13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:13,14,29 KJV
I remember the exact moment when I had the revelation of divine healing settle deep inside my spirit. Until that moment, I had started to believe in divine healing through what I had heard taught and preached, and what I had come to see in the Word of God. But until I took the time to meditate on it and make it my own, there was no personal revelation–I was bottle-feeding off someone else’s revelation.
I had taken a break from work to go rest in my car. I was sick with a particularly nasty cold, but because I needed money, I kept working. I had been meditating on God’s Word regarding healing and had been saying the right things and praying all the right prayers, but nothing had happened to my physical body yet.
Unflustered, I kept doggedly pushing on. I knew that God’s Word was the ultimate truth, and no matter what my body told me, Jesus had in fact taken my sickness on the cross with Him those many years ago. I clung tightly to that truth and kept allowing the Holy Spirit to make that truth a reality to my heart.
That day, as I rested in my car, reading the same healing Scriptures I had been studying for so long, almost surprisingly, it hit me. The Word of God jumped off the page like never before. I immediately felt in my body a powerful glow of energy coursing through my very veins, and suddenly, I was filled with strength and vitality. I was bathed in warmth and power, and I was completely healed! I skipped back to work after my break and felt no ill effects from that sickness–or any other sickness since that day many years ago.
I chose to share this example with you to illustrate the power of knowing something by revelation from the Holy Spirit as opposed to “knowing” something with the intellect, only. The difference is in the results. You will get results when God’s Word becomes a reality in your heart! If you waver on God’s Promises, whether they be regarding healing, finances, deliverance, God’s will for your life, or anything else, you will continue to “go around the mountain.” You and I must spend the time to connect with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to breathe the revelation of God’s Word into our hearts so that they take up permanent residence there. See the difference?
God’s Will Regarding PROSPERITY
In the same way that we open our hearts and take the time to receive revelation from the Holy Spirit on the subject of divine healing, we must also receive revelation along the lines of prosperity and finance. I am aware that even saying the word “prosperity” sends shivers up some Christians’ spines. In short, I believe that a major portion of Satan’s successful work in the Body of Christ has been to narrow our view of what prosperity is and what it is not.
The word prosperity in English is defined as the condition of being successful or thriving. Satan would have us, God’s children, believe that “the condition of being successful or thriving” is wrong. Why is that?
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
John 10:10, New Living Translation
Other translations record Jesus words as, “…but I am come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
The word abundant is the Greek word perissos, which describes something that is over and above what is necessary; exceeding abundant, supreme, or superior.
Abundant life is God’s will for His children. This means that it is emphatically, completely, and eternally God’s will for His children to be prosperous in every sense of the word.
Freedom From the Curse
Let’s look at what God promised to His people of covenant, the people of Abraham–Israel. Since we have been grafted into God’s family through acceptance in Jesus, it is perfectly legal for us to take God’s Promises to Israel as our own. Is that a stretch for you to believe? If so, don’t worry, it shocked me to hear this, too. Let’s see how this works.
Note what Paul teaches the Galatians in his letter to the church in Galatia:
13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: 14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
If you have been born again by receiving Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection to heaven, then you have been redeemed from the curse of the law. Jesus became a curse for you and me. Glory to God! That is good news. I am so thankful that Jesus became the curse for the law for me, so that I don’t have to experience the curse of the law.
What is this curse of the law?
The curse involves many things, such as sin, sickness, and death– but there is one passage of Scripture that outlines a great deal of specific “curses of the law” that I want you to see. Check out Deuteronomy 28:15-68 for a list of curses that come along with breaking the law of Moses. When you read about “being redeemed from the curse of the law,” these are some of the things you can think about. Praise God, He redeemed us from all of this!
Note specifically that several of these curses (so named by God Himself) have to do with the lack of abundance, or poverty in finances:
16 Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the field.
17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.
18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, of your land, of the increase of your cattle and the young of your sheep.
29 And you shall grope at noonday as the blind grope in darkness. And you shall not prosper in your ways; and you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to save you.
38 You shall carry much seed out into the field and shall gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.
39 You shall plant vineyards and dress them but shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them.
40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory but you shall not anoint yourselves with the oil, for your olive trees shall drop their fruit.
Jesus took all these curses (and more!) into His own body when He was hanging on the tree–along with our sinful nature–so that once and for all He could bring us into harmonious relationship with God. So much happened on the cross that day!
Since Jesus redeemed us from the curses found in Deuteronomy 28:15-68, we can exercise our faith by appropriating freedom from these things through Jesus. Using our faith in this area is our response to what God has already done.
Andrew Wommack describes faith simply and eloquently: Faith is simply appropriating what God has already done through grace.
Faith doesn’t move God; God isn’t stuck! This is one of the reasons many believers are turned off to prosperity. They think people who live and walk and preach prosperity are trying to twist God’s arm through “name it and claim it” and other methods. The truth is, you won’t get anything from God by pushing Him around. You can’t push God!
But you can respond to His promises–and when you respond in faith, He honors your response because He honors His Word.
My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
Psalm 89:34
God cannot lie, and since He doesn’t break His covenant, when His children latch onto one of His promises by faith, it pleases Him, and we are able to experience the fulfillment of that particular promise.
Promises Concerning Prosperity
Now that we took a brief look at what we are redeemed from, let’s check out what we have been redeemed into.
2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God.
3 Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock.
5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough.
6 Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
8 The Lord shall command the blessing upon you in your storehouse and in all that you undertake. And He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
9 The Lord will establish you as a people holy to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways.
10 And all people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name [and in the presence of] the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.
11 And the Lord shall make you have a surplus of prosperity, through the fruit of your body, of your livestock, and of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.
12 The Lord shall open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
13 And the Lord shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day and are watchful to do them.
The commandment to Israel was to heed the voice of the Lord. Today, as the Body of Christ having been grafted into the family of God, are under the same charge. These promises do not come upon us automatically because we have accepted Jesus. These promises are indeed conditional.
They are conditional upon heeding the commandments of the Lord. That does NOT mean following a set of rules, as it did for Israel. Heeding God’s commandments today means that we honor His Word and appropriate these blessings according to His instructions in His Word.
On What Basis Do We Receive the Blessing?
There are two main bases upon which we can stand in order to receive any blessing from God:
- By the basis of the Blood of Christ.
- By the basis of exercising our God-given faith.
A person who is not born-again into the family of God is not equipped with the faith of God that enables us to receive everything God has for us. Note that it is “the faith of God,” which comes only through grace, that is able to receive His promises, and that faith is the only thing that pleases God. (Galatians 2:20 and Hebrews 11:6)
Be encouraged! If you are part of His family, rejoice! You have so much to be thankful for.
I pray this has encouraged you to get into the Word of God for yourself and experience that deep, satisfying companionship with the Lord. I desire with all my heart that you come into a deeper revelation of the Blood of Jesus and what He has purchased for you on the cross. That just as Jesus rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father, so also you have been raised up to a position of authority and power, might and glory with Jesus. That the lies of Satan that seeks to keep the Church in bondage would be broken in your life, and that you would experience the fulness of the life that Jesus promised, that “life more abundantly.”
Shalom!
Photo by Aditya Saxena on Unsplash
Thank you for putting so much work in and sharing this with us!