On the Path of Winners By Bayo Ogunmupe First Key to your abundance

On the Path of Winners

By Bayo Ogunmupe

First Key to your abundance

THE first key to your abundance is the process of exchange in your life. This means as you sow so shall you reap. This also means everything in your life involves a trade-off. In the giving of abundance, it is not for you and me to decide how much is too much. That is God’s business, not ours.

  You must be aware that, a father isn’t a father just because he can sire a child. No. He must be able to provide and protect. So is it with God. Jehovah says: “I am your father and am responsible for you. I have a plan for you.” Which is why! I tell you on the authority of heaven that Yahweh will chart the course for His abundance to be released unto your life. God wants you in abundance more than you want to be there. IF you have a need, that is the proof that the supply has already been given by God. Jehovah said that through Jeremiah who declared that He wants you to prosper and not to fail. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil,” Jeremiah 29:11.

  Here is how God’s process of exchange works. Before you can receive what is in God’s hand, you first have to unclench your fist and offer the Lord what is in your hand. There are some people who have to be pulled from the world kicking and screaming. They can’t stand the thought of giving up their personal possessions and material resources. The prospect of a life of abundance eludes them, because they are tied to their worldly possessions.

  In order to experience abundance, our attitudes have to change. Righteousness is what God does with us. Holiness is what we do. God deals with our character, we deal with our conduct. Jehovah expects us to subdue our minds and emotions. Ultimately, glorification takes place in our new mental domain where every need – financial and spiritual is met. That was why Jesus urged us to pray for Jehovah’s will to be done “in earth as it is in heaven,” Matt 6:10. Heaven’s resources dwell in earthen vessels and what is in heaven now and prepared for us in the future, can be part of our daily life. As believers, it is our birthright to experience heaven’s blessings here on earth. There is no limit to God’s abundance. Economists talk of a new world order, when you move into Jehovah’s faithful realm, you can have unlimited abundance. You are no longer bound by the world’s restrictions. But if God is willing to give everything He has, He expects us to do the same.

  Speaking about Abraham’s descendants, God said: “I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed,” Gen. 12:3. Sadly, I see people everywhere who are the mirror image of Esau. They are ruled by their appetites and emotions. They sell their souls for a bowl of soup and are destined for lives of continual hunger. The Bible said of Esau: “For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears,” Heb 12: 17. Think twice before you make the wrong choice. The covenant blessing is our birthright as children of God. Never let it go. It holds the promise of God’s continual supply. Abundance is the reward for a faithful soul. To qualify for abundance you must transform your soul thus. Your soul has three areas: Your mind, your will and your emotions. Transform your soul by one, changing your mind through a positive mental attitude which gives you a new view of your resources. As a child of provision, “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” Phil. 2:5.

  Two, submit your will to God. Two of the greatest barriers to blessing are stubbornness and conceit. Those who believe they have all the answers, seldom leave much room for God. “Submit yourselves therefore to God,” James 4:7.

  Three, control your emotions. When self-discipline is combined with abundance, the results can be phenomenal. Thus, you should know that you cannot have everything you want when you want it. You must know that it is not money but “the love of money,” that is the “root of all evil,” 1 Timothy 6:10. Sex is not sin if inside the covenant of marriage. When we seek to fulfill a desire even a Godly desire, in a way not prescribed in law, we are guilty of iniquity. So, let God’s line of authority to totally govern your life, then you will experience abundance. You will be contented by what you own.

  Our champion today is Michael Spence, the winner of 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics and the current chairman of Hoover Commission on Growth and Development. He was Philip Knight Professor of Economics and dean of the Stanford Business School after teaching economics as professor at Stanford between 1973 and 1975. From 1975 to 1990, he was professor of economics and business administration at Harvard University. As professor, he was awarded Kenneth Galbraith Prize for excellence in teaching in 1978 and John Bates Clark medal in 1981 for a significant contribution for economic thought and knowledge.

  From 1984 to 1990, Spence was dean of Harvard College, and also overseeing the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Among his many honours, Spence was fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, winning the David Wells Prize for outstanding doctoral dissertation at Harvard University in 1972. His latest book is The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World. He is an authority on economic growth and development in developing countries. He is one we can turn to for the correct diagnosis of our economic ills as a nation besieged by Haramite terror.