“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV).
When I got married, it changed my life. All of a sudden, I went from being single and not having a lot of expenses to having a pretty big “need” list! I thought getting married would mean our expenses would just double, but that wasn’t the case—they quadrupled! Man, oh, man! I had no idea what I was in for!
How many of you know that newlywed love is great and wonderful, but you can’t live on love! It takes money to live! You’ve got to buy food, pay rent and utilities, buy furniture, and all the other necessities you need just to live life. Then after you’ve been married for a while, everything that was new when you got married starts to wear out. The dryer door won’t stay shut, so you have put duct tape on it. The couch starts to sag, and the bed looks like a camel died in the middle of it!
It didn’t take long for me to see that I needed some help! I needed to know what God had to say about money. So, I got my Bible and a good concordance and started looking up all the scriptures I could find on the blessing of God, wealth, and finances. As I began to study the Word and see that God wanted me blessed and prosperous, my faith began to grow! As a result, my finances began to increase.
It was God’s plan all along to bless me, and He’d already made the provision, but I had to go to Him and seek His wisdom on how to appropriate His blessing in my life.
The Take Away:
There are a lot of scriptures in the Bible about money, finances, stewardship, favor, and the blessing of God. Take time to look them up, meditate on them, and ask the Holy Ghost to teach you how to apply God’s Word in these areas to your life. God has plans to prosper us, but we have to ask Him what they are, and then He’ll show us and teach us how to put those plans into action.
