A Nugget from New Life Network
(by Dr. Larry Ollison)
Scripture for the Day (November 10, 2017)
And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day” (Deuteronomy 8:18).
I have been accused of being a “health and wealth” preacher. My response is, “Guilty as charged!” God’s Word is full of His goodness. In fact, God’s goodness is in His glory. James 1:17 says that good gifts come from God and that God doesn’t change. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that health and prosperity are good and sickness and poverty are bad. Health and prosperity are a part of the blessing and sickness and disease are a part of the curse.
Galatians 3:13 says that Jesus came to earth to redeem us from the curse of the law. In other words, part of His mission and goal was to make a way for those who would receive Him to walk in life, health, and prosperity.
Did Jesus accomplish on the earth what He was sent to accomplish? Did Jesus complete the task that His Father sent Him to do? Did Jesus make a way for mankind to be redeemed from the curse of the law? Of course He did! Jesus did not fail in any part of the mission He was sent to do. Upon returning to the Father after His ascension, I guarantee you that Jesus did not have to make up an excuse or give a reason why He didn’t do everything He was sent to do. He completed everything. He was the perfect sacrifice and paid in full everything that was to be paid for man’s redemption.
The curse of the law, as described in Deuteronomy chapter 28, involved three parts: 1) death, 2) sickness and disease, and 3) poverty. Jesus paid the price in full for our complete redemption – not just a third, not two-thirds, but completely in full. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” it was finished. God’s plan is for us to replace the curse in our life with the blessing. We replace death with life. We replace sickness with health. And we replace poverty with prosperity.
If it is true, and it is, that Jesus redeemed us from the complete curse, then how do we walk in the blessing that He has paid for? Quite simply, a biblical principle is that we only receive what we believe. If we believe He died for our sins, we receive everlasting life. Does everyone on earth receive everlasting life? No. Even though it is available to everyone and even though Jesus paid the price in full so that the whole world could be saved, only those who believe in Him and receive Him as their Lord and Savior actually acquire everlasting life. But everlasting life is only one-third of the blessing. What about health and prosperity?
A Bible word we rarely use is propitiation. The simplest definition for this word is substitute. First John 2:2 says, “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” Jesus paid the price we could not pay. He died for our sins so that we could live. He substituted His death for ours. Because He died, we will never die.
About seven hundred years before Jesus was born on the earth, Isaiah prophesied that a Messiah was coming who would be bruised for us. Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophesy and in First Peter 2:24 we are told that by His stripes we have been healed. He paid the price for our healing. He took pain upon His body so that we could live free from pain. He was our propitiation. He was our substitute.
The third part of the curse was poverty. In the same way that Jesus died so that we can live and in the same way that He took on sickness so we could be well, He also took on poverty so we could live in prosperity. In 2 Corinthians 8:9, the Bible says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”Although the prosperity message may not always be taught properly, and sometimes is even taught with the wrong motive, the truth is prosperity is a part of the blessing and God
fully expects us to receive completely all that He has sent Jesus to accomplish.
Recently, I heard a sermon about how Heaven rejoices when someone receives eternal life. That is very true. “Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). But also there is great joy in Heaven when a saint becomes prosperous. “…Let the LORD be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant” (Psalm 35:27).
Do not be deceived. God is the God of completeness. He doesn’t do things halfway. So when He sent Jesus to redeem us from the curse of the law, He redeemed us from all of it. And we receive that blessing according to our faith. So, the next time somebody asks you, “Are you a health and wealth Christian?” you should stand up straight and boldly say, “Yes, I am, because I am a child of God, the God of the blessing!”
