Jesus had two very simple instructions when He sent the disciples on the mission—preach the Kingdom and heal the sick. I wonder if you consider that to be your life’s work as well?

When I began a serious pursuit of discipleship over twenty-three years ago, the first scripture God seared into my heart was Matthew 6:33, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” In context, Jesus was teaching His disciples how and how not to walk out the life of a disciple.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns—and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? Consider how the lilies of the field grow: They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles strive after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34

In a nutshell, Jesus was saying that sparrows don’t have to farm to be fed and lilies don’t give a thought to what they look like. Yet the sparrow is always fed and the lily more beautifully adorned than the richest man that ever lived. Sparrows and lilies don’t give a single thought to how they will provide for themselves.

The only way to live as a disciple is to spend no unnecessary time giving thought to how we will feed or clothe ourselves. Can you even imagine living like that? How is that even possible?

It gets even harder to imagine when we read Luke 9:1-6:

“When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.” Luke 9:1-6

There is no way around it: when God gives you an assignment, don’t start panicking about how you’re going to get there, what you will need to make the journey, and what will be available to you when you get there. The only way to achieve this is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. I used to think that seeking first the kingdom meant seeking to get people saved.

Turns out that spreading the gospel, healing the sick, and getting people saved is the byproduct of seeking the kingdom first and walking in righteousness.

The what was to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick.

The how was to seek the kingdom of God for provision versus the world’s system for provision and to function in His righteousness instead of their own righteousness.

To seek the kingdom of God and walk in His righteousness to preach the gospel and heal the sick, it stands to reason the disciples had to have a clear understanding of what the kingdom of God is and how to walk in righteousness.

Not to totally switch gears but I have some news. I re-upped the podcast! Finally! I love podcasting because, not only is it a creative outlet for me, but it is part of how I fulfill the requirements of discipleship. It is how I spread the Gospel of Peace and heal the sick.

This week’s podcast is pretty strong. And by strong I mean no holds barred. It will make super religious people mad and some church-going people really mad. I hope you will listen in as I talk about the massive pain I’ve experienced in the last eighteen months, how I walked through it, and what God did before the pain so I could have victory.

And keep tuning in! Because we are starting a series breaking down exactly what the kingdom of God is and how to walk in righteousness, peace, and joy!

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Warning: the cheesy girl analogy post 😜, but there is a concept essential to your walk with God I can’t think of a better way to explain. So here goes…

It’s like when you love that new top on the rack but when you get home it’s just another shirt in a closet full of stuff you hate.

This is the spiritual exercise of put on, put off.

You put on the shirt in the dressing room. You’re rockin’ it. The dressing room mirror takes ten pounds off. You’re feelin’ it. You bring it home.

It’s in the closet. You try it on the next morning. You try every pair of pants you have, then skirts, then shorts, then skorts and you hate skorts. The ten pounds are back, and who made this ugly shirt anyway? You’re taking it back. Except you ripped the tags off and lost the receipt.

The you with the amazing new top and the disappearing pounds is your new man. The you with the ugly shirt and the extra pounds is the old man.

The you with the new top is the full armor of God. The you with the old top is the unguarded, insecure, codependent that doesn’t know who she is and what is available to her.

What changed? The new top didn’t change. You didn’t gain ten pounds from the store to home. What changed was the mirror through which you saw yourself.

“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Colossians 3:9-10 NIV

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes…Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Ephesians 6:11, 13-17 NIV

You can literally take these two verses as the mental exercises that they are intended to be. You have a new nature. Your new nature is righteous. What does righteous mean? Righteousness is when you are functioning as you should be. Righteousness is when your new nature, with its Christ-like attributes, comes forward in you because you have accepted it as who you really are.

Stop lying to yourself and put on the truth. Stop seeing yourself through the lens of fear and see yourself walking in the spirit of power, love, and self-discipline that is in you now. Today. In this reality, on this side of heaven!

Renew your mind in the knowledge that you now have a new self. See yourself taking off the belt of the lie that you can’t be healed and victorious. Literally, visualize yourself putting on the belt of truth that has been tested against what Jesus died to give you. Did He die to heal you? What does being healed look like? How does it feel? Try it on!

Which new shoes would match your belt? How about the shoes of the Gospel of Peace? The Gospel of Peace says there is peace between you and God. He doesn’t have to let you remain sick to flesh out your old man. He only sees Jesus’ righteousness when He examines you. You need to start seeing it too! Start walking through life with shoes that can trek through any storm because you KNOW God has no need to test you. He has already approved you!

That new top? Don’t lie to yourself. It fits just right. It’s the breastplate of righteousness. It’s how you take any arrow. You can take any arrow because you know it’s not your righteousness you walk in. It’s HIS. A breastplate guards your heart against lying arrows that seek to penetrate your identity. That new top is INPENATRABLE because Jesus gave it to you.

I could go on and on with the cheesy analogy but you get the point. Whatever you’re facing today, put on your new man and get rid of that old man with its lies and false images. When you use this visual exercise to write the truth on your heart, your new nature will come forward and you can start functioning in it.

It is the real you now.

Here’s how to trigger a Christian: tell them God wants to prosper them or heal them. Then sit back and watch them manifest. They will shift, get uncomfortable, dart their eyes, and start gnashing (grinding) their teeth. It’s quite a sight to see, honestly. You could also tell them to meditate. You’ll get a good eye-roll from that one.

Here’s the thing about the biggest trigger word in Christianity: prosperity is Biblical. It’s okay to prosper. In fact, prosperity is your inheritance as a Believer. And I believe it’s true that in any area we are not prospering it is sin for us. 😲 Yep. But before you curse and shut down this page, let me explain.

It’s amazing how any new movement in the church does two things. First, the movement twists into a version that looks nothing like the original when the second and third-generation of “movement evangelists” champion it. For whatever reasons they seem to move further and further from the original truth and corrupt the message. Second, we eat our own. We see new ways of spreading the gospel work for other congregations and we immediately downplay the success, criticize the strategy, and throw shade by acting all religious about it. Because God-forbid, if people are coming by droves into the Kingdom, clearly it’s been built on heresy!

I’ll share a little church history of my own. I was raised in the Assemblies of God denomination. I am a Spirit-filled, tongue-speaking radical for Jesus. I believe in miracles, and I believe physical healing still happens today. It’s how I was raised. It’s who I was. It’s who I still am.

In my early adulthood, the church I spent most of my life in had a leadership change. The new pastor brought the purpose-driven church model to our congregation and he was, basically, lambasted for it. He had dreams of taking a very traditional church to a place they didn’t want to go. They thought they wanted to be seeker-sensitive but couldn’t let go of their traditions.

A seeker-sensitive church does its best to think like someone who didn’t grow up in church. They try not to sing songs with lyrics like, “are you washed in the blood of the lamb” for fear of sounding like an animal-sacrificing cult.  

I get that. I’m even down with that.

I’ll never forget a church service that opened with the blowing of a ram’s horn. I thought to myself, “I could never ask the friends I used to party with to come here. They would freak out and run out the door!” Even I almost ran out the door! I had no idea what the blowing of the shofar meant, let alone what freaky thing was about to happen next, so how was I going to explain it to a non-Believer? I would have been okay with the shofar-show had the pastor or worship leader at least explained what had just happened.

But nothing. Just the shofar followed by worship songs where everyone sings along and claps. Where else does singing and clapping in unison happen other than preschool? We do all manner of things that are culturally strange. It doesn’t make them wrong, but it does make them strange to outsiders.

I fully embraced the seeker-sensitive model. I found myself working for over a decade in churches that were led by pastors who were licensed through the Assemblies of God but followed the seeker-sensitive model. We didn’t model speaking in tongues as part of the services. We believed in healing but altar time was few and far between. Speaking in tongues wasn’t not taught from the pulpit, but we didn’t disciple people in the use of spiritual gifts.

All of this made sense to me at the time because people tend to exploit the empowerment they’re given. You’ve seen these churches. These are the ones that haven’t had church unless someone was screaming tongues into the microphone and people were falling down all over the alter for three hours. Minimum. Chaos and disorder take over. But unless bonified miracles take place on the regular in these services, their growth eventually taps out. People grow weary of looking for miracles and not receiving them. They grow weary of “taking the Kingdom by force” and begging at the altar for God to change their circumstances. They grow tired of giving more than ten percent but still facing poverty regularly.

They grow tired of having answers but never any solutions. After decades of dedication to the message, they tire of not getting life to work.

This was me. For three decades I was caught between the promise that God wanted me to flourish in life but Him dangling the perverbial carrot of abundance in front of me until I was broken. I was d-o-n-e DONE. You can only take so much hope deferred. A sick heart has no ability to walk in Godly desires fulfilled.

But I still believed. Like Job, I thought God was allowing all of this pain to happen to me, though I never cursed Him or walked away. I never denied Him. But I did begin to pursue the truth. I wanted a gospel that worked. If Jesus said I could have it—if He died to give it to me, I wasn’t going to be denied it any longer. All I knew was that the doctrine I was raised on—the doctrine I led others with, had no ability to put my life back together when it fell apart. If Jesus wasn’t a total liar, something had to give.  

The Prosperity Gospel attracts the broken, poor, destitute, and oppressed. It promises you can have whatever you speak; if you name and claim it, it’s yours! But you’d be surprised to learn it didn’t start out that way. The radical behavior of the prominent prosperity teachers of today is not the marker of those who championed the message of faith and grace. As I studied the writings of various prosperity teachers over the years, I discovered some very level-headed thinking! I found a path that led towards activating faith that moves mountains without screaming at the devil.

God is passion and love. But God is also logical.

Take Kenneth Copeland, for instance. His ministry started when he was broke and had thousands of dollars of debt. In eleven months, he was debt free and has never looked back. He outlines the principles he followed in his book, The Laws of Prosperity, written in 1974. Here are a few quotes:

“True prosperity is God manifesting Himself to us in His Word.”

“True prosperity is the ability to use God’s power to meet the needs of mankind in any realm of life.”

“When you make it your need to get salvation into the hands of the people, when you make it your purpose to feed the gospel to the unsaved, God will support what you do. This is true prosperity.”

“When you put the Word of God first in your life and it becomes your final authority, prosperity is the result.”

All good. But fast forward to today…

The prosperity gospel is suddenly something you can use to kill a manmade virus and demand a vaccine come forth. The problem is, both the virus and the vaccine are killing people now. That doesn’t seem like a God-inspired solution.

And He isn’t the prince of war. He’s the Prince of Peace.

Twisted. Exaggerated. Manipulated, and exploited. For what? For gain. What is gained? A crowd of followers who think screaming at a defeated enemy will bring health and wealth.

The truth is, God gives us the power to create wealth so He can establish His covenant in the earth (Deuteronomy 8:18). We SHOULD have wealth. God wants us to control the wealth of the world. It’s not hard to understand why He doesn’t want evil men to control it. He wants wealth used to spread the Gospel of Peace to the world, not immorality.

But how can that happen if Christians don’t know how to prosper?

The bottom line is this: wealth doesn’t come to us by screaming at the devil or by thinking or speaking it into existence. All manner of Christian books has been written about taking every thought that crosses your brain captive, controlling your thoughts, positive self-talk, and speaking Bible affirmations. Yet we aren’t any wealthier or healthier than other people groups.

This problem is not a mind or speech problem. It’s a heart problem. The prosperity gospel has all but ignored the Bible’s instructions on our personal responsibility to minister to our own hearts. It is out of the heart that the mouth speaks. In other words, you will speak out whatever you believe to be true in your heart. This is why it’s so important to guard whatever enters our hearts. You can recite positive self-talk out loud all day but if your heart doesn’t believe is it true about you, you’ll never be able to see it activate in your life.

The same is true for your thought life. Your thoughts are generated by the belief in your heart. You can’t think your way into changing your thoughts. You must change the belief in your heart to change your thoughts and your speech.

According to scripture, the heart is the seat of your identity. It is where you hold your beliefs about who you are. Unless those beliefs are aligned with the finished work of Jesus, you won’t be able to prosper in life the way Jesus’ demonstrated you could.

This week on the podcast, I break down what it looks like to take your land. Your land is any solution that solves a problem in your life. Your land is moving from lack to prosperity, whether it’s prosperity in health and finances or in relationships and careers.

The glaring difference between the truth of the Bible and how the prosperity gospel has perverted the truth is this: you cannot take your land by force. Your land can only be taken by faith and faith only comes after rest. We are never told to strive to be prosperous. In fact, the only thing we are ever told to strive for is to enter into rest. Adam started from a position of rest. It was only when he wanted to be his own source that the striving began. The land was never cursed by God. It was cursed because of Adam’s belief he could be his own source. Our land is never placed back under the curse by God. It is only subject to the curse of the world’s system when we refuse to take it by the yoke Jesus longs to give us. His yoke and easy and light, not toilsome and difficult.

We become like the god we believe in.

We never have to behave like a prince of war when we have the Prince of Peace.

I mentioned that not prospering is sin for us. Sin isn’t just direct defiance of the ten commandments. Sin is when, in any area of our lives, we function in a way that isn’t God’s best for us. What is God’s best for us? Whatever Jesus died to give us. This is why prospering in our hearts, relationships, finances, physical and mental health, and spirituality is so important! We want to be functioning in the freedom we have been given!

A final thought regarding my church upbringing. I need you to know, I had to repent for my buy-in on the seeker-sensitive movement. Just like any movement, it wasn’t all bad. But not discipling people in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, not teaching them how to operate in words of knowledge, have faith for miracles, how to attain physical healing, the purpose of speaking in tongues and why it’s so important, words of wisdom and the like is never okay. These abilities should be like breathing for the Christian. Throwing them out because we’re afraid we can’t control the people is nothing short of the Catholicism control tactics.

But on the back of that repentance, I had to repent for having an “us and them” mentality toward church leadership. I participated. Wherever I went, there I was.

Three different people gave a word of knowledge that I had spears in my back from the accusations and anger church leaders threw at me. And wouldn’t you know it, I had unexplained back pain for several years. I knew in my heart these words of knowledge were almost right. The prophecy is subject to the prophet’s preconceived notions about God. I know no one’s judgment of me can cause debilitating pain unless I have somehow come to an agreement with them.

The sin for me was believing I wasn’t the perpetrator and that they were. And yet, by taking a paycheck, I was just as guilty. I led the flock away from the healing power of Jesus by refusing to teach the full Gospel of Peace, even while I operated in the supernatural in my own private life.

Not okay.

And wouldn’t you know it, the minute I repented, the debilitating back pain left immediately.

I agree with the prosperity gospel that God’s will for physical healing is always yes and amen because of Jesus. How our healing comes is where the prosperity gospel and I are miles apart.

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Wow!! The story of Elijah in the cave has had so many interpretations. As one Rabbi said, "The interpretations of this episode in Elijah's life are endless, and none has achieved definitive status. The story, as we shall see, is too complex for that. Each reading leaves a thread or two or three untied...".

I couldn't agree more! I too have felt there were too many untied threads in the common narrative we've accepted. Not to say that I haven't received ministry from our understanding of Elijah. I have lost ground to my fair share of Jezebel's. But based on what we now know about the original Hebrew language of the Bible, it's challenging to affirm Elijah was a fragile prophet who suffered from an identity crisis.

This message challenged me! I hope you will listen, even if just to consider a different possibility and discover a model for a faith that moves mountains!

You’ve probably heard me mention Prosperity to Providence if you’ve been following along for some time now. It is my first book so that’s kind of a big deal! I heard an accomplished author once say, “If you say you’re going to write a book someday, you’re not doing to write a book someday.” He was addressing the fact that those who say they will, don’t.

I started writing by blogging forever ago. I wasn’t consistent but it got my feet wet. It turns out that my obsession with reading since I was a kid helped my brain understand that writing is a conversation and that if you write at a comprehension level above fifth grade you won’t last long in the book sales space.

And that’s good for me because I may speak well addressing a crowd or in a board meeting full of angry teachers trying to “rush the border”* to get what they want, but writing seems to just flow from everyday conversations I’m already having with you in my head. (Rest assured this hasn’t happened recently, but believe me, you can’t work in education for long without it happening at some point. Sadly, the education a teacher receives to become a teacher is more like entitlement indoctrination 😤. Add that to the twenty-somethings that become teachers and, well, you know. 🤦)

So I LOVE writing to you. I feel like Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail (my favorite movie by the way). She loved books first, and after losing her bookstore she learned she loved writing too. Writing is a passion for me. And especially the research before the writing.

You may have thought it strange I would include a Christian trigger word like prosperity in my title. When God put Prosperity to Providence on my heart, the title came before I even understood what the message was about. I initially thought I was writing about how the Prosperity Gospel spun so far out of control that the church threw the baby out with the bathwater. And it’s understandable! The way infamous prosperity preachers present the message today is nothing more than greed combined with offering people false hope.

So I started diving into research on the history of the Prosperity Gospel. I read Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel by Kate Bowler. (Kate Bowler is best known for her book Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved.) Blessed is Kate’s in-depth look at how the Prosperity Gospel became popular. She evaluates the ministries of positive thinkers like Norman Vincent Peale, and revivalists like Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin, along with today’s hugely successful prosperity preachers, namely Kenneth Copeland. And she looks at other contemporary religious leaders such as Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, T. D. Jakes, and Joyce Meyer.

And speaking of Kenneth Copeland, I read his foundation book, The Laws of Prosperity. While Kenneth Hagin was really one of the founders of the Faith Movement in America (now known as Word of Faith), Copeland is known for spreading the Prosperity Gospel in America. What started with Hagin as an effective approach to living the abundant Christian life was twisted and distorted by Copeland. Regardless of the distortion, it took off like wildfire because of Copeland’s charismatic ability to mesmerize and convince a crowd—common attributes of those we now call “Prosperity Preachers”.

Interestingly enough, I had already done my own research on successful healing ministries from times past as well. I read Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson, founder of the Four-Square Church, and her biography, The Story of My Life.

And then there was John G. Lake, E.W. Kenyon, Smith Wigglesworth, Kathryn Kulman, T.L. Osborn, and F.F. Bosworth. I studied them all.

Y’all. I did my homework. And I didn’t stop there!

I studied science and miracles. I delved into books based on scientific research such as The Biology of Belief by Bruce Tipton and Healing Body and Soul: The Meaning of Illness in the New Testament and Psychotherapy by John A. Sanford. and The Anatomy of a Miracle: Cutting-Edge Science Has Finally Advanced to a State That Puts the Miraculous Within the Grasp of Modern Man by Dr. James B. Richards.

Dr. Richard’s book is most notable because he led crusades all over the world in the 70s and saw every healing miracle in the New Testament. He has a doctorate in Theology, a doctorate in Ancient Chinese Medicine, and a doctorate in Human Behavior. He not only teaches, but he proved what he teaches in his own life, long before writing and building his Bible schools that are now worldwide. Dr. Richards has used faith and wisdom from the Bible to not only heal others by the millions but to heal himself of a terminal illness. He shouldn’t be alive today.

Yeah.

Dr. Richard shows how the study of quantum physics proves that miracles are not really as miraculous as one might think.

Pretty crazy stuff.

One day I pray we can see healing by the masses here in America. But there is a very real reason we don’t see it here.

The reason is we live by one of two gospels. The Prosperity Gospel and the Providential God Gospel. Just like the Prosperity Gospel, there is some truth to it, but much is extrapolated from scripture to fit our human experience.

I didn’t know anything of the Providential God Gospel when God put the phrase Prosperity to Providence in my heart through a dream. In fact, I thought I was supposed to take you on a journey from prosperity teaching to discovering the all-providential God of the Bible!

Turns out, I was wrong. In my research, I stumbled on John Piper’s 700-page dissertation on a “providential” God called Providence, his book on Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, and his widely popular website Desiring God. John Piper is known as an American theologian and a New Testament scholar.

And as it turns out, Providence is the most widely-accepted theory in America about God’s activity in creation and His intentions toward us. For the Assemblies of God and most non-denominational Spirit-filled churches to the Southern Baptist Convention, Lutherans, Catholicism, and Mormonism, the Providential God Gospel is irrefutable.

All I can say is, wow.

If I can summarize the Providential God Gospel it would be this: God is the firefighter who starts the fires in our lives so He can put them out.

Or this: Stop blaming Satan for anything because God created him, don’t take any responsibility for anything because God controls everything, and blame God for whatever happens in life. (It’s mostly Calvinism without all the predestination stuff if you want to know the truth.)

Or maybe like this: Don’t think about it all too hard, you’ll hurt yourself. God can’t be understood anyway. Just trust that if you find yourself starving or homeless or sold into the sex trade, it’s so God gets the glory so don’t hate on God. Just ignore scriptures like, “I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken or His seed out begging for bread.” (Psalm 25:35). Or Psalms 23. Or Romans 1:18-20 which says, “…For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been CLEARLY SEEN, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Emphasis mine).

Yikes.

Apparently, according to the Bible, God isn’t a mystery after all. Who knew? Apparently, He doesn’t work in mysterious ways. And Paul says it’s wicked to keep this information from people. 😲

You can know for sure when a “gospel” isn’t true. I’m told there is an old saying among seminaries and it’s this: “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.” For what John Piper can’t explain he blames the mystery of God’s character and His “complex emotions”.

Lord Jesus, help us.

I have studied the Bible in its original languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic) for over twenty years. And I mean really studied. I have never been a “read the Bible in a year” Christian. If you truly meditate on scripture and study the language, context, and history behind the stories, you can’t read the Bible in a year unless you live full-time in a monastery. I was raising kids. But the study of scripture has been the passionate pursuit and motivator of my life for decades.

As a student of the Bible and a disciple of Jesus (not simply a convert), to simply read other authors, theologians, and healers is not enough for me to land on a position and try to convince you to believe something else about God than what tradition handed down to you. So I took the bottom-line opinions from each authority I studied and held them up to the full council of scripture. I took nothing out of context. If there was a contradiction in the English translations (as there often is) I researched it out until a cohesive message consistent with the life, teachings, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus could be found.

So, I GET THIS. You might even call me an expert on the subject of the Prosperity Gospel, the Providential God Gospel, and healing ministries by now.

But wait, there’s more! 😉 Not only do have intellectual knowledge, but I’ve put these principles into practice in my own life as well. This is what the Bible calls having experiential knowledge of scripture. I’ve experienced firsthand the limitations and devastation each gospel has on the Christian experience. When it comes to healing ministry, I have been healed multiple times and have prayed for others and they have received healing.

I don’t say this to impress you but to impress upon you that I take rightly diving the Word of God seriously.

The truth behind the cover-up is that the Providential God Gospel leaves you on your own to solve your most life-controlling issues. It’s sold by making you think you are making peace with suffering as something from the hand of God when in reality, it’s forcing you to make peace with the devil.

The truth behind the cover-up in the Prosperity Gospel is that it makes it all about what you gain from God. It puts destiny and calling before the relationship. And it convinces those who can’t get a miracle they don’t have enough faith, despite the fact that even non-believers operate faith every single day, and it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain of a problem! (When it comes to miracles, by the way, the answer is never to get more faith.)

You can understand how damaging both gospels are. I call them “gospels” because that is our culture’s way of describing the two but in reality, they are not gospels at all.

It cannot be gospel if isn’t one hundred percent true and one hundred percent Good News.

Neither of the two fit the bill.

Okay, so what is my point here? My point here is that I want to really open up this conversation with you—the why behind writing Prosperity to Providence and why it is so essential, IMPERATIVE in fact, that you read it. As the days get darker you’re going to need to know how to operate in the miraculous and why Jesus said you could and would do greater things than He did.

If you can’t do those greater things you’re gonna be in big trouble. When the markets permanently collapse, housing is overtaken by the government, and America falls, it won’t matter a lick what you scrimped and saved for all your life.

What will matter is how you see God and how the full expression of Christ in you works in real life.

Every theologian and Bible commentator uses a lens through which they interpret scripture, whether they would admit it or not. They either see God as the prosperity God or the providential God. And the lens they use determines the God they get.

Here is the bottom line: we become like the god we believe in.

What is the solution? The Gospel of Peace and the Gospel of the Kingdom. You must know what it truly means to have “your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15) and to be discipled in the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 24:14).

I don’t want you to be in fear. Miracles and provision happen for those who believe, even during the end times.

But just know this: neither the Prosperity Gospel nor the Providential God Gospel will prepare you for it. Both will leave you impotent.  

Okay! That was heavy! But as future blog posts roll out, I will dive into each gospel to help you put it all into perspective. Stay tuned! Because what you read (and what you hear on the podcast) will give you the tools to overcome ANYTHING!

Did you know that the most pervasive gospel taught in America is anti-Christ doctrine? True story. According to 2 John 1:7, any doctrine that denies Jesus came in the flesh is anti-Christ doctrine. This doesn’t mean it is pro the anti-christ that is to come. It means it denies Christ as a man.

"For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and an antichrist."
2 John 1:7

Most of us have read this and assumed it means those who deny Jesus ever came at all are anti-Christ deceivers. But that’s not what this verse is saying. It is a lie to say Jesus never came to Earth at all, but it’s not enough to say Jesus simply came to earth in human form. The key to avoiding anti-Christ doctrine is acknowledging that Jesus left His God-form in Heaven.

“He who, while he was in the form of God, did not esteem this as a prize, that he was the equal of God, But he stripped
himself and took the form of a Servant and was in the form of the children of men, and was found in fashion as a man.”
Philippians 2:6-7

Jesus didn't consider it necessary to be equal to God while on earth. What does that mean? Let’s look at some Greek definitions:

• The word stripped means to make empty, to abase, neutralize, he laid aside equality with and the form of God and took the form of man (Strong’s 2758).

• Form doesn’t simply mean a human body. It means a form (outward expression) that embodies essential (inner) substance so that the form is in complete harmony with the inner essence (Strong’s 3444).

• Prize means to claim for oneself eagerly (726).

In order for Jesus to have emptied Himself and taken on human form, His inner human form had to be in harmony with His outer human form. Said this way—Jesus was God, but He didn’t have God’s essential inner substance while on earth. He made no effort to take it with Him to earth; He didn’t consider it necessary to accomplish His miracles and mission on Earth.

Jesus came to earth as a human and was filled with the Holy Spirit to show us what a human filled with the Holy Spirit is capable of. Jesus was trying to show us how a human could experience Kingdom living right here on earth.

THIS. IS. HUGE.

Why? Because if you believe Jesus was able to do everything He did because He still had His inner God essence on earth, you have NO BASIS for believing you can do the things Jesus did, or even greater things than He did (John 14:12). You are not God. I am not God. If it takes being God to perform the miracles Jesus performed then we have no hope of ever doing them ourselves.

Jesus didn’t tell us to ask Him to heal people. He said, “You heal them.” Jesus didn’t say, “Ask Me to move your mountain.” He said, “Tell your mountain to move.” Over and over again Jesus said He did what He did as the Son of Man and that is why we can do the same.

We were given dominion over what happens on earth (Genesis 1:26). This is why Jesus had to come as a man—only man had dominion on earth. This is also why Jesus said, after His resurrection, “All power in Heaven and Earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). Jesus defeated death and the curse, taking back the power that man had given up. He was the only human in history who held power in BOTH Heaven and Earth.

And then He gave us the authority to use His authority. We have the keys of the Kingdom realm. Whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 18:18). The decision we have to make is whether or not we will loose God’s will on earth or our own will. God’s will isn’t automatic on earth and He won’t violate our free will. The world would look nothing like it does today if God had all the control. God gave us the same autonomy He has. He only has control to the degree we give it to Him.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with the responsibility of doing the greater things Jesus said we would do. We have authority (dominion) just because we are here and we are human. But what keeps us using our dominion to loose on Earth what God has already approved in Heaven? The Providential God doctrine has convinced us that Jesus didn’t come in human flesh and that God is in ultimate control of every outcome. It has caused us to stop seeking the miraculous and live by fatalism. If God is in ultimate control and pulling all the strings, you wouldn’t need faith and your authority would be meaningless. This is why healing crusades and miracles are prevalent throughout other countries but we don’t see them in America. We are convinced God is the ultimate decision-maker and in doing so we have abdicated our dominion.

On the podcast this week we begin a new series that will help you get over that thing you haven’t been able to overcome yet. Whatever habit, addiction, fear, or limiting belief is keeping you stuck can be unstuck when we understand how Jesus was able to accomplish so much and how to use His authority to do the same!

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So many Believers are asking: "Why can't I get free??? I'm saved, I'm a Believer, but this habit, addiction, depression, etc. keeps haunting me!" We come to Jesus and receive salvation and yet, most Believers don't look any different than non-Believers when it comes to cycles of self-destruction.

In this new series, we will break it down and find the path to freedom. And we will start by taking a look at common behaviors and beliefs that drive our inability to find freedom.

Ref: "Grace: The Power to Change" by Dr. Jim Richards, Dr. James B. Richards, Chaim Bentorah, Hebrew Word Study

What we believe about God determines how well we function under pressure. And really, the root of all emotional stability starts from this same place. Who we believe God is and what we believe He is willing to do for us will determine our next move when we feel backed into a corner.

There is a very interesting exchange between Jesus and a blind man in the book of Mark:

“And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging.

And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.

And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee.

And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.

And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.” Mark 10:46-52

We can be assured Jesus knew the man was blind. And yet Jesus still asks him, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” In other words, what are you willing for me to do for you? Belief in God’s ability is rarely a problem for the Believer. The problem is we are not sure what He is willing to do for us.

And that begs the question: if it is impossible to please God without faith, but we don’t know what God is willing to do for us in our given situation, then how can we pray a prayer of faith for the outcome?

The answer is, we can’t.

The only way to pray a prayer of faith is to be absolutely certain what God’s preferred outcome is.

Which begs the next question: how can you always know God’s preferred outcome for your situation? Join me for this podcast episode where we learn how to become certain of God’s character, intentions, and will toward us. Once you know His desired outcome for your problem you will have to decide if you are willing for God to do it for you. If you know His will, and you are willing to agree with Heaven, you can pray the prayer of faith and experience miraculous results!

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How’s your prayer life? You probably guessed I have some thoughts about an effective prayer life. Prayer that avails much looks nothing like the way we’ve been taught to pray. We’ve been taught to bind and loose the devil even though Jesus already stripped him of all rule, rank, and authority (Col. 2:15). We’ve been taught to beg God to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves even though He gave us the Holy Spirit, wisdom, and the authority of Jesus. We’ve been taught to pray ‘if it be thy will’ instead of ‘thy will be done’. We’ve been taught to pray ‘in Jesus’ name’ even though we have no idea what that means.

To pray ‘in Jesus’ name’ means to pray in alignment with His will. But we’ve been told we can’t possibly know the will of God because who could possibly know the mind of God (1 Cor. 2:11)? We fail to read verses in context and forget we can have the mind of Christ if we want it (1 Cor. 2:16).

To have the mind of Christ and praying effective prayers goes hand-in-hand. To know God’s will and intentions is essential to an effective prayer life.

Because here’s the reality…if you don’t know God’s will you will magnify the problem when you pray. In magnifying the problem you will become more and more desperate for an answer and less and less assured your needs have already been met. Your mountains just become bigger and bigger when you’re begging God over and over again! It’s truly an exhausting process.

Prayer should look a lot more like confession. Confession means to say the same thing. Prayer should look more like saying the same thing God says about your situation until your heart is convinced He has already provided for your solution.

I find these scriptures helpful when I pray about any problem:

Scripture: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 1 Peter 1:3
Confession: “Thank you God that I already have everything I need that pertains to life and fulfilling your perfect will. I lack no good thing (Psalm 34:10).”

Scripture: “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him is the "Yes." Therefore also in Him, the "Amen" by us is for glory to God.”
1 Cor. 1:20
Confession: “Thank you God that every promise you ever made to anyone is yes and amen for me too. You never change.”

Scripture: “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.” Psalm 37:25
Confession: “Thank you God that because I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus I will never be left without food, shelter, clothing, or a way out of the temptation to fear or to sin in my fear (1 Cor. 10:13).”

Scripture: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Cor. 5:21
Confession: “Thank you God that I am righteous because of Christ Jesus. Therefore sin no longer has power over me.”

I’m telling you right now—if you will find a scripture that answers your need and confess that scripture over your problem, the problem will become smaller and the solution will present itself. Every solution to every problem you will ever face was solved in the life, burial, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Effective prayer always aligns with God’s will. God’s will always aligns with His heart. And God showed His heart and intentions through the finished work of Jesus.

Join me for this week’s episode of The Getting Life to Work Podcast where we examine the finished work of Jesus. This teaching will help you change the lens through which you see your problem so you can magnify the solution Jesus already provided for you!

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Blog Photo Cred: Priscilla Du Preez

Y’all. FINALLY.

Many have asked me, “Why don’t you have a podcast?” To which I would say, “I will get one done. In my free time.” But that free time never came about until two things happened:

1. I stopped wavering (being double-minded) on this issue and determined I would do it. Decisions in life never come down to “I would if I could”. God-given destinies are “I could if I would”.

2. I became a stay-at-home-mom to a 20-month-old.

I raised a now 22-year-old and 21-year-old. The 20-month-old was so out of the blue there are days I am still in total shock. At a time when I had planned to be pursuing the dreams I had put off until my biological girls were raised I was suddenly a mom to a toddler all over again. I would be lying if I said my emotions up front knew it was all going to work out and I would still live my dreams of full-time ministry, writing, and speaking. Quite the opposite. The truth was I felt like life was over. I knew that wasn’t true in my mind but my emotions tried to tell me differently. I had to build up the belief in my heart and not determine my fate based on circumstances.

This podcast is all about Getting Life to Work. I share my personal journey from the dark night of the soul to taking the limits off God to putting my life back together according to Jesus’ model for a great life.

Take a listen, give me a 5-star rating to help others find it, and share it with a friend!

I have 5 episodes already loaded for you so you can dive right in!

For your heart today…

Colossians 3:1-3 reminds us that, having been raised with Christ, we are hidden in Him.

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

We can set our minds on things above when we believe the truth in our hearts. When God gives us a promise and a mission nothing can stop the fulfillment other than our unbelief.

“As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.” (Hebrews 3:15-19)

It is rarely ever God’s timing or God flat-out saying, “No, not now.” that keeps us stuck where we are. These are merely justifications for our unbelief. Our unbelief in God’s willingness to keep His promise no matter how unlikely the circumstances appear leads to fear. Our fear keeps us from obedience. And because “faith without works is dead”(James 2:26) our disobedience keeps us from seeing our desires fulfilled (Prov. 13:12).

But everything is possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23). The key is our belief. It has always been the key. Yes, there are times when man’s free will delays God’s ability to allow us to step into a Divine moment. But we can always be on our way through preparation. Preparation looks like adding necessary skills that will help us fulfill our destiny. It also includes prayers that avail much (James 5:16). In my private mentorship group, I am putting together a study on how to pray effective prayers and activate a faith that moves mountains. Sadly, the way we’ve been taught to pray is exactly the opposite of how Jesus taught us to pray. And we definitely haven’t been trained in operating faith for miracles.

I hope you will join my mentorship group! It is a deeper dive into discipleship and the best way you can support this ministry on a monthly basis. I have learned I cannot do what God sent me to do to the scale He wants to do it without your partnership. All proceeds go to spreading the gospel and feeding a 20-month-old. ;)

So whatever you are facing today know that “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable”. (Romans 11:29). This means He never takes them back. He doesn’t “give and take away” (Job 1:21). That is something Job said in his arrogance and ignorance and God corrected him for it.

But we can forfeit the gift and the call (fail to activate or receive it, thereby frustrating grace Gal. 2:21) by believing it’s over and our circumstances are insurmountable. Build up your belief today by meditating on the truth that nothing is impossible for you if you would only believe and then obey.

I’ve read the book of Proverbs several times but during this fall-to-winter season, I determined to take a deep dive into it. This transition in my life is like nothing I’ve experienced before so I find myself in great need of wisdom. There are a million ways I could handle this life-altering change. I could run. I could completely freak out. I could willfully bury my head in the sand and let it pass me by. I could repeat old patterns of self-abasement, self-neglect, codependency, or narcissism.

In short, this is an opportunity to really screw up my life or an opportunity to walk in the protection that comes from practicing wisdom.

“The path of life leads upward for the wise.” Proverbs 15:24

The benefits of wisdom are pretty astounding: life, health, length of days, favor, rich rewards, protection, and more. Wisdom has everything I want in this season and it is available to me right now. But what I want most that wisdom provides is life. Real life. Abundant life.

I did a word study on life and I think you’ll find it as desirable as I do. The word life comes from a Hebrew word that goes far behind just existing. It is a word that means welfare and happiness. It is an earthly bliss combined with spiritual blessing. I want me some of that!

When Christians can’t explain the hardship they are experiencing or others around them are experiencing they often say, “Well, God never promised us a good life!” or “God never said it was going to be easy!”

Hmmm…

It’s true we were never promised we wouldn’t experience hardship or persecution. But we were promised wisdom to guide us on a path to always winning. Always winning doesn’t mean other people have to lose to us. It means that in the end, whenever circumstances shake out, we can come out whole or better than before.

Have you ever wondered why Jeremiah 29:11 promises a future and a hope which looks to the future?

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11

It’s because God is trying to put the path to welfare in our hands but He can’t show us what that future looks like until we choose it for ourselves. It’s not automatic. So often we determine our only possible outcome is evil (lack, limitation, our detriment) instead of looking for the good outcome God promises.

Jesus makes some wild declarations, maybe the wildest being that He came to give us not only life, but abundant life. No matter how you try to translate the definition of abundant it always comes back to being over and above, more than is necessary, more than enough, preeminence and the advantage in every (all-around, continuously) situation, superior, extraordinary, surpassing, uncommon, and more! There are never any exceptions, only the prerequisite… you choose to take hold of it and have faith for it until you see it materialize.

God has a way to work all things together for the good of those who love Him, are called, and are in pursuit of His purposes. And one of His purposes for you is a great life, life to the fullest!

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

If you are under pressure today, look for the way out. Every time we are tempted to solve our problems on our own or by our flesh (our five senses) God always has a way out that leads to abundant life. Believe that He has that for you, ask Him to show you the path, then use wisdom to get there. Wisdom is the practical application of knowledge or the truth. And truth alone cannot set you free. Truth has to be applied and acted upon in order to bring you to freedom.

And what is freedom? Well, it probably looks a lot like the life that comes from walking in wisdom—welfare and happiness, earthly bliss combined with spiritual blessing.

And what about the whole easy life thing? Well, circumstances and people in life might not be easy on us, but God’s instructions are easy and light. Yoke up with Him and you’ll walk right into your victory.

Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/IijeyJbmrec?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Think you can’t limit God? Think again. The Israelites were famous for it.

‘“How often they provoked Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel.” Psalm 78:41 (NKJV)

What God can do for you is limited to what you are willing to believe about Him and then walk out in obedience. The words hearing and obeying in the original Hebrew language of the Bible are nearly the same words. We only hear what we are willing to obey.

And having ears to hear is synonymous with having eyes to see.

In other words, we only hear what we want to hear and we only see what we want to see.

So what are you willing to see?

We limit God when we decide a positive or miraculous outcome in our situation isn’t possible. We limit God when we decide we will only get the outcome He wants us to have. We limit God when we refuse to see the possibility of an outcome that is in alignment with the finished work of Jesus.

God wants you to have whatever Jesus died to give you. But He can only give you what you are willing to hear and obey.

And here’s the good news: You can know the perfect will of God (His desired outcome) for any circumstance by testing it against what Jesus completed on the cross.

This expert from my book, Prosperity to Providence: Why American Christianity Isn’t Working and How to Get Back on the Racetrack We Were Made For, will help frame this up for us:

God’s preferred outcome for any given circumstance in your life is:

•       You are not poor, destitute, inadequate, or ill-equipped for life.

•       You have a mended heart, where unexplained failures or cycles of self-destruction have ceased. 

•       Your circumstances have zero power to hold you.

•       You are healed from all sickness and disease, in this life, on this side of heaven.

•       You have the faith of God to move your mountains.

•      You are not stuck. Your emotional debt and physical pain have been paid for.

How do I know this? The authority of scripture:

“Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, and our pains -- he hath carried them…” Isaiah 53:4a (Young’s Literal Translation)

“And evening having come, they brought to him many demoniacs, and he did cast out the spirits with a word, and did heal all who were ill, that it might be fulfilled that was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, 'Himself took our infirmities, and the sicknesses he did bear.'” Matthew 8:16-17

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

And by the way, you have all these benefits, today, in this life. Because “…as He is in this world, so are we”. 1 John 4:17

Everything Jesus did, you can do too—and then some!

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do…” John 14:12

The key to getting God’s preferred outcome in your life is to not limit Him by accepting a lower standard of living than what Jesus died to give you.

Your will and your belief are one and the same
and God won’t violate either one.

He cannot give you what you are unwilling to believe He wants to do for you.

I highly recommend studying the scriptures above and testing your circumstance against them. Download my book where I expand more on miraculous outcomes I have personally experienced because I stood on the promise of what Jesus died to give me instead of limiting God to what I could see in the natural or what I was afraid of.

The best outcome is possible for you, but if you limit God you’ll limit His grace (His ability and empowerment) needed to get a miraculous outcome—you’ll be left with only what is possible in your strength.