Section 03 - Origins of Poverty and Lack Part 2

In the last section I shared the abilities that we have that can be used to produce wealth. In this section I want to look at how some of these abilities can be blocked. And when this happens we don't rise up and succeed in generating wealth the way that we should.

Your spirit has creative ability in it and it can get revelation. It is also the place that the powerful creative force of faith comes from. But your spirit can get blocked so that you cannot tap into that power.

This is the work of the enemy of our souls. And it is why very often, although we have the same natural abilities as unbelievers, Christians don't seem to walk in the same kind of prosperity as unbelievers. It is because we have an enemy that wants to make sure that we don't prosper.

I think prosperity is probably the thing that Satan fears the most in the life of any believer.

He knows that if you have the financial provision and your basic needs and desires are taken care of, then you are going to rise up and do so much more for the Kingdom of God.

But he tries to keep you busy concentrating and pouring all your energies on just trying to survive and get enough to live on.

If he can do this, then you don't have any energy or resources left to extend the Kingdom of God in the earth. You will be unable to go out and win the lost and to do what God has called you to do.

How Satan Stops You Succeeding

Satan wants to stop you from using these abilities. And these are some of the things that he uses to do that.

He Locks Your Spirit in

The first thing he wants to do is to keep your spirit locked inside. You see your spirit sits right down deep in the inner part of you. And for you to receive from your spirit, you need to let it flow outwards through your soul.

It must flow through your mind, emotions, desires and passions. Then it goes through your will and into your body. Your body then begins to take those ideas and put them into motion to make things happen.

If we can lock in the spirit then we become no different to an animal. In fact we are worse than an animal, because an animal at least has instinct which is kind of like a fixed spirit if you like.

So when your spirit gets locked in you are actually worse than an animal. You are walking around in a daze, not knowing what to do. You are directionless, and it is like your GPS has bombed. You are now stuck in the middle of the freeway and you say,

"Where am I? I don't know where to go next."

You want to hit your GPS and tell it to wake up, but the GPS has gone to sleep.

Sometimes that is the condition we find ourselves in as believers. Our spirit has gone to sleep; at least that is what it feels like. It feels totally locked in and you feel frustrated.

Conflict in the Body

When that happens you get into conflict. And when that conflict takes place, instead of going inwards to listen to the spirit, you go outwards to listen to your body. Your body has a couple of simple messages. It says,

"Let's have fun. Let's do something exciting. Let's get sensation and do things that feel good."

Your body is really just saying,

"Let's sin."

The Need for Nourishment

That is the message you are getting from your body. You see it has some basic desires, and one of them is nourishment. The body says,

"Let's eat. Let's go out and have a meal."

Well you might be battling financially and trying to break free. Your body says, "Let's go and eat," and you say,

"I only have a couple of dollars left in my wallet, but what the heck let's go and eat."

So you spend the little bit of money you have to satisfy your body's desires.

The Need for Reproduction and Defense

Another function of the body is reproduction, so the body says,

"Let's have sex."

And then your body has a defense mechanism and it says,

"Let's fight. Let's get aggressive. Let's go and challenge and compete with someone. Let's do something exciting so that I feel like I've accomplished and like I've been challenged. Let's go and play a game and beat somebody."

So you go onto your computer and play a game, and all the time your spirit is sleeping away. Then you say,

"I can't understand why I am not being blessed financially."

Results of the Conflict

You see one of your main resources has gone to sleep, and you are busy majoring on all the other things.

Right now your body is not exactly producing finance. It is spending finance and using up the resources that it does have.

It is becoming weak because you are ending up eating and drinking too much. And you are losing your mental capabilities and becoming unproductive. You are becoming lazy and fat. Why? All because your spirit got locked in.

Satan's Tools

Satan has tools that he uses. The three main enemies are the world and the system around us that squeezes us. Next there is the flesh or our own bodily desires.

And then we have the devil with all of his hordes of hell. They are ready to attack us, to confuse us, depress us and discourage us. We will look at each one of these things shortly. But the whole plan is to lock in your spirit.

Watch out for the demonic powers that are arrayed against you because they will not come with a big noise. You will just get a feeling that says,

"I don't feel like praying or feel like reading my Bible today. I don't feel like watching any preaching video today, nor do I feel like fellowshipping with other Christians. I would rather just hide away somewhere."

Watch out for the symptoms, because the moment you begin to sense those symptoms your spirit is locked up. The source of your power just became immobilized, and you are on the downward road to poverty and lack.

He Attacks Your Soul

Once Satan has your spirit that way then he comes against your soul. And instead of your mind being productive, filling it with good knowledge and coming up with new ideas and things to do, it gets filled with negative attitudes.

You start to think negative thoughts that are going to make you even less productive.

There is an old saying that goes like this:

Attitude is everything.

You see the moment you have a wrong attitude your soul becomes immobilized. And even if your spirit was free and pouring out, your mind is not capable of taking that knowledge and revelation and doing anything with it. Your mind became powerless.

Wrong Attitudes

What are some of the things that can immobilize your mind? What about some of the attitudes that destroy your prosperity and cause financial poverty and lack in your life?

Poverty Mentality

The first one is what we call a poverty mentality. Some people call it spirituality, but it is a poverty mentality where you think in poor terms and you say,

"I shouldn't spend too much money. I should be very careful and buy the cheapest stuff that I can find. The money is probably not going to come in so we need to prepare for the worst. Let's use the teabags twice if we can so that we can save."

It is a poverty mentality and it is not the way God created us to be.

Laziness

The next attitude is one of laziness. Laziness is actually very subtle, because it is not that you are not prepared to do anything. It is when you think,

"What's the point of doing this? I'm going to work hard and nothing is going to happen anyway so why should I bother?

Besides why should I work hard at work and put in extra effort? The guy next door to me is not doing that. At the end of the day I am going to end up with the same salary as him anyway, so why should I work harder? What is it going to accomplish?

In fact all my work mates are going to start getting angry with me and saying, 'You are making us look bad. Why are you working so hard?' "

Laziness is a very subtle thing. So don't be too quick to condemn somebody and say,

"He is just too lazy to work."

There is an inner motivation or attitude that comes with laziness. A person is always prepared to make the effort to do what they believe in. But you see you don't believe in it because you have no faith in your heart anymore. Your spirit is blocked and so you become sluggish and lazy.

Neediness

Another attitude of heart is neediness. You say to someone,

"I need you to help me. Can you lend us $20? I'll pay you back whenever I can."

That basically means,

"I will never pay you back."

You are always needing other people.

You say, "I need a good job and a higher salary. Please boss will you increase my pay?"

We are always looking to other people to provide for us. It is a wrong attitude, and while you have that attitude you are inviting poverty.

Impossibility Thinking

Another thing that fills our minds and destroys our chances of prospering is what I call impossibility thinking.

Impossibility thinking comes directly as a result of you having no faith. Because you see faith believes the impossible. Faith believes when it doesn't see, but impossibility thinking says,

"Well that sounds a great idea, but no it won't work."

Your spirit has come up with a brilliant idea it says,

"This is a great idea. Why don't we give this a try?"

You say, "No it is impossible. We couldn't do that; it wouldn't work."

If you allow impossibility thinking to stay in your mind, it is going to destroy the little bit of faith you do have. Then you are going to look back on your past and you are going to say,

"We tried that before but it didn't work."

Or you say, "I know someone who tried it and it didn't work. I have never seen it work yet."

It is impossibility thinking and you are looking at your own experience. But while you do that you are not going to break free.

Past Negative Programming

A lot of the reason we have this is because of past programming. It is because of words that have been spoken to us as we grew up.

It may be because of some of the things you heard your parents put into you. If you grew up in a poor home your parents spoke poverty. That is why they were poor. You grew up with this programming in your mind and you will always be poor.

You will always have to look to the wealthy to carry you because of this impossibility thinking.

How are you going to break free of this? By listening to the voice of God and the faith that comes from Him where He says,

With God all things are possible

Well if you can't hear it from your spirit, write out a few Scriptures that say that. I like to combine two Scriptures together. The Word says,

All things are possible to those who believe.

It also says,

With God all things are possible.

I like to quote it like this and say,

With God all things are possible to those who believe.

With God all things are possible to you. If you would believe and exercise faith, all things are possible to you, so let go of your impossibility thinking.

You might say to me,

"It's impossible for me to become a millionaire. Maybe I could become a hundredaire or a thousandaire, but millionaire is a bit too big."

"Well why not aim for billionaire?"

You say, "No, that is impossible."

Did you know that there are billionaires out there? There are lots of them in fact. It is not impossible to become a billionaire because people are doing it, but you say,

"It's impossible for me to do it."

It wasn't impossible for them because that is why they did it. It is impossible for you. That is why you are never going to do it, so let go of that impossibility thinking.

Legalistic Thinking

The next thing we have is legalistic thinking. For Christians this is one of the most deadly mental attitudes. It goes like this,

"I don't deserve this. I don't have a right to expect God to prosper me and make me wealthy. I am just a miserable, rotten little old sinner and I haven't earned the right. I'm not spiritual enough or close enough to the Lord."

Legalistic thinking makes you think that God is trying to withhold things from you, instead of the fact that He is trying to give them to you. And if you think that you don't deserve to be wealthy let me give you the bad news. You are never going to be wealthy.

Of course you don't deserve anything. You are a sinner saved by His grace. But God's grace is always abundant. In fact the word abundance and grace are always used synonymously in Scripture.

Yes God gave you out of His grace, not because you deserved it because you can never deserve it. The only thing God requires of you is faith in what He did, not in what you can do.

It is not in your abilities or your spirituality. Don't think that you are ever going to get spiritual enough to be blessed financially. Get rid of that legalistic thinking.

These things that I am sharing with you now are all very subtle. Sometimes they even sound very spiritual.

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