophets), to adoption as sons (with full and complete privileges, not of the world, but in Christ) by Christ
Jesus to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His sovereign will, to the praise of the glory, riches
and splendour of His grace which He made to abound, even mostly, among the poor, the financially weak
and the despised of this world, to be accepted completely in Christ (1:5-6). He has redeemed them, not
with money as to make all rich in corruptible wealth, but through His own blood in which is, not the
lifting up of the poor’s lack of access to present earthly glory, but the forgiveness of sins and deliverance,
not from their lack of the abundance of worldly goods and so-called high-status jobs and careers, but
deliverance from the power of sin and death according to the riches of His grace which He has made to
abound mostly to the poor in all wisdom and prudence (1:7,8), having made known to them the mystery
of His will, which is not to make all believers rich in this present age, but that in the dispensation of the
fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and
which are on earth, rich and poor in Him (1:9, 10) and where there shall be no toilet cleaner, financial
director of Microsoft or oil and diamond tycoon. For in Christ, the lowly of this age (in which is the
majority of God’s people), have obtained an inheritance, not of gold and silver, but being predestined
even through their present lowliness, to be to the praise, not of outward and visible glory of worldly
riches, but of God’s own eternal and incorruptible glory (1:11). Having believed, even poor believers are
sealed, not with abundance of earthly possessions and exalted jobs, but with the Holy Spirit of promise,
giving both rich and poor equal access to God, the guarantee of their eternal, incorruptible inheritance
until the redemption (final deliverance) of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory (1:12-14).
The Holy Spirit has not been given as a guarantee of access to the world’s carnal and corruptible wealth.
He lives in and among Christians as a witness of the Christ life which denies the glory of the riches of this
world because of the glory that exceeds.
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The Bondage of the Body of Death
One of the crises facing modern professing Christians is the inability to accept the limitations of the
human body (even a Christian’s) and in its relationship to its natural surroundings (Rom 8:18-25; Job
14:1, 2). As the rest of creation and nature, our bodies are in bondage of corruption. They are weak
vessels, bodies of death and condemned to dust (2 Cor 4:7, 10, 16). The body is subject to the effects of
corruption, of old age, of sickness and disease and eventual death. We cannot eliminate the bondage of
the body by wishful faith or superstitiously ‘pleading the blood’ or invoking ‘Holy Ghost fire’, or paying
church taxes of tithes as most people have been deceived to believe. God, in His sovereignty, uses the
effects of corruption to test our faith and refine it for His own good pleasure (John 16:33; 1 Pet 1:6, 7).
The body gets tired and weak, and it is affected by atmospheric conditions. Some speak of bodily pain
as not a portion of the Christian life as if their bodies were already glorified. We pray for healing and
expect it from God for the exact reasons that the body will get sick at one time or the other (James 5:1315). How and when God responds to our requests for restoration is none of our business. Faith must
accept His will.
We should also know that God’s ministry to His afflicted children involves many more aspects than
the mere removal of pain. In times of bodily suffering, the submitted Christian can experience God’s
comfort (2 Cor 1:3, 4), an increase in grace (2 Cor 12:9), and the refining of faith (1 Pet 1:6, 7). At no
time do the afflictions of the body contradict the fact that Christ carried our sorrows and pain. A life
without pain is for the glory to come (2 Cor 5:1, 2). The power of God and the growth of faith in this age
are best manifest under opposing conditions. When I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:10). The
proponents of prosperity do not want to hear this. They speak of a victorious life outside the context of
suffering, afflictions and pain. Their notion of victory is a make believe gospel of the present glorification
of the body and the gratification of its desires. The prosperity movement would want to create a fantasy
world on this side of glory where crying, grief and pain are eliminated in the name that Christ has already
suffered for us. They are ignorant of the most basic promises of the life to come and do not grasp that the
Christian already possesses all things and only awaits their fulfilment in glory (2 Cor 4:17, 18).
The advocates of riches for all and no-sickness (as long as you give them your money), base their claims
on 1 Pet 2:24. They read into it the lifting up of the poor’s lack of access to this world’s riches and
continual physical health for all. If their interpretation is correct, we should also then speak of the
cessation of all the corruption of nature resultant from the curse imposed on Adam. We should then claim
for the abolition of old age, pain in childbearing for women and sweat in labour and even of physical
death, if we are to follow the logic of their argument. However, even though the curse resultant from the
sin of Adam may have been removed in Christ, the body and the effects of a corrupted nature must run
their course of death and for the body to be resurrected in glory (1 Cor 15:42-44). Suffering for the
Christian is no longer a curse but a sharing in Christ’s own suffering. When Peter wrote on our healing
through the stripes of Christ, he was speaking of the removal of the power of sin over those who believe.
Faith lives in the hope of the eventual release of the body from bondage and accepts the effects of its
present weakness.
We thank God for perfect health. However, it is a privilege to pray to God to heal us when we fall
sick, as it also a privilege to receive God’s ministry of comfort and grace when He does not answer
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in the way we expect. God does not refine our faith outside the multi-form arena of afflictions. An
increased ability to believe in God and in His nature, character and qualities, can only come under
contradictory indications such as bodily pain, persecution, trials or financial struggles. “But if you are without
chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons” (Heb 12:8). If we are God’s
children, we will be subject to tests, trials, sufferings, tribulations, rebukes and beatings of life as
well as temptations that come from such situations at different moments in our earthly pilgrimage.
We should not seek to apply a theology of future glory to the body and to the life of the believer in the
present age as the doctrine of the error of prosperity does. To claim, what God in His grace has promised
only for the future, is the height of presumption, apostasy and folly, and a falling to the tricks of the devil
to turn us against God. The next time someone tells me that a believer should never get sick or face
financial crisis I will demand that they also prove total freedom from all struggles with sin in their life.
For can we also not claim that they should be free of any trace of sin as they are from sickness and
financial struggles since the basis of their presumption is the same? What is the purpose of faith if it is
never tested? And what is the purpose of the testing of faith if it can be eliminated at our
command?
The problem with many of us is that we want to experience God in the glory of heaven while God wants
us to experience Him in the bondage of creation and of the body. God wants us to manifest His life in the
midst of our struggles and weaknesses, in the heat of the sun and the cold of snow, in the toil of labour
and the difficulties of human relationships, in both good and bad times, in war and in peace, in slavery
and freedom, in colonialism and independence, in communism and capitalism, in lack and in abundance,
in health and in sickness till the coming of Christ brings us to glory!
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VII
Prosperity in the Gospel
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Uniqueness of the Gospel of Christ
There is uniqueness, exclusivity and prosperity to the gospel of Jesus Christ that makes it different from
other so-called gospels or faiths. Unlike the false gospel of the desire for worldly riches, there is a quality
of the supernatural to the gospel that makes its impact unique (Rom 14:17; 1 Thess 1:5; 2 Tim 1:10; 1 Pet
1:3-5, 18, 19). There is a distinctiveness to the gospel of Christ that marks out other ‘gospels’ such as the
one of worldly prosperity to be easily identifiable as false. While the gospel of Christ promises no earthly
glory to its followers, yet millions, mostly poor and the not rich as well as a few rich, swear allegiance to
it through faith in Christ for future glory (Phil 3:20). Even though Christ refused to be crowned king of
the Earth and to be a distributor of worldly goods (Luke 12:14), people of all races and throughout the
ages have bowed the knee to Him as their Lord and Master. Christ, while refusing to carnally benefit from
the glory that He had with the Father (Phil 2:5-7), shares His glory with humanity and makes many rich
in divine wealth (John 10:10; 2 Cor 8:9).
The exclusivity of the gospel of Christ lies in the ability of Christ Himself to bestow on every
believer what the world cannot give (John 4:13, 14; 14:27; 1 Cor 2:9). Its superiority rests in His
capacity to satisfy a hunger that the world cannot fulfil, quenching thirst that material things cannot begin
to satiate, fulfilling a longing for true fellowship that worldly riches cannot provide. He gives a fullness of
life, joy and righteousness that is independent of the amount of money in one’s bank account, the form of
transport one uses or the type of house one lives in (Luke 12:15). Such is the extent to which the gospel of
Jesus Christ cannot be imitated that exposes the so-called prosperity gospel for the fraud that it is.
The matchlessness of the gospel of Christ is that its blessing is Christ Himself and the nature and
character of God that reside in Him (Col 2:9, 10). It is prosperity in the possession of the divine eternal
life of God and where material things are no different from the benefits we enjoy from the sun and
from the air we breathe, with the further exception and burden that we must physically work for
the right to use the natural things of this life.
The uniqueness of the gospel makes the wealth in the Son of God the only wealth that we must desire.
The knowledge of that wealth should be the Christian’s only concern. The wealth in Christ, unlike
worldly wealth, cannot be accessed by unbelievers. Many in our day are searching for riches that are
not in the being of Christ. Modern Christianity, in the name of false riches, has been invaded by
superstition, fables, law-based obedience, man centred devotion and much heresy. Only the true wealth in
Christ can bring fulfilment.
Christ’s uniqueness makes the life in Him the only wealth that the Father wants revealed in His children.
The knowledge of Christ is God’s favourite and only lesson for believers. God directs our lives in
accordance to His work in Christ. Whatever else He may tell us, or send us to do, should be viewed in the
context of His will through His Son and our lives as vessels or conduits for the transmission of that will.
In contradiction, man has a tendency to want to hear God speak to him about money, success, worldly
riches, personal safety and security, all good things to the carnal ear. Carnal man loves to hear God
organising his life properly according to the world’s definition of life and is deceived by false prophecies
answering to his fleshly appetites. On the other hand, God will only organise our physical life as it relates
to the will of His Son through our lives, the nature of the manifestation of the Lord by His Spirit. This
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organisation usually involves the making of a lot of sacrifices on our behalf in denying ourselves in the
world.
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The Prosperity of the Gospel of Christ
Instead of wasting time insisting on the carnal preoccupation of the desire for the pursuit of physical and
worldly financial glory, Christians should concern themselves with understanding and participating in an
already successful or prosperous gospel of Christ. For the Scriptures do not at any time point Christians to
another gospel called the “prosperity” gospel but instead directs them to participate in a predetermined
and existent prosperity and success of the gospel of Christ. The prosperity gospel is another gospel and
is not a measure of the prosperity of the gospel of Christ (Gal 1:6-10; Phil 3:18-21; 2 Thess 2:9-12).
When we look at the spread of the gospel, its impact upon the lives of billions of people over the more
than twenty centuries of Christian history, and its life giving qualities from the time of the Day of
Pentecost to the present day, and in the face of vicious persecution, hardship, turmoil, victimisation,
martyrdom, sacrifices of those who left everything for its sake, then we are faced with the definition of
true prosperity (Matt 16:18; Isa 9:6, 7; Dan 2:34, 35; Luke 10:19; John 16:33; Rev 12:13-17). The
survival of the gospel of Christ and its life giving force, in the face of untold demonic attacks to kill
it off (including the spread of the poison of the false gospel of worldly prosperity), defines for me
what true prosperity is. This is the prosperity, success, victory, triumph, richness, affluence and
dominion of the will of God, of His plans and of His grace. Neither demons nor man, nor wars, nor
economic depressions, nor inflation, nor colonialism, nor imperialism, nor communism, nor exploitation,
nor recession, nor sanctions, nor global climate change, nor natural disasters have been able to derail the
intangible prosperity of the gospel (Matt 24:6-14; Luke 10:18-20; Rom 8:35-39). On the other hand, the
same cannot be said of the ‘gospel’ of worldly riches, which is subject to the natural, political, economic,
environmental, historical and social factors existent in the world. This other gospel cannot itself
prosper in adversity whereas the gospel of Christ has prospered and continues to flourish, more
often than not, under conditions of worldly and human hardship. The followers of the prosperity
heresy must be challenged to prove this teaching in their own lives even as Elijah challenged the prophets
of Baal. Let them build their altars, bring their tithes and offerings and wet them with their tears and show
us this god who will answer by pouring financial wealth into their lives. Has God not shown His complete
love for us on the Cross that He should prove it by satisfying our cravings for the deceitfulness of wealth?
The testimony of the Scriptures and of the biblical saints is of a Christian prosperity that is measured in
terms of the degree of one’s faithfulness in participating in and advancing the cause of an already
successful and prosperous gospel according to the measure of grace or God determined opportunities
given him (1 Cor 3:14, 15). It is not about how successful a person is in advancing his own cause of
earthly glory. The prosperity that already exists is that of the success of the gospel itself and not our own
increased ability to access money and its varied carnal benefits. Christians are not the gospel of Christ but
their lives as impacted and changed, reformed, liberated, empowered for victory over sin and death and
all the power of the enemy by the gospel make for the success story of the good news of Jesus Christ, for
both rich and poor. The presence of the Spirit in the believer’s life (Eph 1:13, 14 ) is the all-defining and
all-embracing sign and seal of true prosperity and there is no other mark, worse still, that of corruptible
worldly wealth as a sign of faith, of the presence of God, of His righteousness, glory and blessing.
The Spirit brings in the prosperity and wealth of God’s love, purity, righteousness, kindness, peace,
gentleness, goodness, self-control, longsuffering, patience, forgiveness and joy, the accumulation of all
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that God is as the sum of the measurement of true wealth, riches and prosperity (Gal 5:22-25). The
manifestation of the divine invisible life as revealing the nature and character of God in Christ by His
Spirit is the measure of the success of the gospel in any Christian’s life irrespective of one’s social and
economic stature in the world. The success of the gospel can neither be measured nor valued according to
the ability to accumulate certain quantities of worldly goods, nor is it dependent on, or prized, by the
ability to grow one’s net monetary worth in pattern with the American dream or other worldly fantasy. If
it did, and given the history of exploitation and dominance that keep the majority of the world’s
population powerless, then it would be a total failure.
The worth of worldly riches must be evaluated only from the context of the extent to which a Christian
uses them to contribute to the success and prosperity of the gospel according to the working of God’s
purpose (2 Cor 9:12, 13). They cannot be used as a measurement of the prosperity of the gospel itself.
The prosperity of God is as complete in the poor as it is in the rich who choose to live in God’s way
and in His strength. It is the prosperity that existed in Christ before the world began, before the creation
of all things that the world knows as riches. Christ became poor in denying Himself the glory that He had
with the Father and in making Himself a man of no reputation in this world so as to give all who believe
the glory He shared with God from eternity.
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Prosperity of the Inner Life
Who has bewitched this present generation to believe such a lie of the Christian faith as consisting in the
abundance of possessions? Is it the false prophets and fortunetellers prophesying multiplication of
properties in Jesus’ name, or is it the professing multitude’s own desires that are deluding them in false
hope of false promises? The sad observation is that the prosperity movement is searching for the wrong
riches in the wrong place. At least sworn unbelievers have knowledge of their own riches, while many
who profess the Christian faith remain blind to the riches that the Lord Jesus has already bestowed on
believers (1 Cor 2:9; Eph 1:3). They are searching for the wrong prosperity in the wrong realm. They do
not perceive that the Christian’s riches are in the realms of the inner man and in the heavenly places for
the hope of our inheritance. Many would crave for the prosperity of the physical body in the realm of the
world not realising that the very body is someone else’s house, God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16, 17; Col 3:3).
The Christian life is Christ’s, who in turn is not in the least interested in the acquisition of this
world’s gold and silver as to make Himself rich. The gold and silver is His in the first place, and He
only takes of what is His for use in the Christian’s life (to those who submit to His work), to meet needs
according to His purpose and grace.
The true Christian life resides in the cultivation of the inner life, giving priority to the enrichment of the
inner man through the seeking of the knowledge of God and of His ways. The presence of God and the
riches in Him must be appropriated and experienced through the inner man. God is concerned with the
state of the inward man whom He has recreated in the image of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord and
Saviour (2 Cor 4:16-18; Eph 4:24). His desire is for the permeation of the inner and invisible life as it
impacts against the forces of death, sin and worldliness. The state of the inner life and its visible impact in
righteousness is the Lord’s major concern as seen in the apostle Paul’s prayers for the saints of God (Eph
1:15-23; 3:14-21; Phil 1:9-11; Col 1:9-11). The condition of the inner man was Paul’s dominant subject
in his inspired letters and he wrote nothing at all on using God for the satisfaction of carnal desires. From
the gospels to the last book of the New Testament Writings, the dominant theme is the need for the
knowledge of God through the inner man, the indwelling of Christ by faith in the heart. Cultivate the
inner man with all diligence for through him springs the true life that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
From the inner man is the revelation of the life of the Spirit, the obedience of faith in love, true fellowship
and communion with the Spirit of God. The true Christian life consists in its entirety in the expression of
what we possess inside and not in the profusion of worldly possessions. The Christian life is not about
using the invisible life to satisfy our carnal desire for material wealth. It is the manifestation of the life of
Christ in all the fruit of the Spirit.
The desire for earthly treasures in the name of faith only tends to obstruct us from accessing the riches of
the Spirit through the inner man. On the other hand, the cultivation of the inner life will give us a Christ
centred attitude towards money, riches and possessions. We will come to realise that the glory of God is
not reflected in what we possess but in how we use these to serve others as manifesting God’s life in
us. The mere possession of a beautiful car, house or a fat bank account means nothing until their use
reflect the Christian’s inner life in Christ-likeness. Only the desire for the prosperity of the inner man will
bring us into the true riches of the Spirit in the present age. The inner life is the primary object and focus
of the working of the beauty, power, authority and greatness of Christ. As the inner man prospers, the
Christian is able to live by the power of Christ towards others. The manifestation of the life of Jesus
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through our lives will affect the outward life in peace, joy and righteousness as to influence others in His
name.
There is a generalised disbelief among Christians that they possess the life of the Lord Jesus in the inward
man through His Spirit. There is widespread ignorance in those who profess to believe in Him that Christ
lives in us and that in Him we are complete irrespective of outward social, economic or physical
condition. Man is always attempting to seek for completeness by outward supplementing, through
externalities, legal codes and creeds, focusing on non-essentials and in the process losing inward beauty,
riches, prosperity and purpose. It is the neglect of the inner life and the subsequent abdication of true
spirituality that leads to frustration with the Christian life and as seen in the pursuit of earthly glory
among the majority of modern day churchgoers. The poverty of the inner life leads many to organise their
physical lives according to their own desires instead of allowing Christ to organise His life in and through
them.
The sin of God’s visible people has been to forsake God, the true prosperity, and have built for
themselves broken cisterns of the desire for and pursuit of worldly riches that cannot hold living
waters. They have abandoned the cultivation and manifestation of the inner life as the only standard that
satisfies true fellowship with God. Do those who teach faith for the wealth of this world perhaps feel that
the Lord Jesus is ‘delaying’ in His coming to give us our final rest and glory? Has the master delayed in
coming that we have started beating our fellow servants to conform to the desires for this present age and
not live as pilgrims whose desires should not be in the things of this world? Has the master delayed that
we feel justified to occupy ourselves with the chase after riches just like the rest of the unbelievers and
calling our rat race a covenant right?
The prosperity of the inner life is the abundant life promised by the Lord to His followers (John 10:10).
This abundant life refers to the fullness of the manifestation of the Christ life in love, joy, kindness,
longsuffering, self-control, peace, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness through His Spirit. It is the
overflow of the fruit to touch the one indwelt and through him, others. The abundant life is a state of
blessedness that does not depend on one’s financial status. It is also complete in itself and can be lived
under any physical circumstance and by both rich and the not rich. The abundance of the life of Christ
does not consist in the accumulation of worldly wealth nor can it be defined or complemented by it. Both
rich and poor in Christ are rich to the same measure in the kingdom of God and have equal access
to the abundant life of the Spirit (Eph 2:5, 6; Col 2:6-10; Isa 55:2, 3). Our life in Christ will be
consummated in fullness in the age to come when He transforms our very lowly bodies to conform to His
own and delivers us from the bondage and corruption of mortality into our blessed inheritance. In that
day, we will see the complete fulfilment of Christ’s promise of the abundant life. Ironically, the desire for
the wealth of this present age has a tendency to water down people’s desires for the abundant life in
Christ.
If there could be developed a wonder drug, containing all the nutrients that a body needs, and able to
provide inner peace and joy irrespective of one’s economic and financial status, then we could liken the
prosperity of the inner life to the work of such a drug. Anyone who would have taken such a drug would
no longer centre his life on chasing after riches. The possession of such a drug would make all other
pursuits of life irrelevant. In like manner, the true believer lives for the satisfaction of the revelation of
Christ in his life and in the accomplishment of His will. He organises the earning of a living around the
will of God and in and through his life. To such a believer, riches, when they come into his life, are no
more than mere instruments to be used in the will of God. The so-called prosperity gospel works contrary
to such a revelation, for it encourages us to use the Christ life to obtain the treasures of this world and to
centre our relationship with Him on worldly desires.
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The Prosperity of Service to God
The manifestation of Christ in the believer’s life is not for the pursuit of earthly and corruptible wealth
but for service to his fellow men. Christ does not live and work in us for the satisfaction of human
cravings for material wealth. The will of God for every child born into the kingdom is that he serves as
a witness of the Christ life (Acts 1:8), even as the believer himself grows more and more into the image of
Christ and draws his strength from the indwelling Spirit of God. Witnessing to Christ before both
believers and unbelievers entails the giving of our life to others in Jesus’ name or as Christ Himself (Matt
25:31-46). It is to submit ourselves to God as He shapes and refines our desires, ambitions and motives
for His own glory. In witnessing, we serve, and in service we give our prayers, time, money and physical
presence for use as instruments of divine grace according to the gifts that God bestows on each one of us.
It involves the sacrificing of self and dying, so that others may live and come to the knowledge of the
glory of God through us. Christ came to serve and He sends us into the world to do likewise. Every
believer must walk in the spirit of Paul whose desire was to lay hold of that for which Christ had laid hold
of him.
If we would look closely at the eleventh chapter of the New Testament book of Hebrews, we might be
able to begin to understand one of the true aspects of prosperity from God’s perspective. Here, is a list of
heroes of faith, not because of the material things that they possessed through faith but the exploits they
did in the service of their God. Many of them were not rich in material terms (some were even very poor),
but they all had one common distinguishing mark, they obtained true godly prosperity, they walked unto
all pleasing before Him (Heb 11:13-16). God’s prosperity is prosperity in service, faithfulness in
following Christ, dedication in fulfilling the purpose of Christ through one’s life and willingness to suffer
or die in the service of others in His name and for the glory of God.
To what shall I liken biblical prosperity? It is like the success of a teacher that is not measured by his
earnings but by the performance of his students. A teacher is prized, not by his net-worth in monetary
terms (which very often is quite modest) but by the contribution that he makes to the success of his
pupils. Again, Christian prosperity can be likened to the faithfulness of many medical personnel across
the African continent whose lives are marked by continued dedication in service in conditions of low pay
and poor working environments. Their achievement in the service of fellow men is their wealth. To those
who love their work, their service is their prosperity. The modern prosperity movement (and the church at
large) has replaced service and devotion to God with throwing money at preachers, human structures of
weekend programs and works related diet of sermons and teachings of expectations of worldly prosperity
from the practice of such dead works.
When the writer of Hebrews uses the phrase ‘by faith’, what he means in other words is, by believing and
walking in the will of God, by dedication to the cause as given by the Most High, by faithfulness in
executing the revealed plan, they were prosperous. Christian prosperity cannot be divorced from the
pattern of the life of the author and finisher of the Christian faith as revealed in the days of His
flesh and in His values. The Lord Jesus did not live for the things of this world; neither did He desire
them as to make Himself rich. Those who claim otherwise are heretics and enemies of the Cross and their
just reward does not slumber (2 John: 7). They may fool the ignorant and gullible but they do not deceive
the elect of God. The Lord Jesus refused to be crowned a temporal king of the Jews and went to death
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forsaken even by His close followers, yet was found to be prosperous in dedicated and faithful service to
the Father. His meat was to do the will of the Father and it obviously did not include showing us seven
steps to worldly financial and material glory or keys to greed and covetousness. Christ’s wealth, His
riches, His mansions, His private jet and Ferrari and Mercedes Benz-z class, His gold and silver,
His diamonds and oilfields and His million American dollar bank account was to do the will of the
Father. Refusing the outward masks of worldly success, He lacked neither food nor clothing. In the
Lord’s life, money was an instrument to be used within His service to God and not as a symbol of success
of faith in God. He used money to meet needs as He walked with the Father and not as a blessing to be
desired as to make Himself rich (Matt 6:24). He possesses the worlds yet did not use this world for His
own physical enrichment. The apostle Paul, who received most of the revelations concerning the
Covenant of the blood of Jesus, described himself and his companions as materially poor but yet making
many rich spiritually (2 Cor 6:10). This is a mark of true biblical and godly prosperity. We would do well
to walk in the pattern of the life of the author of our faith and as He also revealed Himself in the life of the
apostle Paul for our sake.
The prosperity in the service of Christ is like the one pearl of great price for which the merchant sells all
as to buy it (Matt 13:45, 46). This is a life totally given to the one thing that really matters and organises
the whole of life, including the earning of a living, around that great treasure of the kingdom of God. All
other pursuits of life are undertaken with the single objective of knowing Christ through death to self and
in the service of fellow man. The primary focus of a merchant minded Christian is the kingdom of God
with the rest of life and the things of this world as aids to the prosperity of God’s ways.
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VIII
Kingdom Faith
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The Glory is yet to Come
Hope is a word rarely taught but which is fundamental to our Christian calling. People keep going on
about faith as if it could exist apart from the hope of the world to come to which God has called us. Little
is preached on the important concept of Christian Hope: Hope in the future to give us strength for the
present; hope of the glory to come to give us faith to walk in the adverse conditions of this present world
(Rom 5:1-5); hope in the eventual death of death. We hope in the future because it is anchored by the love
of God. Love, hope and faith are indispensable to each other (1 Cor 13:13). Christ dwells in our hearts by
faith, giving us the hope of the glory that shall be revealed in us. Faith is to live the present in the hope of
that which is to come (Heb 11:1). Hope is to be assured of those things not yet seen and to embrace them
through faith in God, believing that He will take us through (1 Pet1:13). He has given us His Spirit as a
guarantee of the glory that He will reveal at the coming of the Lord Jesus (Eph 1:13, 14). We are saved in
the hope of the glorification of our bodies and we live by faith of that knowledge. We are able to suffer in
the body in hope of eventual restoration (2 Cor 4:17; Phil 3:20, 21). A living hope is the present reward
of the new life that we possess in Christ (1 Pet 1:3).This is different from the dead hope of the attempt to
find fulfilment in ever increasing abundance of worldly possessions.
It must be recognised and accepted by poor Christians (and the not rich) and those who would want
to give them false hope, that the riches of this world are, and will remain, mostly, in the hands of
those who do not know God until the restoration of all things. They should not see deprivation or lack
of physical riches as a curse, but to submit their lives to God as He works through them for His glory, as
He did in Christ Jesus. They are to focus their hope in the world to come (Rom 8:23, 24), knowing that a
man’s life and faith is not measured by the wealth that he possesses. Instead, it is measured by, “Christ in
you- the hope of glory.” Christ in us is our link to and assurance of the glory yet to come. God will, in a
coming day, wipe every tear and sorrow from our lives; tears that are mostly a result of the deprivation
that is in the world and of the struggles of life that affect the majority poor and Christians among them
(Isa 25:8; Rev 21:4). He has given us His Spirit as the seal, deposit and guarantee of the glory to come.
For now let us use what God has given us in contentment and in the simplicity that is in Christ. Let us
work using our hands in the fields, factories, offices, streets, markets, schools, hospitals and everywhere
we work, not to grow rich but so that we may provide sufficiently for our needs and be able to help the
less fortunate than ourselves and in the spreading of the true gospel. To be content is not pride in being
poor, but is to esteem ourselves properly. It is not a call to laziness, but it is to accept the grace of God
given to us and serve Him through the same grace.
The faith God has ordained for the poor is to wait for the inheritance that has been kept for us in heaven
(1 Pet 1:3, 4). It is the faith to see the world to come and accept their present weakness in the things of
this age. This faith is hard for most rich people to receive due to the blindness caused by the deceitfulness
of riches (Matt 19:23, 24). Blessed are the poor who do not have such a stumbling block and to which
many have bowed down in worship and service.
Let us imitate the faith of men like Moses who despised the riches of this world because he was looking
to the reward. Stewart Lane notes: “In both biblical and post biblical times, the prosperity God has
granted to His faithful has been characterised by physical hardship and persecution and has been anything
but physical riches. True prosperity can be lived under any physical circumstance of life.”
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The Presence of the Kingdom
The kingdom of God is both a present reality and a future hope for those who have been delivered from
the kingdom of darkness and from the love of this world to the kingdom of light in Christ Jesus. The
kingdom of God has “already come” through the death and resurrection of Christ and in which He dwells
in our hearts by faith (Col 2:6; Heb 8:10). The kingdom is also “yet to come” when all rule is finally put
down and the new heaven and the new earth come into existence (1 Cor15:24-28; Phil 3:20, 21).
Kingdom life is the expression of the Christ life that touches the believer and connects him to his brethren
and to the world in service and in the power of the Spirit of God. The kingdom of God is the
demonstration of the values, nature and character of God in the world through the genuine followers of
Christ. It is the manifestation of God’s life in all the fruit of the Spirit (such as love, peace, joy and
righteousness) with its power over sin, Satan and the world (Rom 14:17, 18). The display of the kingdom
is in the putting in action of the commandments of Christ and as given through the inspired writings of the
gospel and in the context of the New Covenant of the blood of Jesus. The kingdom of God is the will,
plan, purpose and mind of God as they are manifested in the universe, in the church and in the lives of
individuals.
The future dimension of the kingdom is the hope of the Christian’s salvation, which is guaranteed by the
presence of the Spirit of Christ, giving us assurance of our final redemption in glory (Eph 1:13, 14). Love,
faith and hope are the bonds that link the present life of the kingdom to its future fulfilment at the coming
of the Lord Jesus. We live in faith, with hope for the glory to come, in the assurance of the love of God
shed abroad in our hearts.
To illustrate the values and riches of the kingdom of God, the Lord Jesus used many parables through
which He clearly showed how they are contrary to the values of this world even in the area of money,
possessions and riches. God does not esteem what the world esteems (Luke 16:15). Abundance of
possessions and financial wealth in the present age do not define rich in the kingdom of God. Those who
claim otherwise only want to justify their presumption before men. The poor of this world are rich in
Christ (Luke 6:21; James 2:5) as the rich of this world are poor without Christ (Luke 12:20; Ps 73:6, 1618). The rich of this world in Christ have a calling to share their wealth with the poor as a way of
investing in the kingdom and identifying with the poor, for whom is the gospel. The kingdom of God runs
contrary to the values, ideals and symbols of the world. What the kingdom of God is, the world is not.
What the kingdom of the world is, God’s kingdom is not. Living in the kingdom of God must be viewed
as primarily an opportunity to serve God by serving fellow humans as opposed to the selfish running after
the riches of this present world in greed and covetousness as manifest in the doctrine of faith for present
earthly glory. The gospel is the good news of the kingdom of God while the so-called prosperity
doctrine is the ‘good news’ of the kingdom of this age.
The kingdom of God is a heavenly kingdom with its origins in God alone. The riches of the kingdom
belong to the realm of the Spirit. They are not the natural, physical and material things of gold and silver.
They are the riches of the Spirit that we have been freely given through the sacrifice of Christ (1 Cor 2:9,
10; Eph 1:3). The kingdom’s way of life (its righteousness), is defined by the nature and character of God
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and the purpose for which Christ came into the world, to save man and to demonstrate God’s
righteousness, or way of being and doing things.
In relation to the kingdom of this present world, God calls us to regard ourselves as strangers or pilgrims
who do not set their roots in it but are to be a people conscious that they are passing through and must not
seek permanent identification. The call of the gospel is to recognise the presence of the kingdom of God
and to organise our lives around it (Matt 6:33). The presence of the kingdom is experienced by those who
submit themselves to the Lordship of the Lord Jesus. For many are they who say that they are Christians,
but who still “make up their own decisions, draw up their own plans, arrange their lives, jobs, finances
according to their own desire” (Patrick Collins in Mystery of the kingdom, Emeth Publishers, 2008).
The kingdom of God is neither buildings, musical instruments nor the ornaments we adorn our man made
temples with, nor is the kingdom of God the titleholders of pastor, bishop, apostle, reverend, prophet. The
kingdom of God is not luxury, show and the pomp of modern commercialised religion masked as
Christianity. The way of life of the Christian is not in the pursuit of financial glory and abundance of
possessions.
To pursue the treasures of the kingdom of God is, for the Christian, an investment in that kingdom and for
which he will receive his rewards (Matt 6:19-21). We should invest in that which will bring us eternal
rewards rather than in the satisfaction of present carnal desires. The treasures of the kingdom of God are
tied to the business in which Christ is engaged and for which He left the glory of God and came to die on
the Cross. To work for the perishables of this earth and the desire for riches is to invest in a business with
no eternal impact and we are bound to lose our crowns. The pursuit of worldly glory may even show that
we were never saved in the first place, for covetousness is idolatry (Eph 5:5; Col 3:5). The Lord shows
the futility of this world’s treasures which moth and rust destroy and thieves can break in and steal. Those
in possession of earthly treasure must learn to convert them into heavenly treasure by using them in God’s
business. We should be careful to invest in God’s kingdom as different from the kingdoms of men
masquerading as church and in men who are out to enrich themselves. Such poor investments will
not have any rewards at the coming of the Lord Jesus.
If we sow to the Spirit and live for God, for service to our fellow man, for the spreading of the gospel and
the exercise of godly generosity towards the less well-off than ourselves, we become rich towards God
and our treasures will await us at the revelation of the glory of our Lord and Saviour. If we consider this
world’s riches as our treasure, they become our light to guide us through life. Such a bad light will be, in
truth, darkness for the whole life. And if the light of our life is the treasure of this world how great is the
darkness in that life (Matt 6:19-24)! If we make the accumulation of money the centre of our lives, more
so in Jesus’ name, we are the most pitiable of all people. For how can someone claim to possess the
inheritance that is in Christ and yet goes on to make worldly wealth a blessing to be desired and pursued?
Is it not written that all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass (1 Pet 1:24)? Only the Word of God
endures forever and which by the gospel we have received as our wealth contrary to the glory of the
riches of man which falls away (1 Pet 1:25).
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Seeking First the Kingdom
There are many misconceptions and private interpretation of the Scripture that exhorts us to “seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt
6:33). The first error has been
to take this Scripture out of its immediate context in the exposition of the Lord on the subject of the
dangers of living merely for this world and being hindered from serving God by an unnecessary
preoccupation with the basic needs of life such as food and clothing and for which single purpose
unbelievers live. The said additions must then be understood from the context of food and clothing and
not the addition of riches because we are Christians or because we think we are faithful in seeking first,
however our conception of what that is. The Lord’s statement was more of a rebuke not to make the
earning of money the centre of our lives than it was a promise to add things into our life. It was also an
assurance of God’s care even when we make His will the priority in our lives, to know that God will
never leave us nor forsake us (Heb 13:5, 6) even as we also work to meet our needs. We should not
neglect the things of God by making the working for food and clothing the sole purpose of our life.
Serving God will not deprive us of the additions which come from our work or from others for
those who live by the gospel.
The second error has been to isolate this particular Scripture from the whole counsel or thoughts of God
and from the context of the gospel in matters pertaining to money, riches and possessions as people seek
to interpret it for the fulfilment of their carnal desires. They choose to ignore what the rest of the
Covenant says on the subject as they turn this Scripture into a foundation for the glory of earthly riches or
material abundance.
Thirdly, many people assume that this Scripture is spoken only to those who are poor or have no jobs and
that if they seek first (which for many is going to church on Sunday and participating in the church’s
programs and giving of money) then God has to automatically change their status. They never see it in the
context of the teaching on the purpose of work itself, which is not to make money but to earn a living. It
is a given fact that man should work for his bread but the Lord calls us not to make this the central aspect
of our lives but to seek for those things which pertain to God and His way of doing things. Man shall not
live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the Lord.
True faith is that which seeks first and seeks only the kingdom of God and His righteousness and is
wholeheartedly devoted to that kingdom alone to the exclusion of the pursuit of the glory of financial and
material wealth (Heb 11:24-26). Even the rich Christian must acknowledge that his riches are
insignificant before God and are only as valuable as they are used for the fulfilment of the will, plans and
purposes of God. The challenge that remains to everyone who would want to serve God is to come to a
position where they truly seek first and only the kingdom and to a state where they are just content with
food and clothing whether they are rich or poor or neither of the two. We must work towards a
reformation of attitudes, and only as we recognise our weakness and repent of the addiction for riches
instilled in us from an early age can the strength of God be ours to be true victors. If we have the means,
we must learn to spend less on ourselves, distinguishing between needs and wants and needs and greeds.
The key is the self-control in Christ to bring to bear on human tendencies for self-indulgence and living
for the mere accumulation of material things. We must distrust things, whether we possess or in our desire
to (1 Tim 6:17). Only the Spirit of God can help us as we submit ourselves to His work in our lives.
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The New Covenant nowhere promises this world’s wealth if we seek first the kingdom. It promises us
that our riches are in God’s kingdom and in His righteousness and it is these we must seek first and being
content with such things as He may provide for our physical welfare. Our needs are the additions
promised by the Lord which are according to God’s grace, the working of His purpose, His
sovereignty and wisdom even as we work with our hands and trust Him to meet our needs.
Seeking first is to seek for those things which reflect the glory, image and righteousness of God in Christ
and in us through His Spirit. It entails seeking first, always and only to be in the centre of the will of God
and not to be preoccupied with the accumulation of material things for which single purpose unbelievers
live. Our interests should be those that interest God and to leave the chasing after elusive riches for the
unbelievers to whom these are their only inheritance. God desires that we desire what He desires (Matt
7:21; Heb 8:10) and He definitely is not preoccupied with turning every Christian into an American
dollar millionaire, as is the craving of the prosperity movement. How can we seek first the kingdom when
our faith is based on and polluted with what the heathens are running after?
True faith is for the seeking first and only the kingdom of God and resting in the knowledge that God will
supply the things necessary for the body. If we have a job and an income, seeking first is to know that
God wants us to live simple lives, unburdened by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches,
which tend to choke the word (Matt 13:22). We must use what we have according to God’s will and free
of covetousness (an insatiable desire for accumulation), lust and greed (1 John 2:16). We are to learn to
be spent on behalf of others, to be generous towards the less well-off than ourselves, to be hospitable and
contribute to the genuine ministry of the spreading of the gospel. I say genuine work because much false
work and the building of men’s temples and kingdoms abound in our generation.
If we do not have a job or a regular income; if it is not due to laziness and ignorance and we know that we
are in the centre of God’s will, the fact that we are not dead yet proves that God is somehow providing for
us out of His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. God’s will is that His people (including those in so-called
full time service of Sunday preaching) work with their own hands to provide for themselves, help others
and support genuine and scriptural work of God.
To seek first is to strive to concern ourselves only with the plans and purposes of God and not to think
that our physical needs will be neglected. It is organising our lives, our jobs, businesses, earnings, time,
families, houses, and other things we may possess around service to God, ministry to our fellow man and
spending in accordance with biblical principles of simplicity and the counsel of His will. If we believe
that Christ lives in us, the more accurate description of seeking first would be that which allows Christ to
organise His life through us for the accomplishment of His will in the world (Gal 2:20; Col 3:3). It is not
about Christ allowing us to use Him for the accomplishment of our own desires as implied in the
prosperity gospel. The material things of this world become only instruments for the Master’s use
according to His call. We must not desire riches, but God’s will, and to be content with such things
we may have as we walk in faith of the will of God. Many Christians may struggle only because they
have not allowed Christ to organise His life through them and are left to struggle in their own power.
Their unfaithfulness will be met with loss of rewards and may manifest an unconverted life that only
professes the Christian faith. This does not mean that the faithful never face financial struggles, far from
it! Our faith is always being tested through the many negative circumstances of this life. In such times, we
should stand on the Word of God and in the hope of eventual deliverance, no matter the extent of the trial.
Seeking first demands that we are not to esteem our material life as so important as to give it priority. We
have to learn to set our minds and hearts only on what would please God, the manifestation of Christ in
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us, through us and in others and through them (Col 3:1-5). In the same way God cares for all His creation,
He will continue to look after our interests, even as we are interested in promoting His interests here on
earth. As Christians, we must always be about our Father’s business and He will reveal His providence to
us. We should hunger for the food of the will of God as we imitate the author and finisher of our faith
when He said: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). The Lord promises
that He will always be faithful to make our labour for bread bear the necessary fruit. We must not allow
the pressures of life to hinder us from walking in all the will of God in the manner of unbelievers who do
not know Him but benefitting from His bounty in nature.
Seeking first calls us not to get our strength for life from living in the pursuit of the elusive
abundance of financial riches, but to draw it from God and in the fulfilment of His purposes. Our
strength is in the invisible life deposited in us, which is not dependent on how rich or poor we are. We are
to come to a position where we give ourselves totally to those things with an eternal significance and
value, and to share in God’s plan for the ages, and to know that God has already given us the necessary
tools, through the work of our hands, to earn our bread and meet needs.
Seeking first the kingdom is to desire ‘to make God rich’- to bless, to honour and to give glory to the
name of God through Christ. It is to crave, as a new born baby craves for its mother’s milk, that the life of
Christ may be manifest through us in showing that Jesus is indeed risen, which is the whole purpose of
the Christian life. Every Christian’s ambition in this life must be to be completely possessed of God in
everything, in knowledge, purpose and the fruit of the Spirit and to be filled with all the fullness of God,
the unhindered manifestation of Christ through our lives (Eph 3:16-19).
The chief problem that hinders many Christians from the close walk that God desires and through which
it is easier to trust Him with our physical lives is that many of us desire a relationship with God and pray
to Him because we have physical needs to be met. On the other hand, God desires that our relationship
and prayers be based on His expectation upon our lives as He reveals Himself. The expectation of God
upon my life must form the basis of my prayer and worship life. His purpose through my life reveals my
inadequacy and weaknesses and forces me to seek for strength, for revelation, for discernment, for power,
understanding, knowledge and all that God can be through my life and to touch others. Such are the kind
of requests and petitions that are most pleasing to God (John 6:27). Through such an approach to our
relationship with God, He can easily be trusted to take care of the means of our provision. His care
becomes part of the fulfilment of His purpose through my life. The chasing after elusive carnal riches as
advocated by the prosperity movement robs God of service as people prioritise financial greatness as the
very will of God.
My faith in God’s ability to provide will also be tested in circumstances that may have all the appearance
of the absence of God’s hand. In such situations one must say with the prophet Habakkuk: “Though the fig
tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labour of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the
flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my
salvation. The Lord is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet and He will make me walk on my high hills, for the just
shall live by faith” (Hab 3: 17-19). In times of economic and financial crisis, the just shall live by faith in the
knowledge that God is in control of one’s life and is sovereign over the events that surround us.
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The Faith of a Pilgrim
If
there is a word that has been misused and abused, it is the word “faith.” Everyone, Christians,
unbelievers and pseudo Christians, the cults, Eastern religions, all claim to have it and even towards the
same God. Even demons believe and they tremble (James 2:9)! So what is Christian faith, without which
it is impossible to please God and how is it different from the faith so universally acclaimed by all?
To begin with, true biblical and Christian faith is the Way built by the Lord Jesus that establishes a new
and living relationship between God and man through the Spirit. This is what is commonly known as
Christianity but which has been reduced to a performance based and fleshly religion and the building of
men’s own kingdoms of religious empires. The faith of Jesus does not centre on the ability to believe in
getting things from God. True faith is to live in the life of Jesus for God’s own glory alone and to accept
the working of His will in one’s life. Such faith must be founded in God’s final revelation in His Son and
the promises made in Him for now and the age to come (Heb 1:1-4; Eph 2:10). Christ is the only
foundation of faith from the beginning of the Christian walk to the end of it in this world. The life of
Christ, His thoughts, values, attitudes, principles, desires, plans and purposes, must form the basis of our
faith (Heb 10:8-10; 12:2).
A faith founded in the values of the world of materialism as advocated by the prosperity movement, is not
of Christ, but is earthly, sensual and demonic. Such a faith neither finds its beginning and end in Christ
nor in His promises, but plays to the desires for the world from which Christ delivered us. God’s
revelation in Christ was empty of the entrapments or bling of earthly glory and Christians would
do well to exercise their faith in the pattern of the author of their faith and the one who perfects it.
Those of the prosperity movement have a wrong concept of faith as a magical world in which they can
live for the sole satisfaction of their carnal desires. They would use faith as a magic charm to get money
and riches from God, and not seek His will. You hear people talking about how ‘by faith’ they are going
to do or buy this and that, presuming on the working of God’s grace, will, plans and purposes. They
express their carnal desires and plans as the very will of God and forbid others to say “if it be your will”
(James 4:13-17) as a sign of lack of faith. They divorce their faith from the fulfilment of the purposes of
God and would presume to use it instead for the achievement of their own goals of the worship of
Mammon. Faith that is not in what God has said, like the faith in faith of the prosperity merchants, is not
faith but presumption.
Faith is the genuine Christian life that seeks only the outworking of God’s will through one’s life and
lives in awareness of God’s faithfulness to provide for the needs of the body. The true faith of a pilgrim
accepts the provisions of God, be they little or much, and uses all for the glory of God and in simplicity
and free of lust, greed or covetousness (Heb 13:5). Such faith lives in contentment in what one has and is
not preoccupied with what one does not have (Phil 4:11-13). This is a difficult principle for most of us,
but we must fight the good fight of faith. True faith desires to walk as Christ walked (Phil 2:5-11; Col
2:6; 3:1, 2). He is not ready to use the name of Jesus one who is not ready to walk as He walked. He
is not ready to ask for anything one who is not ready to suffer all things (John 14:13, 14; 2 Tim 2:1013).
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Faith is not the wishful thinking that God will help every Christian to ascend to the heights of worldly
glory in wealth and material abundance. Faith is a job, a profession, a business that we have been
entrusted with by God for the purpose of which Christ came into the world. The business of Christ is the
business of faith and His business is in the redemption of the purchased possession (Matt 28:18-20). A
Christian is a person who has been bought from the slavery of sin, is then equipped with the life of
righteousness so that he walks with God and serves as a witness of Christ wherever that walk may lead
him. Faith is the Christian life that lives exclusively for God’s own purpose. The business of faith is not
the desire and pursuit of material splendour in the likeness of unbelievers. The Christian knows that he
has a responsibility to work for his bread and other needs of life and submits his needs and the earning of
money to God. The submitted life does not desire riches as a sign of God’s favour or faith or as a
covenant right, but labours to earn a living as the rest of humanity. A man of faith does not seek selfenrichment in the name of his faith but lives only for the will of God regardless of the socioeconomic and financial implications. As a car needs fuel to move so does the believer need faith to walk
in the will of God and to trust Him to provide the necessities of life even as a car is looked after by its
owner.
The business of Christ is the Christian purpose and the foundation of faith, without which it is impossible
to please God. For he to whom Christ has granted deliverance from the kingdom of darkness, must
believe that the Lord has a specific purpose for each and every one of us and that God reveals Himself to
those who will diligently seek His purpose for them in Christ. Christians do not remain in this world to
make up numbers, nor for religious entertainment on Saturdays and Sundays, or merely to contribute to
the edification of buildings and the construction of the kingdoms of men veiled as church, or for the
pursuit of this world’s riches in the name of faith. Ministers of covetousness have turned the business of
God into their own business to exploit people for their own material gain and distorting the concepts of
faith and purpose. To use faith to promote worldly desires and the kingdoms of men only robs us of
our true purpose and cheats us out of our rewards.
True faith is not for the fulfilment of one’s personal desire to increase in the goods of this world but is for
growth towards service. We need less baggage and garbage of the world’s gadgets as we progress on the
journey of fulfilling the purposes of the Lord (Heb 12:1, 2). The faith of a pilgrim is the power to live for
God alone to the exclusion of any desire or ambition in the world. It is a faith that looks beyond the
struggles of this present life and sets its sights on the world to come. This is the faith of Moses who
chose “to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ
better riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward” (Heb 11:24-26). To live for the treasures of the
world, to aspire to be successful in their acquisition, is to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, which men of
true faith reject.
A true pilgrim knows that we are only stewards of the life of Christ through the earthen vessel of His
temple, our body (2 Cor 4:7). The life we live is not ours but belongs to Him who redeemed it (1 Pet
1:18, 19). Our own life has been hid by God in Christ Jesus in the heavenly places and we will receive it
when the Lord appears in glory (Col 3:3, 4).
Faith is for a purpose as defined by the Lord. It is not the expression of the desire for worldly glory
imported and privately interpreted to conform to the American dream. Faith is from God, and we are to
live in it irrespective of our outward material condition. As far as most people in the Third World are
concerned, faith would entail manifesting Christ in the midst of economic and financial weakness,
oppression and corruption. If there is any circumstance that will refine faith, it is the difficult socioeconomic and political conditions of the developing countries. On the other hand, the spirit of materialism
tends only to incapacitate many Christians being lured by the god of Mammon.
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The error of many people, Christians included, is to think that if we forsake the ambitions and desires for
wealth, it would lead to hunger and suffering in the body. We therefore try to build a hedge for future
security. But how many of those that are following the prosperity doctrine have really gotten rich through
faith in it? Such faith for riches is an escapist’s folly, abdicating his inheritance in favour of the pale
shadows and the poisoned waters of the desire for present worldly glory through financial wealth.
The thoughts of Christ towards this world and the world to come must also be our thoughts and source of
strength. Faith should be directed towards God alone and in His ability to fulfil His eternal promises even
in the face of the economic pressures of this world. The negative conditions of the world, such as the
struggles of this life, temptations from the enemy, suffering in the body through ill health, persecution,
trials and tests, are instruments in God’s hands for the refining of our faith. Our faith is more precious to
God, and He will use any means to purify it. We are called to suffer or to bear reproach in faith, and to
share in the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ if we are to share His glory. Without the furnace of the
hardships of this life (of which many attempt to deny), there is no genuine faith or change into Christlikeness or the abundant life (Heb 12:5-11). Modern Christians are fed a faith of no pain, no Cross, no
humiliation of the body, no sharing with the world in its suffering, no fellowship in the sufferings of
Christ.
Faith is quite simple at the end of the day. It is to live in the knowledge of the will of God through Christ
as we participate in His kind of business on earth in anticipation of the hope laid up for us in heaven. It
starts with the first instalment as a gift so that one is able to believe in Christ (Eph 2:8, 9). The gift must
then blossom for the continual seeking after, and living in the knowledge of God, of His plans and
purposes and in rejection of the world and the desires thereof (Heb 11:6).The end of our faith is the
salvation of our souls and not the present deliverance into earthly riches (1 Pet 1:9-13).
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Dying to the World
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, for Christians are not immune to the troubles that afflict the
common man as well as the added persecutions for righteousness’ sake (1 Cor 10:13; 2 Cor 4:17; 1 Pet
1:6,7; 4:12; Ps 34:19). The trials and temptations are varied, but through them all, we must overcome in
the power of the life of Christ in us by His Spirit. As long as the sun still rises, then we will face trials and
tribulations. In as far as our relationship to the world is concerned, many of most people’s struggles and
pressures relate mostly to their economies, lack of jobs, the inability to provide adequately for their
families, soaring costs in education, housing, amenities, inadequate institutional support in informal
sector businesses, and all the problems of the modern life. In the rural areas, there is the constant threat of
droughts and floods due to changing weather patterns leading to diminished sources of food and income.
The management of our life in this world, with all its troubles, pressures, battles and temptations,
can only be effective when we learn to die to the world itself and to the desires thereof, even as we
put our trust in the Lord to care for His own (Gal 6:14; 2 Cor 4:11). Christ died to save us from this
world and from the love of the things in the world. In all this, God’s word to believers is not to be anxious
for anything, but in all things by prayer and supplication, they are to make their requests known unto God
and allow His peace to rule in their hearts (Phil 4:6, 7). God’s expectation upon our lives to live in faith
in a turbulent world is also His promise to care for us when we put our trust in Him (Matt 6:33;
John 16:33). However, the promises of God, like every other promise to Christians, can only be lived by
those willing to live only for God’s cause rather than theirs of the pursuit of Mammon. Only those willing
to subject themselves to the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ in all things and with the whole of life can
stand on His promises. The pursuers of financial riches in the name of faith are left to their own illusions
and deceptions, with a lean heart to go with it. Their covetousness, which is idolatry in the worship of the
gods of money, shows them as only professing Christians and not true sons of the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, for the love of the world is not of God.
How do we die to the world in the practical sense of the Christian faith? Death to the world involves
letting go of our worldly perceptions and allowing God the influence over our lives. It means, as some put
it, to let go and let God. We must learn to let go of the importance we place upon our lives, our money
(little or much), possessions, our time, comfort, security, food and clothes. We should not allow these
things or our affinity to them, to affect our spiritual life as to cause us evil desires and ambitions, worry,
anxiety, fear, bitterness, impatience, anger, hatred, jealousy, envy or lead us to a love of the world and of
the things in the world. We must count all things of this life, which cause us to walk in the works of the
flesh, as rubbish, that we may live the Christ life without hindrance (Phil 3:8).
We have to reckon our very life as nothing, to let Christ dwell in our hearts by faith, knowing that in Him
we possess all things, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Him. Neither tribulation,
nor grief, nor sorrow, nor lack of money, nor joblessness, nor low salary, nor lack of ‘our own’ house or
car, must be allowed to separate us from experiencing the love of God in our hearts. For we can never
learn to die to the world and experience the abundant life until we learn to pour scorn on our lives in this
world, on its goods, standards, ways, pleasures, mannerisms, systems as well as on its symbols of success,
intelligence, beauty, wealth, prominence and popularity. “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life
in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25 ).
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In many aspects of life, one of the chief problems has been the tradition taught by the world that plenty of
everything (in the material world) is the most desirable of all virtues. Consequently, many of us are never
content with what we have, piercing our hearts with many sorrows in the process (1 Tim 6:10).
Is it possible that, because we have not learned to let go and let God, and to trust Him with our lives, and
have not died to our former ambitions, we have failed to discern His greater purpose for us to seek first
and only the kingdom? Is it because we are so accustomed to making our own decisions, fight our own
battles, defend ourselves and even ‘make’ it in the world without God’s help just like the rest of the sons
of the world? Is it because we think that we know what we want and deserve, and need no Spirit of God
to teach us otherwise? We feel we know how to use our time, our money, efforts, how we want to live and
where. Such is the folly of self-sufficiency, of trust in human effort.
Dying to the world would involve giving to everyone who asks us without expecting anything back,
without thinking that because we have done a good deed we deserve a good turn or improvement in our
outward condition (Luke 6:35). We must learn to give away our very lives to others, our time, our money
and material things, our patience, longsuffering, joy and kindness, sharing all the fruit of the Spirit with
our fellow men in the manifestation of the good works prepared beforehand for us to walk in them. Dying
to the world and self, as well as living for others, makes it much easier to cast our own burdens upon the
Lord. As we help others bear their own burdens, we become less focused on our own, thus allowing the
unhindered intervention of God. Death to the world is finding ourselves by losing, living by death,
possessing by giving away (Matt 16:24, 25; 2 Cor 4:10). This is the Christ centred life that needs to be
preached afresh to a generation of self-centred and self-righteous churchgoers. We are saddled with a
generation of professing Christians whose only interest is in their own welfare, in what their flesh wants
as to find satisfaction, security and comfort, with little time and knowledge to ponder on the implications
of the crucified life (Gal 2:20). Many are content with the feel good Christianity that tells them of their
importance to God, to such an extent that they can live for self and be perfectly justified by the false
prophets because ‘we are important to God.’ God is said to approve of the selfish life we desire for
ourselves, at the same time knowing that there is a missing dimension to our faith.
We must count ourselves dead to the world and not allow the old nature to scream at us (with the devil
and the world cheering on) that we cannot give away our lives. For if we allow ourselves to be drawn into
the deceptions of this world, we will be denied the blessed chance of being a blessing. It is only through
death to the world, and to all that it stands for, that we can remain fixed on the Lord and away from the
love of the world.
Those of the prosperity movement must be disabused from the belief that God’s primary concern is to
bless us whatever that means. Christians have to know that God wants us to be a blessing through the
blessings that He has already given us in Christ Jesus. It is more a spiritual success and blessedness to
give than to receive.
To die to the world means not to do anything ‘with it’ and to allow God to do it. For example, instead of
fighting back in our own way, we need to pray about those who are or that which is hurting us. Prayer
means asking God to allow His peace in our hearts to break the sting of hurt. As His peace rules, it
displaces the messengers of death, worry, fear, guilt, mental despair and any other such contradictory
elements. As the peace reigns, hope will also flourish unto eventual victory, steadfast in the love of God
in our hearts.
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Lean not on your Own Understanding
One of the favourite teachings of the prosperity movement is to command their followers to verbally
fight the devil as to be delivered from various problems and difficulties, or as to get their blessings, which
he is said to be blocking. What many have not understood is that a worldly attitude, a selfish life-style, a
trust in the things of this world and the pursuit after riches is actually agreeing with the enemy of
our souls. “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever
therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him” (James 4:4; 1 John 2:15). False interpretations of the abundant life, a false faith directed at the
fulfilment of carnal desires, as well as distortions of the concept of blessedness, all play into the hands of
the enemy whispering “has God said” (Gen 3:1)?
We have to learn to lean not on our own understanding but to let God teach us about life, show us the way
that we should go as He directs our paths. As it is written: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you
should go; I will guide you with My eye. Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be
harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you. Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own
understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Ps 32:8, 9; Prov 3:5, 6). As creator
and the one who recreates us in His Son, God is the best and perfect interpreter of this life (John 14:6).
His desire is that we be willing to see as He sees, to define things as He does and to be prepared to obey.
We must not lean on our own understanding as to make hasty decisions, but to wait in patience and
longsuffering, qualities that we possess in the person of the Lord Jesus.
Not to trust in our own understanding means not to avenge ourselves or seek our own way in relationships
and in conflicts, nor retaliate, nor unnecessarily justify ourselves before men even when we are right.
Even in the area of money, riches and possessions, we should “Bless those who persecute us; bless and do not
curse. Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men” (Rom 12:14, 17). We must allow
God to be our defender when we are falsely accused, or unfairly treated, or overlooked, uncared for,
ignored, neglected and even abused and cheated. Let God, through Christ, be your advocate. We have a
High Priest at the right hand of God who sympathises with us in all our weaknesses. We should not
attempt to solve problems or to bring about a favourable result in our own knowledge and in the
immediacy of present circumstances. We should not be quick to make decisions, but seek the face of the
Lord, wait upon Him, give ourselves to prayer and make our requests known unto Him, committing our
way to Him to guide us, to smooth the way, to influence people and events for the fulfilment of His will,
plan, purpose and workings through our life. Believe that God is at work; that He works for the kingdom
and for those who trust in Him, who hope in His saving power, as different from those who trust in their
abilities, education, influence, money, and any such worldly thing (Ps 25:3; Isa 64:4). We need to
unlearn to be self-sufficient which has been ingrained in us since childhood. We need to unlearn that it
is not worldly defined position, power, intelligence or material and financial riches that matter to
God; that these concepts take on a whole new upside down meaning in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 1:27).
We should constantly seek to act only in the strength of the Lord and in the power of His might, to trust in
Him to do the right things, to bring about change when necessary. Trust in the Lord and not in the way
you see things, or how your flesh and the world defines them, or according to the whispers of the devil.
Trust in Him alone to take you through this life and not to trust in the traditions that we have received
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from our fathers and the physical realm we call the world. For the Lord will not permit those who trust in
Him to be moved, for in quietness and in confidence shall their strength be. He will not allow
circumstances, which the faithful have put into His hand, to shake them, or annoy them, or make them
lose sleep, or peace, or take away their joy in the Holy Spirit, however negative they may be. “Cast all your
care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Pet 5:7). We are in a war, and every trial, test, or even temptation, is to
keep us alert like soldiers in battle. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8). Do not be consumed by Satan through your fleshly appetites for
material gain. Do not look at what is seen but at the invisible. We are to be led by the life within and not
by the outward desires of the flesh. We must not give attention to the world’s opinions, ideas, or system
of beliefs. We must neither be influenced nor trust in the world’s and our own understanding. We must
recognise the vanity of this passing world and organise our lives accordingly. We must treat our old man
as our number one enemy (I think the devil comes in at number 3 after fleshly desires and the world) and
crucify him with his delights and pleasures and his idea of the abundant life.
“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of Gentiles (unbelievers) walk, in the
futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is
in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all
uncleanness with greediness” (Eph 4:17-19 italics mine). Do not become idolaters as those who are chasing
after material wealth in the name of Christ. No struggle of this life comes to you except that which is
common to man; “but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted (by the difficulties of life) beyond what you
are able, but with the temptation (or trial) will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor 10:13
italics mine).
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We Await a City!
I am convinced that all the world’s riches are not worthy to distract us from our faith in hope of the glory
of the city of God which the faithful will inherit at the beginning of the new age. This city is already in
the Christian’s possession but without faith we remain blind to it as we run after present earthly and
corruptible glory. We must ask God to open the eyes of our hearts (Eph 1:18) as we share in John’s vision
of this city: “Then the angel of the Lord carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great
city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone,
like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates and twelve angels at the gates….each
individual gate was one pearl… and the city and its street was pure gold, like transparent glass. The twelve foundations of the
wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones; jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius,
chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysopase, jacinth, amethyst. I saw no temple in it for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its
temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.
And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into
it…those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Rev 21:10-27). How beautiful!
Though we may not yet physically see the city, we see Jesus, the Lamb and the light of the city, who
dwells in us by faith, and through whom we possess all things. “For by Him all things were created that are in
heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were
created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. For in Him dwells all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power” (Col 1:16-17; 2:9, 10).
God has made us co-heirs of Christ and we possess everything over which He is the Head and which does
not fade away. Our hope should firmly be set on our inheritance that the Lord will bring at His revelation.
Having seen it afar off, we must be assured of it, and embrace it and confess that we are strangers and
pilgrims on the earth. “For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called
to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that
is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (Heb 11:14-
16). We who have believed in Christ do not call to mind the perishable world and its riches from whose
desire the Lord separated us, but we desire the city to come. God is not ashamed to be the God of the
heavenly minded even if they are poor in this world, for He has prepared a city for them. God has
given faith to the poor to see beyond the struggles of this life and to place their hope fully upon the glory
to be revealed.
Give me the person who owns the whole world or the world’s unbelieving billionaires and I will show
them infinitely more of what the poorest Christian possesses in Christ both now and in the future! Give
me the world’s unbelieving oil tycoons, diamond magnates, global industrialists and the information
technology moguls and I will show you how poor they are in comparison to Christ in that financially poor
Christian’s life. “For here we have no continuing city, but we await the one to come” (Heb 13:14), nor do we have
continuing riches but we await the glory yet to come as seeing that which is invisible. We await a day
when our lowly bodies will be transformed into the full likeness of His glory, a day of the fullness and
completeness of the abundant life.
I exhort you my reader to seek for that faith which lives for God alone in these difficult and turbulent
times. Do not seek for the kind of faith that promotes worldliness, covetousness, which is idolatry, and
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self-centredness. Do not be ashamed of the offence of the Cross as the others who are trying to escape it
by promoting Christianity as a way of getting this world’s riches. Reject this false gospel wherever you
hear it preached, denounce it in the loudest of voices, fight against it in the power of the Spirit of God and
join those defending the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Revival will only come after reformation and
renewal! The prosperity gospel is actually a sign of a lack of faith manifest in the desire to run after what
the heathens crave. It is a stumbling block to the poor who have no hope in the things of this world. It is
also a snare to the rich, who, rather than finding out the purpose of God through their wealth, are called to
glory in the selfish possession of it. There are no rewards in heaven that will be given because we
possessed great wealth or had faith to seek riches or persevered in the rat race! Faith is the evidence
of the things hoped for. Faith is to live the present life for God’s purpose alone in the hope of our
inheritance rather than in the hope of being clothed with the success symbols of the world as in our
former lusts in which we once walked. Without the faith based on the hope of our future glory, we will be
found to desire the glory of the present world which belongs to the enemy of our souls.
I will make Paul’s words to legalists mine as I also warn of the false prophets of Mammon (Phil 3:2, 3).
Beware of dogs, beware of the evil workers of the faith for financial prosperity movement, beware
of the carnally minded. We are the true rich and wealthy, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the carnal glory of corruptible riches. “We should no longer be
children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of
deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow in all things into Him who is the head-Christ” (Eph 4:14, 15).
They are the most pitiable of all people who believe in using Christianity as a means of ascending to the
illusion of the glory of this condemned world! Peace be upon all who hold fast to sound doctrine. Let him
be confounded he who desires to use Christianity for material gain. Amen.
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