The Psalmist says:
“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.”
Psalm 1:1-3 NIV
The believer who meditates on God’s word day and night is prosperous. His prosperity may not be physically visible, to the world around him initially. But in the real world of the spirit, God’s hand is there to prosper him. The Devil knows that he is prosperous. The celestial beings are all aware of the plan of the Lord to prosper him.
His righteous lifestyle as a doer of the word of God, brings him the goodness of God to be blessed. His prosperity may not be seen by those around him yet; but as long as he keeps on doing what he is doing, by meditating on God’s word day and night, it will eventually begin to manifest.
A man like that longs always, to listen and to hear God’s voice at all times. He will never listen to what his friends, or the world around him are saying. He knows that as long as he is a doer of the commands of God, he will always prosper.
The scriptures gave us a good example of this in the lives of both Job and Abraham. They were both prosperous in their world. The people around them saw them prospering, in everything that they did. In fact the Devil could not touch anything that belonged to both of them.
In the case of Job the Devil could not touch his prosperity, without first getting the permission from God (Job 1:1-11 and 2:1-7). The same thing goes with Abraham. God could not hide His judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah from Abraham (Genesis 18:16-33 and 19:27-29). Even after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible says:
“Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.” – Genesis 19:27-29 NIV
After the Lord spoke to him about the plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham still continued in the presence of the Lord. He was watching to see the effect of God’s judgement on the ungodly. God and Abraham were both in covenant with one another. Abraham had to continue believing what the Lord told him about Sodom and Gomorrah, by meditating on it until the morning of the next day. God on the other hand was bond by the promise to Abraham, of saving the righteous from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He had to remain faithful to His word. He fulfilled His promise to Abraham.
These two men (Abraham and Job) were successful and prosperous, because of their righteous living. God could not do anything within their sphere of influences, without first giving them inside information about it. And you are not different from them today before God. Your covenant by the blood of Christ Jesus, is what positions you before God like them.
The scriptures says:
“God made him (Christ) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV
Your ability to live by faith before God gives you access into the blessing of God in this way. Don’t ever underestimate the power of God’s faith, working through you in righteous living. Righteous living gives you the boldness before God in getting access into your blessing (Hebrews 4:16).
The overflow of God’s word brings you the power to prosper
It is an overflow of the promises of God which abides in you, that causes you to prosper. God’s power is released through the overflow of His word in your heart, in the midst of the difficulties which you often confront on a daily basis. There will always be an overflow through your heart, in the face of difficulties; as long as you are abiding in Christ and His word is abiding in you.
The troubles of life are what will always prompt the believer in Christ, to start putting pressure on the word of God, that abides in him to perform; as he meditates on those promises of God in the scriptures day and night. You don’t need to be putting pressure on yourself in the face of troubles. Toiling or slaving yourself in order to resolve the problem, is not God’s will for you. Everything that you are doing has not worked yet, because you are not taking time out to start abiding in Jesus, so that His word may start abiding in you.
But you do need to be putting pressure, on God’s promises to perform for you. You do this by meditating on those promises of God day and night; until the word that abides in you causes an overflow through your heart, and consequently through your mouth also, in turning the problem into a blessing. You can definitely turn it all around.
That’s why Jesus said:
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.”
John 15:7 NKJV
It is the promises of God that abides in you, as you are abiding in Christ; that will start speaking louder through your heart and your mouth to you, in the face of the trials of your faith. When problems comes to you, the abundance of the promises of God in your heart, ought to be overflowing through your mouth, to declare those promises of the Lord for your life. You were not created in the image of Christ, to be declaring the problems (Luke 6:45). Whatever you are confessing out of your mouth, is being empowered to become a reality for you. You are supposed to be keeping God always in remembrance of His promises to you, in the face of the adversities (Deuteronomy 8:17-19). You don’t talk much about the adversities, because they are already known to God.
His promises should be speaking louder and clearer to you at heart, than whatsoever the enemy may be bringing up against you. That’s what releases the power of God through you to change your situation in prospering you; as you do exploits with your spoken words against the enemy.
A believer who doesn’t have the word abiding in him, and who does not also abide in Christ, will be endangering himself. He will be prone to every attacks of the enemy. It is not when the problems shows up, that you will need to start looking for scripture texts to confess. You ought to be abiding in the Word before then. Abiding in Christ therefore does suggests that, as a Christian you are cultivating the mindset of Christ in your life (Philippians 2:5).
Your prosperity is in your mouth. It is what you are confessing that you will eventually possess. If you are confessing the sickness, instead of the promises of healing (1 Peter 2:24), then you will get sicker. If you are speaking lack, in place of your abundance (Philippians 4:19); then your lack will become greater. Whatever flows from your mouth comes from your heart, and it is what you will get.
You need to make a clearer and smarter choice now. Let the word of God begin to abide in you, as you are abiding in Christ.
Paul said it in this way:
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”
Colossians 3:16 NABRE
The word that dwells in you, is the word that will either lift you up or pull you down. It is also the word that will continually overflow through your heart, and your mouth in the face of difficulties. It is the very word that you will be prompted to keep God in remembrance of.
But if you are not taking time out, to be meditating on those words, there will never be an overflow of it from your heart to your mouth. You can’t reap what you have not sown. You can decide your own destiny today. Let Christ and His words begin to abide in you, until it begins speaking through your heart and mouth to prosper you.
Paul again said:
“All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:15-18 NIV
The world doesn’t know it yet. All they are seeing are your trials of faith, and the various strategies of the enemy to stop you from prospering. But all of that are really nothing compared to what God is doing in your life spiritually. If you can’t see yourself blessed and prosperous in the spirit, then you will have the problem of believing in its physical manifestation.
That’s why it’s a dangerous thing for you to get too familiar with the natural world around you, to the extent that you start forgetting that you are a spiritual being. Too much familiarity with the ungodly people around you, will make you contemptuous to them. You must be able to set up boundaries in your relationship with them, so as to protect the anointing oil that flows through your life to bless them (Proverbs 4: 23-27). The enemy knows that you belong to God, and that you have no business with trying to be like his own people. You can’t afford to be who you are not.
You are living before God in the spirit by keeping yourself in remembrance of His promises of prosperity. Every time that you are keeping yourself in remembrance of God’s promises, you are in the spirit before God at that very moment. Talk to God in prayer about it by yourself. Don’t be waiting for someone else, to tell you about what belongs to you in Christ Jesus.
Nobody wants to be listening to all of your stories. Keep it simple by keeping those promises of God before God continually. God loves it when you are reminding Him of His promises to you. He is not interested about your present situation right now. The situations are about to change. So why are you focusing on the changing situation. Begin to plant yourself rooted and grounded in God’s blessing.
Don’t be like the Israelites in the wilderness.
The Israelites made the big mistake of getting too familiar with their physical world in the wilderness. They had God’s promises to them, but they ignored those promises when confronted with a challenge, to believe in them or not to believe in them. They became too comfortable with the natural world around them. That’s how they forgot that God’s promise to them, was a land flowing with “milk and honey”. They started seeing the promises of God, as being impossible for them to attain. They started having nostalgic feelings for their former lifestyle in Egypt (Numbers 11:5). They stopped seeing by faith, what God was about to give them. The slavery mentality came upon them, and unbelief as a result of this overran the camp of Israel.
This is typical of what happens to the believers in Christ today also, when some will rather choose to be listening to the people of the world; instead of paying attention to God’s promises to them, by meditating on those promises.
You see, when Moses sent out the twelve spies (read Numbers 13) into Canaan, ten of them came back with an evil report. Instead of keeping God in remembrance of His promises of prosperity, these ten spies started talking about their natural circumstances. They started talking about going back into slavery (Numbers 14:1-4). The slavery mentality of Egypt was still in them, which was not what the Lord had promised them. Only two of these spies – Joshua and Caleb; came back with the good news for the people. But their voice had been drowned by the majority ten spies.
Your situation may be looking real to you right now. But with God it is not real. It is about to change. And if you will start teaching your tongue, to speak what God is saying to you, you will start seeing as God sees in changing the situation.
Remember that it is the overflow of God’s promises to you through your heart, that God will use to prosper you. You will know when the promises of God, that you are meditating on day and night has reached an overflow in your heart. This happens when trouble comes your way. God’s Spirit in you will lift up the standard of God’s promises to you, against the trouble (Isaiah 59:19).
But if God’s promises are not being lifted up in your heart against the problem, then it means that you have not really been meditating enough on those promises. If your problems are speaking louder to you, than the promises of God to you; then you have not yet reached an overflow level in your meditations. You will need to be working more and more on this, until you get there.
When God’s promises to you starts speaking louder to you, than the problems of life; then you’ll know that you have reached an overflow level, in your meditation of God’s word. You will know exactly what God’s word says about that situation. It’s not the time to be looking for the scriptures, to start meditating on in confronting them. You ought to have been ready before the trouble comes.
That was the mistake which the ten spies and the Israelites made in the wilderness. It was only after God had passed a judgement on them, that they started looking for ways to get in line with God. But it was too late. The damage had already been done. God can’t do anything about what they had predetermined to do.
Joshua and Caleb were the exact opposites. God’s promises were before them always. That was why the overflow of their hearts sprang up to stop the other ten with them.
Many Christians often like to look for scripture texts, only when they are deep neck into trouble. As they begin to drown in their troubles, that’s when they will start coming to Church; in order to get a scripture text to use against the enemy.
But it often will not work, until that scripture text reaches an overflow level in their hearts, as they continue meditating on it day and night. It will have to take some time before it reaches an overflow level in their hearts. They will need to continually meditate on God’s promises, until it reaches that level.
Once you’ve reached the overflow level of the Word in your heart, that’s the moment you need to start speaking God’s promises to every situation (Job 22:28); which those Words are meant to be changing. You will start seeing the problems disappear, because at that moment God’s Spirit is upon you, to bring to pass whatsoever you will be saying.
The power of God’s word in you, is Spirit and life (John 6:63). It is the word which is working in your life, that will always come out first as an overflow, when you are confronted with problems. When you speak God’s Word at that moment, you are speaking life to change your situation.
Remember what the ten spies told the Israelites:
“We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Numbers 13:33 NIV
This was the evil report from the majority ten people, who were sent out by Moses into Canaan. They were looking at the natural world and not at the promises of God to prosper them. And because they saw themselves as grasshoppers, through the overflow coming from their hearts; God measured their words back to them in judging them.
Obviously these ten spies never did, what Joshua and Caleb did with the promises of God to Israel. The promises of God had not reached an overflow level in their hearts. So they started speaking unbelief with their mouths. Those who believed this evil report all died in the wilderness. They could not inherit the promises of God.
And over forty years later Joshua sent out two other spies (Joshua 2), who later heard what those who died in the wilderness never heard; concerning what God was doing among the Canaanites at the time. Those who had died, chose to believe the evil report from the ten spies. They all died in the wilderness, because of their lack of faith in the promises of God.
Those ten spies who gave them the evil report, were totally blinded to the promises of God at that time. They heard the promises of God, but they were not meditating on it day and night. The two spies that Joshua sent out, forty years after they had died; heard what those ten spies never heard, from the inhabitants of Canaan at Jericho.
A prostitute had heard about how the Lord delivered the Israelites. Rahab had heard the good news passed down to her from the generations before her. She related it to the two spies who had been sent out by Joshua. She never had a written report; but she had relied on the town talk among all the residents of Canaan at the time. Those Israelites who had died never knew, that the people whom they feared so much, were in fact the ones afraid of them.
This is amazing, because the Israelites had the presence of God, and His voice to lead and guide them; but yet they failed to believe in the promises of God. They died in the wilderness because of their lack of faith in the promises of God to bless them.
Rahab on the other hand never had what they had, but she waited and believed for over forty years, so as to be able to tell those two spies what she had kept in her heart about Israel. It was a common secret all over Canaan at that time. Everybody knew about it, and they were all afraid about their own fate, in the hands of the Israelites. She never saw the wonders and miracles of God in the wilderness, but this woman believed in the good report, that she had heard about the God of Israel.
That’s how she got the promised prosperity that those who died in the wilderness never received. She got her name in the hallmark of faith in Israel (see Hebrews 11:31). What was in her heart had reached an overflow level, by the time she met with those two spies from Joshua. She told the spies how her own people had been living, in fear of the Israelites for over forty years:
“and (she) said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below. “Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”
Joshua 2:9-13 NIV
Many times what people often fear is not real. What is real, are the promises of God to bless you. If those ten spies with the evil report, had been paying attention to the promises of God, Jericho would had been captured, under the leadership of Moses and not under Joshua. They had to roam about in the wilderness, until all the unbelievers died.
God sees you prosperous always and not lacking in anything. He will guide you into your blessing place. And your blessing may be right beside you now. Are you seeing God’s riches around you? Yes, you will have to start using your faith to tap into it. Start meditating on God’s promises to prosper you now, until it reaches an overflow in your heart. That’s the moment your faith confessions will start yielding you an harvest. It’s yours. Ask God to open your eyes of understanding, to begin to see what you are not seeing in yourself now. The overflow of the blessing from your heart, is about to start flowing through your mouth to change your world.
David said about his own pathway into prosperity:
“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever”.
Psalm 23 (NIV)
Pay particular attention to the use of the word “overflow” in verse five. If David had to reach an overflow, to experience God’s goodness in prospering him; you can reach that level also. Begin to spend more time meditating on the promises of God to you today, and before you know it your prosperity will reach an overflow in affecting others around you.
It has broaden my spiritual knowledge and understanding