Overview
INTRODUCTION
We are living in a time of tremendous financial instability. Rising debt, increasing unemployment, homelessness, and poverty are major concerns throughout the world. Businesses are failing. Nations that were formerly great economic giants are in financial upheaval. Rich businessmen and stockbrokers are watching wealth slip from their grasp.
There is much fearful speculation about what lies ahead. How high will inflation rise? How tough will these economically hard times be and how long will they last? People are questioning, “Will I be able to hold on to my job? Will I be able to make my house payment?” As a result, churches and Christian ministries that are supported by donations are also struggling to maintain their outreaches.
This book, “Divine Provision,” will prepare you personally and your ministry corporately to face what is happening now and what will occur in the future in the financial realm. Your position in the face of the current and impending crises will not be one of weakness, but it will be a stance of strength, faith, and power, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).
It is important that you understand biblical financial strategies because God wants to use you–your talents, your resources, and your ministry–to reap an end-time harvest of souls around the world. The only way you can do this is to be free from financial problems by entering into a new dimension of divine provision.
Credit card debt. Threats of foreclosure. Bankruptcy. Struggling to make ends meet. Barely surviving from paycheck to paycheck. For many, this is a way of life. What would you do if you had unlimited financial resources? Take a few minutes and think about this seriously. Answer it honestly. What would you do? Your answer to this question reveals a lot about your priorities. It also may very well determine your financial future.
The divine provision on which this study focuses is not where one lives lavishly and selfishly consumes resources by satisfying extravagant, materialistic desires. The abundance God wants you to experience is where your needs will be met so you will be able to sow liberally into the Kingdom of God and extend the Gospel to the nations of the world.
The scriptural financial strategies shared in this book will position you and your ministry to experience divine provision. No longer will you be hindered by unscriptural practices such as incurring unpaid debt, co-signing debts for others, and dishonest financial practices. If you are an employer in ministry or business, you will learn that you cannot defraud your workers and expect God to bless you. You must pay your workers and pay your debts. You will learn that you cannot be unequally yoked in business or ministry with someone who is not honest financially.
For many years, national Christian leaders in developing nations looked to richer western nations for support. What an amazing transformation has occurred as they have realized that God is their source–not America or England or elsewhere. Some of the largest churches in the world have been built in developing countries without a dime of support from other nations. God’s plan for financial blessing isn’t just restricted to western nations. These principles work no matter where you live because:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void , but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:8-11)
The scriptural principles in this study will not return void! They will work because they are God’s Word!
You may have struggled with financial problems for so long that you have given up hope of anything ever changing in the future. Remember the story of the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda? He had given up all hope of getting well, but then one day–in the perfect timing of God–he got his breakthrough. Jesus stopped by, he was totally healed, took up his bed, and walked! You need the same kind of miracle in your finances to eliminate the hindrances which have crippled you from rising up to accomplish your divine destiny. This is your time for a financial breakthrough! It is time to take up your crippled finances–so to speak–and begin to walk into the miracle of God’s divine provision
In this study on biblical financial strategies, you will learn about our giving God and the tremendous resources He has already given us through Christ Jesus. You will learn how to live under an open heaven financially and how your debts can be supernaturally retired. You will also learn how to conduct spiritual warfare in behalf of your finances, scriptural financial principles, and how to remove barriers to financial blessing. If you have lost everything, you will learn how all can be restored. Through this process, you will receive a new financial anointing that will enable you to sow and reap abundantly in God’s Kingdom. You will be prepared to face your financial future with faith instead of fear because you will have a firm foundation built upon God’s Word!
The title for this study, Divine Provision, was selected to keep your focus on the basic thesis of this revelation: That God supernaturally provides for believers to meet their needs and enable them to accomplish His purposes.
