Success sometimes can get into one's head and if care is not taken, you begin to take things for granted. Success is good, but if care is not taken the power and confidence it gives can intoxicate a person to the level where he forgets who he was and the principles he applied and lived by before realizing success. This was my case. I obeyed and applied some biblical rules of prosperity, but when I had grown in success in life and business to a level, I let my guard down and allowed Satan and my self-centered ambitions to dominate my business territory to influence my motives and actions into breaking the covenant I have with God. The result was grave: I FELL INTO POVERTY AGAIN! My family and myself experienced the sorest of financial famine.
My business was booming - it was the envy of many. New opportunities to grow, expand and make more money opened to us. The future was bright and the present was very good. Doors were opening for us everywhere - God was blessing us and we were doing well. Projects and contracts lined up and they all needed funds to be executed.
In all the splendor of success, a day came when I allowed Satan and pride to suggest to me that I could borrow my tithe and seeds for a particular project. The spirit of pride deceived me to thinking that I could easily give back the tithe and the seed since business was good and I was expanding and growing rapidly. I yielded to this deceit and that was when I used my own hands to dig the pit of poverty and I literally pushed myself, my entire family and business into it. My fall was not immediate and financial drain was not immediate.
When I borrowed my tithe and seed to execute a project, I noticed that the tithe and seed I had borrowed was not enough. I kept on borrowing and borrowing and it wasn't still enough. This lingered for a very long time until there was no income coming into the company again. My business was slow and the finances were draining as quickly as I made them. My business after a while went down to ‘zero’. I lost my companies office complex and all my clients were gone because there was nothing left. The money inflow ceased. I couldn't pay my bills and my children were constantly becoming sick and hospitalized. Problems arose here and there. Tension arose in my home because I couldn't pay my bills as I used to do and my wife became increasingly worried. We would plan and at the end of it all nothing worked. I prayed for help – no help came. I asked help of men – no help came.
There was no month at that time we didn't visit the hospital because of my children. My wife also developed a critical case of hip problem which almost crippled her. Sickness also took a spike at me. I would often be very dizzy almost fainting. I was also in and out of hospitals. My blood pressure was always on a high side. My family’s medical condition kept on deteriorating. The little income we had through my wife’s job was over stretched. We were really at ground zero financially. There was a visible growing tension between me and my wife due to lack of funds to pay our bills and keep our family going. She was at the breaking point because she was under severe financial strain to use the little resources she had to keep the family going. I fought back to rise again, but this time with my own strength and wisdom, and each time I tried I failed woefully and crashed landed severely all the time.
To survive, I started selling some of my properties, but still nothing worked. Soon afterwards, I lost my position as the head and provider of my family. I couldn't provide for my family or make any form of financial decision. My wife made all the decisions, paid the house rent, children school fees, medical bills (including mine) and provided for the family upkeep. The issues of life and the deteriorating health of our child consumed us to the extent that we spent most time together fighting each other with regards to the overwhelming issues and problems at hand. I lived in poverty together with my family for over five years. The financial tension in my family made me and my wife grow older than our age. We were wrinkled, thin, and miserably poor and helpless. The glow that was in our lives when we had abundance disappeared. I finally resorted to begging others for money. I began to beg family members, friends, and even people I met for the first time for help. Many disappointed me and those who did manage to help couldn’t do much. I noticed that whatever they gave me was never enough. Nothing was ever enough and this was when I realized that the demon called devourer was at work in my life and family. All this while (over five years of suffering under the yoke of poverty) I never knew what the cause of my problem was. The devil used the issues of life and the cares of this world that troubled me and my family to blind me from the reality of what must have caused my fall into poverty again.
The frustration in my life grew to dangerous proportions and I needed a way out immediately. Then came a day, I was all alone at home and decided to fast and pray. During my communion session with God, I asked Him questions that were burning in my heart because I was desperate to get out of the pit of poverty. I asked Him to show me what I did wrong that brought this state of poverty upon me and my family. In answer to my question, God impressed the answer upon my heart – ‘You stopped obeying the laws of prosperity and have stopped honouring Me.’ Immediately, for the first time in five years, I knew what the problem was. My problem was created and activated when I stopped giving my tithes and giving to help the needy. The answer was there all along but I couldn't see it because I was preoccupied with getting out of my problems my own way.
One of the areas men disobey God is in tithing.
Malachi 3:8-11 (NKJV)"Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ' In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation....”
I started robbing God when I stopped tithing and giving to the poor and needy around me. The result: the Devourer – also called the spirit of Satan found an opportunity to attack me and my family.
Financial benefits are not the only benefits of tithing. Sickness is a devourer, and it does this by destroying ones peace, comfort, joy, health, finances and life. For God to rebuke – stop – and destroy the devourer from working against us, He commands us to bring our tithe which is one-tenth of our income into His house. Tithing releases God Himself to work on our behalf and stands as our defense and protector against sicknesses and diseases and all the works of the devil.
Malachi 3:8-11 (NKJV)"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,’ Says the LORD of hosts, ‘ If I will not ….. REBUKE THE DEVOURER FOR YOUR SAKES ….’, Says the LORD of hosts”
Upon realization that I have gotten the answer, the Spirit of God took me back to how I started, what I suffered, how my change and my lifting came and how I fell again into poverty. I realized for the first time that I have caused my downfall. I repented and asked God to forgive me and committed myself not to make the same mistakes again, but to obey and follow His laws of prosperity. When my wife came back home, I shared what I have received from the Lord and asked her to make the same commitments with me. She said she was fed up with living the life of poverty and that she was willing to do anything to get out of that horrible life. We prayed, repented together and made fresh commitments to God to keep our vows and asked Him to trust us. Afterwards, my wife and I organized a vigil – just two of us. We fasted that day, prayed and rebuked the devil from oppressing us, our family, children, business and finances.
Three weeks after myself and my wife made a fresh commitment to God, I felt impressed in my heart to call someone about giving me the opportunity to be one of the registered contractors in their company. He said he could not help because their company was almost going bankrupt, but he referred me to someone else who could help. When I got in touch with the person, she agreed to help me. Our company was registered and the next month we started receiving orders to supply office equipment's and utilities. The jobs were small at first, but later on grew in value and it was constant. My business began to gain speed again and financial hardship and sickness faded away completely from my family.
I like being very open and truthful about the situation of things at all time. The truth is, because we were not used to giving our tithes as we were used to doing before, it was very difficult for us to get into the act afresh. We struggled. The devil came with the intention to make us consider the size of our tithe and seed and tried to suggest to us that it is a waste and that it was too much. He would line up and itemize the list of items our tithe could buy or pay for. He even suggested to us not to start giving our tithe until we have made some certain amount of money and saved up some money up to a level. This was a battle between worldly reasoning and divine instructions from God. We struggled, but at the end we always did what God Had commanded us to do and never failed despite the temptation not to. We soon overcame that constant temptation and began deriving joy and fulfillment in giving our tithe and giving to missionary projects and the needy around us. As we obeyed God’s Word we got more jobs and our finances began to increase and multiply.
"THERE IS NO CAUSELESS CURSE"
Proverbs 26:2"As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come."
God does not put curses on his children. Our disobedience to His Word and instructions are what brings us under the evil manipulative power of the curse. No affliction or curse is causeless. As far as God's salvation is concerned, the choices we make determines whether we enjoy the full benefits of the redemptive work of Christ or not.
To disobey is a choice; to obey is also a choice. But obedience is better - it saves you from needless pain.
I Samuel 15:22"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."
There are many people out there who are suffering what we suffered and still don’t have any clue as to what is happening and how to get out of the horrible state of poverty. It is as though their finances and businesses are under spiritual lock and key. The steps we took to come out of poverty can be applied by anyone and the results are guaranteed.
I have written an Eleven Volume book titled: Zero is where Everything Starts. The 11-Volume series is designed to help you build a preferred and a sustainable future. I highly recommend that you get a copy of each series and learn what you must do to make a preferred and sustainable mark of success in life. Find below a list of all the 11-Volumes. God bless you!
JUST TO HELP YOU....
I have written an Eleven Volume book titled: Zero is where Everything Starts. The 11-Volume series is designed to help you build a preferred and a sustainable future. I highly recommend that you get a copy of each series and learn what you must do to make a preferred and sustainable mark of success in life. Find below a list of all the 11-Volumes. God bless you!
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