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God is looking for those who will demonstrate His goodness because they understand His purpose for wealth. What hinders you from promoting the gospel more freely? Most likely, your answer, like that of most believers, would be a lack of money.

Most Christians have a deep desire to fund mission projects. They desire to help their churches or to join with ministries as prayer and financial partners. The problem has been that the wealth of this world has been under the control of people who are promoting everything but the message of Jesus Christ.

Not long ago three different men gave away a combined total of 41 billion dollars, and not one dollar went to proclaim God's Word.

That's not God's plan. God's plan for wealth is that it be used for the promotion of His Kingdom - not for the promotion of another. He is moving in the hearts of the members of His family worldwide to take hold of wealth in order to demonstrate His goodness to those outside of His family.

Notice Psalm 31:19: "Your goodness is so great! You have stored up great blessings for those who honor you. You have done so much for those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world."

Your increase and prosperity becomes a picture before a watching world. They have seen the poverty on one side and the greed and abuse on the other side. People are truly looking for those whose hearts are pure and whose motives can be trusted. You and I are to be that people who receive and show His goodness.

Romans 2:4 tells us that it is the goodness of God that brings people to repentance. God is calling them to repent and know Him.  We must show the goodness of God on all levels of life.

Throughout biblical history God has brought abundant wealth to many of His people. When you begin to study it, the pattern becomes very evident.

Abram
That pattern began with God's covenant partner Abram. He was made wealthy shortly after he began to walk with God. In a short time he received a great deal of wealth from the Pharaoh of Egypt because of Sara, Abram's wife (see Gen. 12:16).

Genesis 13:2 says,  "Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold." Abram's wealth came out of Egypt and continued to grow, along with his power. His own men even conquered an alliance of five kings who had taken his nephew Lot captive. Abram delivered the king of Sodom at the same time and offered the tithe of all the wealth he recovered to the priest and king, Melchizedek. Here the wealth of Sodom was brought into God's plan and purpose.

Isaac
Abraham's son Isaac would also experience dramatic increase. The land suffered from a famine that had driven others in the region to Egypt for help. But, at God's Word, Isaac remained in the land, risked everything and received one hundredfold on all of his crops. Genesis 26:12-13 says, "That year Isaac's crops were tremendous! He harvested a hundred times more grain than he planted, for the Lord blessed him. He became a rich man, and his wealth only continued to grow."

Jacob
Jacob, Isaac's son, received a plan from God to take the wealth of his wicked father-in-law, Laban. Jacob kept the flocks and herds of Laban for many years. Though Laban's wealth increased because of Jacob, Laban cheated Jacob. God showed Jacob how to turn this injustice around.

In Genesis 31:4-9, Jacob tells how this happened.

So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock, and said to them, I see your father's countenance, that it is not favorable toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me. And you know that with all my might I have served your father. Yet your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me. If he said thus: 'The speckled shall be your wages,' then all the flocks bore speckled. And if he said thus: the streaked shall be your wages, then all the flocks bore streaked. So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.

The wealth of a wicked and unjust man came into the hands of a man who walked in covenant with God.

Joseph
One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, would be used by God to bring the wealth of Egypt and other nations in that region into Israel. When Joseph received the God-given dreams telling of him being lifted to a position of power, he was hated and betrayed by his own family.

By the end of his life he had been used by God to oversee the greatest harvest and increase in Egypt's history. Joseph was the overseer of all of the harvest, and the wealth that streamed into Egypt as other nations came to buy their grain.

All of that wealth was brought to Egypt because of Joseph. It never belonged to Egypt.  Four-hundred years later, when Israel would exodus from Egypt, God told them to go throughout the land and ask for each household's gold, silver and clothing. They departed with all that belonged to them; the wealth brought to the nation by Joseph's faith in God.

Israel
In the end, Egypt would pay this generation for all of the back wages Israelites were due from 400 years of labor.

Notice Psalm 105:37:  "He also brought them out with silver and gold, and there was none feeble among His tribes." The New Living Translation states it this way: "But he brought his people safely out of Egypt, loaded with silver and gold; there were no sick or feeble people among them." God's people were loaded!

As long as people obeyed and trusted God, the pattern of wealth and increase coming to them was clear. There are so many others. David, Israel's greatest king, lead them into times of great victory and wealth. Solomon became the wisest and wealthiest man in all of history. He would have great wealth given to him from leaders, kings and queens of surrounding nations.

God has not changed. He will lead you in ways that will bring wealth and increase to you today. But there is an aspect that must be realized. In each of these examples, it was vital that they position themselves to obtain it. Abram obeyed, Isaac sowed, Jacob worked, and Joseph refused to quit. The result was that God blessed what each set his hand to achieve.

The wealth of the world is in the world which is not in church. God will give you plans and ideas to position you to increase. When you pursue His plan to achieve that increase, He has promised to do in you just what He has done in others. God will bless what you sow and what you set your hand to do, as you obey and walk with Him.

Today, God is raising up modern day testimonies of men and women who will become abundantly rich that they may be vessels in His hand for distributing wealth and promoting the Word. You can be one of those He uses!

Source: The Power to Increase by Dennis Burke.
Excerpt permission granted by Dennis Burke Publications

Author Biography

Dennis Burke, Ph.D.
Web site: Dennis Burke Ministries
 
Since 1979, Dennis Burke has led multitudes of believers into the biblical principles of faith, healing, love, prosperity, and righteousness. Through the Insights: the Way to a New Life magazine, books, eBooks, CDs, and mp3 resources, Dennis has brought revelation knowledge on the truths of God's Word. He has taught Christians everywhere to know God more deeply and overcome the challenges life brings through faith in God's Word.
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