God's Plan For Your Prosperity Order Printed Copy

Author: Morris Cerullo
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About the Book

"God's Plan for Your Prosperity" by Morris Cerullo is a practical guide to achieving financial success by following biblical principles. Cerullo shares wisdom and insights on faith, stewardship, giving, and other key factors that play a crucial role in achieving abundance. The book emphasizes the importance of aligning one's beliefs with God's plan in order to experience prosperity in all areas of life.

John Owen

John Owen’s life was incredibly difficult. Born in 1616 and dying in 1683, Owen lived through the deaths of his first wife and all of his children, several of whom died in very early childhood. He supported his last surviving daughter when her marriage broke down. He contributed to a political revolution, watched it fail, saw the monarchy restored and wreak a terrible revenge on republicans, and lived in and around London during the persecution that followed. For twenty years he would have seen the decapitated heads of his friends on display around the city. He died fearing that the dissenting churches had largely abandoned the doctrine of the Trinity and justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone; and, with Charles II about to be replaced by his openly Catholic brother James, believing that the English Reformation was almost over. Owen was one of the most published writers in the seventeenth century. He published around 8 million words. These writings included books on theology and spirituality, politics and economics, and ranged in length from the largest commentary ever published on the epistle to the Hebrews to a short Latin poem that has never been reprinted. For not all of Owen’s works have been kept in print. The most widely circulating nineteenth-century edition, most of which is published by the Banner of Truth, did not include Owen’s sermon manuscripts that are kept in various English libraries, nor the book for children that Owen published in 1652. Owen was one of England’s earliest children’s authors. The catechisms that Owen published (1645) outlined what he expected children in his congregation to know. These catechisms were published before the Westminster Assembly published its better-known examples. But Owen’s catechisms are in many ways simpler. The Primer (1652), which Owen prepared after the death of several of his children during the years of poor harvests and disease at the end of the 1640s, showed what Owen expected of an ideal Christian home. Its routine would be built around Bible reading and prayer, he believed, and his little book included sample prayers that children could learn to pray in mornings, evenings, and at meals. Owen argued that those who led church services should take account of the needs of children. Services that were too long, he believed, did no one any good. Adult believers should not need written prayers, he believed, and these should be banned from public worship. But children were different and needed all the help they could get. Owen enjoyed many warm friendships. His social network included many of the most famous writers in seventeenth-century England. Among his friends and rivals were John Milton, Andrew Marvell, John Bunyan, and Lucy Hutchinson. Owen fell out with Milton and became the subject of one of his sonnets. Owen helped Marvell publish one of his most controversial political pamphlets. He encouraged his publisher, Nathanial Ponder, to publish Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. And he appears to have supported Lucy Hutchinson during her move into London, when she attended and took notes upon his preaching and translated large parts of his Theologoumena Pantodapa (1661)—a translation of which has been published with the title Biblical Theology. Owen’s letters reveal his kindness and care as a pastor, especially to mothers grieving their children’s death. Owen was deeply political. He preached to Members of Parliament on the day after the execution of Charles I, and pinned his hopes for the reformation of church and society on their efforts to transform England into a protestant republic. During the 1650s, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, Owen served on important committees that sought to establish a religious foundation for the new regime. But he grew dismayed by the ways in which the Cromwell family, and the administration they led, seemed to turn away from godly values. In 1658, he worked with leading army officers to create a crisis that, he likely hoped, would call the regime back to its earlier ideals. It failed, and instead created the crisis that was resolved by the restoration of the monarchy, the return of Charles II, and the persecution of dissenters that followed. During the Restoration, Owen kept his head down, and, as persecution slackened in the later 1660s, published pamphlets that argued that dissenters were the economic lifeblood of the English nation. But he was chastened by his attempts at political intervention and came increasingly to realize that his focus should be on things eternal. Owen often changed his mind. As his developing attitudes to political intervention suggest, Owen committed himself to some beliefs and behaviors that he came to regret. In his early years, he changed his churchmanship from Presbyterianism to Congregationalism. He innovated as a Congregationalist, installing as a co-elder and preacher a man who would not be ordained for several years. He argued for the weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, though it is not clear that he ever persuaded any of his congregations to practice it. He thought carefully about the end times and came to believe that, in the latter days, a large number of Jewish people would be converted to Christianity and would return to live in the Promised Land. He dismissed a great deal of discussion about the millennium, but became convinced that the binding of Satan had yet to be achieved. Owen changed his mind because he kept on studying the Bible. Owen was biblical, through and through, and depended just as much on the Holy Spirit. He certainly believed in a learned ministry–after all, he had taught theology at Oxford and done his best to promote godliness within the student body. But he also trusted the Holy Spirit to guide ordinary Christians in small group Bible studies that did not need to be policed by a formally trained expert. Aside from his own Bible study, which advanced on the serious scholarship represented by the three thousand titles that were included in the catalog of his library published soon after his death, Owen encouraged church members to meet together to study Scripture in private. Owen trusted the Bible and the work of the Spirit after writing about both. Owen was not a philosophically-driven, rationalist theologian. His writing abounds in biblical citations. It is molded and contoured by biblical revelation. But he warned that Christians could approach their study of the Bible with absolutely no spiritual advantage to themselves. Christians who approached the study of the Bible without absolute dependence upon the Spirit who inspired and preserved it would gain no more benefit than Jewish readers did from their Scriptures, he argued. Christians should never choose between entire dependence upon the Bible and the Spirit. Owen believed that the goal of the Christian life was knowing God. Before Owen, no one had ever shown clearly how Christians relate to each person of the Trinity. Owen described the goal of the gospel as revealing the love of the Father, who sent the Son as a redeemer of his people, who would be indwelt, provided with gifts, and united together by the Spirit. Owen’s Communion with God is among his most celebrated achievements—and no wonder. It is the exhalation of his devotion to Father, Son, and Spirit, and the discovery of the limitless love of God. Owen is much easier to read than many people imagine. There is a mystique to Owen—a widespread feeling that his books are too difficult and best left to expert theologians. But Owen’s greatest books were written as sermons for an audience of teenagers. Publishers have begun to modernize Owen’s language in new editions of his works. Now more than ever, it’s time to pick up Owen and find his encouragement for the Christian life.

The Secret to Job Satisfaction

Many Christians work in jobs we would not necessarily choose for ourselves. I have before — maybe you are now. We did choose it at some point along the way, but just for less inspiring reasons. I have to pay my rent. I have an engineering degree. I only received one offer. We start jobs for money and a hundred other reasons. After a few years (or months, or even weeks), the satisfying security of the paycheck wears off, and we’re left wondering if we settled too soon and missed “the one.” We start dreaming about something different — different, more comfortable pay; different, more empowering boss; different, more fulfilling responsibilities. Our Vocational Anthems Meanwhile, the culture’s choir sings beautiful harmony to our melancholy melody: Find a job where you get to do what you love to do most. Follow your heart. Don’t settle for any job you’re not passionate about. The songs and slogans are sold by the millions, but for those willing to be honest about our work, at least three realities set in over time: That dream job simply does not exist for many. If it does, it either does not pay enough to cover the rent, or we are not qualified for it. An awful lot of work has to be done that no one dreams about, which means an awful lot of the available jobs are not dream jobs. The hard reality is that we can’t glorify God in the job we want (at least not yet). But we can glorify God in the job we have. Modern Bondservants I wonder how the songs we Millennials hear most about our careers would have landed on Christian slaves in Ephesus? The apostle Paul writes, Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:5–8) Paul writes to “bondservants” about their work, not to support the institution of slavery, but to strengthen faith and inspire joy among the enslaved. To be clear, such slavery was not the brutal and dehumanizing chattel slavery in American history, but these men and women were not as free as we are in America today, either (Ephesians 6:8). If Paul could write these self-denying, countercultural, other-worldly words to slaves about their livelihood, could he write them to us about our jobs? If so, here are three ways we can glorify God in our job, whether we are working the dream, or dreading our work. 1. The work is for God, regardless of who we report to. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling . . . as bondservants of Christ. (Ephesians 6:5–6) Your tax forms may say you work for the government, or a business, or even for yourself, but Paul says you work for God. You are always first and foremost an employee for Christ. Every task you complete comes underneath his lordship. You may never be paid to share or apply the gospel, but it still hangs high over everything else you are paid to do. Work as if Christ were your superior — with holy fear and trembling, and with sincerity. Why? Bosses can cheat us, mistreat us, even fire us, but Christ can do far worse — and far better. He not only sees our every move at work, but knows our every thought — nothing ever gets by him. And he can send us to hell. If your boss monitored you all day every day, would you work differently? Your almighty Savior and Judge sits even closer than that. If we go about our everyday work with greater seriousness and joy, people will ask about our boss. And if there’s nothing remarkable about our boss, they just might ask about our God. 2. The standard is not mere excellence, but heartfelt service. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters . . . with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but . . . doing the will of God from the heart. (Ephesians 6:5–6) Some will hear “doing the will of God from the heart” and hear “work as much and as hard as you possibly can.” But that is more American than Christian. Men and women chasing the American dream love to be told to work harder and achieve more. They work from the heart — it’s just a heart in love with money, or recognition, or control, or themselves. Christians dream about our jobs differently. When we work from the heart, we work from a passion for Jesus. We don’t spend time counting all the things we can have or achieve here on earth. No, we “count everything as loss” — paychecks, promotions, progress, retirement — “because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ” (Philippians 3:8). “For his sake [we suffer] the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that [we] may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:8–9). We never have to fake joy in our jobs because our joy does not come from our jobs. We work from full hearts, not striving to fill our hearts. That kind of heart — not mere excellence — makes our work distinctly Christian. That does not mean Christians should not do their work excellently. We should, as if we were completing our work for Christ. But excellence can easily be mistaken for Christlikeness, when in and of itself, it says nothing about Christ. Lots of doctors, teachers, engineers, and mothers do their work excellently and hate Jesus. The quality of our work might punctuate what we believe, but no one is saved by commas or periods. Something else must set our excellence apart from every other kind of excellence, and that something else happens in our hearts before it ever reaches our hands. 3. The goal is not another paycheck here, but treasure in heaven. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters . . . knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:5, 8) Do you think about your job primarily in terms of what it will reap in this life, or in the next? The work these slaves did each day may have led to many things — favor with their master, financial or circumstantial gain, maybe even precious freedom — but Paul says the most important outcome could not be had or achieved here on earth. No, the work they were doing was mainly about storing up treasure in heaven. As Jesus says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19–21) Another paycheck may feel like our most immediate need, but it is another grain of sand compared with all God will give us in eternity. Paychecks are so objective and predictable and tradable next to the overwhelming unknowns of “this he will receive back from the Lord.” But the adrenaline high and false security runs out so fast. And every one of those paychecks will bounce in paradise. Instead of settling for a few higher numbers on a tiny piece of paper (that we’ll probably spend before the month runs out), let’s work like those who are waiting and working for more than we could ever imagine for ourselves (1 Corinthians 2:9). Better Than Your Dream Job None of this means we should pass on a job opportunity that would employ more of our gifts, or a job that we would enjoy more, or one that would free us up to do more ministry. But it has everything to do with how we work when God does not open that door, maybe for months, maybe years, maybe decades. Do we know the secret of job satisfaction? Paul says elsewhere, I have learned in whatever [job I have] to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11–13) Paul knew the secret. He passed it along to the bondservants in Ephesus. And he wanted you to carry it with you to your job each day. Work for God, from your joy in him, for treasure far greater than money, recognition, or comfort. Bring those dreams to your day job, instead of looking for happiness in your dream job. Article by Marshall Segal