Torrents of Blessing!

Why are you poor?

If you have financial problems and continually struggling to make end meet, it means that you have not convinced yourself that you will always have plenty and some to spare.

Before you protest to this with religious indignation, consider the scripture;

2 Corinthians 9:8 (Amplified Bible) “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].”

So whatever opinion we may hold about poverty stricken circumstances, it is God’s opinion that counts.

God is able to and wants to, but will He actually do it for you?

To back up the first scripture, here is another;

Philippians 4:19 “And my God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” 
Ok, so that is what the Bible says God will do. So tell me, why has this not been your experience? Is God lying? Of course not!  The problem must therefore be with us.”Oh no Brother, you can’t say that, I am a good person and not doing anything wrong”, I hear someone say. Again, the answer is found within the hallowed pages of the good Book. You are getting what you are expecting to get.

Matthew 9:29 “Then He (Jesus) touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith and trust and reliance [on the power invested in Me] be it done to you;”

So, if we do not expect to be living that wonderful and blessed life, then it will not be that way for us. That is why the first scripture says that God is able. He is willing and able but it will only happen if we expect it to happen.

Because faith is being assured that what you are hoping for will actually happen (Hebrews 11), you must find a way of convincing yourself that it will be so. You must really expect things to happen before they will.

A wonderful truth is that your spirit experiences the pictures that are produced in your imagination by your thoughts as the truth.

The power of your thoughts!

1 John 3:15 “Anyone who hates his brother [in Christ] is [at heart] a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding within him.”

 Jesus is saying that thoughts and feelings of hatred make you a murder! Again, somewhere else in the Bible He explains that lustful thoughts are no different than actual adultery. 

Such is the powerful reality in the spirit world of the nature of your thoughts!

How to convince yourself.

The apostle Paul paints a wonderful word picture for us. Why not spend time viewing, admiring, meditating on, and appreciating the picture as though he is describing the life that you should be living. It was written just for you, for me and for all who would believe it?

Keeping the image of the waterfall in mind, imagine that these are pouring into your life right now.

1.            God is liberally supplying my every need right now!

2.            Think of all the needs that you feel you have right now. Consider them one by one.

3.            See God fulfilling each and every need to the full!

4.            Picture yourself in the state of having had your every need fulfilled.

5.            Imagine giving liberally to others who are less fortunate while your cup keeps on running over!

Things start happening and breaking loose in the unseen realms as you change the mindsets that you have been so accustomed to.  As someone once said, “To be successful outside you first have to be successful inside.” The same goes for health, relationships, career and finances. As within, so without.

Setting new limits.

God has no limits, and neither have you. We need no longer lead limited lives. We do only because our thoughts and expectations set those limits!  How about raising our expectations by setting new limits?

So many scriptures encourage us to do just that.

There is a torrent of blessings that God is ready to pour into your life. 

You determine the volume of the torrent by the size of your expectations.  

Again I ask the question, “Why are you poor?”

Now I trust, you have an answer!

If you don't like it, change it!

I believe that Jacob deserved the years of hard labor he got after what he did to his elder brother Esau. Read the story in Genesis 27 to 30. After tricking Esau out of his blessing from their father Isaac, Jacob fled for his life. Esau had a score to settle with him and decided to kill him. Rebekah his mother, who was in on the plot with Jacob helped him escape to his uncle Laban who lived some distance away.

Jacob gets scammed!

There in a foreign land, Jacob fell in love with Laban’s beautiful daughter Rachel. Laban makes a deal with him that he can have Rachel if he works seven years for her by tending his sheep and goats. Well, when the years of labor were over he discoverd to his horror on his wedding night that the veiled woman he married was not the lovely Rachel but her older sister Leah!

Again, Laban promised Jacob the hand of Rachel for seven more years of labor. The time passed and finally, perhaps because Laban had no other daughters to deceive him with Jacob marries Rachel, the girl of his dreams!

See the operation of God’s golden rule in the story. Jacob deceived Esau but was in turn deceived by Laban. Now for the climax to the story, it was of course Laban’s turn to get deceived and would you believe it, it happened by supernatural means!

Hard work will only take you so far.

Jacob had learnt a hard lesson, one that we all need to learn. Hard work will only take you so far! Having worked for many years for someone else, and getting ripped off, Jacob sorely wanted to stop working for someone else and start his own farming business. He approached his uncle with a plan and said to him, “I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them. Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen."

Laban agreed to Jacobs request but tried to deceive him yet again. That same day the Bible tells us, he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats and all the dark-colored lambs, and put a three-day journey between them and Jacob so he could not find them!

He left Jacob with white sheen and goats. What a swindle!

Let your imagination do the work!

Jacob did not like what he saw, white sheep goats everywhere.Still, Jacob did not despair but wized-up. He didn't like and decided to change it. I believe that at that point in his life God gave him a revelation of how to create a future by supernatural means.  This is what he did. Jacob took fresh-cut branches and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 

Thus he made separate flocks for himself. In this way we read that Jacob grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and maidservants and menservants, and camels and donkeys.

The striped branches and the striped and spotted shadows that fell on the animals helped Jacob to imagine that all the offspring that were born to the animals that were mating in front of them would turn out striped and spotted. Was there a special power in the branches? Absolutely not. The power for supernatural change lay in  his power to imagination. This is God's gift for change to everyone, regardless of religion.

Now its your turn!

Go ahead, think of the end result you want in your life. Perhaps you want to marry the ideal mate, perhaps create  the ideal career. If one of the fathers of our faith was shown how to do it, then you are allowed to do it. Create an image of what you desire to happen. Then, imagine it happening. Contemplate the end result and it will start to happen.  It took Jacob time to get there. Be patient and persist in spending time actually envisioning the desired end result. If you don’t give up, it will happen!

Picture This!

In the Bible, God gives a prophet this instruction.  “Write what you see. Write it (the vision) out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time” Habakkuk 2: 2-3 (The Message) Another translation says that the vision hastens to the end fulfillment. God showed the prophet the end result before it even started happening.

Are your dreams important to God?


We should carefully treat our desires and dreams in the same way. Our hearts desires are put there by God. The fulfillment of those desires is therefore His will for us.
I gained the impression when growing up in a Calvinist church that my talents and dreams were unimportant to God. The joy of life was somehow frowned upon by the church fathers. Dancing was forbidden. It was as though simple pleasures like that or a glass of wine with a good meal or a cold beer on a hot day would somehow lead to a debauched life style. It took me years to accept that my talents and gifts were there to be a blessing to myself and to others. In the same way I believe that the dreams of my heart, be it to have a successful business, fulfilling relationships, to travel and experience the richness of other cultures or to be healthy and whole are there as blessings from God and up to me to fulfill without guilt or shame.

Is it all about Jesus?

You may know the beautiful song and the words by Michael W. Smith, "It IS all about YOU......I'm sorry that I made it about ANYTHING else! It is a beautiful worship song but could again leave you with a sense of guilt that if you dared to want anything for yourself. To put the words of the song in in perspective, yes indeed, it is all about Jesus and all that He requires of us. Too often have I seen the disappointment and resignation on a person’s face when something that they had hoped for did not materialize and even heard the words, “It’s not about what I want Brother, It’s all about Jesus.”

He requires us to have our minds transformed by the Word. For Him, it is all about us! We read that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, interceding day and night. Why would He be praying for us who are already saved? I believe he prays for the lost to be saved and for the saved to fulfill their destiny. God is continually creating opportunities for us to be raised up to our full potential according to the desires of our hearts.

Are your thoughts killing your dreams?

In a following article I will deal with the issue of core beliefs and how they may be keeping your dreams from being fulfilled. Right now, let me return to the issue of pictures.

Contemplate the end result.

The intention or purpose of a vision is to put in words the outcome of the desired event. As described in my previous article, “How to make your dreams come true”, God places desires in our hearts and then gives us the tools to see them realized. He gave the prophet Habakkuk a tool to enable him to see the end result manifested. One of the steps in this process as we have seen is to give maximum time, attention and focus to thinking about the situation or item that we are desiring and asking God for. Do not focus on how it will happen, that is up to God and as we know His ways are not our ways. Just describe the desired end result in words or in a picture. It is God’s task to bring it about. 

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Even better than words, describe what you want in picture form. “The adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" refers to the idea that complex stories can be described with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. It also aptly characterizes the goals of visualization where large amounts of data must be absorbed quickly.” (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

See it on the run.

God tells Habakkuk to write it in big letters so he can read it on the run! Think of a printing out a few cards with the words that describe your desire in the present tense as though it had already happened. Better yet, print a few cards with a picture that symbolizes to you what it is you have asked God for. Place them where you can see them often, on an the mirror, one at your desk, one in the car, refrigerator, etc.

Don’t strive to get!

This Scriptures clearly tells us not to strive to get, but to delight ourselves in God. Rather than labor and strive to get we should instead ask, and believing by picturing that we already have what we desire to have and need to live a complete life. This goes for heath, wealth, or anything else. “Oh no, Brother, we are not allowed to ask for wealth, I hear someone say”. Well, the fact is that I have never heard anyone complain when they receive a $1000 check, free and gratis”!

Just imagine that you already have it! And as God told Habakkuk, it will come right on time!

How To Make Your Dreams Come True

Receiving from people

Have you ever received just what you wanted as a Christmas or birthday gift from a loved one who first asked what you wanted and then went out and got it for you? Of course you have. You trusted that when you were asked, that you would be getting it. You were expecting it to happen, you envisioned yourself getting the gift in your mind’s eye and on the morning of the big day there it was, just what you wanted right there in your hands!

Let us analyze the process.

a.   You defined what you wanted.

b.   You asked for it.

c.   You expected to receive it.

d.   Someone got it for you.

Receiving from God

The Bible teaches us the same simple and easy four-step process to help us have our dreams come true and yet so few follow through correctly.

When it comes to asking something from God we think that it is somehow different with Him. We may think that we are asking for too much. If fact, God can supply far more than any friend or loved one can. He owns everything and can do anything. He simply brings it to you from His vast store house.

Those of us who believe that there is a God know that He can do anything, even things that seem impossible to the logical mind. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Genesis 18:14. “With God, all things are possible.” Matthew 18:26.

It’s up to you!

God wants you to do the impossible too. Why else would the scriptures say, “If you have faith…nothing shall be impossible you.” Matthew 17:20

God created you to do impossible things or rather, what seems impossible to the logical mind. People are only average because they are not aware of this information or following through with it. This is a serious issue because without a way out of difficult circumstances, most everyone is condemned to lead lives of “quiet desperation” as Henry Thoreau put it. The key to a changed life is to change your thoughts.

Change what you think about.

We are what we think about. A well-known scripture reads,

“As he (a man) thinks in his heart, so is he.” Proverbs 23:7

Thoughts of the heart may be understood as thoughts that are habitually thought and have sunk down to the deeper level, what psychologists call the subconscious mind. These thoughts form attitudes that color our outlook on life.

Matthew 9:29
Then he touched their eyes and said, "According to your faith will it be done to you"

The condition of your life depends on your faith or what you believe. If you expect bad things, bad things will happen. If you expect good things the good things will.

Your thoughts create your future!

I sincerely believe this to be true. Your habitual thoughts create your beliefs, attitudes and expectations, which in turn cause the results you experience in your life. How often do we hear Christians say that God allowed something to happen to them. According to the scriptures, people allow things to happen because of deep-seated thoughts or expectations. The Bible teaches that we were made in the image and likeness of God. This does not refer to what we look like. It refers to the fact that we have God’s attributes. You may say this is presumptuous and yet this is what the good Book says. The relevant attribute I would like to touch on is God’s creative ability. God conceived by thinking, believing and speaking all things into existence. The simple truth is that we can do the same. A desire that is constantly thought of and imaged as already existing will eventually materialize. This is the method followed by Pastor Paul Yonggi Cho in getting his first bicycle and office table for ministry and going on to building the world’s biggest church. Read his thought provoking book, “The Fourth Dimension.”

These truths have formed the basis of many self-help books and philosophies. Nowhere has the power of a man’s thoughts been better explained than in a book written in 1907 by James Allen and called, “As a Man Thinketh.” You can download a free audio book in the mp3 format from the website http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Self-Development/Mind-and-Body/As-a-Man-Thinketh/15183

This book is well worth reading or listening to. It stresses the truth of the scripture in the lives of all of us. If we intend getting different results in our lives, we need to change what we are thinking. What we habitually think will become what we believe.

The recipe to make your dreams come true.

So let’s get back now to the simple four-step process. Jesus said these profound words to His disciples,

Mark 11:24: “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and you shall have it.” We are here instructed to follow the following procedure:

1. Define what you want

2. Ask for it in prayer

3. Believe you have received it

4. You will have it!

Step-1. Define what you want.

Identify what you desire to have or experience.

Jesus pretty much gives you a blank check here by saying, “whatever you desire.” You first job is to identify what you want. For most people this step will be quite easy. To help you in the process, let s break up the word whatever into the main categories that impact our lives.

a.   God and spiritual life

b.   Career

c.   Finances

d.   Relationships

e.   Health

Write down your desires under each heading. Describe the situation that you want. Don’t ask for too little, God is not poor and nothing is impossible to him. He wants you to dream big!

Ephesians 3:20
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Of course as the scriptures elsewhere says you need to ask according to His will. As a good Father He will obviously not give you drugs if you have an addiction problem. The idea is that what you desire should improve the quality of your life so that you are able to achieve your destiny. It makes no difference to God if you want a Mercedes or a beat up truck. He does not care. It is your choice as long as your right standing with God is not compromised. You will get what you ask for, provided you can believe that you have received it. Don’t despair, read on.

To those of you who do not know what kind of work they would like to do, it helps to first identify what kind of a job or boss that you don’t want. Do the same under each heading.

Step-2. Ask for it in Prayer.

The Bible is all about having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Ask by simply going to God boldly and requesting to receive the situation or item you desire. You only need to ask Him once. He gives it to you right away but it is still in spiritual form or substance. Say you have asked for a car. Be specific as to what made, model and color you want. This will enable you to see the desired item in your mind’s eye.

James 4:2 “You do not have because you do not ask God”

What you can see and experience in your mind’s eye gives what you desire substance.”If you are requesting a relationship, describe the looks and attributes of a person that you desire to have a relationship with. Now be careful, make sure this is what you really want because you will have to live with what you get.

Step-3. Believe you have received it.

Many “believers” ask and ask but somehow never receive.

Note that the scripture reads, “believe you have received it.” The words are in the past tense, in other words Jesus is saying you must believe that it has already happened. This means that in some other realm, other than the one where we can see, hear and touch, the situation or item already exists as yours. The situation or item already has substance, but not in the form that can be perceived by the senses.

Right here is where most people will give up by thinking, “How can I get myself to believe that I have something when I don’t?” Doubting will bring you nothing. When you keep thinking that you don’t have something you will not get it.

James 1:6-8
“But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

I like a saying I read about recently, “The poorest of all men is not the man without any money but the man without belief and faith.”

You see, there are a seen reality and an unseen one, a reality that cannot be seen or touched. Once this is understood and accepted, it makes the believing process much easier. From the following verse, we learn that all that we can see was created from something that is not visible.

Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

The simple truth is that our heart or spirit believes to be true that which we contemplate. The more we think about and feel that we have the desired end result, the more our spirits we will believe it to be true and the quicker it will manifest or materialize. Conversely, the more we think about, speak about and feel about what we don’t have, or how hard life is etc., the more our present situation will be perpetuated. Spend time giving attention to and focusing on thinking and feeling that you already have the desired end result. 
Mark 11:23 "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” Doubt is again connected to deep seated thoughts, or thoughts of the heart. Continually seeing the desired end result in your mind’s eye and confessing that you already have it, will gradually unseat the doubt and replace it with faith or belief and expectation!

Step-4. You will have it!

This is the final and perhaps the most important step. Just allow what you desire and have asked for to come to you. By asking for it and seeing it your mind’s eye as yours, it has already taken on substance.

Every time you contemplate see the desired end result, it takes on substance or faith.
Hebrews 11:1

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen..”

The more you envision the desired end result, the more substance it takes on and the quicker it will materialize and the sooner you will have it.

This is a serious business. If you seriously want to change your life, you have to set aside time to do this.

Be sure not to think of reasons why it is not likely to happen. Don’t be double-minded. This will simply put a damper on the process.

When doubt comes, deals with it quickly and effectively by asking yourself the question “Is there anyone on the planet who has the item or situation I desire and have asked for?” There are sure to be thousands if not millions. Then ask, “Why should I not have the same thing?” Remember God is no respecter of persons. What he will do for another, He will also do for you.” He has no favorites.

God did not intend for us to struggle in life. I am not talking here about suffering for His Name's sake or when persecution comes to remove a promise of God from your heart as Jesus explains in the parable of the sower. He has given us these simple steps to receive an abundance of all we desire so that we can have lives that are blessed in every way and so that we can give to help others. Don’t struggle to get money, serve it or chase after it. Instead just allow it to come to you.

Psalm 23:6 “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life…”

Deuteronomy 28:2 "All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God…”

Note that blessings are dispatched to you and will overtake you. It could be argued that your belief is attracting them. New Age writers have made millions by selling their philosophies to the world. They talk about the universe giving you what you want through the “law of attraction.” In Hindu thinking, God and the universe is one and the same thing. Christians however believe that God created the universe and that they are separate. The principles work however you see the world. God lets it rain on all people until the day of reckoning. I personally prefer the simple and easy teachings of Jesus.

A Personal Testimony: 
Having gone through a stage of great lack in my life when developer clients stopped paying the many thousands of dollars they owed me and for work that my architectural design office of five people had been working on for months, I asked the Lord for me to experience His abundance in my life. I started gradually and then increasingly moving my thoughts from the anger and lack that I was experiencing to God’s riches and abundance.

I downloaded and created images from the internet that symbolized abundance and looked at them continually such as the ones of an abundant grain harvest below.

Week after week and month after month I visualized God’s abundance pouring into my life. Things got worse before they got better. The one developer who owed me the money suddenly died. The other one had lost most of what he had and could not honor his promissory note.

Eventually the land owner of the project on which we were working and who had not even been my direct client or owed me the money, stepped up and started paying me everything that others owed me! In addition, an amazing new project recently came my way that is showing all the potential of being an extremely exciting and lucrative success, truly a situation beyond my wildest dreams!

I started printing out a series of affirmations that relate to me having received the things that I have asked of God. Here are a few examples.

I now have about twenty of these cards on my Iphone and look at them and read them out aloud continually. I am changing my thinking, renewing my mind and my life is being transformed. The results are showing.

Psalm 20: 4, 5 “May he give you what you desire and make your plans succeed. Then you will shout for joy over your victory and celebrate your triumph by praising our God. May the Lord answer all your requests.”