Prosperity

Prosperity 

Proverbs 13:21. Evil pursues sinners, but prosperity will reward the righteous.

There is a way to prosperity by what you do as a Child of God, even in times of tribulation and trouble:  Serve the Lord with all your heart!  Righteous is Tzadik in Hebrew.  To be declared Just by God, to be made right with God, to be restored, to be vindicated, cleansed, and cleared of all charges.  It is living this way, righteously before God.  Prosperity is Y’shaLem in Hebrew, to be in a covenant of Shalom with God, to be made whole, to be completed, to make safe, to restore, to prosper, to be in Shalom regardless of your situation or surroundings!  The root word of Y’shaLem is Shalom which means completion, wholeness, wellness, Kingdom perfection, the absence of conflict.  A variant of Y’shaLem is a city you are all very familiar with; Yerushalayim, the City of Peace, wholeness, completion, wellness, Kingdom Perfection, and no conflict.
 
The Tzadik, the righteous person before God will be rewarded with Y’shaLem.
 
This is a far cry from today’s ever-present Prosperity message.  I’ve had individuals over the years confront me and want to know where their money and material wealth is since they had self-determined that their life was a righteous one before God. A few were even upset that the wicked and evil seemed to be swimming in wealth and riches and wanted to know where their wealth and riches were?  Based upon Proverbs 31:21 their understanding is way off track of what prosperity from God is, as Yeshua said:
 
Matthew 6:21.  For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also.

There is a warning to those who love this world and desire all of its pleasures:
 
I John 2:15-16.  Do not love the world or the things of the world. If someone loves the world, then love for the Father is not in him; 16 because all the things of the world - the desires of the old nature, the desires of the eyes, and the pretensions of life - are not from the Father but from the world.

With curiosity I looked up Pretensions or pride of life and it caught me by surprise: Pretensions is alazoneia {al-ad-zon-i'-a} in the Greek, insolence, trusting in your own power, one who shamefully despises and violates God’s laws, a braggart, one who trusts in the ways of the world!  This is not the way to live righteously before God.  

We have a biblical example of someone who lived according to Proverbs 13:21. King Hezekiah!  King Hezekiah lived in a very tumultuous and violent time.  He faced powerful enemies, superpowers who sought their destruction.  The kingdom and world that he grew up in was rife with idolatry, his own parents had rejected God and encouraged the worship of false gods and idols:
 
II Chronicles 28:1-5.  Achaz was twenty years old when he began his reign, and he ruled sixteen years in Yerushalayim. But he did not do what was right from the perspective of ADONAI, as David his ancestor had done. 2 Rather, he lived in the manner of the kings of Isra'el and made cast metal images for the ba'alim. 3 Moreover, he made offerings in the Ben-Hinnom Valley and even burned up his own children as sacrifices, in keeping with the horrible practices of the pagans, whom ADONAI had thrown out ahead of the people of Isra'el. 4 He also sacrificed and offered on the high places, on the hills and under any green tree. 5 Because of this, ADONAI his God handed him over to the king of Aram; they attacked him and carried off from his people a great number of captives, bringing them to Dammesek. In addition, he was handed over to the king of Isra'el, who inflicted on him a great massacre.

Handed over in the Hebrew is Nathan, it means to grant or give permission, to be given up or given over! As described in Deuteronomy, blessings and curses, because of his wickedness and evil God granted permission to Aram to successfully attack Judah!  But this isn’t the worst:

II Chronicles 28:23-27.  by sacrificing to the gods of Dammesek, who had attacked him, reasoning, "The gods of the kings of Aram helped them, so I will sacrifice to them, and then they'll help me." But they became the ruin of him and of all Isra'el. 24 Achaz collected the equipment from the house of God, broke to pieces the equipment from the house of God and sealed the doors of the house of ADONAI; then he made himself altars in every corner of Yerushalayim. 25 In every city of Y'hudah he made high places for offering to other gods, thus provoking ADONAI the God of his ancestors. 26 Other activities of Achaz and his ways [of doing things], from beginning to end, are recorded in the Annals of the Kings of Y'hudah and Isra'el. 27 Achaz slept with his ancestors, and they buried him in the city, in Yerushalayim; because they did not bring him to the tombs of the kings of Isra'el. Then Hizkiyahu his son took his place as king.

This was Hezekiah’s heritage, environment, and background yet he did not submit to his heritage.  As a side note for every person who was raised in a dysfunctional and ungodly home and environment, you have the choice to live right by God and not accept your heritage.  It is someone else’s fault when you’re young but once you come into the age of accountability and young adulthood, the decisions you make are your own, you choose to live differently then how you were raised. The point is you reach a crossroads in life when the blame game must stop, you are accountable for your actions!!  
 
Hezekiah could have rejected God like his parents, he certainly had the opportunity and infrastructure to do so, in fact it would have been expected of him yet Hezekiah chose to serve God, to live by God’s rulings and reject to the ways of the world and his heritage just as we must choose!  This choice was not mainstream, it wasn’t popular or politically correct!  Just making a choice isn’t enough either.  Once you choose a path, one must do everything in their power to promote and perform worship and service to the living God of Israel.  Hezekiah, like us had to destroy his old nature that he received from his parents and become something else.
 
II Corinthians 5:17-18. Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is a new creation - the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new! 18 And it is all from God, who through the Messiah has reconciled us to himself and has given us the work of that reconciliation,

Those who jealously look at the world’s wealth and riches are not yet a new creation, the old nature is still rising within and lusting after the things of the world.   If you’ve even had that thought it must be placed under the blood and removed because it’s not God’s model for prosperity, it’s the worlds and not of Gods as we read in I John 2. Isaiah shares that all the nations will recognize that the God of Israel is God, they will serve Him while retaining their ethnicity, their racial identity.  
 
If you are of Irish decent your ethnicity or race will always be Irish, but your culture will transformed to reflect a biblical one.  This is the point being brought out in II Corinthians 5! Your DNA remains the same, Jewish or Gentile, Irish, Italian, German, English, African, Asian, Russian, Mandarin, Egyptian, Cantonese, Samoan, Native American! You become a new creation in Messiah living a life that reflects a biblical, heavenly culture.  You’re not a child of God and continue eating ham sandwiches [EC1] because that’s your culture-that’s an oxymoron, pork is no longer part of your culture!  This very point is brought out by Yeshua to the Messianic Congregation of Pergamum in
 
Revelation 2:14.
Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: you have some people who hold to the teaching of Bil‘am, who taught Balak to set a trap for the people of Isra’el, so that they would eat food that had been sacrificed to idols and commit sexual sin.

Deny the old nature through love, obedience and discipline.  This is how we overcome!
 
I John 5:3-4.  For loving God means obeying his commands. Moreover, his commands are not burdensome, 4 because everything which has God as its Father overcomes the world. And this is what victoriously overcomes the world: our trust.
 
When Hezekiah chose to serve God, he did so with Zeal, with all of heart mind and soul as God asks of us, remember the Shema?
 
Deuteronomy 6:5. and you are to love ADONAI your God with all your heart, all your being and all your resources.

Hezekiah served God with every fiber of his being, he worshiped the living God through both words and his actions.  
 
II Chronicles 29:1-10. Hizkiyahu was twenty-five years old when he began his reign, and he ruled for twenty-nine years in Yerushalayim. His mother's name was Aviyah the daughter of Z'kharyah. 2 He did what was right from ADONAI's perspective, following the example of everything David his ancestor had done. 3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, he reopened the doors of the house of ADONAI and repaired them. 4 Then he brought in the cohanim and L'vi'im, assembled them in the open space to the east, 5 and said to them, "Listen to me, L'vi'im: consecrate yourselves now, consecrate the house of ADONAI the God of your ancestors, and remove the filth from the Holy Place. 6 For our ancestors acted treacherously, they did what is evil from the perspective of ADONAI our God, they abandoned him, they turned their faces away from where ADONAI lives and turned their backs on him. 7 They sealed the doors of the vestibule, put out the lamps and stopped burning incense and offering burnt offerings in the Holy Place to the God of Isra'el. 8 "Because of this, ADONAI's anger has settled on Y'hudah and Yerushalayim; and he has made them an object of horror, astonishment and mocking - as you can see with your own eyes. 9 Here, our ancestors have fallen by the sword; and on this account our sons, daughters and wives have gone into captivity. 10 "Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with ADONAI the God of Isra'el, so that his furious anger will turn away from us.
 
His zeal, dedication, and disciplined approach in serving God came from a contrite and broken heart that sought to turn back to God and restore covenant relationship with Him, averting Gods anger and wrath.  His commitment and zeal were a fire that set other people ablaze for God:

II Chronicles 30:12-14. Also in Y'hudah the hand of God was at work, uniting their hearts to do what the king and the leaders had ordered in accordance with the word of ADONAI. 13 Thus, many people assembled in Yerushalayim to keep the festival of Matzot in the second month, a huge crowd. 14 First they set about removing the altars that were in Yerushalayim, and they also removed all the altars for incense and threw them in Vadi Kidron.
 
Hezekiah’s fire and desire coupled with the people’s zeal brought about physical action and change! People begin removing the idols and altars from their land and their lives while returning to God and His calendar timeline.  Hezekiah thrives, he enjoyed prosperity during a trying and difficult time of famine and warfare all around him because He was righteous before God, Hezekiah had resolved to follow God despite popular opinion and political correctness which was contrary to this!  God gave the same call to Ezekiel:
 
Ezekiel 3:7-9. But the house of Isra'el will not be willing to listen to you, because they aren't willing to listen to me; since all the house of Isra'el are obstinate and hardhearted. 8 However, I am making you as defiant and obstinate as they are. 9 Yes, I am making your resoluteness harder than flint, as hard as a diamond. So don't be afraid of them or depressed by how they look at you, because they are a rebellious house."
 
Radical times call for radical people, many of today’s Shepherds’ are too meek and mild, not standing for truth, justice, and righteousness.  Too many are succumbing to political correctness, fear, tolerance, and complacency.  We live in a land of stiff-necked, obstinate hard-hearted people so we must be obstinate and stiff-necked in sharing the good news! God will honor the heart that is committed and submitted to Him:
 
II Chronicles 31:21. Every project that he undertook in order to seek his God, whether in the service of the house of God or in connection with the Torah and the mitzvot, he did with all his heart; and so he succeeded.

This is in stark contrast to all the other kings who did what was evil from Gods perspective, such as Solomon’s son Rehoboam whose actions actually divided Judah & Israel.  Even among the Cohen, those ministering and serving God, we see what God told Eli regarding his sin of not protecting the holy things of God:

I Samuel 2:30.
"Therefore ADONAI the God of Isra'el says, 'I did indeed say that your family and your father's family would walk in my presence forever.' But now ADONAI says, 'Forget it! I respect those who respect me, but those who despise me will meet with contempt.

Contempt in Hebrew is qalal {kaw-lal'}, to treat with contempt, to despise, to be cursed!  The Hebrew root word for curse is “arar” which means the polar opposite of bless.  If blessing someone means to invoke God’s favor and protection on them, cursing is to remove them from God’s protection, favor, power, and sustenance.  This all confirms Proverbs 13, prosperity will reward the righteous.  Prosperity isn’t material the worldly wealth we envision, prosperity comes when we are right with God, in submission to Him:
 
Job 22:21. (NIV) " “Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you..
 
Good News Translation: Job 22:21  Now, Job, make peace with God and stop treating him like an enemy; if you do, then he will bless you.

May your righteousness be rewarded by Adonai!
 
Love and Shalom,
 
Rabbi Eric Carlson

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