I\u2019ve always been suspicious of the \u201cProsperity Gospel,\u201d- the belief that God wants every believer to prosper and all a believer has to do to prosper is trust God properly. There are two initial problems with that thinking: (1) It\u2019s extremely difficult to consistently trust God properly and (2) if God\u2019s blessings are delivered solely by our trust, it deletes God\u2019s ability to determine how and when to bless. Faith is believing that God can, not that God will. God can bless above and beyond our requests. However, God will bless as He chooses, as He sees and knows the big picture. So relax in faith. If God blesses to your expectations, so be it. If God blesses according to His plan, stop worrying about it. Many years ago, Henry Ward Beecher said, \u201cEvery tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.\u201d That is close to the definition offered by the writer of Hebrews, \u201cFaith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen\u201d (Hebrews 11:1). And even closer to a paraphrase in \u201cThe Message,\u201d \u201cFaith is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It\u2019s our handle on what we can\u2019t see\u201d (Hebrews 11:1, MSG). Even closer to this truth is a statement made by Max Lucado, \u201cFaith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.\u201d So, don\u2019t place your faith in the Prosperity Gospel. Place your faith in God and live with what He gives you.<\/p>\n
Join me in remembering in prayer the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Larry and Sarah return from Macau in July for six month. Pray that they will be able to buy a good used car to drive in the USA for the time they are stateside.
\n\u2022 Pray for the many mission teams who are serving around the world during spring break times and for the follow-up after they return home.
\n\u2022 Pray for the person who will coordinate the prayer focus for an annual meeting of secure country missionaries next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve always been suspicious of the \u201cProsperity Gospel,\u201d- the belief that God wants every believer to prosper and all a believer has to do to prosper is trust God properly. There are two initial problems with that thinking: (1) It\u2019s extremely difficult to consistently trust God properly and (2) if God\u2019s blessings are delivered solely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}