“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more.But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money…“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags.For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Matthew 25:14-18, 24-30 NIV

Money is not a sign of righteousness. Neither is poverty a sign of sin or a curse in your life. Some people feel that if they have money, then God loves them. That is not how it works. Some feel the opposite that if they have no money God doesn’t love them. That is not true either. It is also not true that if you lose all your money God is just trying to humble you or keep you from pride. 

Money is neutral 

1 Timothy 6:10 indicates that it is the love of money which is the root of all evil. Money as a subject is not evil in itself. It is our heart toward the subject that makes it good or evil. It can be a blessing in your hand or the love of it in your heart can make it become a curse in your hands. 

God wants us to be blessed. We reflect the character of our Heavenly Father, who says ‘Gold and silver are Mine’. This is what God wants us to have. In this parable, we are going to touch on a few principles god has toward financial blessing.

God’s Principles Concerning Financial Blessing

God entrust each person according to their ability

Each one of us has certain things in our lives according to our ability to handle them. If somebody else has more than us in an area, it doesn’t mean they are better than us. Equally, if we see that someone else doesn’t have as much as we have, it does not mean they are worse than we are. God entrusting others with more is not a sign that He loves others more than us; it is a matter of capacity.

Example Of Father And Son

I do ask my young son to change the oil in my car because he cannot handle that. But I can tell him to take his bike and put it back in the shed. I know what he is capable of. It is not that I don’t love him more because I don’t give him a bigger task; I just know what he can handle and what he cannot.

If God begins to entrust you with things that you cannot handle, you will begin to get frustrated, eventually fail and ask God why He is punishing you instead of loving you. Therefore, what God gives us in terms of finances, family, home groups, church, and so on is a matter of our capacity to handle.

“To whom much is given, much will be required.”

Luke 12:40

God expects us to be fruitful and multiply

No matter what God gives you, it could be in your family, job, or children, God expects each one of us to be fruitful and multiply with it.

“That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him; being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

Colossians 1:10 NKJV

Right from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis, God repeats the instruction to be fruitful and multiply several times. God is still expecting this of each one of us. God wants people to look at you and know there is something different about you, you are not just a regular person. The blessing of God follows you because of our obedience to the command to be fruitful and multiply.

Our ability to multiply depends on our mindset

In the parable we read, the servant given one bag of gold reveals his mindset – saying he was afraid. That servant had the mindset that God is wicked, was out to punish him, and was waiting for him to make a mistake. Their view of God was negative. 

If we have the same view of God, that He is trying to teach us humility through us barely having enough to survive or wants to punish us all the time, we won’t be able to produce fruit or multiply. All perfect gifts come from God (James 1:17).

When we have the right view of God, we are enabled to do good. Similarly, if you have a child who thinks you are asking them to do a task just to punish them, do you think they will do it well? The one who gets encouraged to do something always succeeds ahead of those who work in fear.

Our mindset toward God reflects on our ability to be fruitful and multiply. Share on X

FOCUS MORE ON BEING THAN DOING

“The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” 

Daniel 11:32 ASV

Becoming is greater than doing. We have to understand that. Being starts with knowledge comes to transformation, and then goes into action.

There has to be knowledge more important than doing. Many people are concerned more about just doing something without the knowledge of how to do it right. Some people start businesses left and right yet fail in all they do because the same mindset does the work. People are more preoccupied with the action of doing than the knowledge of doing right.

When we increase our ability to know who we are, what we have, and what we can do in God, we are able to perform better instead of just doing work. We have to concentrate more on being than doing.  Being is greater than doing.

Every time you are faced with failure in life, you have to understand that it is not that thing you are doing which is failing but it is your mindset that is limited from being able to make your doing a success. It is not the action you do but the fact that you have exhausted your mental capacity for the realm you are currently in.

This is true because somebody somewhere else is doing the same thing you are doing but they are succeeding at it. Two people can do the same thing – one succeeds and the other fails. It is not the environment or the market’s fault or how they are being treated. If you really dig deep into it, it is their mindsets that set them apart. The mindset causes one to succeed and another to fail at the same thing.

In the parable, all three servants were given gold. No one was given silver. But the mindset caused the servants who increased to succeed and the other one to be lazy and wicked with their gold. What separated the two was not their environment but their mindset. The successful servants focussed on being instead of doing and were able to become fruitful and multiply.

Wealth was never meant to follow desire; it was meant to follow growth and you increasing your value, skills, and knowledge.  Share on X

Our Life Is A Slave To Our Thinking

If somebody has a car crash, you don’t blame the car for hitting a pole, you blame the driver. Our mindset is our driver. If things around us are failing, don’t blame the circumstances; you have to look deeper. The Bible clearly says as a man thinks in his heart, so he is, (Proverbs 23:7 NKJV). You have to be fruitful before you can multiply. It means it comes out of the inner being – being fruitful, then multiplying.

God will never change your circumstances; He will change you and the circumstances will begin to follow because you grew on the inside. Share on X

This was how God operated in Genesis 1:3, when He said, “Let there be light.” He first had it in His being before He spoke it out. So, you don’t have an excuse that your situation is the worst. Change your mindset; start living and speaking like you have the best wife, the best children, the best job, the best God and you will be surprised how quickly things change.

1. DON’T FOCUS ON GETTING, FOCUS ON GROWING 

We are often not ready for the blessings we ask God for because of the maturity and responsibility that come with the blessings. There is a knowledge and mindset that is required for the next level of blessing. A simple example of this is you don’t give a five-year-old the keys to your car and let them drive. They cannot handle that. If you have been wondering why God hasn’t blessed you, look inwardly and ask yourself. What is the area you still are uneducated in or have a wrong mindset about that cannot work with the blessing you are asking for?

Higher places are slippery places. You cannot make the mistakes that you are making now at a higher place. There are certain requirements you need to meet in order to receive and maintain that blessing. It is better for you not to receive a blessing than to receive and lose it. The doing will come but God wants you to focus more on being to get to the next level.

Life will always take you back to the real place where your mindset Is. 

Life can drag you forward or backward to where your mind is. That is why there are studies that show people who win large sums of money or the lottery often become poorer than before they received it, and many commit suicide. Their level was elevated but their mind and being were not.

Jesus cautions us to take care of our hearts for our of it flow the issues of life. God wants us to be stable in good times and hard times. This is only possible when you know that God is your source and your job or career is only a resource. When you know who you are in Christ, you can be anchored all the time.

Transformation takes time. You built the mindset you have over several years. You cannot expect one book or podcast to change it. 

2. GOD WILL ALWAYS BLESS YOU THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES

If you ask God for money, He will never give you money. He will always present opportunities for you to exercise your God-given desires and gifts in order for the blessings you seek to come into your life. 

In every opportunity God gave Joseph, he excelled and showed God’s presence in his life. We can do the same. Joseph’s mind was on the throne and eventually, life dragged him out of each circumstance he found himself in until he sat upon the throne and the blessings of the throne started flooding his life. Don’t let your circumstances affect the Word or dream God gave you in your heart. 

God expects each one of us to come to the place where we reflect Christ.

Blessing can quickly turn into a curse if you don’t know how to handle It.  Share on X

“The blessings of the Lord makes one rich and adds no sorrow to It”. 

Proverbs 10:22

Ursula Burns Example

Burns began her career as an intern and later a junior engineer at Xerox Corp. She worked her way up over the years and eventually became the CEO of Xerox in 2009, making her the first African-American woman to lead a Fortune 500 Company. 

You don’t always just need a higher-paying job somewhere else. Sometimes, God wants to elevate your position in the company you already work for. The dollar-per-hour difference is not what is going to make the greatest impact in your life. Your mindset makes the difference where you are right now.

This applies to whatever area God has placed you in. Everyone doesn’t have to start their own business to be successful. God wants you to be fruitful wherever you are and begin to multiply. Begin to increase your knowledge, skills, and worth. Are you doing the bare minimum just to keep things going or are you going the extra mile? When you go the extra mile, God will bless the work of your hands. If your hands are lazy, there is nothing for God to bless. Wealth was meant to follow growth, not desire. 

Your physical environment will gradually and eventually reflect the true state of your mindset Share on X

In 2 Kings 4:1-7, a widow with a debt issue came to a prophet. He told her to go and borrow vessels. Increase your capacity to receive because as much as you increase it, I will fill it with oil. This is how God blesses us. He stretches our minds and capacity to see more. 

When we started Hungry Generation Church, our senior pastor told us the vision of thousands locally and millions globally. At first, we doubted, thinking about who would listen to us. Yet, as we kept the confession of the vision and made it our belief, God started moving. Now, we have testimonies of people who say they have been impacted by our ministry in nations we have never been to and in some cases, didn’t even know about. They say they are part of the millions globally that we have impacted for Jesus. It all started with fixing our minds. Sooner or later, your circumstances will align with the mindset God has given you.

Don’t pray for a changed circumstance; pray, God, change me! Increase my capacity to believe. Help me to stand, not to give up, and to keep believing that God is the Rewarder.

3. IT IS NEVER THE RISK BUT KNOWLEDGE 

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

Hosea 4:6 NKJV

The scripture did not say it was some random people but ‘My people,’ God’s children. This is why God wants to increase your capacity to believe that there is more to come with Him. 

Knowledge separates those who have success and those who have failed. It is about knowledge. God wants us to understand that it is His will to bless us but He doesn’t want the blessing to break your life.

For example, many pastors pray for a bigger church but a bigger church comes and they start on anti-depressant pills. Enlargement comes with pressure, false accusations, name-calling, losing friends, and, backstabbing. People feel like if they get more money, things will become easier; it actually gets harder. Have you ever been sued? When you have more money, you start getting sued. You will be maliciously lied against because all high places are slippery places. Before God takes you there, He wants you to learn how to be rejected, and falsely accused, and how to keep helping even when you have been cheated by people, just like Joseph did. Joseph helped somebody in prison and they forgot about him, but he still moved on.

We often pray for God to remove certain challenges from our lives but it serves as an opportunity for you to be prepared to maintain the blessing that comes with the throne He is leading you to. The throne does not come without challenges. No great marriage succeeds without being able to say sorry when you are right.

We have seen it over and over, unfortunately, that many parents give up their children because they could not handle the pressure that came with having a blessing from God. 

Where God wants each of us to go is a higher place but it is not an easier pace. In living a blessed life, there are some things you have to cut away. There has to be a focus. For your marriage to succeed, you have to cut away from your single friends. In order for you to have abundance in finances, there has to be restraint from unnecessary spending. There are sacrifices you have to make and things you have to stop doing but many people are not willing to do this because it is not an easy option. There is a price to pay where God wants you to go.

I am not trying to discourage you. It is worth it. The place God wants you to go to is beautiful. I just want you to know the truth that there are challenges that come with God’s blessings. Where God wants us to be is a place where it is not easy but it is doable. 

PRACTICAL STEPS 

– Relationship with God

Above all do not lose your relationship with God, (Matthew 6:33). As things get hectic, do not lose focus on God in the midst of it all.  Spend more time with God in prayer.

– Word-Based Teachings

You have to fill your life with Word-based teachings, not just any type of book. Listen to podcasts and sermons that are centered on God’s principles for your life.

– People who can challenge you (Home Group, Church, Mentors).

Surround yourself with this kind of people, especially people who are where you want to go. Church home groups are not just a responsibility, they are where you grow personally and can get challenged positively to improve. God will use different people to uplift and encourage you to push forward. Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. They might not know everything but they can see the fundamentals of your life and God can use them to correct, uplift and send you to where God is taking you.

– Take Action

Take small steps. Even if they are small, just take them. Each small step you take will begin to add up in your life. They turn into a lifestyle and this lifestyle begins to bring the blessings of God. Then, when God’s blessings come, you will be able to maintain them in Jesus’ name.

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