Blessed Beyond Measure: Your Prophetic Strategies for Financial Freedom

Breaking the power of the spirit of mammon over your life takes consistent effort.

It takes daily focus of recognizing its voice and choosing to listen to the voice of God instead. This isn’t a one-time step. We have to assert dominance over the spirit of mammon every day.

Just like my little puppy, either you are leading your finances, or your finances are leading you. If you allow it, the spirit of mammon will lead you into a lifestyle of lack rather than plenty. You must become alpha dog over your finances!

There are several ways you can assert dominance over your finances and shut the mouth of the spirit of mammon.

First, stay thankful for everything God has already done and given you. Thankfulness shuts the mouth of covetousness and enables you to continue to receive increase from the Lord.

Second, listen to and believe the voice of God. If the Word of God says you are blessed, believe it! Stay sensitive to God’s voice and be humble enough to receive it as the truth. His direction will always be best for you, even if it doesn’t seem like it in the natural.

Third, give with a willing, generous, and joyful heart! When you give, you are directing your heart to the things of God, worshipping Him, and denying the deception of mammon. Giving also is planting seed for you to receive a harvest as well.

An Attitude of Gratitude

It’s very easy to be thankful when everything is going well: when you have more money than month, there’s extra to spend on eating out or going to the movies, when you have enough to give extra to your church or other ministries you want to support.

But what about when it seems like everything is going wrong? When the car breaks down, your coworker was promoted ahead of you, or you’ve lost your job altogether? When we are in the middle of a trial, it is a time when we least feel like praising God and giving thanks.

However, these moments are precisely the most important times to enter into thanksgiving and praise! In these moments of weakness, when you are under attack, the spirit of mammon will scream the loudest for you to pay attention to the problem rather than your solution.

Your attitude of thanksgiving—praising God in the midst of a trial—is exactly what you need to do in order to break the power of mammon in your situation, even when it looks like all is lost and there is no hope.

If you focus on what is happening around you, that is all you will see. Your focus on the negative becomes so narrow, it leaves no room for God to work! When you look to God, the One who provides your help, and give Him your praise and attention, He can move on your behalf.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Notice this scripture passage says to give thanks in everything, but not for everything. God doesn’t allow or cause terrible things to happen to you. We live in a fallen world that has been corrupted by sin, so sometimes bad things happen, even to good, godly people. So you don’t have to thank God for something awful that happens in your life!

However, you can stay thankful in the middle of a trial. When bad things happen, remember all the wonderful things God has already done for you! You are born again; you have a relationship with your Creator, who died so you could live in victory in this life. There are so many things to be thankful for, even when a storm comes.

There is a moment in the life of David that gives us an incredible example of looking to God for encouragement and help in the middle of a terrible circumstance.

In 1 Samuel 30, the Amalekites had raided the city of Ziklag and burned it. They had kidnapped the wives and children of all of David’s men, including his own wives. His soldiers, who previously had been loyal to him, were so distraught and angry, they actually threatened to stone him because of it.

David was having a very bad day! Yet, in verse 6, it says, “But David strengthened Himself in the Lord his God.” The King James Version translates it a little differently by saying that David “encouraged Himself in the Lord.”

You can also encourage and strengthen yourself in the Lord through thanksgiving and praise! When you do so, this enables the Lord to come in and change your situation around. As David was encouraged in the Lord, God told him,

“Pursue [the Amalekite army], for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all” (1 Samuel 30:8). The interesting thing is that David’s army of 400 men must have been vastly outnumbered, for it says in verse 17, “Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who rode on camels and fled.”

The number of the enemy who ran away from the fight was the same number of men David had to begin with!

So David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. And nothing of theirs was lacking, either small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything which they had taken from them; David recovered all (1 Samuel 30:18-19).

David could have fallen apart, and said, “Oh, God! It’s all over!” Instead, he found strength and encouragement by keeping his eyes on the Lord. Then God gave him instructions and—even against overwhelming odds—he recovered every person and possession that had been stolen!

Listen and Believe You Are Blessed

While attending Bible college, I had a side business of buying and selling cars. However, at one point, all of the money was tied up in the vehicles that hadn’t yet sold. We didn’t even have any cash to buy groceries!

The cars weren’t selling, and Carlie was at the point where she was starting to grumble and complain. She had neglected to be thankful for what we had, only focusing on what was going wrong, and it was hindering our prosperity, having physical consequences.

She asked the Lord what was going on, and God told her, “You’ve forgotten that you are blessed.” That was a wake-up call! Carlie changed her attitude, and rather than complaining about the lack, she thanked God for what we had. Then she laid hands on the cars and spoke blessings over each one. Within about three days, all the cars had sold!

Don’t forget you’re blessed! God has commanded a blessing over you, and there is nothing the enemy can do or say to change that!

I love the story of Balaam and his donkey in the book of Numbers. It’s a long and complex story, but I’ll give you a quick summary.

Balaam was a prophet, and the king of Moab, Balak, had asked him to curse the Israelites for him. Balaam was really tempted because Balak had said he would basically do anything Balaam wanted, if he would curse the Israelites for him!

So although Balaam initially rejected Balak’s offer, he asked the Lord one more time, hoping God would say yes! Surprisingly, the Lord told Him, “If the men come to call you, rise and go with them; but only the word which I speak to you—that you shall do” (Numbers 22:20).

Balaam took that as, “God said I can go!” because rather than waiting for the men to come to him, he got up the next morning and went with them. Balaam was very tempted with the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things and wasn’t fully listening to the voice of God. He was running after the voice of mammon!

It says in verse 22 that God was angry with Balaam because he went, so he sent the Angel of the Lord to stand in his way. This is when the famous donkey did her best to save Balaam’s life by withstanding his abuse and speaking to him!

I’d love to talk about this in more detail, but I don’t want to get distracted from the point here. Please read Numbers 22–24. You’ll see how often the voice of mammon was calling to Balaam and trying to seduce him into doing the wrong thing for financial gain. It’s a fascinating read.

Ultimately, Balaam was corrected (by his own donkey, of all things) and realized he had been following the wrong voice. So he listened to God and finally told Balak what the Lord had wanted him to say. (Actually, it took multiple burnt offerings in multiple locations for Balaam to give all of his prophecies to Balak. He really wanted that money and was hoping God would let him curse the Israelites!)

…Rise up, Balak, and hear! Listen to me, son of Zippor! God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it (Numbers 23:18-20).

Do you see the message so clearly given here? First, God doesn’t lie. His Word says you are blessed through your faith in Jesus! God will never repent, which means He will never change His mind about the blessing He has given you. If He has said it, He will do it! He always keeps His promises.