Episode 18 – Lasting Prosperity Part 2

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mac. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.

Kimberly Faith: Welcome back to Truth in Love podcast. I’m here with my dad, John Mac.

John McLarty: It’s great to be here again.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And this is, so we’ve kind of our biblical prosperity or prosperity for the new year, however you want to look at this, is where we’ve got part 2. And, we’re hoping and praying this might be the end of this, this the last podcast, but you never know. We’ll wait till we get to the end and figure out what happens. And so last time we talked about what are our assets, available for everyone to invest in their spiritual prosperity, and we talked about our testimony of salvation, the holy spirit, the word of God, church, and prayer.

And, so now we want to talk about today, how do we use our assets to become prosperous. And  I kind of want to , I guess, talk about what we’re you know, if you’re you know, okay, I have these assets for warfare. Right? I have these 5 assets. How do I accomplish the victory? Right? You can’t just approach that willy nilly. You have to really think about your strategy. You have to focus.

John McLarty: It’s intentional.

Kimberly Faith: Intentional. That’s right. And I think when it comes to it, we get very intentionally focused on physical prosperity. I sat down and I went through 3 years of law school. That was very focused. It was very intentional. But we need to be spiritually focused, very intentional if we want to accomplish a spiritual prosperity, a kind of prosperity that cannot be taken away from us ever, the kind of prosperity that we will be enjoying now and through eternity. Right? Then we need to have a focus.

You know, and what’s interesting is that Jesus gave us, like, the cliff notes. He’s like, look, it all boils down to love God and love others. Right? And so if we’re using our own personal testimony to take the time to share the gospel, that’s loving others. Right? And that’s loving God because we’re obeying God. Right? Each one of us, if we’re praying without ceasing, which is what the Bible says to do, then we’re showing our obedience to God and we’re loving others because we’re using that tool to win people to make their lives better. If we are, you know, studying God’s word, we’re sharing our testimony. We’re being obedient to the holy spirit, all these tools.

But, literally, we have to wake up in the morning, and this is one of the things I’ve started doing. I wake up in the morning, and I start thanking God before my feet hit the ground because thankfulness is so vital for our growth. That is intentional, though, because most of my views laying there thinking, oh, I got to get my coffee or whatever, brush my teeth. But if we start intentionally saying, when I first get up and we do this in all areas of life. I have to go run 5 miles or I have to go I’m going to  do that 5 AM so I get it out of the way. I’m going to make this healthy breakfast.

But if our first thing is, God, I want to be intentional about serving you today and loving you and loving others. That takes us to the door to start being spiritually prosperous. And so focusing on spiritual prosperity and focusing on the right kind of treasure. Right? I mean, that’s part of it is we shift ourselves from, I have a job to do at the law office to I have a mission field at the law office. Right? And, so, you know,  I don’t know. What are your thoughts about this because we’re going to talk about how to put these tools in practice today as one of the things we’re going to cover. Would you have any initial thoughts about that before we dive in?

John McLarty: Let’s go back to our previous podcast, the idea of this prayer list. And so I’m really going to promote this idea of a prayer list, a written prayer list to our audience here because that’s intentional. That makes prayer intentional.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And I’ve always prayed, but that challenge, that prayer list makes it more intentional.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And I have the same prayer list, and then when I say to somebody, oh, I’m going to pray for you, I’ve said that all my life. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And then 5 days later, I forget all about it.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty:  But now I add that name to the prayer list.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: I pray for them. So that’s just a, you know, way to make prayer more intentional.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And part of prayer is thanksgiving, and I think that, something the Lord’s been teaching me, and this is also another intentional habit, is Paul wrote for us to give thanks in all things. Well, I mean, being thankful is a state of mind. Right? Do you know people who aren’t thankful?

They complain about everything. You know people who are kind of ambivalent. They never give thanks so they don’t complain. Then, you know, other people who are, like, they give thanks for all the good things, and that’s kind of what we sometimes fall into. But Paul was giving thanks for being in jail, for being beaten, for having this whatever this thorn in the flesh was because then he was saying, then the power of Christ rests upon me more fully.

Well, this is called the battlefield mindset. Right? If you know you’re going out on a mission to capture Saddam Hussein, right, or whatever, you know, whoever it might be or just you have a hard hill to take. You don’t have an ambivalent mindset about the trouble ahead. You’re getting prepared for it mentally. And I don’t think when you compare Saddam Hussein to Satan, there’s really a question about who is the greater enemy because Satan is

John McLarty:  Very true.

Kimberly Faith:  I mean, he is the evil one that destroys everything. Right? So we need to be serious about prayer. You think the people who went out to the, you know, the unit that killed Saddam Hussein, you think they weren’t completely in touch with their best intel, the best coms, everything? Of course they were because they had to be. Right?

John McLarty: And they practiced the mission.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. And there was no lack of intensity there. I mean, if they weren’t intense, they probably weren’t going to be on the team. I want God to put me in.

John McLarty: And that’s a good example of lackadaisical Christian living. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: That’s the norm.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And we aren’t here. I mean, I think about this is what I think the Lord lays on my heart is, like, this intensity is, kind of motivated by the fact that I think about what if, like, I’ll use the example from the last podcast from last week about, seeing that man who had his head on the truck. Right? What if he was not born again? Because I don’t know. And what if the only gospel message he heard was from my tract? And what if I didn’t give that to him? And someday, I’d be standing before God, and God says, this man never had the opportunity because you didn’t listen. You were not intensely focused on warfare.

John McLarty: And that’s very legitimate.

Kimberly Faith: It is.

John McLarty: That’s true motivation. And we’ve all experienced that.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: But we need to learn a lesson from that because we’ve had those failures. I know the exact feeling. We’re not done. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  Not given the tract and then the  opportunity passes.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And if you’re listening to this podcast and you, like, are feeling very ambivalent about what we’re talking about, like, you don’t feel passionate about doing this. Look. I’ve been there. I’ve been there.

And the reason I was there was, number 1, it wasn’t because I wasn’t saved because I was, I did truly give my life to Christ, but it’s because I wasn’t surrendered to God and I was miserable. Because the fact is when your soul and spirit are born again, you have Jesus Christ inside of you. And so what you create by disobedience, by living differently than what the Bible says to live, which is what we’re talking about. Right? When you choose to live in physical prosperity instead of spiritual prosperity, which is disobedience. Right? And that’s your passion, in other words. Prosperity, which is disobedience. Right? And that’s your passion, in other words, is to pursue physical prosperity instead of spiritual prosperity.

You create an anxiety inside of yourself that tears you up. You never have enough because the righteousness of God dwells in you and you’re basically taking a healthy spirit and soul and shoving mud into it. You’re feeding it with mud and gunk and bad stuff. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And so you’re creating a worse than a spiritual stomach ache, a spiritual disease that is just eating you up. Now you can’t lose your salvation. But man, why would you want to live miserable? I did that for years. And when finally, I got to the bottom  of the physical gunk, and it clogged my veins so much that I was just gasping for air. The Lord showed me his goodness and was like, here, this is the clean water you can drink, and here’s, I love you so much. Would you please just turn around and come back to me? And, you know, I think about  the passion of Jeremiah,  and I think about what God said about the repentance of Israel. And he said God said in Jeremiah 29:12-14, he said, then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you.

This is the God of the universe who created everything, and he’s saying, look. If you will just turn around and seek me passionately, guess what? I’m waiting for you, and I’m going to give to you and Jeremiah is the same one that wrote about how God wants to prosper us. Right? He wants to prosper us, but he wasn’t talking about giving us more land or more money. He’s talking about this satisfaction that we talked about in the first podcast.

John McLarty: That’s great because there’s a trick of the devil that we can have both.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Like, we can have this worldly success in the flesh and just, open sin and still be blessed.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Well, what you just said and just the truth of the bible, you can’t. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  If you want the abundant life, you’ve got to  live, you know, not that we can be perfect, but you’ve got to want to live a life that’s pleasing to God. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  And there’s so much confusion and deception in Christendom about that.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: But, oh, I know I can go do this and the other and dabble. And still have the abundant life. No. No. You can’t.

Kimberly Faith: You can’t. And it’s kind of like, you know,  I like to think about it this way because I like very graphic things because it jolts me out of my sense of complacency. But I think about you know, there’s 2 examples to think about. I think about, like, if you and I were, you know, hanging out every day and every morning when you saw me, I punched you right in the face. Right?

I mean, you’re not going to want to hang out with me. Well, our sin is worse than a punch in the face, you know, and to God. Right? And I also think about this, why would God’s spirit want to  cuddle up next to us and guide us and lead us into his spiritual prosperity if we’re committing the same sins that crucified his son?

John McLarty: Just thumbing our nose at God.

Kimberly Faith: And basically saying, you know, your crucifixion, you can die for,  your blood’s good enough to cover all these extra sins, and we’ll just use your blood. It’s just so wrong. You know? It’s so wrong on so many levels.

John McLarty:  And see, that’s not self righteousness. If we try to live that way

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: The world wants to view that as self righteousness.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty:  It’s not.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty:  It’s knowing the voice of God, not wanting to grieve the spirit.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And then you have the abundant life, and it’s so blessed.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: It’s not self righteous for the sake of self righteous. It’s self righteousness because it brings fulfillment.  It brings spiritual prosperity. 

Kimberly Faith: It does. And it produces the fruit of the spirit, which if you compare the fruit of the spirit with the works of the flesh in Galatians, you know, you have love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, all these good things that everybody wants that money can’t buy, and then you contrast that with hate, lasciviousness, murder, envies. Who wants to live that way? Right?

But it’s not self righteousness, it’s the Holy Spirit. Jesus kind of addressed this. He talks about people just living in hypocrisy. Right? He said in Matthew, 7, he says, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and done all these wonderful works in your name? And he’s going to say, dude, I never knew you.

John McLarty: Never knew.

Kimberly Faith: I never knew you. You were never mine. So when you consider this self righteousness, that’s exactly what it is. It’s never going to weigh up, Jesus doesn’t even know those people. And if we’re producing our own righteousness, then there’s a big problem because we can’t.

John McLarty:  Right. 

Kimberly Faith: So if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re not excited about spiritual prosperity, oh, man. Check your salvation.

John McLarty:  Yes, Check your salvation.

Kimberly Faith: Because 

John McLarty: You must be born again.

Kimberly Faith: It’s a big deal. It’s a really big deal. And if you die and you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and relied only on him for salvation, you’re not going to want to be spiritually prosperous for the right reason because you want to glorify God.

John McLarty: And salvation is in conjunction with repentance. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty:  You desire. You want to do that 180 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: And live that different life.

Kimberly Faith: And that’s the inward transformation that takes place when we’re born again. You know, I think to be, to hourly conform to the rules of the bible without the influence of the holy spirit is the most miserable existence ever.

John McLarty: Yeah. There’s actually a verse that said I can’t remember it, but Paul says that. If you’re trying to do this without Christ, you’re the

Kimberly Faith: You’re the man most miserable. 

John McLarty: Yes, the most miserable. 

Kimberly Faith: And it’s true because,  and that goes back to our design, body, soul, and spirit. You know, if our soul and spirit are spiritually dead, the only spiritual influence we’re subject to are the evil spirits, not God’s spirit. So we’re basically trying to conform this flesh to do the good stuff without any spiritual direction or even, you know, and Christians, even born again Christians, we fall into this trying to do God’s work without God.  We do.

John McLarty:  Absolutely.

Kimberly Faith:  You know, which is such a mess. It just produces frustration and misery. So let’s look at, we’re going to look at Psalms 37.

John McLarty: Great.

Kimberly Faith: Because this is, I think, God’s recipe for our spiritual prosperity, and God doesn’t hide the ball. And I think that, you know, I’m going to just start reading these verses in Psalms 37. 

John McLarty: Good. 

Kimberly Faith: He says, trust in the lord and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness.

Delight yourself also in the lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Rest in the lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret. It only causes harm. For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait on the lord, they shall inherit the earth. A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked.

For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the lord upholds the righteous. The lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time. In the days of famine, they shall be satisfied. The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives.

For those blessed by him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the lord upholds him with his hand. I have been young, and now I’m old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongue talks of justice.

The law of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide. Mark the blameless man and observe the upright, for the future of that man is peace. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together, and the future of the wicked shall be cut off.

 Now what strikes me about these verses is the great contrast between the promising future of the righteous and the horrible life of the wicked.

John McLarty: Exactly.  That’s a great passage.

Kimberly Faith: It is such a great passage. So in the introduction of this, we kind of talked about what it means to be righteous.

John McLarty: Righteous is doing things God’s way.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Which is,  God is right. He’s righteous. If we’re in sync with him

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: We’re righteous. It’s so different from the world’s thinking of self righteousness. Righteousness is just doing what God’s mind would be. Absolutely. It’s pretty simple, really.

Kimberly Faith: It is. And, you know, we kind of touched on this before we read Psalms 37, but we have to remember that  our own good works are as filthy rags. We talked about that in Isaiah. But when we are made righteous through Jesus Christ, who is the only one who can make our soul and spirit righteous, that’s when we can produce the works of righteousness. We have we’re empowered because we’re in touch with Jesus who is righteous. Our spirit communes with Christ, and our soul is filled with righteousness, but we can’t do it on our own.

John McLarty: And think what this really revolves around. God’s mind would be to love God and to love others. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty:  And that’s righteous.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly.

John McLarty: But it’s to  love God and love others.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. And, you know, people you know, I think that this , for some people, where they don’t understand body, soul, and spirit, they don’t understand the gift of salvation, redeems our soul and spirit. For God to say, live righteously and then say that all of our best acts of goodness are as filthy rags, That would create a conundrum for people if they didn’t understand that, first of all, our spiritual righteousness comes from God. It does not come from us in our good works. Our good works are a manifestation, like you said, to love God and love others, of what’s inside of us.

That’s a manifestation that only comes from God. And, you know, of course, all the beatitudes, which we did the first, I don’t know, 9 podcasts, were about the beatitudes or I guess it was 3 through 9 podcasts last year. And those are the manifestations that the righteousness of God is in us. But it’s still a choice.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: It’s still a choice.

John McLarty: And you know, it’s not to say to condense it down to love God and love others is not some license for sin in every other way. Because to be a thief

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Is unloving.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: You know, to do things that are contrary to God’s commandments are unloving to him.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And to others. 

John McLarty: And to others.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: So  there’s a lot there regarding  our behaviors, but it all boils down to loving God and loving others.

Kimberly Faith: And love is selflessness. So when we decide, Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. Right? And what is I mean, we do that when 

John McLarty:  Let every man esteem others more than himself.

Kimberly Faith: You do that when you’re a parent. Right? You say, oh, I’m going to serve this helpless child. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: But we also need to do that for each other.

You know, we need to take up our cross. I’m going to do the dishes so mom doesn’t have to. Right? I mean, that’s just a real simple example. But one of the things is because we’re talking about how do we put these tools into practice.

One of the things I want to bring up before we start in Psalms 37, I want to  just go over this list of promises that are prosperity promises for today. In other words, we’ve got this great future, right, and it’s already secured. But I just have this list of things that the lord says, hey, if you will be righteous, if you will live a righteous life, live in my righteousness, I’m going to give you the desires of your heart. You think about the greatest desires of your heart. Right?

Maybe somebody listening, you know, would love to get married. Maybe somebody listening would love to have a child. Maybe well, those desires are legitimate desires. God created you with those desires. But what he does, and I can testify to this, is he actually gives us even greater desires because our desires like my children are all grown. Right? I love being a mother and I would love to be a mother again. But the Lord gives that desire spiritual legitimacy. So what do I do? I have all these spiritual children that come into my home.

John McLarty: I’m very aware of that.

Kimberly Faith: Well, I got that from y’all, so you know,  and I get to be their spiritual mama, right, and bring them to Christ. And there’s nothing I do, you know, I had one of the girls tell me. She said, you just spend so much time with me, and I know you’re a busy lawyer, and , you know, I know that I’m taking a lot of your time. I said, stop. Stop. This is one of the most satisfying things in my entire life, spending time with you, seeing you grow, hearing your story about how you’re now teaching people how to know Jesus. Just stop. This is wonderful. And so, when he gives us the desires of our heart, it is the desire that we didn’t even know we had. We have these physical desires, but God says, but there’s a spiritual counterpart that you don’t even know about.

John McLarty: And that’s spiritual prosperity.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. And so he gives us the desires of the heart, back to Psalms 37. We’re going to inherit the earth.

John McLarty: That sounds prosperous.

Kimberly Faith: It does sound. We’re going to be satisfied even when there’s no food. The Lord’s going to  guide our steps. The creator of the universe is going to guide our steps. He’s going to catch us when we fall. He’s going to speak wisdom and justice through us, and in us, our inheritance will never perish, and he’s going to be our deliverer and defender. That’s just a few of them, you know. Is there anything that you can think of, I mean, if you own all the property in the United States of America, is that first of all, that’s not security. You can’t defend that. You’re always going to be wondering if somebody’s going to take it from you.

Do you have that fear about anything in your life that’s spiritually prosperous? I mean, the spiritual prosperity God’s given you?

John McLarty:  Well, I’m thinking of a companion verse here, which is Lynn and I’s life verse. It’s Proverbs 3:5- 6. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. So, no, if you have that heart to follow God

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And he directs your paths, he’s going to lead you into that spiritual prosperity.

Kimberly Faith: And it’s irrevocable.

John McLarty: To answer your question, no. That can’t be, that can’t be taken away because it’s not based on material things.

Kimberly Faith: And can you imagine that people and I know there are a lot of religions that teach you can lose your salvation, but, you know, that would, of course, make God a liar, you know. I mean, you either have present tense eternal life or you don’t. Right? Otherwise, it’s not eternal life. And we won’t get into that, chase that rabbit right now, but Jesus you know, the Bible says that Jesus came to become sin for us.

He who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. What we know about God is he’s always righteous, but if he made us the righteousness of himself, what a gift that is. And that would be enough, you know, that we would have irrevocable this irrevocable gift of salvation. But the lord says, no. Guess what?

You get to live this life with confidence. You get to live this life with my peace, peace that passes understanding. The kind of peace Paul had sitting in a filthy jail. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And, you know, and saying I have everything I need. You get to have a love that doesn’t expect anything, and you get to experience the giving and receiving of that. You get to be kind to people who are unkind to you and walk away satisfied, not wounded. Right? I mean, just think about those things. That’s what God’s saying. This is spiritual prosperity. Then on top of that, wait, there’s more. When you go to heaven someday, because that’s secure, you can’t, nobody can take that from you. You’re going to have this beautiful blessing of people who come up to you and say, thank you for handing me that tract at that gas station that day. I accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I don’t know if I would have ever heard the gospel just that way. And I’m here today to rejoice with you. We can’t even wrap our mind around that.

John McLarty: We can’t. When I think about the judgment seat of Christ and what, you know, and then, you know, having rewards in heaven. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And, you know, we always think of rewards as a present or I get a plaque or something.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty: But those rewards are going to be just what you described. Somebody coming up to us. Or how about Jesus coming up

Kimberly Faith: Oh.

John McLarty: And saying, you know, you weren’t perfect, but you wanted to serve me and good job, thou good and faithful servant.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Oh, that we could achieve that. Right. But, you know, I fixed that time you went back to the guy that you had left

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Jesus was actually kind of giving you that sense.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Good job, Kim. You circled back.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: Or  there those people were again.

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty:  And you oh, that’s it.

Kimberly Faith: It was and it was the kind of joy I couldn’t contain.

John McLarty: You couldn’t contain.

Kimberly Faith: Glad to see them. I was like, they were a lot of lost family or something, and they were just talking like, who is this crazy woman? 

John McLarty: That’s your reward. 

Kimberly Faith: But, you know, the fruit of the spirit can’t it’s undeniable. You can’t, it’s not like they thought I was some kind of crazy person that needed to be put away. Right? It was no. This person genuinely has something to share with me because they care. You know, why else would you shout across the parking lot? Oh my gosh.

You know? And so here’s kind of you know, as we kind of wrap this up a little bit. 

John McLarty: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: Why don’t we see more fulfilled Christians? People who claim that they’re born again, who are living in complete satisfaction.

The complete satisfaction we’re talking about of spiritual prosperity. Why do you think there’s so and I’m going to tell you, I’m going to make myself part of this. I did walk around and was more interested in physical prosperity and not happy, not satisfied, always wanting more, always nervous, always anxious, and the Lord has flipped that switch for me. Now I’m not saying I don’t fall back into that. Of course, I do. But why is it that you don’t see more Christians who are on fire? They’re intense about their life is so satisfied, they have to share it.

John McLarty: I’ve got 2 answers.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, good.

John McLarty: So one of them is from, and I won’t turn there, but it’s Ephesians 4:24. Put on the new man. Put off the old. Even though we’re born again, we’re saved. We have not daily, maybe even minute by minute made a decision to put on that new man, Jesus Christ. Let this mind be in you, which is in Jesus Christ, or put off that old filthy garment.

Kimberly Faith: That’s good.

John McLarty: And these decisions we make every day. And then the companion to that, though, is Romans 12:1 and 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And, but verse 2, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove that which is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And I thought of somebody that decides to start working out.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: This is, It’s decisions, day by day decisions, but it’s a process 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: To be transformed. 

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

John McLarty: And it’s intentional, but it’s long term.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty: So if you just say I’m going to work out. I’m going to go build this nice body.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: And you go do it one day.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty: And then you want this immediate result.  No. That doesn’t happen that way. So, you know, in today’s world, then we want to do is, you know, some lotion or

Kimberly Faith: Right. Liposuction.

John McLarty:  Right. But true physical health is work.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: You have to lose that weight, to get the muscles to whatever it is you want.

Kimberly Faith: And it shows. It shows.

John McLarty: But  it’s a long term process. So that’s why we’re still you know, this applies to us. We’re still working on this.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Every day.

John McLarty: Every day. But it’s a discipline.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And that’s what you’re saying is such a good example because we’re such a microwave society. You know?

John McLarty:  Exactly. 

Kimberly Faith: We want to look good tomorrow.

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And, nothing works that way, you know, unless you literally go in and get, like, all kinds of surgery done, and then that may go south too. It usually does. It’s not healthy, but you can’t cut corners with God. And why would you want to?

You know, a person who is an athlete enjoys that athleticism. They and, really, when you get the mindset to do it, you actually enjoy the workout because you’re getting good at it.

John McLarty:  Yeah. Yeah. It becomes fulfilling instead of drudgery.

Kimberly Faith: And it also becomes addictive and it becomes contagious, you know, if you have a good attitude about well, our spiritual prosperity becomes contagious

John McLarty: Serving God.

Kimberly Faith: When the fruit of the spirit is flowing out of us because that’s attractive to even the most morose person, that’s attractive. 

John McLarty: And there’s that feedback 

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: When you go back and that guy you thought would be maybe grumpy.

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

John McLarty:  And he just seems to have his eyes light up.

Kimberly Faith: And he comes over and hugs me.

John McLarty: Because you gave him a tract

Kimberly Faith:  Right. Right.

John McLarty: You expected a sour attitude.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And I go back to the words of Jesus, I guess, that, you know, he said, in Matthew 6, he said, don’t worry, saying, what are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? What are we going to wear? You know what? That’s what the world seeks. He said, your heavenly father, he already,  my goodness. He created everything. Don’t you think he can take care of your next meal? Right?

He said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness .

John McLarty: Perfect. 

Kimberly Faith: And all these things shall be added unto you. I think I missed this message for so long in my Christian life.

John McLarty: And  we sing that in Sunday school.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. 

John McLarty: As kids.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. Yeah. Right?  Is it seek ye first.

John McLarty:  But it’s so fundamental. To what we’ve just discussed.Kimberly Faith: And so we wake up in the morning, and we’re like, okay. First, I’m going to , you know, feed myself, I’m going to drink some water, I’m going to have some coffee, I’m going to  go make the next buck, I’m going to spend the next buck, I’m going to pay the bill, I’m going to  you know? And then at the end of the day, we’re like, what did I do today? I existed. But when we wake up in the morning like, God, thank you for another day to glorify you. Help me invest this day in what matters. Help me to listen. Help me to pay attention. And that’s seeking his righteousness. That’s seeking to live in the way that he has for us. You know, righteousness 

John McLarty:  That’s a great way to start the day, that thought.

Kimberly Faith: It absolutely is. And here’s what’s hard. You lay there and you can think grumpy thoughts or dreading type thoughts, or I got this problem. I’ve got to deal with this attorney today, or you can just say, God, you know, I’m casting all my cares on you, so let me just take a minute and thank you for everything. Start thanking him, and I’m amazed when I start thanking God how much less I sin because you can’t be grumpy and be thankful at the same time. You can’t be discontented and thankful at the same time. You can’t be jealous and thankful at the same time. It’s amazing how much thankfulness changes your mind. It’s like you said, renewing your mind. Thankfulness is like the key, and you think about Romans chapter 1 where the Bible says that when they became unthankful, they didn’t acknowledge God and were unthankful. Their foolish hearts were darkened.

John McLarty: You can’t be joyful and sullen at the same time.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. Exactly.  And you know, when we’re really passionate about seeking the righteousness of God and his will for our life, then you don’t really have that. You can’t seek righteousness without seeking his riches. You’re not going to have this God just going to add the stuff to you. You know,  2024 was a very hard year. But when I was saying, Lord, this law firm belongs to you. My time belongs to you. My bank account belongs to you. My house belongs to you. I’m just a caretaker. And he did, he actually went around and made more money than I made the year before, and I didn’t have any. I mean, I just was, like, there doing, you know, doing the manual labor, so to speak. And it’s kind of like I was the mine worker. He said, oh, here over here is the vein. Go over here and dig over here. Okay. Now go back to helping the people, you know, and, oh, here’s another one. And I didn’t have to worry about it. I was actually more worried about how I was going to give stuff away than having to make more. That’s a good problem to have.

John McLarty: So you focus on spiritual prosperity and you get that. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And the lord blessed. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: He took care of all these things shall be added unto you.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: And it didn’t matter whether that was the case, you  could’ve just survived 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  Financially and that would’ve been okay. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty:  But God chose to say, look what I can do.

Kimberly Faith: Well and you’ve mentioned earlier that this is a path. Right? This is a journey. And for the last 3 or 4 years, especially through COVID, there was a real hand to mouth experience in my law practice. But what was interesting this year, like, it should’ve totally tanked because of the whole thing that happened at the beginning of the year.

But instead, I just was giving it to God. Matter of fact,  I think I’ve said this before, but this time last year, I was asking God, do I even need to practice law anymore? You know? And the Lord said, yes, but we’re starting over, like, okay, from scratch, which was totally fine. But then it’s like the Lord said, okay. You’re going to focus on spiritual prosperity, and I’m going to actually give you more resources to invest into spiritual prosperity. So when that happened, I was like, okay, Lord. I was kind of a little bit afraid. I was like, where do you want me to put this? Which mission field?

And we ended up, you know, really supporting the Panama ministry that puts the Learn with Jesus books into the public schools, which is so beautiful. But it’s just like, I didn’t need anything extra because I was so full of the spiritual prosperity that really, do I need to go buy new clothes? Not really. I mean, do I need a new car? No, my little Toyota has 230,000 miles on it. It still runs like a dream. You know? I don’t really care about that because God changes our desires. He shows us the wisdom of investing in spiritual prosperity and as you said, the satisfaction. Right? And that’s just great.

John McLarty: This is exciting. Oh my goodness. We’re rolling into 2025.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

John McLarty: And, its beginning and spiritual prosperity is the key. And we can’t change the past 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: But we can change the future.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And when we love God more than we love anything, the love that he gives us in return wants us to make his ways our ways. And then he gives us spiritual prosperity and just this unimaginable satisfaction. And suddenly we’re like, wow. Why did I not understand this before? How did I not live this life before? And really, you know, if you’re listening to this and you don’t know what we’re talking about, I get it. I get it. I’m still learning this. I don’t know about you, dad, but I mean, I’m still learning this spiritual prosperity thing.

John McLarty: Absolutely.

Kimberly Faith: And but it’s so worth it. It’s so worth returning to the Lord and just putting him first, you know? That means you read his word, you study his word, you get in a good church, you use these tools, you use the holy spirit speaking through you, Use your testimony of salvation. I encourage everybody I disciple. Write out your testimony tract. Put pictures in it. Make it a little booklet. Spend the money to print it. It’s less you know, one tract is less than a cup of coffee. And it costs less than a cup and then hand those out to people. That’s a good place to start. You know? Go minister at maybe go minister at the park by taking your guitar down there and playing, you know, music. And people will come and you can talk to them. Go to the nursing home and maybe sing with the residents or maybe just make them cookies and take them down there. And there’s so many opportunities.

John McLarty: Build your prayer list.

Kimberly Faith: Build your prayer list. Exactly. Contribute your time and your resources to a good church to make it better. Or even a church that’s struggling to make it better. Right? There’s just all these opportunities, and we are in a warfare. And your life matters. Your life matters. My life matters. We can make all the difference for somebody else’s eternity.

John McLarty: Somebody else. Somebody else’s soul is the key focus.

Kimberly Faith: Well, this has been great, dad.

John McLarty: It’s wonderful, Kim.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And, I’m so glad that the lord led us to talk about biblical prosperity. I really hope and pray that whoever’s listening to this will just be on fire for 2025. 

John McLarty: Absolutely.

Kimberly Faith:  And, just all the things, you know, God has more for us than we can ever ask for or imagine. That’s huge. That’s huge. And so thank you for joining us, and I’m not even sure what the next podcast is going to be on. I guess the Lord will have to show us, and that’ll just be part of that spiritual prosperity journey. Right?

John McLarty: It will be more in 2025.

Kimberly Faith: Alright. Thank you all for joining us.

Jacob Paul: You’ve been listening to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mack. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com.