Session 1
Session 1 -Prince or Pauper?
Much like my condition in Rome with my Batman shirt and ragged jeans, if you make the mistake of judging Jesus’ net worth by His humble earthly condition, you will misjudge His prosperity and undermine His mission. The apostle Paul put it like this: “For you know t he grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that t hough He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich”
(2 Corinthians 8:9).
Wait!WhatdidPaulsay?Jesuswasrich,b utthenHebecamepoorso (thereasonHebecamepoor) wemightbecomerich.Thatis
incredible! . . .
I want to point out again that Jesus became poor for a reason. His celestial mission was to make us wealthy. It is the great exchange—beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, hope for the hopeless, healing for sickness, prosperity for poverty. You get the idea: Jesus called ita bundantlife.
Poverty, Riches and Wealth, chapter 1
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Day 1 -No Longer Silent
We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent.
2 Kings 7:9
You are reading Poverty, Riches and Wealth and holding this accompanying workbook in your hands because I could no longer keep silent about the good news that we are princes, not paupers, in the Kingdom of God. If you are like a lot of believers, the first questions you want to ask about that statement are probably, “What does that mean for me in terms of wealth? Are you saying I’m supposed to be rich? Shouldn’t Christians live in poverty?”
Answering those questions could take a whole book, which is exactly the reasonIwroteP overty,RichesandWealth.DifferentChristians—allthewayfrom people who put poverty on a pedestal to people who embrace what is known as the prosperity gospel—answer those questions in different ways. To cut through the confusion and contentions that result, what if, in the days ahead, we let Jesus answer those questions for us through His life, example and words? What if we let God define true Kingdom wealth for us, rather than hanging on to our preconceived notions and mistaken mindsets about poverty, riches and wealth and how they relate to our Christian lifestyle?
Letting God be our guide in these areas is a great idea, but I will be the first to admit that it took me a while—decades, in fact—to do that. In the grip of a poverty mindset, I was convinced that as a believer I ought to be poor, and that anyone who was rich was in the grip of evil Mammon. I also did not know how to differentiate between Kingdom wealth and worldly riches.
When wave after wave of revelation began breaking apart my tiny boat of small thinking about wealth, it seemed like the perfect storm. But looking back, that storm was a blessing that washed my wife, Kathy, and me out into the sea of possibility. It unlocked our legacy so that we could release prosperity—the Kingdom kind—on our children’s children. As you read Poverty, Riches and Wealth(P RWinthepagesahead)andworkthroughthiscurriculum,myhopeis that the same will happen for you. May what you read and study in the days ahead literally wash you out into the same sea of possibility and alter the course of your history.
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Today’s Scripture reading: 1 Timothy 6:6–19
Today’sreadingfromP RW:theintroduction,titled“AttitudesofNobility”
Questions to Consider
1. Did you grow up with an “us and them” mentality about the poor and the rich, as I did? Were you among the “haves” or the “have-nots”? How did that affect your attitude toward people who were different from you?
2. Why do you think so many Christians feel as if they must have secret dialogues whispered in dark corners whenever they talk about riches and wealth in the Church? What can we do to change that perception?
3. My fears in becoming financially blessed were that I might be thought of as someone who was abusing the faith message, measuring spirituality by the stuff I owned and mismanaging money donated for ministry. What kind of fears do you have about becoming better off financially?
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4. What do you think it means to have a wealth mentality rooted in heavenly wisdom? How do God’s definitions of wealth that I list in the introduction help establish that mentality for you?
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Day 2 -Why So Many Fish?
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9
“You can’t judge a book by its cover,” so the saying goes. You can’t always judge people by their cover either, whether you are talking literally about what they are wearing or you mean their surroundings or situations. Didn’t Jesus show us that? Born in a manger that likely smelled of manure, traveling around on foot as an itinerant preacher, spending time with the poor and downtrodden. Yet what we saw of Him here on earth and what we will see of Him in eternity are going to show us two shockingly different pictures of His net worth. And because His net worth is so incredibly high, it raises our net worth. You and I are wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. It was His celestial mission to make us wealthy!
Check your wallet, though. It may or may not have a ton of money in it, because true Kingdom wealth may or may not include dollar bills. What it does include is everything He gave us in the great exchange—beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, hope for the hopeless, healing for sickness, prosperity for poverty—abundant life, as I say in today’s book reading.
If the wealth that abundant life brings us does include cold, hard cash, however, we don’t have to run from it. I put a lot of effort into doing that, as you will read about in the days ahead. But it turns out that while the love of money is a root of all evil, money itself is nothing to fear. Heaven is full of lavish riches, so they cannot possibly be evil. True, Jesus did not bring a lot of riches in the literal sense with Him when He came, but He could call them up at a moment’s notice—water becoming the finest of wines, a coin appearing in a fish’s mouth, and fish appearing everywhere, breaking the disciples’ nets and multiplying to feed thousands.
Fishw eremoneyintheeconomyofJesus’day.Ifmoneywasabadthing,then why did Jesus cause the disciples to catch so many fish? Jesus was not poor by worldly standards. Don’t apologize if you are not poor, either. Just do what God tells you to do with what He gives you.
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Today’s Scripture reading: Revelation 21:10–27
Today’sreadingfromP RW:thefirsthalfofchapter1,through“TheTax
Man” section
Questions to Consider
1. Have you ever come to the wrong conclusion about someone’s affluence based on that person’s “cover”—what you saw on the outside? Why do you think someone’s monetary condition is one of the first things we want to know? Why is that unhealthy?
2. If we make the mistake of judging Jesus’ net worth by His humble earthly condition, how might that undermine His mission, and ours?
3. What is wrong with Christians seeing wealth as wicked or intrinsically evil? How does heaven point us in the opposite direction?
4. What do you think it might mean for us today that Jesus was into the boat-sinking, way-too-many, catch-of-the-year kind of fishing?
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Day 3- Hanging Out with the Rich
Mary then took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
John 12:3
Almost from the moment of His birth, Jesus was hanging out with the rich. Or maybe a better way to look at it is that they were hanging out with Him. It is not every baby, after all, who has Magi from the East show up to present treasure chests full of kingly birthday gifts. First, there were those kings from the East. Later,therewereMary,MarthaandLazarus,andintoday’sP RWreadingwetalk about how rich they were. There was Zaccheus, a chief tax collector in Jericho who was notorious for his riches, not to mention his shady business practices (until he met Jesus). There was also Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward. She had to have some notoriety not only because of her husband’s position, but probably because she hung around Jesus, who had some fame of His own.
Meanwhile, based on His “foxes have holes and birds have nests” comments, many of us thought Jesus was poor and homeless, but I think we misunderstood what He was saying. Jesus was not in the position of barely scraping by in ministry, desperately searching for somewhere to lay His head at night. He had numerous wealthy friends and supporters. Even at the cross, Joseph of Arimathea, a rich and respected member of the Council, stepped in to bury Jesus’ body in a style more befitting a prince than a pauper.
Jesus was comfortable around the rich and famous, and many of them were devoted to Him. He taught about money all the time, and He helped people prosper financially. He made a distinction, of course, between worldly riches and true Kingdom wealth, but He could function in either realm, and He can enable you to do the same.
Today’s Scripture reading: Matthew 2:1–11; John 12:1–9 Today’sreadingfromP RW:thesecondhalfofchapter1,startingat
“Funded by the Wealthy”
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Questions to Consider
1. What did you previously think had happened to the gifts the Magi brought Jesus? Were you surprised at the idea that at least some of that treasure might have been used to launch Jesus into His ministry?
2. What was it about Jesus that made Him comfortable both hanging around with His wealthy friends and spending time with the poor and broken? What character traits might we develop to help us become more like Him in that regard?
3. Did you share the common perception of Jesus as a sort of homeless itinerant preacher who had nowhere to lay His head at night? Howdidtoday’sP RWreadingchangeyourunderstandingofHis“foxes have holes and birds have nests” comment?
4. In chapter 1’s “Traveling Light” section, I mentioned some of the reasons that Jesus told His disciples to travel light. Why was it a brilliant strategy on His part to require people to invest in their own spiritual growth?
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Day 4
A Healthy, Wealthy Immune System
Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.
3John2
What makes a person immune to a poverty mentality, a victim mentality or downright self-sabotage when it comes to living an abundant life full of true Kingdom wealth? I had to discover the answers the hard way, by suffering for years from a wealth autoimmune disease. I had all the symptoms. I struggled when our businesses did well, and I had no faith for a financial miracle when things went poorly. Being on the receiving end of people’s generosity made me totally uncomfortable, as did showing any outward signs of success or blessing. In fact, once I could afford a Corvette and got one, I felt as if I needed to hide it, which was pretty hard since it was bright yellow.
Itellyouthatstoryinmoredetailintoday’sP RWreading,buttheshort version is that I had a wealth autoimmune disease that made me feel sick financially and sick in my soul. I felt guilty and unworthy, yet I was totally caught off guard when God showed me that I did not l ove myself the way He loved me. And because I did not love myself that way, I could not love others well. (You remember how Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves.) Because my thinking about myself was diseased, I could not stay healthy in regard to either worldly riches or true Kingdom wealth.
Really, the best thing we can do for the people around us is to start by loving ourselves. That is the key to having a prosperous soul (and we will talk more about how to get there in Day 5 just ahead). Loving ourselves does not mean we flip from being poverty-stricken and self-demeaning to being prideful, arrogant and self-serving. It means we flip to realizing our priceless value in the eyes of God and expressing our value in true humility, in ways that benefit those around us. That is why I say that humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is just thinking of yourself less. When we place the right value on ourselves—the value we have as sons and daughters of God—it vaccinates us against wealth autoimmune disease and enables us both to give and to receive all the richness He has for us.
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Today’s Scripture reading: Mark 12:28–34
Today’sreadingfromP RW:thefirsthalfofchapter2,throughthe“Trouble
in Paradise” section
Questions to Consider
1. In what ways do you think our soul’s prosperity determines the level of wealth and health we experience?
2. Why do you suppose that a sense of unworthiness in our soul repels prosperity, as if the two were magnets with their repelling poles warring against each other?
3. Have you ever felt compelled to hide something nice you had from others, as I did with my Corvette? Did my story get you thinking about the root cause of that urge? What did you conclude about yourself?
4. Why is your behavior toward your neighbor a reflection of how you feel about yourself? If you love yourself with true humility, how does that benefit those around you?
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Day 5 -Pauperville or the Palace?
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27
Prosperity of soul is the foundation for becoming wealthy and healthy in every area of life, so it is important for us to answer the how and what questions of gettingthere.Howdowelearntoloveourselves,andw hatistheprocessoutofthe prisonofpoverty?InP RWtoday,wewilltakealookatsomespecificstepswecan take to walk out of poverty and into a prosperous soul. As you read through the eight steps I provide in chapter 2, think about which steps you may have already taken, which steps you need to take and which steps seem hardest for you.
Step 1, of course, is essential: D iscover who God says you are. (To get someplace different than where you are, you have to take the first step.) Made in the very image of our Creator, we have an amazing identity in Christ as saints, citizens of a holy nation, sons and daughters of God, the Bride of Christ, new creatures, and prototypes molded by our Father and modeled after Jesus. Stepping into our identity in Christ leads the way into all the other steps I talk about, along with any other steps God puts in front of you as you go through this study.
Your journey out of pauperville into His palace may start with a single step, but it will lead you from glory to glory. It will lead you into envisioning yourself as God sees you and becoming forgiven and whole. It will lead you into a new view of your failings from God’s perspective, as He transforms your failures into a fantastic future. It will lead you into taking action to bring cleanup and closure to your past. It will lead you into building a truth wall, or a vetting system, against which you can measure the things you allow to have access into your life. And it will cement in your heart and mind Jesus’ very favorite things about you, which will have an effect on all you do. As I say in the book, you cannot change your life, but if you change your thoughts, Jesus will transform your life. In that process, you will step into prosperity of soul.
Today’s Scripture reading: Joshua 1:6–9; 2 Corinthians 3:17–18 Today’sreadingfromP RW:thesecondhalfofchapter2,startingat“Geta
Grip”
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Questions to Consider
1. Which of the eight steps I mention toward a prosperous soul are the most challenging steps for you to take? What did you learn about them today that might help you?
2. What were the three things God told Joshua to do that would makehisownwayprosperous?(SeeJoshua1:8andstep2inP RW, Envision yourself as God sees you. ) Why are these three things so radically life-altering?
3. Steps3,4and5inP RWareastruggleforthosewhobattlewith past sins or failures. If you are in that group, in what ways have you experienced the dynamic that buried shame is more dominant than unapplied redemption? What will you do about it now?
4. From step 6, can you identify any spiritual algorithms that are operating in your life like pop-up ads on the Internet? In what practical ways can you watch over your heart and mind diligently (see Proverbs 4: 23) to make sure you are vetting your thoughts through God’s filter?
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5. Review step 7 and the list you made of five profound things Jesus says about you. Let those thoughts carve their way into your mind for a few minutes, like hot steel ball bearings dropped into a pound of cheese. (Or make that list now if you did not do it while reading the book.) How does meditating on what God thinks of you change your perception of yourself as lovable?
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Session 1
Life Application
NowthatyouhavereadthefirstcoupleofchaptersinP overty,RichesandWealth, take a little time to evaluate your current mindset toward wealth. Are you prone to an “us and them” mentality about the rich and the poor? Do you consider yourself a “have” or a “have-not”?
If you consider yourself a “have,” do you know the difference between worldly riches and true Kingdom wealth?
If you consider yourself a “have-not,” what kind of secret fears do you have about being financially blessed? Do you harbor the feeling that you are unworthy, or do you struggle with feeling guilty when blessings come your way, as I did? What effects do you think a lack of loving yourself might be having on you? How did working through chapter 2’s eight steps out of a poverty mentality begin to counter those effects?
Now that you have looked at your attitudes about poverty, riches and wealth, focus on your actions. Review step 8 in chapter 2 and name a few ways in which changing your mindset toward yourself might positively affect your future actions.
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Session 1
Video Takeaways
When you react to bad doctrine, you often create worse doctrine than what you reacted to. (Bill Johnson)
Adversity introduces a man to himself.
Intimacy often means “In To Me You See.” (Danny Silk)
Discernment anointed by the spirit of fear becomes suspicion.
The price Jesus paid on the cross determined the value of the people He
purchased.
A poverty mentality tells God, “What You did on the cross isn’t good enough
for me.”
Wealth isn’t just about money. Wealth is actually an attitude, a mentality. If you don’t think wealth is good, you’re not going to like heaven.
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich,
yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus became poor to give us an abundant life.
“Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2). Health and prosperity are the side effects of a soul that is well cared for.
If I take care of my soul, I build a foundation for health and wealth.
God actually loves us as the tridimensional beings He created (spirit, soul and
body). He doesn’t want us to oppress our soul. He wants our spirit to
lead our soul, but He doesn’t want us to get rid of our soul.
From our soul is the foundation of all wealth and all health.
It’s important that I care about people, but I can’t let people dictate how I
think about me.
We need to see ourselves the way God sees us . . . envision ourselves the way
God sees us. IbecomewhatIthinkGodthinksofme….Ibegintothinkmywayoutof
poverty by thinking what the Father thinks of me.