The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success

One of the things that I truly dislike (to not use a stronger word) is the whole prosperity theology thing. As if God is somehow here to give me wealth, health, and happiness and help me to achieve my dreams. People who preach this kind of nonsense use verses like 3 John 1:2, which, they claim, proves that God wants us to be successful and prosper.

Actually, I do believe that. What I take exception to is their obviously unbiblical definitions of success and prosperity. They claim that John just meant normal financial success in life and that we shouldn’t try to spiritualize it. Well, actually, I agree with that as well. Yes, John is talking about normal financial success (with all of the practical results that entails). No doubt. The question is WHY?

Without the ability to ask John directly to contextualize his words for us, we have to turn to the larger teaching of Scripture to find out what John is referring to here by “prosperity” and “success.” From a practical point of view, I doubt that it looks much different between a Christian and a non-Christian in terms of the amount of money being made but it does (and should) look very different on the side of Stewardship.

I always appreciated the teaching of John Wesley on the topic of Stewardship. He said, “Make as much money as you can. Save as much money as you can. Give as much money as you can.” No doubt we need to understand the point about making as much money as we can in the context of integrity, legality, and social norms. Adding value instead of taking advantage. No doubt.

So on the first point we can agree. Making money isn’t a bad thing. The love of money is the root of all kinds of sin, but the making of money itself is a necessary part of living on this earth behind enemy lines, supporting ourselves while we go about our mission for the King.

But that second point puts the lie to Prosperity Theology in a big way. They teach that it is justified to live in big, expensive houses, fly around the world for pleasure, and spend money to their hearts' content on whatever pleases them. After all, they would say, God has blessed me, so I am free to live my life any way I choose.

Not so. At least not for Christians. We have a purpose. Our resources have a purpose. Certainly taking care of our needs (and the ones we are responsible for) is part of that purpose and therefore money can be (and must be) spent on houses, cars, education, and the like. How much and in what ways is up to each individual. That is what the Bible calls Stewardship.

It starts with a recognition that all of the resources of the earth belong to our Father. If He makes some available to us, it is for our use as His agents in a troubled world and for the purpose of furthering His Kingdom.

That is where the third rule of John Wesley comes in. We live a simple life, saving as much as we can in terms of our own needs, in order to free up the resources for the work of the Kingdom, what he called “giving as much as we can.”

No one is going to judge your stewardship, or mine, until the Master returns, but we can still judge our attitude towards money—whether we love it or whether we are wise enough to use it as a tool for the building of the Kingdom. We must judge, at least in ourselves, what our intentions are, what our purpose is, and what our approach, posture, and language are around money in order to evaluate the maturity of our Stewardship.

Ok, so I think I’ve made my point that I am not in favor of the whole prosperity theology movement that has plagued the Western church for the past 30 years or so. But one more thing needs to be said about the overall approach to money and resources from a Biblical point of view.

There is a fundamental difference between the Old Testament ethos and the New Testament ethos and culture when it comes to how God uses us for the furtherance of His Kingdom.

Some things are obvious, such as the fact that God established a nation in a specific place which was to be a light to the nations. At its height, during the reigns of David and Solomon, we can see what God had in mind, but mostly it was an unmitigated disaster. Still, God needed a specific ethnic, religious, and cultural context for the coming of the Messiah so that we could understand the spiritual dynamics of what happened that day on a cross over 2000 years ago outside of Jerusalem.

But, after the resurrection, everything changed.