Well, I went on my merry way. And got myself scalded- royally! (Ironically, when God would save me, He did it Royally too but infinitely more so- He led me to a Church Parish called The Royal Palace. Lol!) My ‘brains’ got me into trouble. Then I remembered that I had not needed my brains to get to the best I had gotten to before I fell. God had done that not my ‘brains’.
You see, poverty is a problem. It is a threat to one’s salvation. It can bring with it a false sense of humility, spiritual pride and rarely, if ever glorifies God. It is a well-known prayer point, its deliverance.
Prosperity on the other hand is seen as an ‘arrival’. If poverty were seen as a prayer point for escape, prosperity is seen as ‘freedom’, an ‘arrival’ from escape.
The question though, is freedom from what? If it were freedom from stagnation and shame then it is most definitely, freedom.
If it is freedom from pride, arrogance, bull-headedness and the like though, then for most people these tests have only just begun or probably just got compounded.
Enlightenment is good. Promotion is great. Wisdom, knowledge, understanding are all worthy gifts we receive from God but we must remember nothing on its own can get us to where God wants us to be. ‘’So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth but of God that showeth mercy. Romans 9:16. Mighty men fall, beggars are raised from dunghills. 1Samuel 2:8, Matthew 23:12.
Promotions, praises can get us into trouble. That is why we each must work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) - in poverty or in prosperity.
So what is deliverance from prosperity? It is being able to carry your prosperity, the glory of God upon your life such that you do not stumble and you do not fall. It is being delivered from prosperity in much the same way we are delivered from poverty- having it powerless over us - such that it has no power over us anymore. That is, even in wealth, even in overflowing happiness, even in human accolades and praise, one is immune; our eyes set on the One with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13), in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).
And I realise that my God is more than able to deliver from the sting of poverty as well as from the choke of prosperity.
Poverty is not good, but prosperity is not a guarantee of heaven either. In all things let us be moderate. Let us allow God to deliver us from prosperity as well as from poverty.
Indeed in the Kingdom of God, there is no arrival- only the saved.
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