Living in Abundance: What Prosperity Teachers Get Wrong
Prosperity teachers coach if you think the right thoughts, do the right things, and stay in the right spiritual vibration; you will have a blessed life. In fact, positive thinking, right actions, and living in a prosperous vibration will indeed bring you abundance. However, this isn’t the whole truth.
Charles Fillmore (2018) a new thought, Christian minister wrote prolifically on living in prosperity and abundance. His writings focused on centering on God’s presence and using positive thought and affirmative prayer to live your best life. Despite the helpfulness of his writings, one critical error he makes is, “Poverty is a sin”
Many prosperity teachers put a great deal of unfair onus on an individual’s thoughts and their actions. The theology plays out something like this. As you become centered in God’s presence, then God will give you ideals and thoughts to implement in order to bring prosperity. When you implement these ideas and thoughts over time, your abundance grows.
Prosperity movements contend God authors universal laws of abundance. However, you are not obliged to follow these laws because of your free will. If you break the universal law of God; your suffering is the natural consequence associated with not implementing divine will according to these teachers. From this perspective, if you follow the plan of God for your life; you cannot fail in achieving an abundant life.
Title: Glasshouse Mountains, Author: Bert Knottenbeld, Source: Flickr is licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0
The prosperity movement is correct in its belief you can live more abundantly by connecting to God’s spirit and receiving divine guidance. It is also accurate in its belief that maintaining a positive outlook will improve your life. Focusing your thoughts on whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Philippians 4:8, WEB) will always positively affect your engagement with the world.
The prosperity movement ignores two critical aspects of reality. First, the movement fails to consider individuals are a microcosm of larger systems. Injustice, war, natural disasters, and greed negatively impact human systems. Conversely, the spiritual world is where God is seeking your highest good. These two worlds are in constant conflict in your daily life. You simultaneously live in both Systems of Cain and Systems of Eden.
The human ego can often assign value and worth to things that are not intended for our abundance.
Second, the prosperity movement fails to consider the power of the ego when defining abundance. As the prophet Jeremiah (17:9, WEB) notes, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?" The human ego can often assign value and worth to things that are not intended for our abundance. In the mind of your ego, possessions, status, and wealth can be deceitful proxies for true abundance.
Error 1: Blaming the Victim
Imagine you are on a hike in the deep forest on a hot summer day. As you progress on the trail you encounter thick, black smoke. You make the wise decision to turn around as you suspect a forest fire. You hike as fast as you can. There is a strong tail wind, and the flames catch up to you. You become worried that the fire may threaten your life.
Think of a single, positive thought that will prevent the flames from engulfing you. Maintaining a positive outlook may help you keep calm and open you to potential solutions. However, no amount of affirmative prayer, positive thoughts, or living in the right spiritual vibration will put out the fire. The reason? You are a microcosm of the larger forest ecosystem. You can’t control the system, only respond to the circumstances given.
As individuals, it is important to remember that you don’t control the systems that surround you; you only take part in them. Systems that influence your behaviors and actions often go unnoticed. Your family and work environment, the community you live in, your country’s policies and laws all impact how you behave daily. The western belief that you manifest your own destiny doesn’t acknowledge your heavy entrenchment in the systems that surround you. These systems impact everything you do, experience, and think.
As individuals, it is important to remember that you don’t control the systems that surround you; you only take part in them.
If you live in a system based on fear, scarcity, and suffering; then this system is going to affect your personal experience of abundance. If the financial markets crash tomorrow, it will affect your income, your job prospects, as well as your investments and retirement. No matter how positive you think, how affirmative you are in your prayers, the system will always affect how you live. To state that someone living in poverty in a developing nation has somehow sinned is not acknowledging the power of systems in our lives. In fact, it is blaming the victim. Poverty is a sin of human systems, not of the individual!
This is where prosperity teachers make a critical error. s They “blame the victim” when they focus on an individual’s failure to maintain a positive, prayerful outlook. Their approach denies that the level of abundance and prosperity you achieve is always within the direct context of the systems you live.
The great depression, the holocaust, world wars, and starving nations are not because of an individual’s failure to think positively. These circumstances result from society living outside of God’s plan for civilization. As a result, suffering is based on greed and the self-centeredness of the system. In such systems, no one can prosper. It is dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest. Prosperity, in this system occurs only at the cost of other's suffering.
Error 2: Allowing Our Ego to Define Abundance
One doesn’t have to look far to see how the self-centered ego erroneously defines abundance. Turn on the television and you see a plethora of these flawed definitions. Each definition taught to you through the great pulpits of media and advertising.
Watch one hour of television and note the message the commercials are trying to sell you. You will discover each commercial is marketing its version of wholeness and completeness. If you possess the right car, right clothes, right medication, or consume the right brand of food; then you can live a complete and whole life.
As Jeremiah 17:9 (WEB) notes, "the heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt." True abundance is a gift of God. Your ego is quick to define abundance in degenerate ways that provide comfort for only a brief period. Ego-based abundance always moves from the outward, inward. The ego defines prosperity through possessions and status. Possessions and position eventually lose their luster. Then the ego attempts to find something new to demarcate itself.
True abundance moves from the inward recesses of your soul outward.
The ego does not define true prosperity and abundance; True abundance moves from the inward recesses of your soul outward. This type of abundance is ever present, ever sustaining, no matter the circumstances. True abundance is based on living in the Spirit of God. Spiritual abundance is not possessions, but a life of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5: 23-23, WEB).
Instead of allowing possessions, status, and money to define you, ask yourself, “how are you living through the fruits of the spirit?” True abundance will only come to you when you invest in service and care to others. As long as you only invest in the ego’s selfish definition of abundance; you will live in perpetual need and covet other’s prosperity!
Living in Abundance: Beyond Systems, Possessions, Wealth, and Status:
It is important to avoid two mistakes when living in abundance. First, it is imperative to recognize systemic barriers to abundance that occur because of our collective failure to structure culture in the image of God. Poverty is a systemic sin, not a personal sin. When systems are based on fear, greed, and selfishness, economic advantage will always occur at the disadvantage of others. This is a systemic problem, not an individual weakness. To state otherwise is to blame the victim.
Second, it is important to recognize your ego defines prosperity in erroneous and egregious ways that have little relationship to abundant living. Possessions, status, and wealth will appease the emptiness of the ego for a brief period. Eventually, the ego becomes dissatisfied with the novelty and will return to its depressive angst. True abundance starts inward progressing outward. You discover true prosperity, not in possessions, but in the fruits of the spirit.
Live in Abundance: God the Good
You can only escape the System of Cain and live in the spirit when you realize God is indeed good. Even as you live in systems based on fear and scarcity; there is a good God. A God that will provide you with opportunities to pursue your highest good. Don’t be dismayed and allow systemic inequities and disparities to dissuade you from your highest good.
God will provide you the opportunity to live in abundance, even in the darkest of times.
Keep in mind that God is good! God will provide you the opportunity to live in abundance, even in the darkest of times. Human systems will affect you. There is no doubt! The Roman soldiers and Pharisees certainly affected the ministry of Jesus. Instead of focusing on inequities, remember God the good is always seeking a way for you to live abundantly despite the circumstances! Trust in God’s goodness!
Live in Abundance: Your Thoughts Matter
Begin with the idea, “God is good”. Then you will realize there is a universal sustenance and supply ready to guide you. You may become overwhelmed by negative circumstances. It is during these times that using affirming prayer and keeping your thoughts positive is helpful. Affirmative prayer is not begging God to change your circumstances. You do not need to beg God, who already desires your highest good. Instead, recenter and view the situation from God’s perspective. In this state, you gain insight and guidance.
Affirmative prayer follows a simple sequence. First, become relaxed and focus on the goodness God desires for your life. It may be helpful to use deep breathing for a few minutes. Second, focus on God. Use a mantra such as “Yahweh” or “God is Good” to center. It doesn’t matter what mantra or scripture you use, as long as it centers you in God’s presence. Then sit in silence and allow God to minister solutions for every problem. Once you receive direction, don’t allow the negative “what ifs” to overwhelm your thoughts. Instead, realize God guides you to achieve the highest good possible. Finally, sit in gratitude. Imagine implementing the guidance you have received and the positive outcomes. Visualize success and general well-being. This will create a natural sense of gratitude. Express your gratitude to God with words, thoughts, or just a general sense of appreciation directed upward.
Living in Abundance: Do the Next Right Thing
Divine wisdom and inner guidance will rarely give you a step-by-step plan in pursuing your highest good. Instead, during your time of prayer, you will receive one or two steps of guidance for your path to abundance. These steps are the next right thing! No matter how small, or insignificant the step seems, remember God desires your highest good. Take the next steps in faith; knowing that once you take a step-in faith, additional inner guidance will follow. Be bold and act!
Written by Heath B. Walters, Ph.D.
Copyright © April 11th, 2023, by Heath B. Walters DBA Spiritual Life Resources, All Rights Reserved.
References
Fillmore, Charles, (2018). Prosperity-Talks on Truth. In Charles Fillmore Complete Collection of Twelve Books. (Kindle Edition). Alpha Centauri Publishers.
Word English Bible (2022). Web Online.https://ebible.org/study/.
