Webster defines gambling as “the payment of a price for the chance to win a prize.” The lottery does fit this definition. While the Bible does not explicitly list gambling as a sin, the greater question for a believer is whether something is pleasing to God.
The Bible teaches clearly about the importance of good stewardship (Proverbs 21:20). Every dollar we have belongs to God and He is trusting us to manage it well. When we do, we reap a harvest.
God does not want you poor and miserable. He wants you blessed.
If you are born again, as a joint heir with Christ, all God’s resources belong to you. This isn’t just religion; it’s New Testament reality! When Jesus went to the cross, He totally defeated poverty on your behalf once and for all. As 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.”
Wondering how to calculate your tithe? It’s easy! The tithe is the first 10% of your gross income—before any expenses or obligations, including taxes.
How do we know? Proverbs 3:9 says, “Honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase” (NKJV). The dictionary defines first fruits as “the first agricultural produce of a season, especially when given as an offering to God.” (See also Genesis 28:22; Leviticus 27:32; Hebrews 7:2, 4.)
This may surprise you, but you don’t have to defend your belief in biblical prosperity. Jesus said, “But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands”(Mark 10:30, KJV). But He didn’t stop there. He went on to say, “with persecutions.”
Brother Kenneth and Gloria’s personal conviction is to tithe on the gross of all income—including gifts—that comes into their hands (Proverbs 3:9-10, Malachi 3:8-11). Ultimately, everyone needs to spend time with God and receive His direction where tithing and giving is concerned.
Absolutely! Just as it is the key to personal financial success, so it is also critical for blessings in your business. When you honor God for the increase He provides for your business, it opens the door for Him to bless your business even more! But keep in mind that business tithing looks a bit different than personal tithing.
The covenant we have with God is one that includes financial prosperity, and in God’s system, tithing and giving offerings are how you activate THE BLESSING in your life and get on the road to increase. While both tithing and offerings are forms of giving, there is a distinct difference between the two.
Remember when...? That's a question we hear a lot this time of year. Reminiscing with family and friends, we browse through Christmases gone by, enjoying the memories until inevitably, we stumble across the memories we would rather forget.
Suddenly, the pain comes rushing back. The sting of a parent's criticism, the broken promise of a friend, the rejections, the disappointments, the heartaches....
What should we do with memories like that? Do we have to drag them along, like so much baggage, from year to year?
No matter how bad the problem is you may be facing today, no matter how far under the circumstances you may be, in 24 hours you can be back on top!
"Oh, Brother Copeland, that would be impossible!"
That's what the Samaritans thought in 2 Kings 7. Their land was being ravaged by famine. Enemy troops had surrounded them and cut off all source of supply. Mothers were eating their own children just to survive.
If I could give you a gift this Christmas, the Word is what I'd give you. I'd rather give it to you than a check for a million dollars. Because you can run through a million dollars real quick, but the truth of God's Word never quits—and it will get you out of situations a million dollars can't get you out of.
Ken and I are just ordinary people. But when we latched on to God's Word, we latched on to something out of the ordinary, something that changed our lives. Every area of our lives.
Can you really have a merry Christmas even when you have a thousand and one pressures bearing down on you? Yes, you can—and you don't have to leave the country to do it. No matter how intense or how trivial the problems are that you're facing right now, you can have the most wonderful, most carefree Christmas season you've ever had in your life; and you can start having it today.
Whenever Ken and I talk about living by faith, I know there are some people who think, Oh, that's easy for you. You're preachers. You have it made! And, in some ways, we do. We have it made because our calling demands that we give God our attention, and giving God your attention always brings success.
It always amazes me when I preach about prosperity and someone comes up to me and says, "I don't need much prosperity. I'm a simple person with a simple life. So I just ask God for enough to meet my needs."
They think that's humility, but it's not. It's selfishness! They don't realize it, but they're actually saying, "All I care about is meeting my own needs. I have no ambition to help meet anyone else's."
"Well, brother, in the end I'm sure you'll see these financial problems are actually a blessing in disguise." Have you ever heard anybody say that to someone who's hurting financially? Chances are, you have. It's a popular idea. The problem is, it's a lie used by the devil to keep believers down.
As a result, many believers today are suffering one financial defeat after another. So let's go to the Word of God today and get the issue of prosperity and poverty straight. Let's find out, once and for all, which is the blessing, which the curse.
All of us know what it's like to go round in circles. To pray our way through one financial disaster only to be met by another. To receive healing for one illness just in time to be knocked off our feet by the next.
Oh, we try. We pray. We exercise our faith. But we keep getting caught in the same old problems over and over again. Why? Because all too often, we don't actually know what it is we need to be praying for.
Have you ever noticed that those who have the most exciting, faith-inspiring testimonies are those who've been under pressure at some time in their lives? They're the people who stayed faithful when the pressure was on. They're the people who believed God's promises of prosperity in the midst of desperate financial situations or trusted God for healing in the face of a terminal disease.
I'll never forget the time Gloria discovered that scripture. We didn't have any money at the time, and the walls in our house were as bare as they could be. But she was ready to decorate. So she took that promise, "Wealth and riches shall be in his house" and laid claim to it by faith.
Suddenly, everywhere we went, someone was giving us a painting or some other little treasure for our house.
God has raised us up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus! That's what the Word of God says. Very few of us have actually dared to believe this. We've uplifted Jesus. We've exalted Him—and rightly so! But at the same time, we've unwittingly belittled what He did by not allowing Him to bring us alongside Him.
That was God's purpose at Calvary: to bring us alongside Jesus. To make us what He already was.
What is God's reason for prospering His people? Is it so we can watch bigger TVs? So we can buy finer houses and more luxurious cars?
Establishing God's covenant on the earth and giving to those in need: Those are God's purposes for prosperity!
Satan has had us in a poverty mentality so long that it's tough for us to grasp just how intensely God really does desire to prosper us—even though He's demonstrated that desire again and again.
Take Abraham, for example. God made him an extremely wealthy man. Genesis 13:2 says he was rich in cattle, in silver and in gold.
Then, of course, there was Solomon. The Bible says he surpassed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.