Overcoming Financial Strongholds: 3 Phases of Godly Money Growth and What to Do Next
Change starts in your mind, but pouring new information into your head won’t get the results you desire.
First, you must evaluate the thoughts and beliefs that are already taking up your mental real estate. Change is like constructing a house— you can’t build on a faulty foundation. God won’t give you a temporary Band-Aid solution. Instead, He wants to completely transform you into a beautiful mansion where His Spirit can dwell.
Second Corinthians 10:4-5 (NKJV) says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
The word stronghold in the Bible translates as follows:
A castle, fortress, fastness
Anything on which one relies
Strongholds aren’t just demonic things in the heavenlies—in a sense, it would be easier to detach ourselves from those things. Who wants a demon on their back? No, strongholds are often castles that we build in our mind. They are built brick by brick and wrong belief by wrong belief. For example, financial strongholds are deeply ingrained negative beliefs or patterns related to money that keep you from building wealth God’s way, such as:
Investing is too much of a risk.
I will always be poor because everyone in my family is poor.
I’m stuck at my job. It’s too late to change careers.
I don’t add value.
Good Christians are not wealthy.
I don’t have enough so I can’t give to others.
I need to be happy.
If we are not careful, strongholds like these can keep us from embracing the truth and moving forward with change.
Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, God told them, “You have dwelt long enough at this mountain.” Then He told them where to go and painted a picture of the Promised Land waiting for them on the other side of their journey. Deuteronomy 1:8 (NKJV) says, “See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give to them and their descendants after them.’”
Similarly, the Triple X Factor is a picture of the land that God has for you. You can move from drowning in debt to sowing 100 percent of your passive income into the Kingdom of God! He gives you the power to get wealth, but it’s your job to move from the First X all the way to the Third X. To do this, you will have to let go of certain strongholds and be willing to embrace the following changes.
Phase 1: Consumer to Producer
To reach the First X, your mindset must change from a consumer to a producer. Rather than primarily viewing money as a way to purchase what you want, you must begin to see it as a way to build. The budgeting and discipline it takes to pay off debt requires a change in mindset and priorities!
Phase 2: Money Manager to Money Maker
To reach the Second X, your mindset must move from a money manager to a money maker. You know how to add and subtract, and now it’s time to learn how to multiply. The fear of leverage (“good debt”) must go away as you learn to invest your time and money. As you progress along the Second X, you will be able to use passive income to pay for your needs and begin to focus on building a generational legacy.
Phase 3: Personal Legacy to Kingdom Legacy
To reach the Third X and beyond, you must shift your mindset from personal legacy to Kingdom legacy. You move from generational impact to eternal impact! There must be a recognition of the influence you can have while financially contributing to city and nation transformation.
Get A Bigger Skillet
In 1978, I heard a story that shifted the way I thought about my role in the change process. It was about two men, Duane and Gary. Gary was watching Duane fish on a pier in California and began to notice something curious. Whenever Duane caught a big fish, he would throw it back into the ocean, but whenever he caught a smaller fish, he would put it into his fish bucket to take home.
Gary watched Duane for a while, but finally his curiosity got the best of him. He walked up to Duane and said, “Say sir, I’ve been watching you fish for a while, and it seems to me you’re doing something a bit strange. Every time you catch a big fish, you throw it back, and every time you catch a small fish, you keep it. I’m just curious. Why you do that?”
Duane said, “Oh, that’s easy. I’ve only got a 10-inch skillet at home!”
Sometimes we can’t take the new wine—or the bigger fish—because we only have a 10-inch skillet. We can become so familiar with our limitations that when somebody comes along and wants to help us get a 16-inch skillet, we freeze.
All of us put self-imposed barriers and limitations on our lives. Whether you’ve verbalized it or not, the phrase “I could never do or be ” has probably lingered in your subconscious. We are the ones who limit ourselves, not God. Psalm 78:41 (NKJV) describes the Israelites who didn’t make it into the Promised Land. It says, “Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.” I, for one, do not want to limit God! His plans for you are good, and He wants to lead you into a land flowing with milk and honey. To get there, you must believe what God says about you and let Him define your threshold.
Practically, how do you get a bigger skillet when it comes to your wealth-building journey? The best place to start is where you are. You can’t change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight. Evaluate what’s already in your 10-inch skillet, so to speak, as well as the new things you want your 16-inch skillet to hold. Then figure out what you need to learn and let go of to create space for those things.
I can’t stress this point enough—to receive the new things God wants to give you, you must grow your capacity. Doing so requires a sacrifice of time to get relevant knowledge and a willingness to let relevant knowledge alter your viewpoint and actions. In the next chapter, we explore how to do just that by applying the Law of Wisdom.
Pro Tip
Henry Ford, one of the biggest change agents the automotive industry has ever seen, famously said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” What are the areas in your finances where you keep hitting a wall? Maybe you can’t stop amassing debt, or perhaps you want to start a business but fear failure. Address your limitations, then create a plan to do something new. Ask yourself the following questions, and invite the Holy Spirit into your process:
What limiting belief is fueling my stagnation?
What is one step I can take in the right direction?
