THIS is the Prosperity Gospel we need!

Today I was reminded of how fabulously wealthy I am. I mean loaded! Like some carefree billionaire, I am so incredibly rich that I couldn't possibly spend all that I have! But unlike most billionaires, I'm capable of sitting among my piles of treasure while forgetting how incredibly rich I am.

Here's how I was reminded of all this: I was reading my Bible in Romans, chapter 10, and felt startled as I read the NKJV translation of Romans 10:12... "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him." The ESV translates it as, "...bestowing his riches on all who call upon him." In other words, God makes us rich! It's as simple as that. So why aren't I rolling in dough?

Paul follows that verse with a clarification: "For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (v.13). Those are the "riches" he's talking about! Any other riches this world has to offer don't matter too much to Paul. The world's finances are fickle and fleeting; here today, gone tomorrow. But the riches of salvation aren't like that. They're eternal, untouched by unstable economies and well guarded from greedy thieves.

After pausing at that verse, I wondered to myself, what are these "riches"? I felt forgetful of how extravagantly rich God is toward those who call on Him. So I looked around, and what I was reminded of left me feeling like a man standing among huge sparkling piles of gold coins and precious gems! Check out a few examples of how Paul describes the riches God bestows to us...

• "Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4)

• "In him [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on us" (Ephesians 1:7-8a)

• "so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7)

• "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:27)

• "that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ" (Colossians 2:2)

Is that enough? Because it's just the beginning! Father God has "blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:3). And "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence" (2 Peter 1:3)! Like I said, I am fabulously wealthy! You are too if you have called on the name of the Lord Jesus to be saved!

But just like the riches of this world must be pursued to be accumulated, so too must we pursue these spiritual riches if we want to enjoy them. Otherwise we end up as C.S. Lewis describes us in his book "The Weight of Glory": "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." If we do want to pursue spiritual riches, Paul is quite clear in the verses above about precisely where we can find them: in Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossisns 2:3).

To enjoy the riches of heaven means to pursue Jesus. He is the treasure we're blessed with; He is the Good News of the Gospel. And just like those who have accumulated the world's wealth are intentional and decisive with their resources, we too must be disciplined in seeking Jesus each day in prayer and by reading God's "living and active" Word (Hebrews 4:12), routinely storing it in our hearts by memorizing strategic Bible verses. But we don't do such things to simply tabulate how wealthy we are – we pray and read and memorize so that we can enjoy the very One who is our Treasure and who wants to lavish His treasures upon us.

The Gospel is like a lottery in which every person who has bought a ticket – the price being our lives (Galatians 2:20) – wins the jackpot: a new and abundant eternal life with Jesus! Riches are awarded to all! And it's okay to flaunt our wealth as long as it's by lavishly scattering the love and grace and kindness we've received among the people we're surrounded by! Our riches are not meant to be accumulated in heaps all around us. We ought to spend, spend, spend, with lives of kindhearted love, because there's no end to the incredible riches we've been blessed with!

© 2016 by Ken Peters

I am truly blessed!

King David said it with such straightforward certainty:  "For You, O Lord God, have spoken, and with Your blessing shall the house of Your servant be blessed forever" (2 Samuel 7:29).  David had just heard through the prophet Nathan of the Lord's plans to bless his family line.  And with no clue regarding the global and eternal implications of that messianic prophetic word, David responded with a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact confidence in God's perpetual blessing on his family.  He took the gift of God's extravagant blessing at face value with a "You said it, I believe it" kind of certainty.

Well, if David could be so unwaveringly sure of such significant blessings after a single prophetic word from Nathan the prophet, then, by God's grace, I ought to be able to walk in a state of continual and absolute certainty of God's promised blessings for my family based on the great work Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross and on all that we know about God from His Word (not to mention all the prophetic words we've received as well)!

Think of it.  I could say, For you, O Lord, have spoken!  Your Word tells me that all of God's promises find their Yes in You, Lord Jesus! (2 Corinthians 1:20).  And that God has rescued me from sin's hold on me, forgiving me for all my wrongs, because every one of them was nailed to the cross on which You died! (Colossians 1:13-14; 2:13-14). And Your Word tells me that because the grave couldn't hold You, You caused me to come alive with You -- to be born again as a new creation! (1 Corinthians 15:22-23; 2 Corinthians 5:17).  And You've promised that God's Spirit will dwell in me as the Spirit of adoption, making me God's son (Romans 8:15) -- "chosen of God, holy and beloved"! (Colossians 3:12).  And that same God has blessed me in You with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3).  In fact, Your divine power has provided me with everything I need for life and godliness! (2 Peter 1:3).  Your Word even tells me that God has raised me up with You and seated me with You in heavenly places!  All this so that in the ages to come, God can show me the infinite riches of His grace and kindness that He has expressed through You, Lord Jesus! (Ephesians 2:6-7).  In other words, I should be able to say with David, "with your blessing shall the house of Your servant be blessed forever!"

God has spoken.  It's the truth.  And I believe it.

I realize that the mistake we sometimes make is to make these blessings our focus in place of seeking the loving God who has given them to us.  But to be clear, I believe that "if we don't want God above all things [including "redemption, forgiveness, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven"], we have not been converted by the Gospel." (John Piper, "God is the Gospel").  But when we, like King David, are people who seek after God's own heart above all else (1 Samuel 13:14), all these promises simply become the myriad of blessings that we're meant to walk in as children of God!  And that's meant to encourage us.  That's why they're called blessings!  Such promises ought to impact how we well we can face the challenges that come our way, as we remember what Jesus has done for us on the cross and realize what living a life of confidence in Him accomplishes in our hearts.

© 2010 by Ken Peters

The Essentials for Effectiveness

Prior to the summer, I wrote about how valuable I find it when God sums things up using lists in the Bible. Lately, as I've been asking God for His kingdom to come in my life each day, I've found it a great help to pray through a particular list. As I wrote in June, if God offered you a list of character traits and told you, "If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they'll keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful" (2 Peter 1:8), would you pay attention? And what if He told you, "If you practice these qualities, you'll never fall" (2 Peter 1:10)? Well there is such a list, and it's in 2 Peter 1:5-7...

"...make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love."

Those are eight qualities that I've been regularly asking God to increase in my life. And I know He doesn't want me simply trying harder in order to grow in these things. He wants me coming to Him for them, because as Peter wrote a few verses earlier, "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence" (2 Peter 1:3). We will grow in these qualities as we draw closer to the Source of these qualities.

But lately as I've been praying straight from the pages of 2 Peter, I've found myself wondering, what exactly are these qualities? So I did a little digging. And if you'd like to join me in praying for these qualities so that we can all be more effective and fruitful, here's some simple explanations of what we're asking for...

faith: This can mean both a strong conviction regarding the truths of God as well as a strong reliance on Christ as we seek to walk by faith rather than by what we see around us.
virtue: This word is not simply about moral excellence, but is actually about the exertion of strenuous energy -- vigour of soul -- to pursue moral excellence. It's energetic moral action, not merely living a quiet nice-neighbour morality.
knowledge: This isn't simply about accumulating information, but is about gaining insight and understanding.
self-control: This is holding passions and desires in check.
steadfastness: I'd really like more of this one! This is staying power, but it's not simply about endurance. It's about patient and courageous and hopeful -- and even cheerful -- endurance.
godliness: This is actually about living a worshipful life -- worship rightly directed to God. It's from the words "worship" and "well." It's about living a life of reverence paid to One who is worthy of it, that reverence being evident in our conduct, speech, convictions and lifestyle.
brotherly love: The Greek word for this sort of love is phileo, meaning an affectionate love that's rooted in our feelings, that results in friendship, and that truly likes being with a person.
love: The Greek word for this sort of love is agape, which is a love based on a decision more than a feeling -- a decisive act of the will to love others unconditionally and even sacrificially.

So that's what we're praying for if we're wanting to grow in the qualities needed to serve God most effectively!


© 2009 by Ken Peters

Lists to Live by

When we make a list, we're making note of things that matter to us -- we're listing things we'd rather not forget. And with about three-quarters of a million words in the Bible, wouldn't it be handy if God just cut to the quick sometimes and used some clear concise lists to tell us precisely what matters to Him? Well, if you haven't noticed, God does do that. From the ten commandments in Exodus 20 to the eight fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, He uses many lists throughout the Bible to highlight what He truly values!

God uses lists to tell us what we should pursue and what we should avoid. He uses lists to tell us what He requires of us as well as what we need in order to be fruitful. If God offered you a list of character traits and told you, "If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they'll keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful", would you pay attention? And what if He told you of that list that, "If you practice these qualities, you'll never fall"? That'd be an important list to have! Well, there is such a list, and others like it. And personally, I think we ought to remember what God puts on such lists, because they provide an easy way to recall what matters to Him. Let's look at a few, beginning with the shortest list, but also the most important!

Jesus lists in Matthew 22:35-40 what the two greatest commands are in all the Bible... a) Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and b) Love your neighbour as yourself.

In 1 Timothy 6:11, we find a helpful list of what every man or woman of God should pursue...

• righteousness
• godliness
• faith
• love
• perseverance
• gentleness

Micah 6:8 provides a brief but invaluable list of what God calls "good" and what "the Lord requires of us"...

• doing justice
• loving kindness
• walking humbly with God

And Peter is the one who gives us the list of qualities that will keep us from falling! (2 Peter 1:5-9)...

• faith
• virtue
• knowledge
• self-control
• perseverance
• godliness
• kindness
• love

Those are things God values. And those are things He lists for us so that we'll be sure to notice them. Perhaps they should be on our fridge by our grocery list or in the workshop by our to-do list. And if you want to look up some other valuable lists, see Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 13:13; Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 5:9; Ephesians 6:13-18; Philippians 4:8; Colossians 3:12-14; 1 Timothy 4:12 and 2 Timothy 2:22.

God makes it very easy for us to see what matters to Him. Just check the lists. And be encouraged that the rich wealth of words before and after each list tell us how God provides us with all we need to live these lists every day!

© 2009 by Ken Peters