Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 when you can't and like I don't know we're recording now so people uh listening to this some of you are going to not like this but when you can't live in a world that has compromise you're not going to live in a great world you know because you haven't you I haven't ascertained all knowledge I have viewpoints I have perspective I have uh different uh thoughts that I think from my context but then that there's also a bunch of context from other people I don't understand and if we just go with my viewpoint, it's it's going to be right for people like me, but not right for like a good amount of people. Yeah. And um I think it's hard because I mean, it's like what we talked about last episode. The hard thing is you have to be willing to sit there and go, "Hey, you know what? I don't know everything. I don't have all the solutions to all the problems." And I think that's like that's a huge issue that we have in in culture is everybody's like, "I got all the solutions already."

1:49 I I don't know, man. I think that people have I'm speak I'm thinking about some experiences I've had. I think what's happened is that as much as people are like oh you know we need to not stereotype and not be racist and not do all this. We have almost caricatures developed and like what we what we covered on the last podcast uh which we never actually said welcome to episode 8 but that was episode 8. This is episode 9. That was a whole episode of actual dialogue. Um, but what what what actually I think what happens is that we we talked about how your brain what we said in over the course of that podcast is that your brain is not wired to find truth. Your brain is wired to reinforce what you already believe. So what's happened now is you have all these tech companies that know that that's like people are they know what gets people to stay on them because what they need is they need to have you stay on so they can serve you more ads aka they can make more money, right? So that's why watch time matters so much if you're into all this sort of stuff. This is a little bit of my world with marketing. And there's been that documentary that was released that everybody like was in awe of whenever they they talked to all those tech people that were hired about algorithms. Yeah, I don't remember what it was called.

2:46 I can't remember what it's called. It was on Netflix and like they talked about how they don't let their kids have the very things that they sell other people and everybody was like I'm like yeah like this is what's going on all the time is you're being basically your attention is what's is what's making a lot of money. Anyways, but the point I'm making is so you get what's what's more than ever now you can have what you already believe be reinforced because you can just look at your device and it'll show you things and you're going to have a certain reaction and like if you laugh at a certain joke or you you send somebody something on Instagram, suddenly your feed starts filling up with that. Like your feed is no longer full of your friends. It's full of people you don't know putting out content that you they they know you'll like. So now what happens is you start to go like well this is how the world is. So when somebody says something and like you said they categorize it. So Josh says something like, "You voted for Trump. He's a conservative. And if you're like a person who hates Trump, well, I hate Trump because he's racist. He's whatever you put in there." So the people that support him were all that way, too. And why would I be friends with a racist? Because that's wrong.

3:41 Yeah. And I've experienced this because I literally had friends I had known me since we were in 8th grade and I I we had opposite sides of the of the political spectrum tell me he literally told me that he could not be friends with somebody who supported Donald Trump because of what Donald Trump believes in. Yeah. And I was like, first of all, what do you think he believes in? But second of all, dude, you've known me. You're going to discard at this point. It was like 20 plus years of knowledge. It blew my mind. I still had the conversation in my DMs on Instagram. I went back and read it the other day just because I I find that so hard to believe, but it was that that was the case. And it's happened multiple times. No, I think it's insane, right? And I'm not even like a political poster, dude. I think that Yeah, it's um you know, at some point at some point uh shout out to uh Zoe Benton was the first person that suggested it. So, we're going to talk about loving your neighbor and Muslims at some point on the podcast. Yeah. And I'm excited to I'm excited to do that. You know what's interesting to me and we'll get on to the topic is I remember when I was a kid, everyone was so mad at Bill Clinton because he like his his ethics and his morality like brought shame to the presidency.

4:44 Right. Right. Great. Let's have that standard. But then you'd have to apply that standard to Donald Trump. Oh man. which is uh I think I think I just felt everyone get mad through the internet at me for saying that because you would have to apply if you're going to say okay like there's there's morality matters and character matters right and then and then you you vote a guy in office who that's never really truly mattered for right but oh no we like his policies okay so we're that's just we're not going to be congruent my my problem is always the incongruency of people that that they go oh well that's actually I can I I I want truth right personally. So I don't once I have ascertained truth I'm not going to abandon the position because it's convenient or uh it satisfies me in some way. Yeah. Cuz people don't think through the implications of it cuz like it's fine for you to give an allowance to the guy when he's doing what you want but what happens when you set a precedent then somebody comes in and uses that same precedent to do something you don't like?

5:43 Uhoh. So, I remember all those I remember I remember when I was younger, you know, uh when I was a kid, all this stuff with with Bill Clinton come came out and the moral majority and like, "Oh, we can't have a person like this in the presidency." And then, yeah, they want to impeach him. Yeah. And then, uh, we're going to give this other guy a pass because we really like we really like his his policy decisions. And maybe we'll talk about that sometime on a different episode. But the whole the whole point of having this conversation for me is for us to be willing to get to a place where we realize like all the incongruencies that are in our own thinking. Yeah. You know, cuz I I don't sit there and I go I don't sit there and go, "Oh, yeah. I've got it all figured out." But I have to be willing to say, "Hey, um I don't have it figured out and I want to learn I want to learn more." I'm I'm looking forward to when we have some guests on at some point because I think it'll be a really interesting exploration because you are very open to to to what you to your own thinking and I think I I think where we're going to it's going to be interesting for us and I'm thinking this through strategically about the podcast while we're recording the podcast is to find somebody that is open enough to have that conversation with us in a way that they won't get um in enraged. I think the biggest thing is uh you just got to be willing to be wrong.

7:02 Yeah. And and and the truth is the more you think you've learned, the less like we ended the last podcast on that, last episode on that. The more you think you know, the less willing you are to be wrong, which is a dangerous place to be in, right? Because you are wrong. Like I am wrong in some of the things that I think. And what I have to continue to do is be willing to be wrong. And uh a lot of people aren't willing to do that. So on the topic of money, um using this as an example, so people almost refuse to believe that God wants them to prosper because prosperity has been taught so poorly, right? So for for a generation now, we've had and I understand it. I mean, personally, I I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of the American church. I'm not I've never I've never I grew up in it. I grew up in green rooms with some of the most famous people, famous preachers and stuff on the planet. It's hard for me to have a respect for this world because of what I've seen and what I've experienced.

8:03 Like I've I've been at marriage seminars where people will get up and they're super hyper well-known marriage people and they they're they travel all over the world and they teach people how to have biblical marriages and their marriage sucks. Right. Right. I've I've been around uh all kinds of different people who weren't living ultimately what they believed. And I think I think millennials and younger like we have a complicated relationship with the church because so many high-profile people have ultimately uh not lived it very well while they were teaching it. So there's there's it's one thing to to to admit your humanity. Uh it's another thing to be a very low character individual and be talking from a uh talking from the moral high ground all the time. Yeah. And and I I would rather I would rather be a person that's like, "Hey, I don't know and I'm really trying to learn than be a person who's allowed myself to be put on a pedestal where I'm just going to fail." Yeah.

9:02 Right. My gift to you, by the way, for Christmas is I'm going to get you a t-shirt line that just says, "I am wrong." I am wrong. And that that way when people you will you'll be able to avoid all these people that come up and want to ask you stuff. You can just point what I tell people. I mean I have a lot of people I don't really want this. I I don't know I don't know how this happens but I have a lot of people tell me I'm wrong a lot and uh want to tell me all the right things to think and I just usually stop them and I go, "Hey, you know what you can do for me? You can just pray for me is pray that God would reveal whatever he needs to reveal cuz this conversation's not necessarily going to help today." Like people want to talk to me about oh what about this and like especially when we talk about money what about this what about that and we can have the debate all day um like I was in a conversation recently with a guy and he goes if all the stuff you're saying is true then it's just been taught wrong for generations and uh I said okay well what makes you think that you how much have you researched this like well I haven't researched it at all okay well like I have so I appreciate what you're saying, but unless we're kind of on the same page about what what the information that we're looking at and the issues that we're navigating, it'll be really hard for us to have a valid logical conversation. So, here's all here's all the stuff that I've read.

10:15 Here's all the research that I've done. Once you research it and once you look at it, I want you to come back to me and let's have a conversation about it. And you know, people aren't people that are just argumentative. Yeah. Are aren't really about opinions. I say I say an opinion is only as valuable as the price paid to form it. Yeah. And most people don't pay any price. They make snap judgments. But you obviously you're scrolling through and you have 15 seconds of information. And you see this especially especially on this topic that we're talking about with money in the church and God and all that cuz there's some random guy on the internet who's like, "Hey, you know what? You don't have to tithe." Right? And a person watches a 30 secondond clip and they go, "Yeah, well, you know, that's settled for me." Or there's guys out there who are like, "We're the gotcha guys who like we're going to show you how all these preachers are complete scammers. all taking advantage of you. You're you're giving your tithe. He has a Rolex. He must be stealing. Yeah. Your job is to make sure that you know where all the money's going. My question with that is where does it say that in scripture?

11:12 Who told you that's your job? Yeah. Who said that? That's that's that's a shareholders job of a company, right? Right. Is to go, okay, like how are we investing my money as a shareholder? That's not there's not any biblical basis for that. You understand, Josh? If if somebody else is doing something wrong, it excuses me from doing what's right. Oh, wait. No, that's not actually true. That's a great thought. That's how that's how most people think. Especially in this world where people like there's been so much bad teaching on prosperity. There's been so much bad examples on prosperity. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. Let's There's been bad teaching on heaven and hell, too. Doesn't mean we're going to stop believing it. Yeah. For real. I mean, I'm not going to stop believing in heaven and hell just because this guy taught it wrong. I'm not going to stop believing in spirituality because this person's a weirdo. Yeah. the Holy Spirit's been, you know, taught like there's been some egregious things that have done. No, still to this day, there's insane things. But hey, you know what? Like, I'm I'm not going to not believe in it because that person might not know what I know and that person might not have a have the truth that I've asked.

12:14 Like, I had a bad father, so I don't believe that anybody should have a father. What? That's insane. Well, I mean, that's really like a progressive liberal position at this point is like blow up the nuclear family. And that's what that's what makes no sense is you have people that have you have generations that have been raised without fathers. So then they think fathers don't matter when every data history uh philosophy the Bible psychology psychology points to the importance of a father in the home. Well then it's like no we don't need fathers in the home. But like I said last last episode everything that's false is eventually going to be proven false. So eventually you'll see that uh there will be a hopefully I mean I believe that hopefully there will be a return to strong fatherhood in in the world and in culture cuz that just we didn't get to decide that that matters. It just I'm committed to that with my life completely separate to what we're talking about. But you said we were going to tackle does God want me to be rich? And I think that's a doozy of a question because we kind of talked about people's differing takes on that last time. But you've I mean I've heard you do some of this, but I'm actually very excited to go into this and uh when I hear you preach oftentimes I'll wonder things in my head and now I actually just get to ask you because I'm sat across from you. So this is I'm happy to be here.

13:23 So So we're going to talk about you know over the next few episodes we're going to talk about some things that I've learned so far and I reserve I here's my disclaimer at all times. I reserve the right to change my mind. All right. So I'm not writing I'm not writing the Bible 2.0. That's for the Mormons to do. Oh, zinger coming in hot. Yeah. But I'm not we're not I'm not sitting here saying I've I've ascertained all truth. I reserve the right at any point to change my mind to to align more with God's thinking. Yeah. Uh because the book of Acts, this is where I want to encourage everybody to start. Every time when Paul talked, there's these people in the Bible who were called Bereans. And the Bereans in the Bible when Paul talked they listened to his message and they searched the Bible says they searched the scriptures day after day to see if they were teaching the truth. So I am a person who is you know if I had like a really clear uh personal mission statement it would be I really want to be I want to be transformed by truth and help other people be transformed by truth and I'm in a as long as I'm alive on this side of eternity I'm constantly being transformed by that. That doesn't mean that like I believe more truth now than I did 10 years ago than I did 5 years ago. 10 years from now, I probably won't even like that we're recording this episode. I'll be like, man, my thoughts have changed so much. So anyway, I reserve the right to change my mind. So anything that somebody says, if you're a Christian and you're listening to this or whatever, if you're not a Christian, everything that someone says should be measured against what the truth actually is, right? And the great thing we have, if you believe in the word of God, if you believe in the absolute truth of God's word, which is the standard that on this podcast and in our world we hold to, everything should be weighed against whether or not it's biblical. And I'm willing to hear that that I'm that I'm wrong. But here's the here's the thing. Your job is not to criticize everybody else based on the truth that you know. Your job is just just to apply the truth truth that you know. And and there's going to be some people that that are that you help them by being honest with them about truth.

15:25 There's some people that don't want to hear it at all. So, I'm willing to hear maybe where people feel like theologically we've gone wrong. Um, but that's not really the most important thing. The most important aspect of this exercise is yours and my own life and us deciding to apply truth to our life. So when we get taught something and told something that's true, then what we should do is go back to God's word and make sure that that actually is aligned with what scripture teaches. Cuz I can sit here and say anything, right? I could say I could say, well, you know, the Bible says this, and people go, well, well, you know, if Josh said that's what the Bible says, then it must be in there somewhere. It's like, no, that's not what you're saying is if you're going to pop off and be like, I disagree, you better be applying it in your own life because we're not we're not here to have theoretical debates. Well, on one hand, you should be applying it in your own life. On the on the other hand, if you do agree with it, that's maybe an even more dangerous position to be in because you're not going to go search to see if what's actually being said is true.

16:19 Yeah. Well, I hear you, but I know I'm I'm arguing both sides, right? You I hear you, but at some point, you kind of have to go you have to stand on what you know and go for like I I hope in 10 years time I'll still be your friend that we listen to this and you go, you know what, man, that was a foundation for a lot of what I built on like God God added to it. But like go ahead. So, the problem that most people have is that we're way more concerned with opinions than truth. Yeah. And this isn't a modern problem. You know, we we talked last episode about people building echo chambers and people get so upset at like these algorithms on social media. What they don't understand is that algorithm is just serving you what you want. So, you should get mad at yourself for what you want to access, you know, or create a fake account and access everything you don't want to access. Like you're if you open up Instagram or Tik Tok or whatever and your for you page comes up all of that is tailored to what you want to what you click on to what you send to your friends. So culture will always serve you whatever you want. So what you want to believe is true what you want to say what you align with. And now it we're in a um I wouldn't say dangerous, but we're in a more precarious position than we've ever been because it's easier than any time in world history to build an echo chamber.

17:31 Yep. Like you don't have to ever interact with anything you disagree with. You don't ever have to hear a perspective that you don't align with. And if you and if you don't like it, you could just Yeah, you can actually say hide it. Not interested. Unsubscribe. Right. and and that creates further further divide. So, it's actually harder now than ever to find dissenting opinions and we should actually search them out. I I'm a person I believe you should interact with stuff that you don't agree with. I agree. And you should try to understand the logic behind it. Yeah. Right. So, a lot of people have a lot of opinions about Islam. They have a lot of opinions about Muslims and America and the them coming in to invade and all that stuff. And if you want to go down that that road, read the Quran. Yeah.

18:23 Right. I would challenge anybody to say, "Okay, I'm going to read the Quran. I'm going to understand from a non-judgmental perspective. I'm going to understand what's taught so that this is this is what what uh theologians call apologetics. It's a defense of the faith. so that I can understand the perspective well enough to be able to reason with it. Right? So I want to invite everyone into wrestling with something that you might initially disagree with. Right? So if we if we go okay does God want me to be rich or does God want me to prosper? There's so many different So Socrates would start his talks with a definition of terms. anytime you talk to somebody we started this this uh podcast our first episode we talked this is the the meaning of the term dialogue we're going to try to understand we're going to try to come to a place where we understand definitions and we agree on the definition because when I say does God want me to be rich uh I have a certain definition in my mind everyone that's listening to this has maybe a completely definition than my mind yeah than than what I think so what does it mean so the first question we should answer is what is prosperity?

19:37 What does it mean to be rich? So, we're going to get to does God want me to be rich? Yeah. But the first question we should answer is what is prosperity? There's a guy uh named Jim Baker and uh he's a pastor and he wrote a wrote a cool book called When Heaven Invades Your Finances and he gave this thought and I love this question. If God had a plan for your money, what would it be? And you get three answers. You get one of three answers. So, if God had a plan for your money, would it be for you to have less than enough money? Would it be for you to have enough money? or would it be for you to have more than enough money? So, you get to decide your your answer to that question, right? And then again, we go back and we you that's what we talked about last episode. Who taught you to think the way that you think? So, let's first start by defining prosperity and defining biblical riches. And then you can understand, okay, well, here's where my thinking comes from. If you think it's less than enough, why do you think that, right? If you think God just wants you to have enough, why do you why do you think that? What what's the reason behind that thought process?

20:36 There there's an interesting thought though on does God just want you to have enough? Because I think it's in Proverbs 30. It's the Ager I think is the guy who who writes Proverbs 30. He says, "God, don't give me this one thing I ask. Don't give me too much that I I eat and I'm satisfied and I forget you. Don't give me too little that I then violate your word and go off and commit crime." This is like in Proverbs, right? And so some people have that thought process of like just enough. But you know, you know what I would immediately challenge that with? Who are you worried about there? Just you. Yeah. Right. There's no thought for anybody else. Yeah. So, so, and we'll get to that. But like, like Jesus, and I think I've said this before on this podcast, and I'll probably say it again. There's this just Mark 7, this in this exchange with the Pharisees. So fascinating to me because they come to Jesus and they say, you know, your disciples, they didn't wash their hands before they ate and that doesn't follow the traditions of the elders. Right.

21:26 Right. And so the Pharisees were all about the traditions of the elders. And we'll talk about traditions more like as we go through kind of this this line of thinking. But Jesus said something really interesting to them. He said, "You cancel out in Mark 7, he says, you your traditions, you've elevated traditions above the commands of God. You've elevated the traditions of men above the commands of God. There's not the most challenging thing. Most challenging thing he says is therefore you cancel out the word of God with your traditions." Right? So it's possible. So like that prayer, it's if I think that God doesn't want me to have enough, then that's what God's going to give me. If I think that God wants me to have enough, that's what I'll get. If I think God wants me to have more than enough, I think that's what I'll get. because because Jesus says it and he makes this clear and we'll talk about the definition of traditions. But Jesus says uh that your thinking can can cancel or confirm the word of God in your life. So if you have a belief that says it's less than enough then or if you hey I just want like the prayer I I just want enough then that's the place that God will meet you at. Like this is people that, you know, I I I don't I've always said this. I don't want people if I'm in the hospital, I don't want people to come pray for me that are going to pray God's will, right? There's always this group of people that like, oh, you know, you're sick, you're dying, you're going through a really hard time. Let's just pray God's will over your situation. You know what I want people to I you know what the kind of people I want in my life?

22:53 God's will is for you to be healed. God's will is for you to be free. God's will is for you to have a great life. That's all through scripture. Those things are true. All through scripture. That's the will of God I want being prayed over my life. not, you know, maybe God's will is for you to get your arm cut off today or maybe, you know, hey man, you're you got cancer, maybe God's will is for you to just die like a really horrible death. It's like, okay, maybe that is maybe that is God's will, but we're going to pray the positive aspects of God's will. Like, I I grew up in a in in cultures where people would go, "Well, I don't know if we could really pray for healing, so let's just pray for God's will." And I would rather I would rather fight like to pray for healing. I would rather believe that God wants me to have more than enough than believe, oh, maybe God wants me to have enough or less than enough. Cuz when when you say God wants me to have enough or God wants me to have less than enough, uh you're limiting you have a limiting belief.

23:46 Mhm. And you're limiting God's effectiveness in your own life. Like there's been so many friends that I've had, you know, not just talking about money, but there's been so many friends I have that don't believe in miracles, right? They don't believe miracles are things because they've never seen one. Yeah. Well, the problem is, and this is back to what we talked about last episode and Mark 7, what Jesus is talking about, it's all connected. The problem is, like you you said this about neural linguistic programming that you have to be able to say things without an without an assumption, a presupposition. Yeah. A presupposition. So, the problem that we often have is we go into a situation and we go, uh, well, maybe God doesn't want this person to be healed. And that's and that's how we pray. Yeah. Right. And so, a person goes, I've never seen a miracle, but what they believe about miracles, they they they formed a belief about miracles before they ever saw one.

24:41 Right. So, they go, well, I don't really think miracles are real, and I've never seen one. It it should be like that should be reversed. I've never seen a miracle. I'm open to them being real. Right. But I think I think that's also a lack of understanding of who God is. And I think that's where a lot of our our misconceptions and our confusion comes from because for somebody out there who's like, well, you know, I can't manifest a miracle. You're right. Cuz people get into this manifesting and like I vibrate at a certain frequency. And like if you've gone deep down the uh the Napoleon Hill like school of thought, which I have, I I've I've law of attraction. law of attraction like then that's where you can kind of almost like God becomes genie god and like people could misconstrue what you're saying but what I've well and that's what I said last episode is you know people treat god like a tool so they worship things they worship money they worship whatever they worship so that's what manifesting is is it's you going I have this thing in my life that I need and I'm going to make that happen and God is my tool to get that right which is the opposite of what God wants so the way I said it was God Most people worship money and use God as a tool rather than worship God and use money as a tool. Yeah.

25:51 Right. So, we worship the thing and we try to manifest the thing and God is just like you're saying our little genie that help us. But if but if you're going like, "Well, I can't manifest a miracle." You're right. You can't like you. It has to be. God's the only one that could do that. However, there's multiple times throughout scripture and like Jesus even says, "Keep coming to me." He encourages people to keep praying. So, this is what Jesus actually said in his words. And we, you know, let's say you're like, "Oh, well, you know, maybe he meant something else." What about whenever Moses changed God's mind? There's been, there's multiple times wherever you see somebody ask God something and he changed his mind, which is a mind-blowing thought. So, to to your point, I'm like, look, you might as well ask, right? Because it's like you can God cares enough that he actually does listen to his kids. So, it's like I'm going to be praying like like you, I would rather die of whatever I'm afflicted with believing and praying and asking God for that than to just be like, "Well, is what it is." Yeah, it is. like I'm not going to lay down because it's never it never is what it is, right? It's I mean it's about like there's an eternal understanding that we just can't have. But yeah, I just want to encourage that for because these are things that people work out in their life.

26:49 Well, I think you said something that's probably going to challenge some people and that's like God changes his mind. Yeah. And people go, I don't I how could God how could God ever change his mind? Here's here's the thing. Here's the fundamental truth about we don't really understand how God operates. Yeah. So So people go and I think we'll talk about this on an episode because you and me were texting about this and we'll get to this. There's obviously a lot of great conversations, a lot of stuff, but but is it free will or is it determinism? Like is do you have free will or is it predestination? And my question is like, well, why does it have to be either one? Why can't it be both? So people go, how could it be both? Well, God exists outside of these rules like all these little these little thought structures and these boundaries that we've built in our mind are not applicable at all to God. Right? So, so the idea like and if you go down that thought line, you see how challenging that is because the idea of good and bad like where does your thinking about good and bad come from? And so people go, "Well, God would never do anything bad." What according to who?

27:52 Yeah. Yeah. Who's whose definition of bad? Whose definition of bad are we talking? Are we talking about your definition of bad? Because maybe your definition of bad is nothing challenging ever happening to you, right? Yeah. In which case, and never being uncomfortable. You're wrong. You're wrong. God will do bad things to you. He will He will put you in a position to suffer, to be uncomfortable. I know that's not us talking about money, but but the thing that's important for us to understand is when we're talking about God, we're talking about a being that exists outside of every every natural law as we understand it, right? Yeah. And so when you when you buy into that, then you buy into this unlimited thinking that anything could happen at any point. Yeah. like miracles can happen, my faith can be rewarded. I mean, the the best the best story to me about Jesus and praying is when they asked him how to pray and he said, "Pray like this." And he talked about there was a widow who needed justice and there was a wicked judge who didn't want to give her justice. He just didn't care. He didn't care about her. It was had no love.

28:51 It wasn't that he didn't like her. He was just wicked. He was indifferent, which is even worse. He was indifferent to her. He didn't care. This is how Jesus describes us praying. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, "God is like a guy who doesn't care about you." Well, I don't think he just illustratively. God is like indifferent, right? And so what the widow did in the story was she kept asking for justice. She kept asking for justice. She kept And finally, because the judge was so frustrated that she kept coming to him, he's like, "Fine, I'll give you justice." Yeah. Because that's what you want. And that's how Jesus tells us to pray. Yeah. He's saying, "Keep coming, man. Treat God as if he doesn't care about your situation and keep coming at him and keep coming at him and if you wear him out, he'll say yes. Yeah. But but the great thing is we know that that God cares about us because he says many times he says he knows the numbers on your head. You're worth more than two sparrows. God cares. You know, he tells you all the time.

29:42 So Jesus is saying this is how you should pray. It's how you should access. God is like most people go, "Well, I prayed one time and it didn't, you know, it didn't take." Yeah. Well, maybe maybe God's trying to develop something in you. Yeah. Absolutely. And and ah man, we could do a whole episode on prayer because the word for prayer in the Greek is uh proseuchomai and it means to exchange wishes. Yeah, d I I see I love that as well. I remember when I read that for the first time in the lexicon, I was like, oh that is wonderful. That's why we need to pray. Like that's the Psalms 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart." What a lot of people do is they reverse that. So this is manifesting in law of attraction is I have desires in my heart. I'm going to let God know what those are. then I'm going to delight myself in God. When you understand prayer in a New Testament uh way of thinking, it's when I pray God, I tell God what I wish for, I tell God what I want, and then he changes what I want, he changes my heart to want what he wants for me. So when you delight yourself in the Lord first, then not only does he give you the desires of your heart, prayer changes the desires of your heart.

30:48 That's what's so key about that. So, I think we could do a whole episode on that, but let's get back to We're going have to listen back to this. I think we've had like 12 good episodes, I guess. So, good. Yeah. So, so let's talk about what's prosperity. Yeah. Right. So, we want to we want to understand how God thinks. We want to see his perspective. And the great thing is I said this last episode, money and prosperity is one of the most mentioned topics in the Bible. So, we'll start with the Old Testament. There's two different testaments in the Bible. There's two parts. So, more than faith, more than love, more than salvation. And that's how much money and possessions are mentioned. The Old Testament, Old Testament law, uh, Jewish law has more laws about money than anything else. So, the Torah, why would the Torah have more rules about money than anything else, right? Because God cares about money a whole lot, a lot more than we think he does. So, I'll give you a few uh dictionary terms that that you can go look up, right? So there's in the in the top there's four main words that are used to describe prosperity in the in the Old Testament. So we'll start with the Old Testament. There's four main words. The first is tova. It's mentioned 852 times in the Old Testament. It means good in five general areas. So practical, economic or material good, abstract goodness like pleasantness, beauty, desiraability, uh things that are quality or expensive, moral goodness and philosophical good.

32:11 So the number one way that the Old Testament mentions prosperity and riches is in this holistic way that's about your whole life. Yeah. It's not just about eternity and it's not just about right now. It's about everything. So then the second one is this uh Hebrew word chayil. It's mentioned 242 times and uh that's physical wealth. So that's just uh basically that word chayil means the the ability that you have to take dominion. So Genesis 1:28, God says, "Go into all the world, subdue, take dominion." Right? This is chayil. chayil is the ability that God gives you to go take dominion. Right? It's when the Bible says in Deuteronomy 8:18, God's given you the power to create wealth. That's that that word wealth is chayil. God's given you the power to go out and take dominion economically. That's that's what that word actually means.

33:03 Then uh beracha, that's mentioned 71 times. He's the president as well, which is Barack Barack Obama. Uh that word means to endure. To endure with power for success, prosperity, fertility, fruitfulness, and longevity. And then this isn't the last used, but this is like the fourth most used 68 times. tsalach. And tsalach means to thrive, to be well, to accomplish all the good that was intended. Means to succeed because of God's favor. So you can go to again you can go to joshuacraft.com and you can see like all these different you could if you want to copy and paste those you can see them in on my website but but when we look at how God defines prosperity in the Old Testament. So what is prosperity? When we look at how God defines prosperity in the Old Testament, it's not just spiritual wealth, right?

33:55 It's not just oh eventually someday. It's not being happy and fulfilled. All of that are is a part of the definition, but it's everything. Can I can I ask I kind of interject something here? Yeah. Because what you're doing is you're doing a great job of executing this for people and what what we do, we don't realize we read our own lens onto things and we forget what it was written into in the context of the time because we're kind you're kind of saying you you that last comment you made right there was you saying like look this is how we interpreted modern day. But correct me if I'm wrong. So much of the Old Testament understanding of when God was blessing you was almost exclusively based on your crops and your family growing and all these things and that's how these other gods got brought in was it was like well hey Baal is the god of rain or whatever and Asherah is the god of I believe she was the god of uh fertility and so it's like if you want these things you know it wasn't that they threw Yahweh out they just added some other stuff to their pantheon exactly right it's like well we're going to put this on here as well we're going to sprinkle some Yahweh because you know that's worked pretty And so this was like almost their exclusive understanding to the point that if you were wealthy it was like well blatantly God was with you. Is that is that correct?

35:00 Yeah. I mean when you but when so so we'll we'll zoom in on the New Testament for a second. Yeah. I just want to make sure I'm I'm highlighting that for people because it's important that we know what was the context of the times and how people you know when you mention these words that we don't use. It's natural for us to kind of try and like fast forward thousands of years and we don't realize that we've put a bunch of assumptions in there. So it's important to understand it. So, one of the words that's not used a whole lot in uh in the Hebrew, well, I'll go back to what you said. So, you talked about exegesis. So, there's two different things you can do. One is eisegesis and one's exegesis. And all the reformed people get mad when you do eisegesis . eisegesis is when you take your own meaning and you apply it to the verse. So, eisegesis would happen if you look at Philippians 4:13, it says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." And you're like, "I can dunk a basketball. I can win the state football game." That's called eisegesis. That's you having a thought already and trying to find a scripture that confirms that.

35:58 exegesis is when you look at like the original language, the context, all this stuff, and you pull the meaning out of what scripture actually says, and you apply that to your life. Right. Very good. Right. So, we're trying to practice exegesis. eisegesis is is a bad idea. So, there's this other word in Proverbs 10:22. The Bible says, "The blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow to Love that scripture. Okay. The word used there is only used 17 times in the Old Testament. It's osher. And osher means to become wealthy in money, possessions, or influence. That's what that word means. Yeah. So, when the Bible says in the Old Testament, and we're just hanging out in the Old Testament for a second, the blessing of the Lord makes rich. When the Bible says makes rich, it means mainly financially. Yeah. Right. That's that's what that particular verse says. Then then Proverbs chapter 13 verse 22 says, "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children children's children's children, but the sinner's wealth is held up for the righteous." So that's that word chayil that I read a second ago, which means physical wealth, strength, and influence to grow your dominion. So we see this played out throughout the Old Testament in the story. So if you're like, "Oh man, that's so much like getting into the academic aspect of this." This is important because you see this played out throughout the Old Testament.

37:20 Yeah. So, Job was wealthy and then Job was double wealthy by the end of the story. Abraham, the Bible says in Genesis 13, Abraham became very wealthy. Isaac, Genesis 26, the man talking about Isaac became rich and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. And these are like words for physical wealth. Yeah. These aren't like, oh, he became really spiritually wealthy and he was destitute, but he, you know, had meaning and purpose in his life. That's not what any of this says, right? Jacob, the man grew exceedingly prosperous. Uh, then David, he he made, the Bible says he made provision for the house of God in abundance. So, David is significant in that he gave what is considered to be today a $6.5 billion offering to start the construction of the temple. Dang. Right.

38:11 So all of the Hebrew words, the majority of the Hebrew words that are used throughout the Old Testament to describe wealth are about physical and material wealth. They're not limited to that, right? But that's included as a part of it in my Go ahead. Let me just let me just add in. So I hope you're grasping what Josh is saying. I want to make sure you understand what we're not saying. We are not saying that the point of your life is to be rich. What we are saying is that it is a very godly thing that as you grow and you're prosperous that you are prosperous materially as well. Yeah. And that and that's what people struggle with so much because I think people say like Yeah. like they try and make it the whole point because they're either like I'm all about the I'm all about those Benjamins or like or they're just dead poor and and what you're saying is like do you think maybe the God who has the cattle of a thousand hills who knows no limits as we said we can't even grasp how great he is or even understand him or fathom the God who created the universe that's still expanding by the way that maybe along the way of you fulfilling the purpose that he wants you to be materially and abundantly rich not because that's the whole point but because he's that good.

39:14 Yeah. So, and that's a complicated thing. So, this is where we have to really want what God thinks more than what anybody else thinks. Yeah. Because it's a complicated thing in the world because even Christian people don't leave an inheritance to their children's children. So, then people go, they get emotional and they go, "Well, how dare you? How dare you? I'm not saying it." So, be like a Berean. Go research everything I'm saying. I' I've looked at it. I Sorry for telling you what was written. Yeah. So, this is what God says. So a godly person leaves an inheritance to their children's children. That word chayil in Hebrew is really important because really what it what it means is the ability to take dominion. Okay. So think about this generational wealth. So it usually starts with one person. There's one person who's like I'm going to change what it means for my family. I'm going to be the one. Yeah. Right. So many people talk about that. They're the one. Then what they do is they teach their kids to take dominion like they take dominion. Now they don't use the term dominion but they teach their kids to operate successfully. Like we live in a world today that uh most people most adults are not financially literate. They don't understand how to manage money even at the most basic level because no one ever taught them.

40:23 If you are wealthy you know how to manage money. Like people that are not I'm not talking about rich like people can make money that don't mean they can manage it. So when people are wealthy they know how to manage money and they pass that knowledge down to other people. Right? So when the Bible says in Proverbs, a godly person leaves an inheritance to their children's children, that's not financial. That's not financial inheritance. That's, think about it this way, this is chayil . A godly person teaches their children's children how to take dominion. Yeah. And the only way you can take dominion, the only way you can teach someone else to take dominion is if you've taken it yourself. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't mean you've gone out and become a millionaire or you started some successful business, but wherever in your life that you've prospered and taken dominion and followed God's ways, you can teach other people to do that. The problem is we have a we have a I guess a crisis on a level that most people don't ever go out and take any kind of dominion even though God says to and he teaches us how all through the scripture. Like even though God says in Deuteronomy 8:18 that I said a second ago, it is God who gives you the power to create wealth.

41:35 Yeah. Even though that says that, we don't often apply this stuff to our lives. This is back to what I talked about last episode of only 4% of Christians have a biblical worldview. So even though God says all this stuff, we don't apply it well to our lives. So then we can't pass down the inheritance, which the inheritance is not the money or the resources. It's the ability that's developed to go out and take dominion. My dad taught me how to manage money well. Yeah. So, from a young age, I knew how to manage money. That's an inheritance to me. Yeah. I can't even put a dollar amount on what that has saved me, what it would cost me to go learn that somewhere else. And so, basically, from an Old Testament perspective, let's give like a simple Old Testament definition of prosperity, then we'll move on to the New Testament. A simple Old Testament definition of prosperity is winning in life. So God has given you God wants to give you the ability to go win in life and to teach other people how to win in life.

42:32 You know my my thing is we have to escape the cultural definition of prosperity. So the cultural definition of prosperity is comparison. It's not about comparison. It's not about having more than someone else. Some of us when we say prosperity it means I'm going to go be a millionaire. Not saying God doesn't want to do that. It's just the ability Old Testament perspective the ability to go out and take dominion. So my inheritance from an Old Testament perspective is not something I'm granted in a will. It's the approach to life, the philosophy of life, the thinking, being, and doing that lives to that that that helps me win in life. Yeah. I I think we we've seen so many people try and pass down the finance. I think the the Rockefellers are like the the big ex or is the Rockefellers? No, it's the Vanderbilts. Are they the uh Yeah, they're the example of what happens when you don't pass down the thinking. They there's there's the famous story of Anderson Cooper who's a Vanderbilt and he his mom came to him and said there's nothing left.

43:26 Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's exactly what I mean. But we but that's what we all think is like, oh, I can just hand it down to them. And I think it comes from a wrong place because if you've had to be poor and you've been broke, you know how much it sucks. And we have this natural thing as a as a parent that we don't want our kids to have to feel the pain we did and we're very unaware of how much the pain actually helped us grow. And so like if you can if you can teach them how like you said how to take dominion not from a place of fear or lack but from a place of like this is who God says we are and this is what you're on the earth to do. I mean look if you can one of the things that people don't like to hear but that's absolutely true is if typically if you can figure out how to make something work in one area of your life you can then apply what you've learned if you're if you use some wisdom to other areas of your life. So, if you can learn how to win and rule financially, I'm not saying that everybody that does win and rule financially wins everywhere, but you can grasp some of what you did there and take it to other areas of your life. So, like the finance to me is just another arena to be trained in.

44:22 Yeah. Again, this is really challenging because uh we don't see it a lot, right? Yeah. And the truth is what people do is they they'll look at what God says, they'll look at what scripture teaches and they won't have seen it. And so they'll they'll throw out parts of the Bible because it's like, well, I don't see that happening. Yeah. But if it's what the word says, uh then you have to go with it. I mean, for me, it's like I believe that's foundational truth. It doesn't matter if I've seen it. If I haven't seen it, I believe that that's what God says. So, I'm going to do that. The Bible says Genesis 1, he gave what my dad calls the great assignment to Adam and Eve. Go out, fill the earth, multiply, subdue it, and take dominion. So, to take dominion is something that we have to go do. We have to have the ability to go do it. We have to have the thinking to go do it. And then we have to teach other people how to do it. And the problem, so just from an Old Testament perspective, then we'll jump into the New Testament.

45:15 The problem from an Old Testament perspective is for whatever reason, it's not our job on this podcast to figure out everybody's reason. For whatever reason, people do not take dominion, haven't taken dominion, so then they don't think that they're supposed to take dominion or they've never been taught. Like my my grandparents are great examples of this. With all due respect, both my grandpas are dead, so they're not gonna get mad at me for saying this. Maybe they will. Yeah. So, my dad's dad, he lived on a police pension. He he they they did well. They did decent in life. At the end of his life, he said, "I just hope I I just hope I live long enough so the money doesn't run out." Right. Yeah. Which is how most people think. That's not dominion. No. That's not taking dominion. That's like, man, I hope I I hope God gives me enough, right? And my mom's dad, um, he did nothing. He he if he could have passed down debt, he would have. He had a reverse mortgage on his house when he died. On and on I could go. So, you learn this. You're supposed to learn this generationally is what the Bible teaches. And, and when you look at the Old Testament, um, and then we'll move to the New Testament. When you look at the Old Testament, almost everybody that God used was financially wealthy except for Elijah. Elijah was the only exception. So the rule is wealth and prosperity, not the exception. So it's not that, oh, God just just Yeah. It's not, oh, God just used wealthy people. It's like, no, God made people wealthy because they followed his way of living. So if you start to think like how God wants you to think, you start to take advantage of universal laws that guarantee success. And it's not just success financially, but financial success is included in that.

47:03 How wild is it, man, that we have to convince people that God wants them to win financially. I It's just cra it's a crazy thought to me that like people like resistant to this. Philosophically, it's wild, but it makes sense because most people have never seen this. Like this is this is back to me talking about like the issues I have with the American church. I just think that we are um so limited in our thinking. We're so limited in our perspective. We we live uh and I'm including myself. We live impotent lives. We live limited lives when God's an unlimited God. Yeah. And we've been we've we've been shown this. We've been taught this. Like in Dallas where we live is a stronghold of uh this is like one of the central areas in the country for for Baptists. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. So So Dallas is like the the the center of Baptist America. Well, a lot of Baptists what they believe is God just cares about eternity. He doesn't care about right now. And you know, we'll see if God's will is for you to live.

48:02 Wow. Right. Um which is unfortunate, but like that's what I'm saying. That shows the power of our thinking that Jesus is talking about in Mark 7 that you can you're what the only thing in your life that matters more than the word of God is what you think. And I think so many people they're they're they're they've allowed themselves to be limited in their thinking to the point where God's word doesn't have effect for them because they don't they don't think that it does and they've really never seen someone win. Right? But if you, this is the the uh the bet that I want to encourage everybody to make. If you decide, I'm going to live God's way. And if you just fully sell out to it, commit to it, doesn't matter what you've seen, doesn't if you take scripture, you open it up, you apply it to your life, you will be successful in life in every definition of success. You'll have a great marriage, you'll have great kids, you'll u have have you'll have great finances.

48:56 is that doesn't mean you'll be a multi multi-millionaire, but it will mean that you have success. So, the Bible talks about the the Old Testament talks about that success and and prosperity and all that is really about the ability to go win in life and help other people win in life. Well, then what does the New Testament say, right? So, Paul talks to the Corinthians church, the the church at Corenth in 2 Corinthians uh 8:9. These are really great passage passages to read. And he's talking to a wealthy church who's mostly stopped giving. And and he says this, "God is make God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in in in every good work." So, and then he goes on to say that God gives seed to the sower and bread for food and he'll supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. And then verse 11 of 2 Corinthians 9, this is This is the ultimate answer from God, I think, as it relates to does God want me to be rich?

49:59 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. So people go, "Well, does God want me to be rich?" Well, yeah. The Bible says that. Like the Bible literally says in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, you will be enriched in every way. In every way. In every way means every way. It doesn't mean some of the ways. It doesn't mean well spiritually you'll you'll be fulfilled. Um and that's a challenge. That's again that's like a big challenge for our our human thinking. It's a challenge for it's a challenge for our experience. And so when we look at the New Testament, we'll give some definitions. Um how does the New Testament define prosperity, right? So the number one way that the New Testament defines prosperity in the Greek, uh it uses this word eulogia and it means good fortune and all that's necessary for your well-being. So again, it reflects the Hebrew everything. It's not one thing. It's not spirituality. It's everything. Right.

50:58 So So let me let me can I pause you real quick there cuz like the Apostle Paul is an interesting one and I'm always going to I'm going to try and play uh just so you guys you may have devil's advocate. I'm hitting people with a lot of information. That's part part of my job on this is to pull out the best of you, but also to kind of like throw back some of the things that I think the audience might be thinking uh in there. So, like Paul, as far as we know, was not a wealthy guy, right? I mean, he he worked as a tent maker and he said that he sacrificed his right to receive from people because he didn't want to put anything in their way that would stumble. Now, what I immediately would counter my own point with is No, I'm just being I'm just being I'm thinking this through because I'm I'm actually really enjoying this. Even though this is our podcast, it's really your podcast, but like it's our podcast. It's ours, but you know what I mean? like this. It says Joshua Craft and Nick Surface. I made sure to put the owner as Josh Craft, you know, just in case you say something controversial, I can distance myself. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just I'm just kidding, man. No, but I I I I'm just I'm messing around there. But as I'm thinking about this, like I love what you said cuz I started going through my head in my in my mind about you said that the the rule in the Old Testament was that it was by and large wealthy people. I start thinking about Daniel, right? I'm like, "Oh, yeah.

52:02 Okay." Right? I start thinking about like Jeremiah. I start thinking about all these different prophets. I mean, like it's it's I mean, Jeremiah probably wasn't wealthy, you know, cuz he's like the weeping prophet and that was at the end of at the end of the empire, but but pretty much anyone that we know their lifestyle in the Old Testament, again, the only exception I found, I'm not saying I I I know every every verse of the Bible by heart. Yeah. The only the only example I found of someone who was who we knew their lifestyle and they weren't very prosperous was Elijah, right? Everyone else was like, "Oh, Joseph is second in command over all of Egypt. That's that's pretty wealthy." Yeah. Um Daniel, Daniel, like you're saying, all these are guys who were So, like then I'm starting to think, okay, I don't really know what the apostles uh you know, wealth or income was. I do know that in Acts 4, it talks about how like that people didn't have need because everybody gave. And it talks about Barnabas, who was actually one of the people who traveled with Paul, sold the field and gave everything to them. And you kind of go, okay, so he owns some land. And like we kind of go like, oh, you know, maybe he had a rental property because that's how we think nowadays.

53:04 But like owning property back then was not like something that everybody did. Correct. Like it was something that like that in and of itself is like, okay, this guy's obviously has some money. Yeah. Property ownership in the ancient world was mostly for wealthy people, right? And that's that's why I'm trying to get people to pick up on these little sentences because you read like, you know, Barnabas, who was called the son of encouragement, sold a field he had. And we go like, oh, cool. And we kind of think like, oh, he sold like some little investment property he had because that's what we would do. It's like, oh, I'm going to be generous. just going to sell something that you let's sell a pair of Jordans and give the money away. No, this was hinting at something. This what I want people to understand because I I cuz the Apostle Paul kind of does seem like maybe he wasn't in that. But but I mean I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. I mean we don't know, right? You know, like we don't we but the you know, you look at the evidence Paul um worked as a tent maker. He he spent his life doing it whatever. He spent his life doing exactly what he wanted to do, right?

53:56 Exactly what he was called on the earth to do. He got on ships, traveled around the world, went and preached the gospel. Someone funded that. And it all costs money. Yeah. Right. And um he spent his life he he was able to spend his life doing what God put him on the earth to do. And on one hand, right, you you don't see that Paul uh ever really made a lot of money or whatever, but he also never worried about money. Right. Well, and but that's why and that's why I'm trying to get people to draw is like because people would be like, "Well, what about Paul?" Okay. Okay. Well, what about the 56 other examples that you gave before this of people who were prosperous and like and the whole of the Old Testament? Well, the New Testament, I mean, you know, like again, like you could research this all day. The New Testament is filled with wealthy benefactors of the church and of the early church and of the the the early Christian church and all that all that different kind of stuff. And we'll probably I'll probably more get into the history. There's a lot of history there of like the church fathers and all this different stuff that we know. We don't really have a whole the truth is a lot of this stuff is tradition that's handed down. We don't really know for sure, right?

54:58 But you know, like Jesus, like you said, could have been the best stonemason in the world. Paul could have been the best tent maker in the world. For sure. Well, he's the same guy who wrote everything you do as unto the Lord. You think he was he was mailing it in on his tents? Yeah. I'm guessing he had like the uh you know, the Coleman extreme condition tents of tent. I mean, yeah. Uh, you know, and Paul was Paul had the ability to go to churches and say, "I don't need you guys to support me. I'm good." Yeah. But and he also spent a lot of his time preaching. Yeah. Yeah. He must have made a decent decision. Yeah. And writing just sitting around writing letters. I mean, you know, so so but he spoke multiple languages and he could write read and write. We take that for granted. That was actually a Roman He was a Roman He was a Roman citizen which was a huge deal and a Jew. He, you know, on and on. He was highly educated. to be highly educated like Paul was. That's that's all that costs money just like it does today. Yeah, you're right. Actually, it was not common back then.

55:50 So that's that's just evidence that points to something and and we all have to come to our own conclusion. But this is like where we have to understand the New Testament's definition of prosperity, right? So the first one, eulogia is good fortune. All that's necessary for your well-being. Okay? So everything everything's wrapped up. Again, makarios is the second most used term in the New Testament. That means to have no needs, okay? To be transcendently happy and a person who's above normal cares and worries, which is what we see in Paul's life. It's what we see throughout the early church is the leaders of the church and those and this isn't just like people that were pastors. This is just the leaders that we know of that we've described their life. They didn't have the same concerns that everybody else did. They're telling everyone not to be as concerned about things. Yeah. Right. And then plows. Platos means to make someone rich both materially and spiritually and to be granted abundance which is more than you need in every in every area of life.

56:46 Praise the Lord. So does it mean and that's the that's ultimately the question that we'll we'll continue to get to because does the when we say rich uh what does that mean? Right? So most of the time when we think of rich we think of that in terms of comparison. Yeah, for sure. And the problem the problem with that is God does not think in terms of comparison. So to go back, God says, so what's the New Testament definition of sufficiency? 2 Corinthians 9:8, God is able to make all grace abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. The Greek word that Paul used there is autarkeia. And that's not like a ver a word that's mentioned a lot in the New Testament, but it means having enough of everything and not requiring support.

57:43 So to prosper according to Paul means that you have your needs met. And it means that you also have everything you need to meet other people's needs. So that's the new the New Testament definition of prosperity. The New Testament definition of prosperity is I have everything I need and I have enough left over to meet other people's needs. The Old Testament definition of prosperity is I'm winning in life and I'm helping other people win in life. So people go, "Well, I don't I don't have So, and this is where and this is probably maybe be our longest podcast episode ever." Yeah. But like this is where it's so important that we understand God's perspective because in America, we confuse needs and wants. And God says he wants to give us all sufficiency in all things at all times. so that we can abound in good works. We live in a society that says you create your own sufficiency. Right?

58:38 So this is what credit card debt is. Credit card debt is I don't have enough to do what I want. So I'm going to go into debt to get it because I'm entitled to this. I'm entitled not to having my needs met. I'm entitled to my wants. Right? So I'm entitled to owning a house. I'm entitled to driving a new car. I'm entitled to buy the newest iPhone, right? I'm entitled to all this stuff. And this is where our thinking gets us in trouble because God doesn't say to go out and create your own sufficiency. So the the the idea of sufficiency in the Bible is God is going to give you sufficiency. Now, a lot of people that are listening to this go, "Well, I don't have sufficiency. I don't I don't have my needs met." Number one question you got to answer is, "Are you doing money God's way?" Right? And we'll talk about some practical aspects of that maybe on the next episode of how to do money God's way because I think that's a that's really important like we got to have handles on that.

59:33 But if you're not doing it God's way, he's you're not going to be given sufficiency. It's just how it works. And so God is able to but but then the Bible says God gives seed in that same passage of scripture. The Bible says God gives seed to the sower. So there's this universal law that governs the universe. It's called the law of sowing and reaping. Yeah. And Proverbs 11:32, uh, in the message version, I really like how it says it. It says, 'The world of the generous gets larger and larger, and the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. So, people want God to make them sufficient without buying into the law of sowing and reaping. And the whole idea of prosperity in the in the Bible is not about us. So, if you believe God wants you to have less than enough, you'll never be prosperous. Right. Right. If you believe God wants you to just have enough, you'll never be prosperous. If you believe God wants you to have more than enough, then you understand that prosperity is me being able to give a lot more.

1:00:33 Yeah. It's me being able to step into a position where I have more than my needs met. So if you if you're just if you're just having your needs met, you're not able to give. You're not able to be generous, right? So like you talked about Barnabas and the early church and people sold property, they sold everything that they had so that there were no needs. I can't help meet someone else's needs if my needs are barely being met. Let me let me for those of you who might be like, well, you know, God will supply and so you can, you know, that's not necessarily true and you might be disagreeing. Let me ask you this. If you're the type of person that your life is in all sorts of pain and turmoil and you're not at ease or have any sort of rest in your own mind, how can you help anybody else? Right? This is I mean the classic thing that you always hear people talk about is like oh it's like on the airplane whenever the the gas or whenever the air air masks fall down you put your own mask on first before you apply someone else's. You don't you don't ask a sick person to help make you well. You need to be healthy. It's it's exactly what you're saying in finance and it is I I agree with you wholeheartedly.

1:01:31 Yeah. Again, this is episode two of of a not episode two of the podcast, episode two of a long conversation and we're just getting started. But again, we define wealth as comparison. We we just do. So, if we want to be honest about who's rich, like who's prosperous in the world today, the the median income, the median income in the United States of America, median household income is $80,610 per family. Okay? If a household in America, if a household in the world makes the median income, median American household income, they're in the top 22% of income earners in the entire world. Yeah. So, if you live in America and you make the median income, you are by definition rich. You don't feel like you're rich. That's different. Feeling like you're rich and being rich is different. If you're in the top 20% of anything, top 22% of anything, you're you're the cream of the crop.

1:02:27 Now, it doesn't feel that way because of how we define American culture and society. I have to drive a new car. I have to buy new clothes. I have to live in this kind of house. I have to keep up with the Joneses. Yeah. I have to make sure and maintain a certain lifestyle. So what people do is God goes, "I'm going to meet your needs." And then we go, "Yeah, but I want my wants met." And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go take on debt and create my own sufficiency. So it may not feel like we're sufficient, but we're in the top 20% of the entire world. And the Western world or just America, just people in America control 90% of the world's wealth. Jeez, that's crazy. So if you live in America and you're listening to this, you're a part of controlling 90% of the world's wealth. So nearly half of the world lives three billion people, okay, live on less than $7 a day. So if you make the median American household income, you make 31 times what these people make a day, right? So that's $7 which I recently went to Starbucks and uh I got a Nitro cold brew which is decent. $7.

1:03:36 Is it seven bucks? $7 for a cup of nitro cold brew coffee. So I'm spending that on a on a cup of coffee and these people are making that in a day. So people go well you know we just have a lifestyle. It's like exactly right. So God doesn't see it that way. God doesn't see it like with all these comparisons. God when you do when you do money and life God's way you you God will make you sufficient in all things so for a purpose so that you can abound in every good work. So, if we want to look at stats and we want to make it about comparison, if you make and you maybe some people make less than that, but if you make the median household income in the United States of America, you're one of the most rich people on the planet financially. And it it doesn't feel that way, but that's a lot of times because we're trying to push beyond how God defines sufficiency. And what we should do is be able to really in next episode we'll talk about how to structure your finances a little bit and then we'll get further down the road in God and prosperity cuz I think I want to give some practical handles to this.

1:04:35 But you should you and I should get to the point where we go, okay, am I really am I really having my needs met or am I making or am I turning my wants into needs? But but clearly uh and we've done a whole long talk on this today, but clearly in the Bible, God wants you to prosper. God wants you to prosper in every way. I talked about John 10:10 earlier, but the definitions of prosperity, the perspective, like all through scripture, it's very clear that God wants you to be rich. Yeah. And God wants you to be rich for a purpose. So the purpose of prosperity is not again for ourselves and we we've we've talked about that whereas as it relates to most people they want more so they can have more for their family for it's not that it's so you can have more to bless people with so you can have more to change the world. Generosity is the thing that changes the world. But for most people, they don't have God's perspective on this. And so they don't understand if you want your world in if you want your world to get bigger, you have to sew a lot. And if you give a lot, then you're going to, you know, uh I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said, "I I shovel it out. God shovels it in. The only problem is God has a bigger shovel than me." Mhm.

1:05:52 And when you understand what Paul's describing, which is beyond definitions, but if you when you understand what Paul's describing in in saying you will be enriched in every way. So read 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and 9. But look at those. God will make you sufficient in all things so you can abound in every good work. He gives seed to the sower. He will multiply your seed for sowing. And then he will enrich you in every way so you can always be generous. Eight. Those three verses are all about generosity. They're all about stepping into a lifestyle that says, "God wants me to have more than enough so I can give more." And the more you give, it's just the way that it works. And we'll talk about that more in in later episodes. But God wants you to have more than enough. And the way to get more than enough is you sew more. Thank you for listening to The Dialog.

1:06:45 Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com. Or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.