Let's now get onto the main thing I want to share about, which is making wealth plans. Health is very important, but it doesn't drive us quite the same as wealth does it? More money makes it easier for us to have health and relationships.

You might say to me,

"Wow, what I could do if I had more money! I could afford to buy the right foods instead of that junk food. I could afford to go to a gym, buy the right exercise equipment, or join that club and play some sports."

Do you know that poverty can destroy relationships?

Somebody said once,

"When poverty comes in the door, love flies out the window."

Lack of money destroys so many marriages or relationships. So, don't underestimate the importance of money. It is very important.

It Takes an Effort

The trouble is creating wealth requires an effort. God always required man to work. Adam had a job in the garden, but he didn't need to work hard. He just had to keep things in order.

But since Adam and Eve sinned in what was known as The Fall, it doesn't come naturally anymore. You need to work against it because a curse came into the earth.

The Lord has redeemed us from the curse. But for us to overcome that curse, we need to apply the blessing.

Again, it is not automatic. He provides the power, but we need to use it. Paul said,

"I can do all things through Christ who does it all for me."

Is that what he said? No, I don't think that is the way it goes. He said,

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

But you see I am the one who must do it.

You might say, "I will just command the angels, and they can go and work for me and bring my income in."

Some people teach that because they are just too lazy to do anything.

They say, "I am living by faith. The Lord told me that I should just sit at home and pray all day, and He would provide my needs."

God may tell you to do that for a season. But it is never going to be a lifestyle. No, I'm afraid that if you want results, you will need to apply your whole being to it.

You Need to Work

You will need to make a physical effort. You will need to make a mental and emotional effort, and you will need to exercise your willpower.

The bottom line is you will need to do that ugly W word - work. You might say to me,

"I can't wait to retire so I don't need to work anymore."

Are you planning to die? A lot of people think,

"I have worked hard all my life. Now is the time to sit back and do nothing."

Well then you have no reason to live anymore do you? So now you will get poor, because that is what will happen.

You see work alone does not produce wealth. Most people work hard at their job, then they wait for pay day. They might even live in hope and think,

"Maybe my boss will give me an increase."

But you will carry on like that for the rest of your life, because you have no incentive to work harder or to work better.

You will join the status quo. The status quo gives no thought to increasing their wealth. They become complacent and are satisfied to continue the way they are going.

You might say, "I get up, I go to work and do my job, then I come home."

We just live according to our budget and the income that we have. We are always just following a survival vision and say,

"If I could just keep my head above water and get enough."

You see wealth does not look like that. But most of us are quite happy to do that. We want money and we want more wealth, but we want someone else to give it to us. We want the Lord to just shower it on us because He loves us.

You Need to Change

I'm afraid if you want wealth you will need to move beyond what is essential. You see being faithful in your job is not enough. You will need to do something new and powerful.

You will need to increase your capacity to gain wealth. You will need to be prepared to pay the price in time and in effort. And you will need to make plans to change.

Analyticals hate the word change. Expressives thrive on it, and the other temperaments sit somewhere in the middle. For many people change is a swear word. They say,

"I am comfortable doing it this way. It has served me well for 68 years."

So, you are wealthier now, right? Could it be that if you had changed a bit earlier, you could be in a different financial situation right now?

Get Some Input

You will need to put an extra effort in. And you will need to get some input to give you the capability to do that.

There are three areas that you can gain input to make you more capable of creating wealth. The first source is your own heart.

You have stored knowledge that you have accumulated over the years. This knowledge is all the things that you fed in that stuck. Those things are still there. And depending on how old you are, you have a wealth of data sitting in there, waiting for you to tap and use.

This includes things that you learned from experience. And when you learn from experience you have it. You know it and you've proved it. Sometimes it is dead knowledge sitting there that you are not using.

You need to get input from the world round about you. You get this from the things that you read, the things you watch and the things that you listen to. You also get it from the things that you see.

Be Observant

You need to learn to be observant. Do you notice things, or do you just let them pass by you?

When we were in Mexico, the Mexicans spoke so fast that it was almost impossible to understand what they were saying. No matter how well you had learned the language, they answered you so fast that you might only understand one or two words.

You think, "He said something about that."

We got to the place where we just switched off. When somebody spoke in Spanish we didn't even listen. We thought,

"Okay, what did you say?"

We kind of get that way in life. We are so busy doing what we are doing, that we don't notice things that are staring us in the face.

Perhaps your prayer has been,

"Oh Lord, please send me some new things to learn."

But you get an email loaded with good stuff and you think,

"Oh, that's just spam."

Do you ever read your emails? I know they teach you out there that you shouldn't read emails because it makes you inefficient.

I disagree with this. I read emails 24 hours a day. If I wake up at 2 in the morning, I pick up my phone and see if any emails have come in. I usually wake up at least three or four times and do this.

In the morning I will say to my son,

"John, you need to answer that email."

He says, "What email? I haven't read mail yet."

I say, "You are slow, man."

Keep your eyes open, because the Lord will even send you things that are new from the world that can benefit you.

I am amazed at something. As we have tried to help people get moving in their own ministries, I find that most people are ignorant of things that I tend to take for granted.

People say to us,

"I am not very technical you know."

Do you know what are you saying to me?

"I was too lazy to learn. I just didn't bother noticing what was happening all around me."

Forced to Learn New Things

The Lord taught me a long time ago to keep on the cutting edge. What is happening out there right now? You need to keep up with it.

We did great overseas with all our websites and everything. But everyone was going onto Facebook and I thought,

"Facebook? That is worldly. I want nothing to do with it."

The Lord said to me,

"Get on Facebook. You're losing an opportunity."

"But I hate Facebook and it's worldly."

"I don't care! You are losing an opportunity."

You need to make use of the social media. We had a seminar some time back, which we called the Launch Your Ministry Conference. In that seminar we taught those who attended how to do what we do. Well how do we do what we do?

We were sitting there in Mexico, unable to do anything and not understanding the people round about us. We could not work, but we had to find a way of creating an income.

So, do you know what we did? We went onto the Internet and we found out how to do things. We found out how to bind and make our own books, because we couldn't afford to have people publish them for us.

We found out how to do things on the Internet. We found out how to do graphics with a graphics program; also, how to create web pages.

You might say to me,

"I don't have time or money to go on a course."

You don't need to go on a course. The Internet is one big course and it is free. Or you might say,

"But that takes time and effort."

And you are complaining because you are not wealthy?

Perhaps you say,

"I don't have time to read and I'm really not a reader you know."

Do you know how to spend money? That seems to come naturally. Maybe if you learned to read more, you may get more money to spend. Did that ever occur to you?

You see we had to learn these things. We didn't have money to hire specialists, so every one of our team took a skill that they had. We only had six in the team originally, but each one took the skill that they had and developed it.

I gave my younger daughter a graphics program and said to her,

"Go and learn this and learn how to do graphics."

She became a graphics expert and eventually wanted to do it as a career. She wasn't born with it, but she developed it.

I taught everybody to write articles, to get in there and make web pages and to produce Bible studies. My son used to make all our tapes, CDs and all our products and he was a young guy.

Today is the day of the specialist. The idea is don't touch it. Give it to the specialist. Then you pay him specialist fees.

This is what this whole series that I am trying to teach you is all about. You have in you all that you will ever need to develop any skill you desire. You can rise and accomplish in this world.