Need a new car? Does your house need to be updated? Need to pay off credit card debt? Is your company struggling to make payroll? Does your company need capital to expand, develop a new product, or to explore new opportunities? See an investment opportunity?
Since most of us believe that the answer to life’s challenges is money, we assume that the solution to all of the above is money. This causes us to focus on and be preoccupied with money.
The assumption that money is the solution to many, if not most, of life's challenges is all too common. This perspective has been around for thousands of years.
The text above was written to the Christian community at Laodicea nearly two thousand years ago. This Christian community thought the same as most of us do today. They believed that money was the answer to life’s problems and challenges.
Placing trust and confidence in physical assets was and continues to be a powerful deception. The second half of the above verse expresses the truth. When we trust in our tangible physical wealth, we are trapped, imprisoned, powerless, hopeless, and unprotected—not a good place to be. When we think money is the solution to meet our needs and solve our problems, we are living in deception.
To better understand the above verse, consider how the universe was created. A spirit being, whom we know to be God, created the tangible physical world. This means that spiritual reality is the fundamental reality and physical reality emanates from spiritual reality. Notwithstanding the apparent prosperity of the wicked (see Psalms 73), tangible wealth is therefore a physical manifestation of underlying spiritual reality. Consequently, tangible wealth is never a root issue; it is only a symptom of underlying spiritual reality.
Our true needs are fundamentally spiritual in nature and are manifested in the physical realm in various ways. For example, consider the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. They were told that obedience to God (spiritual reality) would manifest itself in family, financial, and political blessings. The reverse was also true. Disobedience (spiritual reality) would manifest itself in family, financial, and political calamity (see Deuteronomy 28).
To truly solve problems in life, therefore, we must deal with root issues, which are always spiritual in nature. We must recognize that money problems are symptoms of underlying spiritual issues.
Here is your business tip: The key to prosperity in God’s universe is spiritual alignment with Him (Matthew 6:33). This text teaches that our role is to align with God’s kingdom (His rule and reign) and to do it according to righteousness (His ways). There is provision when we do this. To quote my friend Dennis Peacocke: “God funds His will.”
Whenever you face an apparent need and don’t have the requisite money, there is an alignment issue or issues. To help you uncover the root issues, consider the following:
- Have you truly discerned the Lord’s will for yourself and/or your organization?
- Is there sin in your life and/or in your community (home, business, church, and/or nation)?
- Is this a test from God to build your faith?
- Is this a timing issue—it may be God’s will but the wrong time?
Honest assessment of the spiritual reality at work in your circumstances will enable you to discern how to pray and act in alignment with God, which will release provision to do His will. This is the way of truth that leads to blessings in God's universe.
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