Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 150
TRANSCRIPT
What is one of the most common topics in the bible? What is something that we all have to deal with on a daily basis? What is something that causes problems in marriages, families, churches, and businesses? It’s money. Money can be a blessing or a curse in our lives. Most of us who have been in church for any length of time have heard many sermons about money. I am going to shine a little more light on the topic of money. Why am I going to talk about something that has been talked about almost ad nauseam? Because I want us to deal with money out of freedom and not from a place of bondage.
I’m Lee Whitman from Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. The verse I have chosen for today’s podcast is 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows”. Notice it doesn’t say that money is the root of all evil, but the love of money. In this podcast I want to discuss money from an RTF perspective.
Many times, Christians struggle with the concept of money and wealth because we have been conditioned by the church for many years that having money is evil. The church has taken today’s verse and misinterpreted it to teach that having money is evil. A large portion of the church has been taught it is more spiritual to have a poverty mindset. A poverty mindset will cause a person to think about money with fear, worrying about living in lack. It’s interesting that people who have money don’t think about money, but the people who are living with a poverty mindset think about and worry about money all the time.
Let’s look at several characteristics that are common to a poverty mindset. A person with a poverty mindset may have some or all of these characteristics.
A Scarcity Mindset – A scarcity mindset is the belief that there are only a limited amount of resources to go around and the accompanying fear that you might not have enough. This mindset causes people to tend to hoard what they have for fear that they might not get more in the future. It also causes them to be jealous of those who do have more. The lie is that if you get blessed and are living in abundance then that means that I will have less available to me.
Everything Seems Permanent – One characteristic of this mindset is that this is the way that it is always going to be. There is no hope for change. A poverty mindset is usually rooted in multi-generational poverty. It is something that is passed down through the family line. So, in the person’s mind, it was this way with my grandparents, it was this way with my parents, and it is going to be this way with me. Part of this mindset is the fear that disaster can come on you at any moment. You have heard it said that most Americans are just one paycheck away from poverty. That statement is firmly rooted in this poverty mindset.
Nothing Seems Permanent – A slight variation of the characteristic we just talked about that everything seems permanent is the idea that nothing seems permanent. It is this thought that causes people to hoard what they have because nothing is permanent, and you never know when what you need will be taken away from you. With this idea you believe that you can lose it all no matter what you do. Angela grew up watching her father go from boom to bust many different times in his life. He would get a good job and begin to make good money only to have something bad happen that would cause him to lose all that they had gained. Angela inherited the belief from her father that no matter how well things are going right now, they will always change for the worse.
You are a victim of other’s decisions and choices – The poverty mindset reduces people to living life as victims of their circumstances and other people’s choices. They believe that they do not have the power to make their own decisions financially, instead others hold the power over their financial future. They also tend to focus on the problem and not on finding a solution. It is much easier for them to see the negative in a situation than the positive. Thus, they are unable to dream their way out of their current situation.
Fear of spending money on non-essentials – This is the person who will not buy a new outfit for a special occasion because they have one that will do the job. While on the surface this trait might look like the person is just being frugal, the motivation for not buying the item is fear and not frugality. There is a wonderful verse in 1 Timothy found in chapter 3 and verse 17. It says, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to set their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.” The reason God gives us things is for our enjoyment. Now of course this could be taken too far, and we spend without limits. When we set our hope on God and His Kingdom, then the things God gives us are a blessing for our enjoyment. Is it ok to get a new outfit for a special occasion? Break off this poverty mindset and then ask your Father God what He says.
Constantly searching for the cheapest alternative – This mindset would tell you that it is wrong to buy a quality product if you can find something of lesser quality at a cheaper price. I’m not against buying things on Facebook marketplace or other consignments stores. The point here is not where you buy something but rather that you are willing to buy something of lesser quality because you don’t deserve the best. Having the best, according to this mindset, is trying to make you look like you are better than others. It is like showing off and remember, you don’t deserve to show off.
Obsession with getting deals or free stuff – We have a friend who will spend hours and hours searching for the best deal before buying anything. On the surface getting a deal is a good use of your money, but not when getting the deal is an obsession that controls your life. The motivation for getting the deal is fear. If I don’t get the best deal possible, I will run out of money and not be able to support my family. Part of this obsession is seen in never picking up the check when there is a possibility that someone else will. I used to work with a car salesman who would go to lunch with the other salesman, but he hardly ever paid for his own meal. He always had an excuse like “I only have a hundred-dollar bill and don’t want to break it for a $7.00 lunch.” I ended up carrying $100 in change for the next time that excuse came up.
A Poverty mindset believes that you are lucky when you succeed, and incompetent when you fail – This thought usually comes from hearing those in your family make comments about how lucky someone was that succeeded. They see success as determined by luck and not by hard work and effort. The flip side of this thought is that when someone fails, including themselves, it is due to incompetence.
Feelings of guilt when you have more than someone else – Feelings of resentment when they have more than you. A poverty mindset will have you focus on others and compare yourself. Thus, when you have more than others, there is a false guilt that comes that you have more than them. On the flip side, when they have more than you, this mindset will resent that they have more. You may know people who are constantly apologizing for what they have.
These are just a few of the characteristics of a poverty mindset. This mindset goes hand in hand with an orphan mindset. Orphans believe that they are on their own and have to take care of themselves. Physical orphans do not have parents. Spiritual orphans live life as if they have no parents and often develop this poverty mindset.
If you recognize that you have any of these traits of a poverty mindset, there is hope. Restoring the Foundations ministry is excellent at getting rid of this mindset. Why? Because RTF ministry deals with the four problem areas that hold a poverty mindset in place.
First RTF ministers to the generational curses associated with a poverty mindset. This mindset is almost always inherited from your ancestors. It is passed on to you in a couple of ways. First it is passed to you through your blood line. If you had ancestors who lived life from an orphan mindset, as most of us have, then they passed that orphan mindset on to the following generations. One of the characteristics of an orphan mindset is this poverty mindset. Many people will try to get counseling to rid themselves of this poverty mindset. As long as the generational pressure is there from your ancestors, then it is very difficult to counsel away a spiritual problem. A spiritual problem like these generational curses need a spiritual solution. The wonderful news is that Jesus provided that spiritual solution to these generational curses when He died for us on the cross. We need to apply what Jesus did for us on the cross to these curses so that they are cut off from our live.
Next, this poverty mindset is full of lies that we believe. Each one of the characteristics that we mentioned are held in place by a belief. You can try to stop acting in the ways of the poverty mindset, but as long as you are believing lies holding that mindset in place, you will always return to what you believe. Trying to change behavior without changing the belief is almost impossible. But once the belief is changed, the behavior automatically changes. RTF ministry is great at getting rid of lies by helping you come out of agreement with the lie and with the kingdom of darkness, then asking God for His truth. When the agreement with the kingdom of darkness is broken, it is much easier to hear and receive God’s truth.
The third way that RTF ministry is effective in dismantling a poverty mindset is by bringing healing to your broken heart. When we have generational curses putting pressure on us to walk in the same sin as our ancestors, and then you add to that the lies we believe because of the generational pressure towards a poverty mindset, it is almost inevitable that we are going to develop wounds to our heart about this poverty mindset. One girl grew up with parents who had a severe poverty mindset who never bought her a gift for Christmas or her birthday. She had a deep wound that reinforced this poverty mindset that needed to be healed by Jesus.
The fourth way RTF is powerful in setting people free from a poverty mindset is by removing the demonic interference. The demonic energizes and reinforces the other three areas making it almost impossible to get free from this mindset. Once the demons’ legal rights are removed by the first three ministry areas of RTF, then it is quite easy to command the demons to leave you alone. They have to do what you tell them to do because of your authority as a child of God.
As you can tell, I love RTF ministry. We get to watch as God uses RTF to set people free. And when they know how to keep the door shut to the enemy, they experience lasting freedom.
If you recognize any of these characteristics of a poverty mindset at work in you, don’t put up with them. Don’t settle. Go to the RTF website at restoringthefoundations.org and click on the Get Ministry tab at the top of the page. There you will find a directory of highly trained RTF ministers all over the world who can help you get rid of this poverty mindset.
PRAYER
Father God you are so good to us. In this area of a poverty mindset we need your help in showing us if we are believing anything that is a lie. We have been taught things by many of our churches that are not true. Would you reveal to us those lies. Then would you connect us with the right RTF ministry to help us receive the freedom that you want to give us.
Thank you for joining us on this week’s Hope Healing and Freedom podcast. Please join us again next week as we continue to look at money, money, money.
