The Spirit of Poverty

Sometimes telling people about Jesus is meaningless when the abundant life isn't being lived out in front of them. --www.Spiritledwoman.com

I've been meaning to talk about this for a long time but a conversation with my wonderful mother-in-law inspired me to share it with everyone on this blog.

The Spirit of Poverty

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

God has done a lot of stretching in me this last year and one of the major things I've learned from him is that there are so many different seasons in life. Good and Bad. The bad is usually always for teaching purposes :) So... worship Him in good times and in bad, because seasons end, good or bad.

Greg and I made the decision to move a year ago this month. Move from everything and everyone we knew and loved because we felt with every bone in our bodies that this is what God wanted us to do. There have been many times since then that I've questioned if what we were hearing was God. It was.

Being an only child and growing up on ranches in the middle of nowhere my entire life I was accustomed to always being with family. Whether that be my parents or Aunts and Uncles. Then I married Greg... I inherited this wonderful family and friends galore. I experienced for the first time in my life how it felt to have a friend love you back as much as you loved them. That was powerful. So then God tells us, "move to Fort Worth". WHAT?!

You mean I won't be able to just spend the day at Verna's (MIL) anytime I'm feeling bored? I won't be able to pop in at friends house any time I like? Lord, I won't have any friends! You know I crave relationships!

So that's pretty much where I was at. For a long time even after we moved here. Before long though we found an amazing home church and started to feel a little more at home every day.

Then came the revelation one Sunday after hearing a message at church. It was about the Spirit of Poverty and how our tithes were never ours to start with! It was like a light bulb went on in both mine and Greg's spirit. It all just made sense and why the heck had we not thought of it like this before?!

Webster’s Dictionary defines poverty as: Dearth, scarcity or lack, lacking in money or possessions, inadequate.

If the enemy can keep you in bondage to the spirit of poverty, keep you in debt, physically and spiritually barren, then he is able to stop the flow of blessings in your life and keep you from being a blessing to others.

From then out Greg and I felt a desire, not a "ok well I guess I'm supposed to do this", to give back to God's kingdom what was not ours to start with. So we did. And it has been a GOOD season ever since.

"Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Luke 6:38

We have also been admirers of Dave Ramsey's for about 3 years now. He has an amazing Financial Peace University that we have gone through and would recommend to any person in any walk of life. It really taught us how to manage our finances in alignment with the Kingdom of God. He teaches you to "live like no one else now so that later we can live like no one else." Learn more on the I'm weirder than you sidebar to the right.

So I felt it was my responsibility to share with you our experiences in this area. We've only scraped the surface and I wanted to share with you the shavings.

A friend explained it well this last weekend. He said, "I want to be able to say to my children's children, I followed and listened to the Lord to the best of my abilities."

Me too.