The controversy in the Church today is centering on the doctrine of abundant life. Our television evangelists have persuaded the Church for years that it is the will of the Father for the Church to live in the abundant wealth of this world. However, the tide is beginning to turn. The saints are beginning to see that the promises given them in the old faith and prosperity message are far from being fulfilled in their lives. Instead they are suffering needs and physical and emotional pain and many have been hurt in relationships in which they did live holy. Some have lost their children to drugs and sexual perversions; many marriages have been broken and destroyed.
This is the life of the saints of God. They are suffering in some of the worst ways. According to our Bible teachers, these things are not supposed to happen to the people of God. These hurts and disappointments have left many in despair, because the prosperity preachers promised them a materialistic, devil free, abundant life.
Are these promises vain? Are the saints not measuring up to the standards required to obtain such a life? What does the Lord have to say about the question of abundant life?
Proverbs 28:20
A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.
The word abound means to prosper or to increase in that which has been given. We will take a look at the things the Church is to abound in.
1. If there are to be material possessions for the saints of God, then they must be given to them as blessings from the Lord. We must not strive for the wealth of this world. Jesus taught the doctrine of "taking no thought" for the things of this life. He persuaded the disciples of better things than this world can offer.
Romans 5:20
20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: …
2. We are to abound in grace. God's influence in our hearts must continue to abound if we are to stand against the wiles of the devil. For the enemy is making sin more and more pleasurable.
The only way you will be able to resist the temptations to come is to anchor yourself with the Word of God in your heart. We have to come to a place where the devil has nothing in us. There must be nothing for him to tap into; otherwise, our attempts to live holy are futile.
Romans 15:13
13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Because we have the Spirit of God in our innerman, He is the witness or proof that the promises of God are real. Therefore, we should abound in hope and have great expectations for the life to come. This world is not our home as we are simply pilgrims passing through.
2 Corinthians 8:7
Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.
Now we come to the essence of the life of a Son of God. Yes, we are to abound, but the abundance of life is in the expression of our God. In Him is real life and that life can be displayed by the obedience of the sons. The abundant life promised by the Father is not a blanket supply of the things of this world. Instead it is the ability to deny yourself of these things. For the love of things is the catalyst for rebellion against God.
According to the passage above, we are to abound in:
Faith:
Trust, belief and obedience to the will of God. To walk in the dictates of the Holy Ghost.
Utterance:
The expression of divine doctrine and purpose.
Knowledge:
To comprehend God through life's experiences.
Diligence:
Gain obtained by "work," endeavor, pains, earnestness, zeal, haste it signifies "to hasten to do a thing, to exert oneself, endeavor, zealous of keeping the unity of the Spirit, making our calling and election sure; to call scriptural truth to remembrance “endeavour”; being found in peace without fault and blameless, when the Lord comes
Love:
The character of God. The abundant life is to live in this world free of the influences it offers. To live as sons of God means to experience the love, joy and peace found in the Holy Ghost. This is obtainable even in the midst of a perverse and gainsaying world.
2 Corinthians 9:8
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: . . .
We are to abound in every good work and God’s grace in our hearts enables us to perform every acceptable work. In other words, we are more than able to fulfill the purpose of God in the earth. Every one of us should be a producer of proof concerning the power of our God in our lives. His Spirit enables us to be peculiar as we are to respond in every situation with the mind of Christ. This is the proving of the faith. The fruit of the Spirit and the administration of the Spirit should always be richly displayed in and through us.
The Church has all but forsaken the doctrine of self-denial and has become enterprising and secular oriented. The Spirit of Truth has been shut out of the Church by the faith and prosperity doctrine, and this message has done more to secure the wantonness of the people of God than anything else. Satan will certainly use this to his advantage.
Daniel 11:43
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things …
Daniel 8:25
25 And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: . . .
The end-time is a time of worldly prosperity by the hand of the anti-Christ. Many in the Church will be brought to a place of choice by the temptations of worldly gain offered by the devil, and many will turn to his devices in the fatal hope of securing their well being.
I do not think the Church realizes the magnitude of the temptation to come. Satan will cast down all that is godly. He will pervert truth and capture the minds of many by prosperity, pleasure and pain.
Listen to this warning:
1 Timothy 6:3-12
3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,
5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
9 But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
Philippians 1:9
And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; . . .
I Thessalonians 3:12
And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and
toward all men, even as we do toward you:
I Thessalonians 4:1
Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.
2 Peter 1:8
For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 1:3-14
3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
7 And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.
8 For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:
9 But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
10 Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;
11 Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.
12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.
13 For we write none other things unto you, than what ye read or acknowledge; and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end;
14 As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Abundant life is:
To walk in the riches of God’s glory.
It provides treasure in heaven and everlasting life.
It is to operate and administer the power of the Holy Ghost.
It is the supernatural power and character of God lived out in the sons.
Do not trade this abundance of life for the temporal things offered by the god of this world.
