From Dream to Destiny: The Ten Tests You Must Go Through to Fulfill God's Purpose for Your Life (7 page)

Do not look at the excesses of a few and back away from what the Bible says is true. The Bible says that God really does want you to prosper; He really does want you to succeed. There are so many Scripture passages about prospering that I can’t share all of them here—but let me just show you a few.

Take a look at Genesis 26:12-13:

Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the L
ORD
blessed him. The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous.

Did you notice that the Lord uses the word “prosper” 3 times in this verse about Isaac? I think God is trying to say something here about prospering! Remember, these are not the words of some man; these words in the Bible have been spoken by God Himself. And He is not afraid to use the word “prosper” or the word “prospered”—or even the word “prosperity.” In fact, the Old Testament uses the word “prospering” 63 times!

Or consider these inspiring words from the New Testament:

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

The Hebrew word for “prospering” means “to push forward,” or make progress; and the Greek word for “prospering” means “to help on the road.”
²
In other words, if you “prosper” other people, you help them along the road. If you “prosper” others, you push them forward; you help them get farther along than they were.

How would you like to have God “push you forward” in your marriage? How would you like to have God “push you forward” in your job? How would you like to say, “No, no, God! Quit pushing! That’s enough! I have already been so blessed!” But then God just keeps pushing you forward. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

The great news is that God does want to push you forward, and He wants to help you make progress. He wants to prosper you in everything you do, just as He prospered Joseph.

But it is really up to us whether we are going to walk in the blessing of God and the favor of God as Joseph did.

So what are the keys that caused Joseph to prosper? Let’s find out!

The Key to Prospering: The Presence of the Lord

The key to prospering is quite simply this: the presence of the Lord. If God is with you, walking with you as your friend, you are going to prosper—because God prospers in everything He does. Do you realize that God’s ventures are always successful? He has never failed at anything that He has done. So if He is with you, you are going to be successful! If God is with you, He is always going to be pushing you forward. If God is with you, you cannot help but be blessed.

So, the key to prospering is simply to have the presence of the Lord in your life.

Joseph had the presence of the Lord on his life in a tangible way. It is amazing to me that Potiphar, who did not know the Lord, was still
able to recognize that God was with Joseph: “[Potiphar] saw that the L
ORD
was with him and that the L
ORD
made all he did to prosper in his hand” (Gen. 37:3). Potiphar realized that God’s favor rested upon young Joseph.

Does your boss, who may be an unbeliever, recognize that God is with you? Does he recognize that his company is being blessed because you are an employee? That is what this test is all about. Because if God is with you, He will prosper everything you do.

The phrase “The L
ORD
was with him” is found throughout the Bible and is used to describe many other people of faith. It is not unusual for the Lord to bless His servants with His presence. The Lord wants to bless you with His presence, too. And this is the key to prospering—to have the presence of the Lord with you at all times. But that prompts another question.

What is the key to the presence of the Lord?

The Key to the Presence of the Lord: Obedience

I’m afraid that we often don’t like the word “obedience” very much. (Oddly enough, we seem to want
other
people to like it.) Whether or not we like the “O” word is not the issue. We cannot escape this simple truth: Obedience is the key to having the presence of God in our lives. If we don’t obey God, He can’t walk with us. Because of His holy and righteous nature, God walks only with obedient servants.

We see this linkage in 2 Chronicles 17:3-4:

Now the L
ORD
was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the former ways of his father David; he did not seek the Baals, but sought the God of his father, and walked in His commandments and not according to the acts of Israel.

The Bible says God “was with Jehoshaphat” (v. 3). Why? Because he “walked in [God’s] commandments” (v. 4)! The Lord was with Jehoshaphat
because he walked in God’s ways—because he obeyed.

And we are told that Jehoshaphat followed the example of David, who also had lived in the presence of God.

Now Saul was afraid of David, because the L
ORD
was with him, but had departed from Saul. And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the L
ORD
was with him (1 Sam. 18:12,14).

The Lord was with David, but He had departed from Saul. Even Saul was aware of this. Was this because God was playing favorites? No, the Bible states quite clearly that the Lord with David because “David behaved wisely in all his ways” (v. 14). In other words, David was obedient to the Lord—and because David was obedient to the Lord, “the L
ORD
was with him” (v. 14).

Why had the Lord departed from Saul? In 1 Samuel 15 we read about how Saul failed to obey the Lord! God had spoken to Saul and given him direct instructions. But Saul refused to do what God had said to do—and then tried to justify his disobedience, rather than repent. So the presence of the Lord departed from him. God does not walk with the disobedient.
“‘If
you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword’; for the mouth of the L
ORD
has spoken” (Isa. 1:19-20).

The Lord says in this passage that if you want to “eat the good of the land” (v. 19)—in other words, if you want to prosper—you must be willing and obedient. Then He also says that if you are
not
willing and obedient—but refuse and rebel—you will
not
prosper but in fact be devoured. That seems pretty straightforward: Refuse to obey and expose yourself to the forces of destruction. Or obey and prosper!

Notice that God says that we must be
willing
and
obedient
in order to prosper. Clearly our
attitudes
are just as important to God as our
actions.
He wants us to obey Him—and He wants us to do it with a willing heart.

Is it possible to be obedient and yet not be willing? Just ask the parent of a teenager who has been told to clean her room before she will be allowed to go out. If you’ve ever heard the angry stomping around that sometimes goes with the cleaning, you can imagine the way some of
our obedience appears to the Lord.

He wants us to obey Him—but He wants us to do it with a willing heart. And the reason is that
our hearts are what He really wants.
This is precisely what we’re told in 2 Chronicles: “For the eyes of the L
ORD
move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chron. 16:9,
NASB
).

He wants
us
, not just some outward act. And if we want Him—if we want His presence in our lives—we must obey Him, and obey Him wholeheartedly. It’s a choice!

Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the L
ORD
your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the L
ORD
your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known (Deut. 11:26-28).

God has set before us a blessing and a curse. The choice is really very simple. And this is the choice God has given us: “If you obey Me, you will be blessed. If you disobey Me, you will not be blessed.”

Please understand, God is not talking about our salvation here. Salvation is not by works but by grace which comes through faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. But in this verse God is talking about
being blessed in this life.
He is letting us know that we can choose to be
blessed or cursed during our time on this earth. And if we choose to obey His commands, we have chosen the blessing: “If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they do not obey, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge” (Job 36:11-12).

Would you like to spend your days in prosperity, and your years in pleasure? Then obey God and serve Him.

Let me emphasize again that this is not a doctrine of works. This is a doctrine of
obedience.
We know that salvation is the free gift of God—but we must understand that the
blessing
of God comes through obedience. And this is so because our obedience to God is the truest indication that our hearts truly belong to Him.

Jehoshaphat, David and Joseph walked in obedience to God. As a result, God was with them. They showed their love toward God by obeying Him with willing hearts—and He blessed their lives with His presence. Likewise, if we show God our love by obeying Him with willing hearts, God’s presence will be with us!

Please understand that I am not talking about the omnipresence of God—His presence that is in every place at every time. Every person in this world—every believer, every nonbeliever—is in the omnipresence of God. Even the rocks and the stones are always in God’s presence, since He is everywhere. But as believers, that is not the kind of presence of God we want to settle for—God has invited us to true intimacy with Him.

Nor am I talking about the inward presence of God. When you become born again, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside your heart by faith. This is the inner presence of God. And it is a wonderful thing to have the Holy Spirit of the living God come and take up His abode within you.

But there is something more: the manifest presence of God. This is when God comes in a tangible way and makes His presence known. I’m sure almost every believer has experienced that special sweetness that sometimes fills the atmosphere during times of worship and prayer. That is the manifested presence of God.

There are other times when God’s presence manifests in unusual or unexpected ways. We all have times like this. I remember experiencing
just such a time after I lost my grandmother. I was at the hospital when she passed away, and I went into the bathroom and began to cry. I was grieving because I loved my grandmother very much; she had lived with us when I was growing up. As I knelt by the toilet in that little hospital bathroom and cried, all of a sudden it seemed like that little room was filled with the presence of God. I felt as if Jesus were standing there with me, putting His hand on my shoulder. I sensed His presence in such a powerful, tangible way! As I think back on that incident, I am reminded of how wonderful it is to experience the manifested presence of God.

Have you ever met someone who obviously has the presence of God on them? You can’t help but notice it. Joseph was a person like that. Even Potiphar noticed it.

Here is my heart’s desire: I want to be like that. I want to live in God’s manifested presence every moment of every day.

And I hope that you share my desire. If you do, remember that the key to having His presence in your life is obedience.

In the same way that obedience will cause God’s presence to manifest in your life, disobedience will cause His presence to leave. We can see a sad example of this occurring in the life of Cain. “Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16).

Cain “went out from the presence of the Lord” because he was disobedient. Cain had first disobeyed God in the matter of his offerings, and then Cain had killed his brother Abel. But God gave him a chance to confess what he had done. God asked Cain, “Where is your brother?” Of course, God knew where his brother was. He didn’t need Cain to let him know that. He was simply giving Cain an opportunity to confess his sin and repent of it. God was not looking for sinless perfection in Cain—but He was looking for a repentant heart.