Prosperity Thinking

Get your Bibles out, let's lift them up, wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

I'll tell you it makes him mad, amen.

But I do it mainly to glorify God, amen.

You know, it's just a little bit of bonus that we get to make the devil mad.

Okay, you don't mind me saying that, because get over, I'm gonna say it all the time.

Let's say this together say, heavenly Father, I am so glad to be here in your presence, and in your presence is fullness, fullness of joy.

At your right hand.

There are pleasures forevermore.

It's my pleasure to be here in the corporate presence with my brothers and my sisters.

There's something about us getting together and the power of God is here, so strong.

Illuminate my spirit to receive from your words ideas, concepts, insights.

You're thinking that will change my life forever.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Praise God, you could be seated.

And let's turn in our Bibles to Third John, third Epistle of John.

You know who John is.

He's the disciple whom Jesus loved.

I'm so fond of saying that.

Praise the Lord.

You know Jesus had 12, but he had three Peter, james and John.

So, john, you know, james and John, the sons of thunder, you know.

So there was something special about them as far as Jesus was concerned and his leadership.

And so in Third John, we'll start reading with verse one the elder under the well beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth, beloved, I wish, or I pray, or my desire, above all things, is that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prosper.

For I rejoice greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee Even as you walk, or you continue, or you live in the truth.

I have no greater joy than to hear my children walk in truth.

And so here in these verses, we see it's inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I mean, have you believed that John was inspired to write these words?

That's why it's in the Bible, it's recognized as inspired by the Holy Ghost.

And so we can say the Holy Ghost, his idea, or that God's priority is our prosperity in health and in finances, or another way to say it, and I don't believe this does damage to what the word says right here.

Another way to say it is do you want to prosper and be in health?

Then master the art of prosperity thinking.

Master the art of prosperity thinking.

That's what I want to share with you today a message entitled Prosperity, thinking and so, above all things, john, inspired by the Holy Ghost.

It must have been important to the spirit of God, to these people he's writing to Gaius.

According to this, one of his sons, one of his sons in the faith, john considered the church that he wrote to his children how many of you want your children for things to go well with your children?

Amen, how much more does God want things to go well with his children?

And then, by virtue of the fact that he felt like these were his children, he wanted to share with them some things, above all things.

He said.

Everybody say priority, top, priority, top priority.

I mean God could have put something in there.

I want you to live a holy life, holiness.

Well, I believe in holiness, but it's not even on the list here.

I mean I believe you should be a fruitful people, you should bear fruit, you should get lots of people say well, I believe in getting people say but it's not on the list.

The highest priority for God's children was to prosper and be in health.

Yes, brother, prosper means prospering in my spirit.

Well, yeah, all prosperity starts in your spirit, but it doesn't end there.

Prosperity really means to succeed in business affairs.

How many of you know that you're in business?

You may not own a business, but you're in business.

I mean if you have an income and an outgo, you're in business and when your outgo exceeds your income, you're going to be out of business.

That's the opposite of prosperity.

Prosperity means that your income exceeds your outgo and God is interested in that as a top priority.

But religion will tell you oh, you're just thirsting after money, you're just the love of money.

And he says no, no, not at all.

Money is not good or evil.

Money takes on the character of the person that has it.

And I'll tell you what try to live without money.

I've tried that.

It doesn't work very well.

I mean, I tried that one time for about 10 years.

It just doesn't work.

I think I exhausted every way to live without money for 10 years and I found out you can't be successful.

You can exist.

But as far as being successful, what's successful is that your income exceeds your outgo.

I mean it's just kind of just a real simple priority with God.

I mean why don't we get our priorities lined up with God's priorities?

Why don't we get our thinking lined up with our God thing?

Because religion will mess you up.

Religion will keep you broke and will keep you sick.

Thank you for two omis, three grunts and four.

I have a better aiming.

Oh, that's much better.

Wow, I can feel like you're getting excited now.

So, above all things, priority, I pray, I desire that you prosper, succeed in business affairs and be in health.

When you look that up in your concordance, it means exactly what you think it means.

It means to be safe.

You know we've heard that word.

It's overused.

Safe, oh, be safe, be safe.

Stay at home, put a mask on and stay six feet away from everybody.

How stupid is that?

It's not safe.

There's no measurement of safe.

You can't measure what safe is.

But safe just means delivered from evil, and that comes in with health.

A long life's journey that you continue that you.

A long life's journey.

You know we're going to have times when we have to overcome issues in our health, but that doesn't mean we have to stay there.

We're going to have to overcome issues with our finances.

Sometimes there's temporary interruptions, sometimes there's crises in our finances, but when we keep this in mind, that it's God's priority for us to be successful and to be healthy, to be safe, in other words delivered.

The word health means safe, sound and whole, and so you know.

My thinking is that if you give yourself permission to allow something in your life by repeating the lie the devil is telling you.

For instance, let's just say you get laid off and you don't have enough money to pay your mortgage, been there, except I didn't get laid off, I just my business went away.

I'm self-employed, so it's the same thing.

My business didn't have enough money to pay me Got behind in my mortgage, got behind in just about everything you could get behind in.

That is no fun.

It's no fun to pick up the phone and have creditors calling you.

It's no fun to get letters in the mail demanding payment no fun.

Having things for you to pay, no fun.

Having things for closed on, having automobiles go back to bank, having property that you owned ripped, foreclosed on I've been through all of that.

I know exactly what that is and that's not God.

And if I had ever sat down and said, well, I just feel like you know I probably deserve this.

I mean, you know I deserve this.

I mean I'm just gonna have to go along with it.

I mean, I guess this prosperity you mean pastor, you're a prosperity preacher.

What are you?

A poverty preacher?

First on Jesus list the spirit of the Lord is a poem.

Now on Jesus list, the spirit of the Lord is a poem.

He, because he's anointed me to do what.

Preach holiness Women, be pure.

Where are those dresses down to the floor around your neck, get the hair piled up 17 feet tall.

No makeup, no lipstick, no eyeshadow.

It's devilish.

No, he said first on the list preach the gospel to the poor.

It must have been pretty important for Jesus to put that on the first of the list.

It's the same priority here in the book of John, third John, everybody say my priority.

See, I'm gonna match my priorities up with God's priority and I'm not gonna apologize for it.

I'm not gonna apologize to anybody for seeking success in the financial realm and seeking health in the physical realm and not putting up with anything that interrupts that.

I mean I'm gonna get on my bicycle and ride real hard and find out what is the problem.

Have I missed it somewhere?

Have I missed signals?

Have I let the devil in?

And you know, without knowing, I'm gonna plug the leak.

I mean you've had, you know, the little boy that plugged the leak in the dam.

I mean you stick your finger in the dam, cause if you don't, a little leak like that starts to be a bigger leak, and a bigger leak and a big, until the whole dam fails and then you got a real problem.

You got flooding right, and so let's have enough sense not to let the devil talk us out of the blessing of God that Jesus bought and paid for Its.

Prosperity is a high priority, the top priority.

Why?

Because God has blessed us to make us a blessing.

How can we be a blessing if we're not blessed?

But you've got religion trying to tell you oh, no, no, no, no.

Well, you know, brother, we just don't take offerings in our church.

We just put a bucket in the.

I went to a church one time.

They put a bucket in the back and if you wanted to give it's on the way out, you know, to the parking lot, you just pitched it in there.

No, no, offering, no offering scripture, no prayer over it, no, offering it to God and saying this is the tide down here.

You up there, you take the tide down here.

We take it, lord, we worship you with no, none of that.

Just, it's almost like they're embarrassed.

Well, that church didn't last it folded up.

It lasted about five, six, seven years.

I don't even know how it lasted that long with a completely wrong attitude about money.

I mean, I'd be derelict in my duty if I didn't teach on prosperity and show you through the Word of God, in my own personal testimony, how God wants to bless you and he doesn't want you to put up with unemployment, he doesn't want you to put up with more outgo than income.

Successful, that's what God wants you to be.

Successful.

Everybody say I'm not ashamed of success.

Jesus bought and paid for it.

That's the good news.

That's the good news.

The good news you don't have to be poor.

What would be good?

Oh, it's holy to be poor.

You know, I grew up Catholic and you know all my spiritual examples and the nuns and the priests, and we had a Monsignor in our parish.

I mean, we had a cut above.

We didn't just have a parish priest, we had a Monsignor which is one cut under Bishop and all of that.

He's on his way.

He never did make Bishop, but he was up there and they all took vows of poverty.

So I grew up and so I had a fouled up idea.

See, that's religious thinking.

Religious thinking says, in order to be a priest or a nun or to serve people, you need to have a valve.

Jesus didn't make a valve poverty.

As a matter of fact, he had a treasure.

He had a bag full of money.

At one point he was a.

He was the sole support of 70 full time ministers.

You can't do that with a valve poverty.

One time the religious crowd were griping at him for not paying his taxes.

Okay, peter, let's go ahead.

We don't owe him anything, but we'll go ahead and pay it, just to shut him up.

That's my version of it.

So, peter, go out there and go fishing and take the gold coin in the first fish's mouth.

They see, it said the first fish.

So in other words, if you're going to bother going fishing, you might as well go fishing for the whole load.

So just go and first fish you catch, take the gold coin, pay your taxes in mind and then just keep fishing and might as well make a big drag out of it.

Well, that doesn't say that.

Well, it implies that, see, god's not.

He's not a poverty, god, he's a prosperity.

God, god believes in your prosperity.

He has provided for your prosperity.

So you prosper, you succeed in business affairs and be in health, safe, sound and whole as you hold your mind successfully on the truth.

Well, it doesn't say the truth.

Well, it does in the very next it says right.

I rejoice greatly that the brethren came and testified of the truth.

That is in you that you walk in truth.

So he's connecting prosperity and health with truth.

Are we living in a time when truth is hard to find?

Are we living in a time when all you have to do is walk out the door and see lots and lots of people who are obeying lies?

They're believing lies.

They're obeying lies.

They think somehow what they're doing is going to help them stay healthy, but there's a lot of evidence that's going to hurt them in a lot of ways.

It's doing great damage.

I said it's doing great damage, damaging our children, damaging babies being able to even recognize their own mother.

You got your here's, here's a mama and you're trying to connect with your child and you got a mask on.

Are you kidding?

We don't even know the impact of all of what's going to happen with what we have been lied of.

It's been, it's been one lie after another.

So you know, my job as your pastor is to make sure that you keep the truth at the forefront of your thinking where it concerns your prosperity and your health.

Really, prosperity includes health.

I've seen very rich people that are poor.

Why?

Because they don't have health.

You can't buy it.

Once your health is gone, there's no amount of money.

You might go to the doctor, you might get the latest stuff, but you know what?

Your health is gone, you can't buy it.

If your lungs are disintegrated, well, we got a heart transplant, a lung transplant, you got all kinds of transplants, but I'm telling you it won't give you health, but God's truth will give you health.

Amen, are you with me now, keeping your mind successfully held to the truth?

So in verses three and four, it connects truth to prosperity and health.

And what Jesus said?

Jesus said I am the truth.

And who is Jesus?

Well, he's the Word.

So this, right here, is what we have.

Here's your truth, right here.

I say this I know I don't apologize for saying it, but really, without reading your Bible and ingesting and feeding on the truth, you're going to wind up believing the lie.

We talked a few weeks ago about defeating deception.

Deception is like pressurized.

It's being pressured into our thinking.

It's crowding truth out and trying to find a place for it to live inside of your mind.

The great battle of all of these things is your mind.

Prosperity, thinking, thinking in line with the truth.

Are you with me now?

So it.

And then the Holy Ghost is called the spirit of truth.

I mean the truth must be real important.

You shall know the truth, jesus said, and the truth shall make you free.

Not you know, but.

But it's not just knowing about it, it's knowing and living it.

See, this, this, this, this these verses are talking about.

I have nope.

I'm so glad I rejoiced greatly about the truth that then that you walk in the truth.

See, you can know it and not walk in it, and it won't do you one bit of good.

It will not make you free.

Knowing about the truth, knowing what the truth is, if you don't, if you don't walk in it, then you're not free.

Are you with me now?

No, we've got to.

We've got to walk in it.

So we need to renew our mind Romans 12 to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, or we could call it the refreshing of our mind, which happens every day.

You ought to read your Bible every day, because your mind is under attack every day and you ought to refresh your thinking every day.

You ought to get it in front of your eye.

Well, I know what it says.

I've read it.

Well, read it again, because faith comes by hearing and hearing it comes by repetition.

We're going to get into a word called diligence here in a moment.

It's mentioned a couple of times in the next verses.

Diligence simply means being consistent.

Inconsistency lies the power.

It's not what you do under pressure when you, everything is falling apart.

Then you read your Bible.

Oh, I've got a bad report from the.

Oh the IRS.

Oh the IRS.

Oh, no, yeah, it doesn't work like that.

It's what have you done every day, consistently, day in and day or past?

I don't have time.

I get up at five o'clock in the morning.

We'll get up at four o'clock in the morning.

Do you have time to be prosperous?

Do you have time to be healthy?

Because if you, if you're too busy to be prosperous and healthy, let me tell you something You're too busy.

It won't be long before your health falls apart.

It won't be long before your outgo is gonna be bigger than your income.

Are y'all with me?

Oh no, don't say that, don't say that.

Well, I'm not prophesying.

I'm just saying that there's a cause and effect.

There's a cause and effect.

No one has lived in the last days till this generation.

Right here, the last days just came about.

We have all of the prophetic nations that are listed in the Bible that are gonna come against Israel in place right now.

We have a global cabal that's ruled by the Antichrist spirit, if not the Antichrist himself he had I don't believe he's alive.

I believe he's alive somewhere.

I don't know if he knows who he is, but I believe he's alive.

I believe that's how close we are.

But what if you're wrong?

Well, what if I'm right?

If I'm wrong?

It just means that God's gonna give us a little bit more time to get our act together.

But the way it's going right now, listen, I just don't feel like we have that much longer before Jesus comes.

What we do, we need to do quickly.

What we believe, we need to be shouting it from the housetops.

We don't need to be hiding indoors, going down the road with a mask on inside of our car.

If you're one of those, repent Would you please?

Thank you, thank you.

So renewing, refreshing, really.

We could say discipling disciplining our mind to hold on to the truth and reject the lie, and that's according to this right here.

That's the first step in business success and in health.

It's the first step.

Everybody say the first step, I'm gonna take the first step, and so the battle is in the mind.

That's where the battle is.

That's where we fight a warfare.

It's in the mind.

Now, if truth is the basis of prosperity and health, how many of you believe that?

Everybody say that our truth is the basis for prosperity and health?

See, that's bottom line.

You've got to know what the truth is.

The truth is not the doctor's report.

The truth is not the CPA's report.

The truth is not your you know balance sheet.

The truth is what God's word says and how much you've lived.

It Say they continued in the truth.

Are we continuing in the truth or are we being interrupted?

The more you allow yourself to be interrupted, the more trouble you're gonna have in those two areas.

So if truth is the basis for prosperity and health, then lies are the basis for poverty and sickness.

Everybody say that lies or the basis for poverty and sickness.

All right, we're just taking what God said right here and we're just drawing it out.

These are all statements that are true based on what we read.

Isn't that right?

Has anybody got any problem with what we're saying?

Truth is so important, it's the basis for our health and prosperity.

But lies.

If we accept them, if we entertain them, if we let them lodge in our mind and we let them stay there and we don't act to get rid of them and resist them and speak against them, they're gonna lodge in there and they're gonna affect your prosperity, they're gonna affect your health Lies.

So then, revelation knowledge is the basis for the Holy Ghost to bring miracles right.

Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word of God.

The word hearing means understanding, it means revelation knowledge, when we get revelation of what God's will is.

Faith begins where the will of God is known.

That's revelation knowledge.

Peter says you're the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Blessed art thou, peter.

Simon Peter, for flesh and blood, didn't reveal that to you, but my Father, which is in heaven.

So he got a hold of who Jesus was, not just because what Jesus said, but because he had revelation.

And that's that same revelation that we have to live off of.

And where does it come from?

It comes from right here.

No, read the Bible.

No prayer, no revelation, no faith.

So you can begin to see that the church is becoming eroded in the basics of the faith.

Do you know what a Christian worldview is?

A Christian worldview means that you view the world on the basis of the Bible being the inerrant word of God, that this is the truth, there's the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

There's no other truth but this right here.

But you've got modern teachings been going on for the last 30, 40 years.

That has eroded that.

And even in the evangelical realm they're saying well, you know, that's not so fast.

Some of this is fable, some of this is just made up.

You know it's just old traditions that have been passed down, ancient men.

You know this passes down.

Well, the Bible is either true or it isn't.

So if you listen to that kind of preaching, your worldview is compromised and you're not gonna believe that God's word is true.

Then you're gonna be easy pickings for the government to tell you wear a mask, give up your guns.

Gun violence has claimed another.

No, gun violence didn't do it, a person did it.

The gun didn't fire by itself.

I mean, you know the AK-47 or the LR-15, they gotta have somebody pull the trigger.

The last I ever heard.

I haven't seen any guns killing anybody by themselves.

Oh, let's not talk about the criminal, let's talk about the tool.

Well, if there were no guns, they'd use a screwdriver.

They would freeze a leg of lamb and hit you in the head with it.

We've gotta have lamb control.

There's too many lambs being built.

That's how stupid it is.

And people in church are buying into it, but not this church.

Praise the Lord, we're not buying into that.

All right.

So revelation, knowledge, the basis for the Holy Ghost to bring miracles.

I mean, if God speaks it into your heart and you speak it with your mouth, you can have what you say right, that's what Jesus said.

And you can have what you say, right, that's what Jesus said.

But then, on the other hand, when we have strongholds, what's a stronghold?

Second Corinthians talks about that we ought to bring every thought into captivity, the obedience of Christ.

If we don't, that thought becomes what An imagination.

And if we don't do anything with that, it finally becomes a stronghold.

Pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations, every high thing that results itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity, the obedience of Christ.

So it's a reverse order.

So if you turn it back around.

It starts in that progression, thought undoubt with.

Here's a thought.

God is showing me something.

With this poverty, I can't pay my bills.

That God's teaching me a lesson.

You don't do anything with that, that's a lie.

And it just kind of lodges in there and pretty soon you imagine yourself not being paid more than just one bill.

Now it's the several bills that you can't pay, and then pretty soon it goes into a stronghold, and strongholds are the basis for demons to bring failure into your life, whether it's sickness or lack in poverty.

Strongholds Strongholds didn't get there overnight.

They came because thoughts weren't held captive and rejected.

Where do those thoughts come from?

Well, I was thinking, no, you weren't thinking that.

There's two places for thoughts to come.

First of all, demons can throw a thought at you.

See what you do with it.

They're not mind readers, they just like to observe.

They see how to push your buttons, they look at you, they figure out what your issues are, what are your secret little fears and hangups, and they'll throw a thought at you.

The other place that thoughts come from are through your five senses, because your flesh, in your flesh, dwelleth no good thing.

When you walk in the flesh, you're going to think flesh thoughts.

Flesh thoughts are really basically coming from the kingdom of darkness, and millions of Christians don't know anything about living by faith.

They just live by one thought sowed there by their flesh or by demons one of the other, and that's why they're so unhappy.

That's why that they're not satisfied, that's why they're so sick and broke.

Listen, the church needs to rise up and resist the devil, amen.

And so truth is introduced into our spirits by the Holy Ghost.

Lies are introduced into our spirit either by demons or by the five senses, and so Jesus said in Mark, chapter four.

He said take heed what you hear, take heed.

And so, for that reason, I'm very, very picky about what I watch on television, what I listen to on the radio.

I just have, I only listen to headlines.

I look at the headlines.

I know about what's going on, I know about what's happening.

I don't dive deeply into every little detail, why?

Because it makes me angry.

Amen and wrath worketh not the righteousness of God.

I'd rather be right with God than know all the details of the antichrist and what he's doing, or that antichrist, I should say the antichrist spirit.

And so I can.

I've learned how to balance my need to know what's going on with, my need to know what God's word says about those things, and I find that I have to cling tighter.

I was listening to somebody the other day.

They were saying well, I'm just under such pressure I don't read my Bible like I should.

Well, you know, you just gotta.

You gotta start.

You can't do anything about yesterday or how.

About?

Right now you can start.

Look, I'm not living in the time when I can skip the Bible.

I've gotta have the Bible, gotta have the word of God, gotta have the.

Everybody say I've got to have the word of God.

These are his ideas.

This is his commentary on everything that's going on right now.

It's right here.

Are y'all with me now?

Take heed what you hear.

You have to occupy your mind with what the word says Amen Now.

So he gives tips here, in verses five through eight, about this prosperity of finances and of health.

And he says in verse five beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do to the brethren and the strangers and who have borne witness of your charity.

That word charity is a poor translation.

It's agape, it's the God kind of love.

So Paul John has not been to the church, but he's.

He sent people to check on them to see how they're doing, who have come back and given him a report.

They gave him a report that they're walking in the truth.

He gave them a report here in verse five, that they're doing faithfully good things.

Love to the brethren and to strangers, which, who have borne witness of your agape before the church, whom, if you bring forward on their journey after a godly sort or in a manner worthy of God, you do well, because for his namesake they.

He's talking about preachers.

Now he's talking about the ministry, both the ministry in the church and the traveling ministries that come through, and he's talking specifically about these people who are giving him a good report.

He's sent them and so he's saying now take care of them, bring them, support them in a way that's worthy of God, because they've been sent to you.

That for his namesake, they went forth taking nothing of the Gentile.

Do you think the ministry is gonna be able to live off offerings from unbelievers?

Do you think the unbelievers are gonna support the ministry?

No, the ministry is gonna be supported by the saints.

And he's saying if you do that, you're doing the right thing.

We therefore are to receive these ministers that we might be fellow helpers to the truth.

That's one thing about this church and over the years we've challenged you and when we have a visiting preacher man, I mean we load them up and if it's not a big enough offering, we just take money out of the tithe and load them up even more.

But I'll tell you, mostly nowadays I mean you guys just stepped to the plate and you have gotten such a revelation of what it means to give and to receive that when we have somebody coming in here to preach, you know that when you honor that person by supporting them financially and bring them on the way, you know when they're standing in a hotel we don't put them in the rat's nest motel.

You know the Roach Coach Motel, that's beautiful.

I mean we try to make sure they're comfortable.

We make sure that they get here.

You know, if they need to fly, we help them fly.

If they're flying a jet, we help them pay the cost of that jet.

It's a lot of money.

I remember years ago Brother Copeland.

You know he was an airplane pilot.

You know he was one of Oral Roberts that flying a prop job when Brother Roberts first started flying a plane.

But I heard him minister on this thing.

He said you know, I protect the anointing.

I can't have anointing.

Go out to the airport and sit down and listen to all this garbage going on.

Get crammed in the back of the plane like a sardine and jammed up in there, listen to everybody's talk.

I can't be anointed when I get to the other side.

I've got to have.

I treasure the anointing on my life, so I fly.

I guess God agreed with him because he'd been flying jets for I don't know how long 30 years.

Do you know how much it cost to fly a jet, I mean man, much less buy one, but just to fly one, just to say you own it already, just to fly it.

Hundreds of dollars an hour.

Brother Ed defrained.

He was flying a jet there, actually crashed in one and went to heaven in one.

But before that had happened he had had to replace the jet engine on one side.

It was $150,000 to overhaul that jet engine, just to overhaul it, much less fly it.

Put fuel in it.

Hundreds of dollars an hour to fly anywhere, even if you own it already.

Are y'all with me now?

So what did they have to do?

They had to get highly motivated, knowing that God was for them, knowing that they didn't have to listen to.

Oh you, just that prosperity preacher, you just all you want to do is do.

No, they were protecting the anointing on their ministry and when they got to where they're going, they had miracles.

They still do.

Are you with me now?

Thank you.

So the God kind of love cares for the physical needs of the ministry.

I'll tell you, you know, since day one we've never had to work outside the church.

I mean from day one.

I mean I had talking about living without money.

I had started a house in presumption and it wouldn't sell, didn't sell.

It wasn't God's plan.

He, you know, he couldn't, he couldn't bless my plan.

He couldn't, he wanted to.

But I started a house when I shouldn't have.

God was done with me building houses.

He was ready for me to be in the ministry and I resisted him.

And so therefore I had a failure.

So on January, the third of 1995, that house was sold on the court house steps.

They foreclosed, they took it away from me.

I lost a bunch of money, my partner lost a whole bunch of money, other people lost money, other other subcontractors lost money.

It was a wreckage.

And three weeks later we started this church and we've never looked back.

We've never had to go work outside the the church.

We never had to start some side issue.

We never had to go do this and do that and do the other.

This church has met every need that I've had.

My family had, now the staff.

Every need has been met.

Because?

Why?

Because this church is highly developed and I got they love this church is highly developed and giving and receiving.

So I just want to stir you up in that area.

I'm telling you God wants to bless you even more.

Don't buy the lie just because there's inflation.

I mean there we've had all kinds of negative economic conditions since since this church started 26 years ago.

We lived through the 9 11 men.

That was a depression.

After 9 11.

People were laid off and that was out of.

Out of that, an unsafe businessman shorted the stock market, did put options and made money while the stock market was going down, in other words, and made so much money he needed a tax write off.

So that's why he donated 85 acres to this church, 9.78 million dollar piece of property donated for a tax write off.

Are y'all with me now?

I mean, listen, god doesn't pay any attention to the economy.

God's economy is always booming.

God's economy is always blessed.

God's economy is always filled with prosperity and health.

Glory to come on, let your hands right.

All I can say to you just keep on doing what you've been doing and do it even more.

I said do it even more.

Proverbs 21, 5.

Thoughts of the diligent lead tend only to plenteousness or gain in profits.

He quit talking lack, quit talking sickness, quit talking about it.

Talk nothing but blessing.

Talk nothing but gain.

Proverbs 10, 4, the hand of the diligent makes rich.

Notice this.

Work diligent there.

Verse 20, chapter 20.

Proverbs 22, 29 see a man diligent in his business.

He shall stand before kings.

He shall not stand before mean men.

Mean not not meaning like angry men, but the word mean means obscure, insignificant.

I mean when you're dealing with people, you're going to be dealing with the decision maker, you're not going to be dealing with a flunky.

Why, what's the all of these?

These three Proverbs talk about diligence, consistency, being consistent.

Don't listen to the lies of the devil that just say well, we're going down, it's terrible, oh Lord.

Economy, oh, I don't know what we're going to do.

Ali, what's going to happen when gas goes back up?

When gas went back up.

It's $75 a barrel now.

If we had the right president and officers, no telling it wouldn't be $75 a barrel, but the oil industry be a lot better off.

No, instead they're closing pipeline, doing all the wrong things.

That's all right.

I don't care what they can do, whatever they, they can do, whatever they think they can do.

You know what?

It's not going to affect my blessing, because my blessing is not tied up with the government.

My blessing is not, is not tied up even with the economy.

God knows, he owns the cattle on the thousand hills and he keeps up with where they are.

Praise God, all right, so just some things.

Just some things.

I know, I know this is just I'm preaching to the choir, but we have new people come all the time.

Maybe you came from a church that just believes in poverty, maybe you, maybe you, just you know.

I was listening.

Who's the Jewish guy that's on Salem?

Dennis Prager.

I was listening to Dennis Prager.

He's a rabbi and he was talking about this one day.

I just laughed.

I thought it was so good, dennis, I like Dennis Prager.

He's conservative, I like him.

And Dennis was talking about.

He said now, you know, in my synagogue.

I put on a really nice.

It was Easter time.

I put on a really nice Passover service and he said we sell tickets.

And he said I know what you Christians are thinking oh my goodness, sell tickets.

We would never sell tickets.

You know, you have this Easter, a Scrivaganza You've got.

You've got Jesus rising up from the tomb, you've got him going through the roof of the building.

You've got choirs, you've got special music, you've got all of this stuff and people come crowding in there and you don't even.

You know you're so conflicted about money, you don't even.

You think it's so terrible to charge.

But I charge people to come to Passover.

It cost me a lot of money to put on a really nice presentation.

I have to hire all these people.

They get paid and then we have a tremendous lay out of.

I mean, it's a Seder meal we got, we got, we got a man I can't just have, you know, crackers and tuna fish.

You know it's got to be.

He said we choose, we don't have the hangups that Christians.

And I said amen, brother, hung up about prosperity.

That's one thing.

They got drilled into them and their why can't we have that drilled into us?

That's the reason I'm preaching this.

I want to get this soul into you that you will not accept poverty, you will not accept sickness If anything happens to you.

You're like a turkey on a June bug.

You're going to get on that.

You're going to find out what's what.

Hey, how's this happening?

I'm not putting up with this.

I'm not going to allow this in my life.

God made me to prosper and to be in health, even as my soul, my mind, my will prosper.

Come on, lift your hand and receive Glory to God.

We're not looking to the government to supply all of them.

We're not looking to man.

We're not looking to the economy.

We're looking to God and God alone.

Praise God.

How did you get anything out of this this morning?

Come on, let's rejoice a little one.

Hallelujah.

Come on, let's praise him this morning.

Let's praise him Now.

You've got to be diligent in not talking about bad stuff.

I mean, it's just remember we've been talking about the way the world is programmed.

It's programmed negatively.

I mean you can't get more negative than the devil.

And so the world is in the kingdom of darkness.

They're programmed.

They're minds, they're.

Everything about them is programmed negatively.

Look on the dark side of everything.

When you find an optimist.

Just wait a while, you'll find out that they're really not optimistic.

They're pessimistic underneath all that facade.

And so what does it take?

Well, I have to be renewed in our mind.

Our mind has to be renewed.

So, quit talking lack, quit talking sickness, quit talking pain, quit talking how expensive.

Oh, everything went up.

Yeah, everything's gone.

So what?

I got plenty of money, I got more than enough.

I remember, brother, those things.

But normal platform.

He said you know, I don't care if bread goes to 75 cents a loaf that's how long ago he's been preaching that.

I mean, hello, glory to God.

Well, it's $3 or something a loaf, but we're still buying it.

Praise God, buy all we can take, it doesn't matter.

We, you know, we've got plenty.

We got plenty for our children.

We've got plenty, we got plenty.

Amen, god's got plenty.

Quit, quit, allowing the devil give you a guilt trip over how blessed you are.

Amen, praise God.

Come on, let's just lift our hands.

Father, we thank you this morning.

We thank you that we prosper and we walk in hell even as our soul prospers.

And, lord, we're blessed to be a blessing.

Thank you for raising up this church to bring a message of the gospel.

The gospel is good news.

Thank God for the privilege of the good news going out all over the country.

Hallelujah.