What is Prosperity?
Prosperity is the state of thriving, flourishing, and experiencing success or good fortune. While it is most commonly associated with financial wealth and economic abundance, a broader definition encompasses health, happiness, personal fulfillment, and peace of mind.
Key Dimensions of Prosperity
- Financial & Material: Having sufficient resources, meeting needs with surplus, and experiencing economic success.
- Health & Well-Being: Physical vitality, mental clarity, and emotional balance.
- Personal Growth & Peace: A sense of purpose, positive life experiences, and the freedom to pursue joy.
God is not opposed to His people being prosperous, but He is opposed to His people being covetousness.
Covetousness is a strong, often excessive desire to possess wealth, material goods, or something that belongs to someone else. It is rooted in discontentment and is often accompanied by envy, acting as an intense longing for what others have.
Core Characteristics of Covetousness
- The “I want it” factor: An insatiable eagerness to acquire things.
- Discontentment: A feeling that what you currently have is never enough, often fixated on the property of others.
- Lust for ownership: Desiring material goods without a willingness to do the proper, honest work to earn them.
For something to be Scriptural, you must be able to find it in the Scriptures. AND you must be able to find it in more than one place.
Matthew 18:16 NKJV But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY WORD MAY BE ESTABLISHED.’
Prosperity Defined:
3 John 1:1-2 NKJV The Elder, To the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth: (2) Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
3 John 1:2 AMPC Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way and [that your body] may keep well, even as [I know] your soul keeps well and prospers.
3 John 1:2 Moffatt NT Beloved, I pray you may prosper in every way and keep well — as indeed your soul is keeping well.
3 John 1:2 Moffatt NT Beloved, I pray you may prosper in every way and keep well — as indeed your soul is keeping well.
3 John 1:2 TPT Beloved friend, I pray that you are prospering in every way and that you continually enjoy good health, just as your soul is prospering.
There is a connection between your soul prospering and your natural material man prospering.
Prosperity does not begin in your bank accounts. Prosperity does not begin in your wallet or purse.
Prosperity begins in your spirit and soul.
This is the problem with programs that try and help people financially and materially. It might temporarily address natural circumstances but does not change anything on the inside of the people they help. Therefore, in the long term, people are not helped to get out of their current circumstances.
How does your soul prosper? The Word of God is what makes your soul to prosper.
God is not about pushing people down – He is about pulling people up!
No matter how bad your natural circumstances are, God wants to make them better.
No matter how good your natural circumstances are, God wants to make them better.
I have never seen anyone in the Scriptures, that had a true heart-felt encounter with the Lord, stay the same.
We are going to prosper outwardly as we prosper inwardly!
2 Corinthians 9:8 NKJV And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8 AMPC And God is able to make all grace (every favor and earthly blessing) come to you in abundance, so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation].
Kenneth Copeland – True prosperity is the ability to use the power of God to meet the needs of mankind in every realm of life: spirit, soul, body, financially and socially.
There is not a dollar amount that defines prosperity. You can have $100 in the bank or $1 million dollars in the bank and that does not define whether you are prosperous or not.
You can have $5 million dollars in the bank and be prosperous if you need $10 million to do whatever it is you need to do.
It is all relative to purpose.
2 Corinthians 9:8 TPT Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything—every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.
2 Corinthians 9:8 CEV God can bless you with everything you need, and you will always have more than enough to do all kinds of good things for others.
2 Corinthians 9:8 ERV And God can give you more blessings than you need, and you will always have plenty of everything. You will have enough to give to every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8 MSG God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done.
2 Corinthians 9:8 NLT And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.
2 Corinthians 9:8 TLB God is able to make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more so that there will not only be enough for your own needs but plenty left over to give joyfully to others.
2 Corinthians 9:8 20th CENTURY TRANSLATION – God has power to shower all kinds of 8 blessings upon you, so that, having, under all circumstances and on all occasions, all that you can need, you may be able to shower all kinds of benefits upon others. (As Scripture says — (9) ‘ He scattered broadcast, he gave to the poor ; His righteousness continues for ever.’
2 Corinthians 9:8 (Moffatt) God is able to bless you with ample means, so that you may always have quite enough for any emergency of your own and ample besides for any kind act to others;
Prosperity is having ability.
Prosperity is having options.
More Definitions: Poverty –
Hebrew: destitution, want, to ruin, disinherit, dispossess, expel,
Inadequate, insufficient, scarce, scant, small
Greek: beggary, indigence (If you experience indigence, you have a critical need for food, money, and other resources.) that which is behind; Penury: a noun that means extreme poverty, destitution, or a severe and oppressive lack of resources.
Psalms 37:25 NKJV I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread.
You have to despise (to regard someone or something with a deep, intense dislike, combined with a total lack of respect) that which you want to come out of!
- You must despise sin!
- You must despise strife!
- You must despise sickness and disease!
- You must despise poverty!
Prosperity (Hebrew and Greek): to advance; to push forward and make progress; to help down the road, to succeed in reaching, successful; thriving; abundance (John 10:10)