Message for Sunday 29th April, 2018
Theme: Understanding the Faith of God
Topic: The Faith of God for our Redemption pt.3 (Redeemed from Poverty)
Introduction: Since the beginning of this month God has been blessing us big time with His engrafted word and saving our souls daily thereby. We have seen the purpose of the Lord in coming to redeem us. He has redeemed us from death, sickness and now we are going to be seeing His redemption from poverty. Two weeks ago, we established that we can find out from the bible whether we are really born again or not and we looked at seven qualities Apostle John taught in the book of 1John to prove that we are actually born again. The reason is that many just go to Church to observe a religion without actually first establishing a personal relationship with God. What Jesus came to do is give us eternal life and He defines eternal life as know God and Him in Jn.17:3.
Today therefore, we shall be looking at the third heading of redemption we have been examining which is to be redeemed from poverty.
What is poverty? It is interesting to know that each time poverty is mentioned, what comes to the mind of many people is the picture of a lack of money. While a lack of money to meet one’s basic need may be one of the symptoms of poverty, it is not a comprehensive definition of poverty. What then is poverty?
The Oxford Dictionary of current English defines poverty as penury, destitution and indigence. It spells out the following synonyms for poverty – pennilessness, privation, deprivation, beggarly, impoverishment, neediness, want, hardship, beggarly etc.
A second definition given here is a state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. This could also be seen as scarcity, deficiency, dearth, shortage, paucity, insufficiency, inadequacy, absence, lack, want, deficit, meagerness, limitations, restrictions, sparseness, sparsity, inferiority, mediocrity, poorness, bareness, aridity, sterility.
World Bank defines poverty as the lack of multiple resources leading to physical deprivation. Poor people’s definition reveal important psychological aspects of poverty. Poor people are acutely aware of their lack of voice, power and independence which subjects them to exploitation.
A look at the bible would reveal to us that the true wealth of mankind is the ability to be productive. This is why the blessing of God that empowered man to fulfill his purpose of ruling over the earth within the ambit of divine permission is for man to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth and have dominion over all within the ambit of his influence. As a matter of fact, when Jesus came to restore what man lost in the Garden of Eden, during His earthly ministry, He taught that it is the will of the father that we bear much fruit and that our fruit should remain. See Gen.1:28; Jn.15:1-5, 8 and 16.
In addition, when he first preached the gospel of the kingdom in the book of Luke, the first beneficiaries of the gospel we see here are the poor. This is further confirmed by Isaiah’s prophecy from which He taught in the synagogue on this occasion. See Lk.4:18 and Isa.61:1
This explains why the word of God also made us see that we are only as prosperous as our souls are. This goes to show that poverty is rooted in the soul of man or their thinking pattern. By the way the soul of man is the part of man containing his mind with which he thinks, his will and emotions. See 3Jn.1:2
What is the cause of Poverty? Simply put, poverty was caused by sin. Since man fell short of the glory of God, one of the aftermaths was poverty because his soul became corrupted and therefore he could no longer reason like God and get God’s results [Isa.55:8-9; Jer.17:9-10 ]. He was now less in value because he had become a child of the devil by the principle of Romans 6:16 that you become owned by the one to whom you yield yourself to obey. Man became lost from the day he sinned because he became cut off from God and became one with Satan who was already corrupt and had the power of death which he now used to afflict man. The afflictions of the devil presented in poverty as well as sickness and death. We already saw how Jesus has redeemed us from both death and sickness. A look at the curse of the Law enumerated by Moses in Deuteronomy 28:16-68 would disclose to us that all the curses could be summed up in poverty, sickness and death. In redemption, Jesus Christ destroyed the one with the power of death; the devil and delivered all who were all their lifetime subjected to bondage through fear of death. See Hebrews 2:14-15
Redeemed from Poverty: Since sin stripped man of all the dignity he had, Jesus Christ came to save us from our sin. See Matthew 1:21; Jn.1:29; 2Cor.5:21 and Rm.3:23-25. When man was stripped of his dignity, his wealth was also taken away from him and he became poor. His poverty was more than material; the worse was the poverty of his soul. The salvation of the soul is not included in the salvation package without the word of God being received by the saved man with meekness on a consistent basis. James tells us in James 1:21 how to cultivate the soul to conform to God’s ways so as to be able to enjoy the benefits of his redemption which includes prosperity. To cultivate the soul to align with the ways of God, redeemed man needs to do the following:
1. Understand that the prosperity you desire is only possible from an understanding of God’s perspective of what prosperity really is. See Isa.55:8-9 and 3Jn.1:2
2. Every material thing you get is never delivered by God to you as material things. He gives you the wisdom to create those things His way if you would take the time to let Him help you renew your mind which He intends to do daily through His word. See Jas.1:21
3. For you to be able to renew your mind, you have to consciously clear off the garbage of the belief system of the world and humble yourself before God so that you can receive His word with meekness. This means that in following God, you have to be docile to Him. See Rm.12:1-2.
4. You have to do the word of God revealed to you all the time. It is in doing the word that you get blessed otherwise you will be deceiving yourself. See Jas.1:22-25 and Jos.1:8
5. To empower you to do the word, you need to meditate on the word thereby allowing the word you read to dwell in you richly. When the word dwells richly in you, it will control what you say all the time. Then you would be able to make the right choices all the time because life will no longer be about you; it will be about God as you would be making choices that honor God all the time then. See Col.3:16; Jos.1:8 and Ps.1:1-3.
Some ways you know you have been redeemed from poverty: When you are redeemed from poverty, it is a total package of redemption that includes your spirit, soul and body. The following are proofs of redemption from poverty:
1. Intimacy with God through his word and consistent communion with the Holy Spirit. 1Cor.6:17; Jn.14:23 and Jn.17:3.
2. Divine guidance every day of your life from when you decide and take the steps required to follow the Lord in an intimate relationship. When God leads you, His presence goes with you, He provides for you so that you never lack any good thing and He protects you and what He gives to you. Jn.16:13; Ps.23:1-3; 32:8 and Isa.58:11.
3. You bear the fruit of the spirit which is the means by which you are identified as a child of God because the Lord said we shall be known by our fruits. Rm.8:5-8; Gal.5:22-23.
4. As a believer, you will seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first. I consider this a breakthrough because it is one thing that the enemy of our souls hates with a passion because it makes you a laborer in the kingdom of God which is what God has said we should pray for. The quality of your life become so enhanced that you become the answer to people’s prayers. See Mt.6:33 and Jn.4:34
5. In any field of human endeavor you find yourself, God will cause you to be fruitful and multiply. You would always demonstrate the excellent spirit. This is the word of the blessing that makes prosperity possible. Gen.41:37-42 and Dan.1:8, 19-20.
6. Your health will not be a concern as the wisdom to be in health will be delivered to you by God even your soul prospers. Isa.58:8 and 3Jn.1:2
7. You will be totally whole with nothing missing and nothing broken in your life. All your needs would be met without fail and you will even have more than enough to be instrumental in meeting the needs of others.
We will draw the curtains on this message here today for want of time and space. Please understand that as we have seen so far Redemption from poverty is tied to redemption from sin. This makes it necessary for you to get born again before you can enjoy the following benefits. If you are yet to make this choice and you desire to do so, please say the following prayer out loud in faith and you will become born again and be ready for your genuine prosperity:
Heavenly Father,
Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen.
Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nanna and on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl www.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email: jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.
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