Understanding Financial StewardshipSample

Prosperity vs. Riches

As we wrap up our discussion on money, faith, and financial stewardship, we must remember going forward that prosperity and riches are two different things. 

Prosperity includes material gain but is not limited to it. It includes balanced growth and multiplication in all areas of life. The accumulation of riches is something you can do without God. You can acquire worldly goods and leave God completely out of the process. You only need to look around at our world today to see that many people are doing just this.

But you can’t be prosperous without God. You can’t have a fully balanced, fruitful, and joyful life without Him. To be truly prosperous, you must be spiritually prosperous—your faith and relationship with the Father must be growing and fruitful. That can’t happen apart from God. 

Prosperity has a lasting, eternal quality. Riches can be wiped away in a day—or in one hour as we read in Revelation 18 on Day 3. Prosperity lasts. Even during times of temporary loss, even during slow times or lulls in one area of life, the person who desires God’s prosperity and lives according to His principles for prosperity has a deep, abiding sense of the Lord’s presence, provision, and pleasure.

The person who desires to be prosperous lives in such a way that the promises of God are available to him. The person who seeks only riches is someone to whom the fullness of God’s promises does not apply. The one who strives to be rich limits himself to living by the “flesh,” while the one who pursues prosperity avails himself of God’s blessings. He connects his life to the unlimited God, and there is no limit to the amount of growth and blessing that he might enjoy (2 Cor. 9:8).

The Lord’s desire for you is prosperity. He wants you to be a whole person—balanced, growing, fruitful, and fulfilling His plan and purpose for your life. Ask Him to teach you what it means to be truly prosperous in His eyes … His Word promises He will answer.