The Abundance Of God’s Riches In Christ!

Romans 8:32 (NIV) He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

I can testify that there is a life in which the promises of Romans 8:32 becomes our experience. We receive the riches of heaven, not based on our own merit or godliness, but because of God’s goodness. We receive the inheritance through faith…the same inheritance promised to Jesus! We are co-heirs with Jesus (Romans 8:17), given the same glory (John 17:22), and seated with him in heavenly places! (Ephesians 2:6)

Yet this is not the experience of most Christians in the institutional church. That includes pastors and leaders. Recently, a young guy who has understood the message I’m sharing prayed for a guy in our men’s group. He had been taking medication for HIV. He got tested again. Negative!

A young pastor heard this testimony and was amazed. He said, “Wow, God can do anything!” But to him, it was mysterious. I think he thought God just sovereignly decided “I’m going to show my power this time.” He didn’t get it. He doesn’t realize how we see such things happening constantly. Healing of cancer, broken bones, deaf ears. Signs and wonders. A few weeks ago I was talking about the abundance of grace in Christ and a guy ran up in the middle and asked me to pray for him. He said “I don’t know who this guy is but I never heard anybody talk like this and I saw flames and smoke coming out of his body as he talked! Now I know that I need to convert to evangelicalism!” (We explained that it’s not about joining a group but it is about knowing Jesus.) God confirms the simple, pure gospel message with signs and wonders

The young pastor doesn’t understand that we have different results because we have a different message. It contrasts with what he believes. Even though we fail often and have lots of room to grow, our lives are like this. It’s normal. We are receiving heaven’s abundance.

On Tuesday I went to the Casa de Paz recovery house. A 19-year-old guy asked for prayer. After participating in an armed robbery, he got in the middle of a shoot-out with the police and was shot in the hip. His heart stopped for 4 minutes in the hospital but he came-to again. Now he was in pain and limping. The hip injury had caused secondary injuries in the ligament in his lower leg and his foot.

Almost immediately as we started praying, he felt a wind blow on his leg and his foot went numb. It had not been numb before. It was numb for 7 minutes and the pain was gone. We experience such things regularly. On Thursday I went to another mission called “Metamorphosis.” There were about a hundred people there, and I lost count of how many were set free from pain. We are expecting to receive more reports later as what God has done becomes evident. I had a word for healing of incontinence before I went. They have many elderly people.

Two of the women had severe pain and could not walk without assistance. One had strong pain in her knees even when she was sitting because an infection had gone to her bone marrow. The pain left instantly. She was still afraid to get up and walk. I said “Jesus did his part. It doesn’t hurt. Now you do your part and walk.” Encouraged, she got up and walked without pain. What happened with the other lady was very similar. (For the sake of clarity, both still needed some improvement with their walking, but they were walking with no pain, and the pain had been intense just moments before! We look not at what is seen but at what is unseen, thanking God and standing for the rest.)

Another lady had a cyst causing intense pain that often made her dizzy. I asked for a volunteer and one of the other ladies put her hand where the cyst was. We prayed and the pain was gone in a moment. Those are just the highlights because everything that happened in the last week was too much to keep track of or to even know yet. The mighty works of Jesus are overwhelming.

We speak of healing miracles because it is easy to talk about in concrete terms in order to help people understand the abundance we are speaking of. Yet there is so much more to spiritual riches than even just that. I recently spent some a few hours with a guy who is immersed in the religious system. He was so burnt out and depressed. It was a big contrast with the joy the gospel produces. He was encouraged after spending a few hours with me. Spiritual riches manifest in joy, patience, perseverance, inner strength, and all the fruit of the Spirit.

Two Prophetic Questions God Is Asking To Challenge The Church

This life of spiritual abundance was so foreign to that young pastor because he, and the system he is in, are preaching a different message. Those who believe that message cancel God’s promises for themselves and nullify faith.

I encourage you to write down and memorize this verse. It’s gold!

Romans 4:14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless.

Some leaders want miracles and the manifestation of God’s glory, but they don’t want the message that produces this. They want to continue telling people to get more of God’s blessing by putting more money into the offering. Some want miracles so they can draw more people to their church and grow their ministry, but not because they love the people and just want to see Jesus. This may work for a while, but it’s not sustainable.

You can start in the spirit and end in the flesh, as the Galatians did. You can have miracles, healing, and revelation to an extent with a mixed message. But the movement that has a mixed message will lose the glory, will often be ineffective at equipping the saints in the works of ministry, and will fall into the works of the flesh.

Two questions from heaven are burning in my heart. I feel God’s power on the words and I know He is asking these questions to challenge those who have been nullifying God’s promises for themselves.

Jesus broke the devil’s power by his death. He was cursed by hanging on a tree so that we could receive the blessing. WHAT CURSE IS JESUS’ DEATH INSUFFICIENT TO BREAK?

Jesus’ resurrection raised us up into heavenly places far above all power and authority, with full access to the Father and everything we need for life and godliness in the knowledge of him. If God didn’t withold his own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how much more will He not with us also give us all things? WHAT BLESSING IS JESUS’ RESURRECTION INSUFFICIENT TO BRING US INTO?

Selah. (Pause and think about that)

If you try to obtain the promise by your works rather than through Jesus’ works, you nullify faith and cancel God’s promises for yourself. You dishonor Jesus Christ, his death, and his resurrection, and you disqualify yourself from receiving that which Jesus’ redemptive work has accomplished.

The way this most often happens in the churches I see around me is that leaders take an offering every week promising that people will get more of God’s blessing by what they put in the offering.

The secret to spiritual abundance is to reap according to the Seed that God sowed! Jesus died, was planted in the ground as a seed, and rose up again in three days. Your seed is puny compared to the Seed that God sowed! If you understand what Jesus did for you and how rich you are in him, you’ll never be focused inward, every week trying to gain more blessing by putting more in the offering. You’ll be focused outward, giving heaven’s riches to the world.

Many Christians think “Jonathan, you can’t be right! You are going against what everyone is saying!” I respond “If you are happy with the religious status quo, then keep on thinking the same way and doing the same thing.”

Many pastors get terribly upset with me for my stance, but I don’t see the spiritual abundance in their lives that I am experiencing. I don’t see the joy and peace that I know manifesting in their lives. I don’t see what they preach producing the results that the message I believe produces. They want to be seen as leaders and “spiritual fathers” but I don’t see anything in their lives that makes me say “I want that!”

Rather, I often see contention and selfish ambition. I see people who are constantly struggling, easily depressed, prone to anger, living a double life, and falling into the works of the flesh. That’s what their message produces.

What Does The Message You Believe Produce?

Living by a message based on Jesus’ redemptive work produces the fruit of the Spirit. Living by a message based on your works produces the fruit of the flesh.

If you are trying to be more blessed or escape a curse by what you put in the offering, you have annulled God’s promises for yourself! This is why many Christians sitting in churches are living in spiritual poverty.

Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith you cannot please God. Romans 4:14 says faith is canceled if those who depend on the law are heirs. Those who are trying to get more blessed by what they put in the offering or by other works are living a life in which they can never please God. Do you go to a church that receives the offering every week by telling you it’s the means by which you can get your breakthrough or blessing? I am sure that the fruit of the flesh abounds there.

Living a life in which you can never please God is the source of insecurity, control, selfish ambition, outbursts of anger, and other works of the flesh. I’ve seen what is inside coming out of pastors in that system. Cursing, profanity, rage, threats, lies. Sadly, it’s so normal to them that they think “everyone loses their temper.” They will never convince me that I can get more of God’s blessing by putting money into their offering.

If you’re living a life of pleasing God, receiving God’s grace by faith, those things aren’t even inside of you to come out. Not even when you’re under pressure. That anger is the fruit of living a life of spiritual poverty and never being able to please God because you have made faith out to be nothing and have annulled God’s promises for you.

No, I’m not against giving! I’m against the way it’s being taught that destroys faith and robs God’s people of heavenly riches! Giving in the Spirit has the same motivation as ministering healing. We don’t do it to gain God’s favor. We do it to express his love.

I previously wrote an article explaining that scripture often uses the term “the flesh” to talk about living under the law and by your own ability rather than by God’s grace. Paul said that the law produced every kind of sinful desire in him. A common incorrect assumption is that scripture uses “the flesh” to talk about the condition of being prone to failure because we are in human bodies. Paul himself said in Romans 8:6 that we are not in the flesh if we belong to Christ. This statement challenges every Christian who thinks “the flesh” refers to a sinful state that makes Christians keep failing. Obviously, Paul was not saying we are no longer in our human bodies!

If you are trying to obtain the inheritance by your works rather than by Jesus’ work, you are living in the flesh. If you are trying to obtain the blessing of Abraham by what you put in the offering, you’ve canceled the promise and annulled faith. You are living in the flesh.

You can pray in the flesh or pray in the Spirit. Praying in the flesh is based on your works. It manifests in fruitlessness and spiritual poverty. Praying in the Spirit is based on Jesus’ work. It leads to abundance. The results of spiritual abundance or spiritual poverty reveal whether you are living by God’s grace or by your own religious effort.

Galatians chapter 5 tells us the fruit of the flesh and of the Spirit. The context in the chapter is clearly of living by God’s grace and not by the works of the law. Many pastors disagree with me about every blessing you need being found in Christ, not obtained by the money you put in the offering. But what I see in their religious system is the fruit of the flesh, not the fruit of the Spirit. I see them biting and devouring each other. Their systems are full of selfish ambition and envy. They often run like a mafia and lie to cover up the deeds of darkness.

Galatians 5:15-26 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

My Response to Local Pastors Who Tell Me Their Financial Blessing Validates Their Teachings About Receiving God’s Blessing Through Tithes and Offerings

I visit people’s houses and go to recovery houses. I see the needs. I’ve found people who didn’t even have flip-flops. Most of the local churches are neglecting the needy, the orphan, and the widow. Your claims of blessing mean nothing to me if you aren’t caring for the needy in your own city. I also haven’t seen the miracles in your church services that I see among needy people outside of the church. They don’t give me anything, but I give to them. They are surely receiving according to what Jesus Christ has done and not according to what they put in the offering plate. And I sometimes see more miracles among them in a day than I could see sitting in many churches for a year.

When I moved to the state of Goias there was one person I knew in this state who challenged my faith. I only knew one person here whose life I looked at and said “I want to imitate that. I want to learn from what I see.”

He was kicked out by the religious system a few months after I met him. He now lives in another part of Brazil. He has opened multiple institutions rescuing Brazilian children from prostitution and abuse. Most of the religious institutions don’t show any care at all about this situation in their own country. The church that kicked him out recently spent 20 million reais making their building more impressive to show their status. A large church can easily give more in one night to a famous powerless orator who shouts empty words than they do all year to rescue the children and homeless in their own country.

Mammon isn’t even true wealth. How much money and how many followers you have means nothing to me if I don’t see spiritual riches and if you can’t make Jesus’ priorities your own by caring for the people in your own city! Why don’t you come to Jesus, learn from him, and stop defending the religious status quo? Do you want revival? You can have it! But revival doesn’t come without repentance. If you aren’t experiencing God’s promises fulfilled, maybe it is because you are annulling them by trying to obtain the inheritance through the law! If you really want to experience something new then you must stop doing the same old things that everyone else is doing! If you want to live something new, you’re going to have to start thinking differently!