If you study this subject in the Bible, you will notice that satan keeps using the same playbook: corrupt the offering, control the cash flow, cripple the influence.
Look at Cain. What corrupted him? His offering was rejected. Instead of repenting, he murdered his brother. The first murder in human history was tied to worship and the prosperity/favor of God on Abel’s life.
Fast-forward to Judas. What turned the trusted treasurer of Jesus’ ministry into a traitor? Thirty pieces of silver. He had access to the money bag, yet he was stealing from it (see John 12:6). His corruption was financial.
And look ahead to the antichrist. Revelation 13 makes it crystal clear: the ultimate tool of global control won’t be military might alone, it will be economic dominance.
No one will be able to buy or sell without the mark of the beast (see Revelation 13:17). Think about that. The final enemy doesn’t just want to deceive your doctrine; he wants to control your bank account. Why?
The devil knows what too many Christians have forgotten: money is influence, and influence is power.
He doesn’t need to shut down revival if he can just bankrupt the revivalists. He doesn’t need to silence the gospel if he can defund the messengers. Control the Church’s cash flow, and you control the Church’s impact.
The Leaven of Wrong Thinking
Jesus warned us in Matthew 16:6 to “beware of the leaven of the Phar-isees and Sadducees.” Leaven works invisibly. You don’t see it doing its work, you just wake up one day and the whole loaf has risen.
This is how satan operates in the minds of believers: he plants tiny thoughts that grow into toxic theologies.
Satan whispers: Money is the root of all evil.
It’s not. The love of money is, according to 1 Timothy 6:10. Satan suggests: Jesus was poor, so you should be, too.
He wasn’t. Jesus had a treasurer, wore expensive clothing, and was supported by wealthy women (see Luke 8:3).
Satan insinuates: If you’re blessed, you’re probably greedy.
Tell that to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, Solomon, and Joseph of Arimathea.
Over time, these little lies become accepted doctrine. Revelation gets replaced with resentment. Believers start viewing prosperity as suspicious instead of scriptural. And before long, the Church is working against the very tool God designed to fund the advancement of His Kingdom.
The Spirit of Socialism and Communism
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable, but we need to say it: the same spirit that birthed socialism and communism has infiltrated the West-ern Church’s theology about wealth. Both ideologies operate on the same premise: demonize the prosperous and shame the successful. Their slogan? “Everyone should have enough, but no one should have abundance.”
Sound familiar? It should. Because that’s the exact spirit Judas operated in when Mary broke the alabaster box of expensive perfume and poured it on Jesus’ feet. Judas was indignant: “Why this waste? This per-fume could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and given to the poor!” (see Matthew 26:8-9). We’ll dive deep into this in another chapter. This spirit has false compassion. Fake outrage. But Jesus rebuked
Judas publicly:
…Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me (Matthew 26:10-11 NIV).
Now listen to how this plays out in modern church culture: “That preacher talks about money too much.”
“They should sell that and give it to the poor.” “Do they really need a jet?”
“I don’t think Jesus would drive that kind of car.”
Judas is alive and well, sitting in the third pew, disguising envy as righteousness.
According to a 2019 Pew Research study, 59 percent of Americans believe the economic system in the US unfairly favors the wealthy, and nearly half of younger evangelicals express sympathy toward socialist economic policies.16
That’s a spiritual crisis. The Church has adopted the slogans of a godless ideology and baptized it in religious language. Proverbs 10:15 (NIV) says: “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor.”
Poverty doesn’t just limit options—it destroys lives. It breaks families. It silences voices. It keeps the gospel landlocked when it should be going global.
Satan knows this. If he can get you to reject prosperity, he doesn’t have to fight your influence because you won’t have any.
Criticizing Prosperity Preachers
I was talking with a pastor who was complaining about some preacher on TV and the nice watch he had on his wrist. I asked, “Is it wrong to have a nice watch?”
“Well, no,” he answered.
“Okay. Is a cheap watch more moral than a quality one?”
“I guess not.”
“So, if quality isn’t the issue, who gets to decide the price limit on righteousness? Is there a dollar amount where a watch stops being acceptable and starts being sinful? $100? $500? $5,000?”
Silence.
“And what if someone gave you that watch as a gift? What if you bought it honestly with money you earned ethically? What if you got a $25,000 watch for $500 because of a relationship or favor, does it become sinful when you tell people what it’s worth?”
By now, the pastor was squirming. I’d just exposed the flaw in their entire argument: there is no consistent standard for wealth-shaming. It’s all arbitrary opinion dressed up as moral superiority and virtue signaling.
Jesus wore a seamless robe so valuable that Roman soldiers gambled for it at the foot of the Cross (see John 19:23-24). According to ancient historians, seamless garments were expensive, often worn by priests and people of means. Jesus didn’t dress like a pauper; He dressed appropriately for His mission.
Who Draws the Line?
Here’s the problem with the prosperity police: they can never tell you where the line is.
They’ll criticize the preacher with the private plane but say nothing about the pastor with the $80,000 SUV. They’ll mock the evangelist with the Rolex but wear a $300 Apple Watch themselves.
They’ll condemn the prophet who flies first class but think nothing of their own annual beach vacation that costs a pretty penny.
Who gets to set the dollar limit on righteousness? Who appointed these moral referees? And why do their standards always seem to apply to everyone except themselves? I’ve heard people say, “I just don’t think Jesus would wear something that nice. Oh, really? Based on what? Your feelings? Your upbringing? Your income level?
Your opinion cannot be the standard for my obedience.
Let me say that again for the people in the back: your personal conviction about money does not get to become my moral obligation. Romans 14:4 (NIV) puts it this way:
Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
In other words, back off. God didn’t appoint you as the financial watchdog over someone else’s calling.
What About Private Jets?
I was at a pastors’ meeting where everyone started gossiping about a well-known minister who was raising money for a ministry airplane. They were all appalled. “Can you believe they’re asking people to help buy a plane? That’s outrageous!”
I spoke up and addressed the lead grumbler in the group by saying, “You know, when you look at that plane in proportion to that ministry’s annual budget, it’s the equivalent of you owning a $30,000 car. Do you own a $30,000 car?”
The pastor went silent. I continued.
“So if we’re going to condemn them for having a plane, we’d have to condemn you for having that car. If you think they should sell that plane and give the money to missions, then by the very same logic, you could sell your car and do the same.”
Game over.
See, wealth-shaming always backfires when you apply it consistently. Wealth-shaming exposes envy more than it exposes ethics.
There are practicing Christians who believe it is morally wrong for pastors to live in affluence, yet those same Christians often own luxury items themselves.
The contradiction is glaring: we judge leaders by a standard we refuse to live by ourselves.
And here’s the real kicker: we don’t actually care about the poor when we criticize prosperity. If we did, we’d sell our own stuff first. What we care about is feeling morally superior without having to sacrifice anything ourselves.
Judas didn’t care about the poor either. John 12:6 tells us plainly that he was a thief. His indignation over the expensive perfume wasn’t compassion; it was envy wrapped in false piety.
And that same spirit is alive in the Church today. People will often quote Judas by saying, “That money should have been given to the poor!” They think they’re quoting Jesus, not realizing they’re operating in the wrong spirit.
Clarifying The Question
Let’s cut through the noise and ask the question that makes everyone uncomfortable: Does God want every Christian to be a millionaire?
Now before you answer, let me clarify what we’re actually asking here. We’re not debating whether God wants His people to prosper in general. That question is already settled in Scripture:
Deuteronomy 8:18 tells us: God gives us the power to get wealth.
Psalm 35:27 says: The Lord takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.
Proverbs 10:22 declares: The blessing of the Lord makes rich and adds no sorrow with it.
Psalm 112:1-3 promises: Wealth and riches shall be in the house of the righteous.
That’s not up for debate.
What we’re asking is more specific: Does God want every believer to have seven figures in the bank? Does He desire monetary abundance—not just spiritual or relational blessing, but actual financial wealth—for all His children?
This question reveals how we understand the character of God Himself. Is He stingy or generous? Does He ration blessing or pour it out abundantly? Does He keep His promises?
According to a 2025 report by Ramsey Solutions, 49 percent of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck, and many Christians report feeling financial stress that directly impacts their ability to give, serve, or respond to God’s leading.17 That’s not prosperity. That’s a consequence of either poor stewardship, wrong teaching, or spiritual attack.
The Law of Nature and of Nature’s God
The phrase “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” comes from the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence (1776):
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them….
This phrase points to the knowable will of a moral Creator. The founders believed that divine truth isn’t buried in mystery, accessible only to prophets or priests, but written into the fabric of creation itself.
The same God who authored Scripture also authored the natural order, and both testify to His will.
This means that by observing creation, reason, and human con-science, we can discern something of God’s intentions for mankind. He is not arbitrary or hidden. His character is consistent in both revelation and reality.
That’s why the founders could appeal to “self-evident truths.” They recognized that certain moral laws such as justice and liberty are visible to any honest mind. Scripture confirms this. God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen in the things He has made (see Romans 1:20).
The order of creation reflects the order of its Creator. When we study nature, human relationships, and the moral instincts He implanted within us, we discover the God who wills for His children to flourish. He designed ecosystems to multiply, seeds to bear fruit, and human societies to thrive through unity and virtue. In both revelation and reason, increase—not deprivation—is the mark of His design.
Because God’s will can be seen in the structure of creation, then prosperity—understood as wholeness, fruitfulness, and well-being—is not a human invention but a divine intention. Even our natural parental instincts echo this truth. Every parent longs to see their children grow, succeed, and live abundantly. That desire didn’t originate with us. It reflects the nature of the One whose image we bear. Jesus addressed this directly in Matthew 7:11:
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him.
The Creator placed within human hearts a reflection of His own goodness, so that by simply understanding how we love our children, we may glimpse how He loves us.
To deny that God wants His people to increase is to deny what both Scripture and creation declare. It’s imagining that the Father of lights—from whom every good and perfect gift proceeds—delights in scarcity rather than abundance.
Ask any parent anywhere in the world, doesn’t matter if they’re in Tokyo or Nairobi, Beijing or Buenos Aires. Ask them this simple question: “Do you want your child to be wealthy?”
The answer is universal: “Yes!”
Not because they’re greedy; not because they worship money. Their answer is “Yes!” because love naturally desires abundance for those it cares about. No father hopes that his daughter will struggle. No mother prays that her son will barely survive. Parents want their children to excel, to thrive, to have more opportunities than they had. It’s hard-wired into us.
Think about the logic here. If fallen, broken, selfish human beings still want the best for their children, what does that say about a perfect, loving, infinitely generous God? It means His desire to bless His children far exceeds anything we can imagine.
The generic answer is that God’s ultimate will for His children is an emphatic “Yes!” He desires prosperity for you.
Isaiah 48:17 (NKJV) declares: “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer…‘I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go.’”
Notice the word profit. God Himself teaches us how to increase, how to gain, how to multiply. Psalm 23:5 (NKJV) paints the picture: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.”
Not just full. Not just enough. Overflowing. Psalm 112:1-3 (NKJV) promises:
…Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches will be in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:19 (NKJV): “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
All your need. Not some. Not most. All.
And here’s one people love to skip over. Deuteronomy 28:11-12 (NIV) promises that if you obey God’s voice:
The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity…. The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.
Lenders, not borrowers. Abundant, not adequate. Overflow, not just enough. The biblical pattern is undeniable. From Genesis to Revelation, God blesses those who walked with Him:
Abraham became extremely wealthy.
Isaac reaped a hundredfold.
Jacob left Laban with massive flocks.
Joseph became second in command of Egypt.
Solomon’s wealth was legendary.
Job was restored double.
The early Church had no lack.
God’s default setting is blessing. His heart is generosity. His nature is abundance. So yes, the generic answer is clear: God desires that His children prosper.
