Money Is Not Evil: Prosperity Is Offered In Christ | EP8

Dear God Sister,

Did you grow up believing that wealth was wrong? Have you heard the phrase, “Money is the root of all evil,” and assumed it was what the Bible teaches? In today’s straight-forward episode of The Your God Sister Podcast, we’re uncovering the truth and breaking down common misunderstandings surrounding faith and finances.

For many believers, thoughts about money have been shaped by tradition, misquoted scripture, or personal experiences rather than the truth of God’s Word. But the Bible must always be our ultimate source of truth. When we align our thinking with what Scripture actually says, we can begin to see God’s heart for provision in a completely new way.

In this episode, we explore powerful biblical insights that will help you rethink money through a Kingdom lens.

If you’ve ever struggled with guilt around finances or felt conflicted about wealth and faith, this conversation will help you:

🩷 Determine truth by God’s Word—not tradition, misinterpretation, or personal experience.

🩷 Understand God gives us the power to create wealth as part of His covenant.

🩷 Embrace freedom from poverty as an integral part of salvation.

🩷 See clearly that money isn’t evil—heart issues are.

🩷 Desire to be one whose financial resources God can use so that He can accomplish His purposes in the earth.

God’s desire is for His children to live in abundance. When our hearts align with God’s Word, our perspective on provision changes—and we become vessels He can use for His Kingdom.

If you have ever desired to go deeper in faith, enjoy authentic God-centered community, or a space where biblical wisdom for everyday life is the norm, this is the place for you.

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Until next time...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Why do we celebrate the wealth of the world but vilify the prosperity of Christians? Would you think well of a rich father who didn't lavish his children with his wealth? Does financial lack look like the abundance of heaven? Let's talk about it. Welcome to the Your God Sister Podcast, where we address life's challenges with biblical answers while enjoying our time together. A couple of constants here are what the Bible says and what the Lord speaks to our hearts by the Holy Spirit. My name is Joy Cooper. I am an associate pastor, I am a youth minister, and through the years I've had the opportunity to mentor young ladies. But on this podcast, I'm here with you. So let's get into it. We have been talking about some of the benefits we have in Christ. Last week was so good. We learned about the benefit of access, access to the Father God that we've been given through Christ. If you haven't listened to episode seven, I encourage you to go back and catch up. We'll be here when you get back. Again, it was so good. Today we are going to discuss the benefit of prosperity. In Christ, we are prosperous. To speak of prosperity, money, and wealth tend to put people on one side of the fence or the other. Usually there is no middle ground. We often find people pick a ditch and jump in. The best place to be is wherever the Bible says we should be. God's word is our safety. We should avoid the traditions of men, flawed interpretations of the Bible, and even personal experience. God's word is truth no matter what. So let's explore what the Bible says about prosperity, wealth, and money. Let's start in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy 8 18. It says in the Amplified Classic Edition, but you shall earnestly remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant, which he swore to your fathers as it is this day. God providing us the power to get wealth is a fulfillment of his side of a covenant with his people. The devil has tricked many Christians into rejecting the prosperity the Father wishes to lavish on his children. And I'm talking lavish. We've got to get out of this wrong way of thinking. Why would God give us the power to get something that he didn't want us to have? It's not even logical. Last week we talked about our access to the Father being restored. There is also restoration of the lifestyle Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden. What I'm about to share is an amazing revelation of God's word. It's like this wonderful secret in plain view. So let's explore the Garden of Eden a bit. In the New King James Version, Genesis 2, 10 through 14 says, Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon, it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Bedelium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It is the one which goes around the whole land of Kush. The name of the third river is Hedekal. It is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. So here we see a lush environment where there's high quality gold and beautiful gemstones. But get what the Lord allowed me to see. If you study these verses deeper, you see something so amazing. So the Bible was not written in English. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. I use an online Bible resource to help me understand words in the language they were written. I will leave a link to the online resource I use called the Strong's Concordance. But in looking at the four rivers, we can see how thoughtful our Father is to us. He surrounded Adam and Eve with the very best. It said that it was good gold, high quality gold, talks about these rivers, how lush and beautiful everything is. So let's look at the meanings of each river's name. Get ready for this. This is so exciting. So Paishon means increase. Gihon means bursting forth. Hedekle means rapid. Euphrates means fruitfulness. So from this we see that God surrounded Adam and Eve with increase, bursting forth with rapid fruitfulness. Oh my goodness. Oh, this is so good. See, when you study the Bible and go beyond the surface, when you go deeper, it's so exciting and so full of life and so full of God's character. Oh, you can't tell me God doesn't want me to prosper. This is how he set Adam and Eve up from the very beginning. And Jesus restored us to God's original intent. Yes, and amen to that. Oh my goodness. In the same way, Jesus got our access to God back through his blood, he also got our wealth back. Let's look at what Jesus has done. Listen to 2 Corinthians 8, 9 in the Passion Translation. It says, For you have experienced the extravagant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was infinitely rich, he impoverished himself for our sake, so that by his poverty we become rich beyond measure. Let me make this very clear. Jesus' poverty was only momentary while he was on the cross. He was the perfect sacrifice for us. He took all the bad in one moment on the cross. He defeated it all when he rose from the dead. He did it all so we would not have to endure any, any of what hell is pushing. Thank you, Jesus. What a gift. I will not reject that gift. I can't speak for you, but for me, I will not reject that gift. It is a trick of the devil to make Christians think wealth is evil. Wealth is straight up, biblically proven, part of our salvation package. People use the term prosperity gospel. There is no such thing. The gospel of Jesus Christ does, however, include prosperity. But it also includes health, protection, deliverance, preservation. I'm not willing to do without any of what the blood of Jesus has made available to me. I'll not leave any of it on the table. The cost for my freedom was too precious. So would it be safe to say an encounter with Jesus should leave you different than you were before you encountered him? Okay, so let's look at what Jesus said in Luke 4, 18. And I'm going to read the Amplified Classic Edition. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me, the anointed one, the Messiah, to preach the good news, the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed, who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity. So let's ask ourselves this: what would the good news to the poor sound like? I'd venture to say, good news to every poor person is you don't have to be poor anymore. That's what Jesus was anointed to do. He delivered us from poverty. Lack is not our Father God's nature. Lack is actually the nature of the devil. So let's expose more tricks of the devil. Don't vilify wealth. Yes, someone with money may be evil, but it's not the money that makes them evil. A wrong heart that is overtaken by money is the problem. The rich young ruler in the Bible is a really good example of this. So let's look at it. Matthew 19, 20 through 23, and I'll read the New King James Version. The man said to him, All these things I have kept from my youth, what do I still lack? Jesus said to him, If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. So let me just say this right here. This has been a very misunderstood passage of scripture. Jesus is not saying that wealth is bad, that wealth is evil. If you read further, the disciples say, Well, how can anybody be saved? It's almost to say, we all got money. How can we be saved then? How can this be? The issue is not the money in this verse. The issue is that this man's riches had a hold on him, and he would not let Jesus have a hold on him. We should be able to have serious wealth that God gets to tell us what to do with. If he said, give it all away tomorrow, we should do that so he could do what he desires to do. And it's never what he's desiring to do to make us poor. We talked about this one time before, I don't know what episode, but we were saying what he is wanting to get to you is more than what he's asking for. So if he's asking for your money, he's trying to get you something way more than what you're giving away. So we have to understand this. This is not money, is the issue. This is the heart, is the issue. That man's money meant more to him than what Jesus was asking. There's a little meme out. I'm sure you've seen it before. There's a little girl, and she's got this little teddy bear, and Jesus is asking for it. And she's like, uh-uh, it's my teddy bear. No. And Jesus is holding this life-size bear behind his back, but she is so um attached to this little tiny bear. Well, it's the same thing with our money. Are we attached to the money or are we attached to him? But again, the issue is not wealth and riches, the issue is your heart. So we got to understand God's word. We can't apply our own, you know, way of thinking to it. We can't apply what Mama and Nim thought about it. We can't do that. We have to take God's word before him and ask him to speak to us about it. So we clearly know from what we saw in the Garden of Eden and this scripture, there's no way that Jesus could be vilifying wealth. The issue was the heart. Okay. So now let's look at, let's look at Corinthians 9 8. Let's read the Amplified Classic Edition. 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. Yeah, let's talk about this a little bit. Let's talk about it. Ooh, let's talk about it. Did you ever think God may need you to have lots of money? Has that ever crossed your mind? I think sometimes we vilify money because we think about it as being greedy because we're only thinking this money is for the person. Money in the hands of a Christian is for God. It's for his use. And this the thing, don't get tripped up. I could be doing God's will, I could be um giving wherever he tells me to give and have on a nice pair of shoes. That is not that is not sin. That is not wrong. I represent God. Okay, so I should look a certain way, I should have certain things because God is my father. My daddy ain't broke. God is not broke. When you read the word, it talks about what he's surrounded in. The beauty. If you read like the Old Testament and Chronicles, it talks about um the temple. Oh my gosh. Like some of us, the way we think about money, would be like, oh my gosh, that is so gaudy. There is gold everywhere. I mean, every wonderful high-quality thing that you could imagine, that's what God surrounds Himself with. So could we just take off the blinders here? Could we see? No, I need to have what Jesus provided so I could do what the Father needs done. That is the use. And I think sometimes when we don't think that way, you know, we say things like, Well, I don't need all that. It's not about you. It's really not. Like the bigger picture here is God needs me to have this so I could do what he needs me to do in the earth. I often think about this, and you know, I pray that one day, one day very soon, that I'll be able to do something like this. I have often thought, what would it be like if there's a uh a new pastor somewhere? He's in a place where God sent him and he needs a church building. I mean, what would it be like for my husband and I to write a check, one check, to build a whole church with everything needed inside, and then not be broke after. Yeah. Pause and think on that. Like, what would that be like? That's why God needs us to have money. That's why, see, I think in the um the previous scripture we read in Luke, Jesus was locating this man. He had money, but was this man willing to do with it whatever Jesus needed to be done with it? That was the issue. It was the heart, it was not the money. So I, you, the body of Christ, Christians, we should be working on our hearts so that the Lord can trust us with the money that he wants us to have, so we could do what he needs us to do. So it's a mind shift. So think about it. If my heart is such that I'm like, I would totally write one check and build a whole church. Well, if enough Christians start thinking that way, why do you think that the devil would have to get into this wealth and prosperity uh topic and just jack everything up and make us think wrong and make us believe wrong? Because money in the hands of somebody who can be told what to do by the father is dangerous to him. Woo! Think about that. But Christians who are vilifying wealth think prosperity is of the devil, down talking the very blessing that God provided. That's right up his alley. That is right up the devil's alley. No longer should we be deceived. Don't be deceived. Believe God for the wealth that he has provided. Believe God, there's no cap. The issue is where is your heart? That's why the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. It's a heart issue, it's not a money issue. This is so good. This is so, so, so good. And I know this might this might rattle your chain, it might even make you upset, but I didn't say nothing that I couldn't back with God's word. This is God's word. And so either you want to um welcome his correction or you want to resist it. We always we always have a choice. God always gives us a choice. He tells us the truth, and then he says, now you choose whether you want the truth or you want something else. I say we want the truth. I say that we will start to believe God and take in hand what he has provided for us so we could do what he needs us to do here in the earth. I mean, what would it be like to buy up places that are doing devil work? What would it be like to buy the liquor store, knock it down and build something for God? What would it be like to buy the strip joint, knock it down and build something for the Lord for his use? We gotta stop thinking small. We have to think big for God because he's big, he's creative, he's innovative, and we're made in his image. So pause and think on these things until next time. Thank you for joining me today. This was a great topic to cover from the pages of God's Word. God lavishes us with good things. That includes money. If you'd like to have a list of the scriptures from today's episode, remember to visit the listener hub at www.yourgodsisterpodcast.com. I am so excited for our next episode. I love the journey we're on together. We will continue our discussion on the benefits we have in Christ. He has provided so many wonderful gifts for us. We'll talk soon, but until next time, know what the Bible says and treasure what the Lord speaks to your heart.