The greatest danger for the American church is having what we need and forgetting God.
If we acknowledge that all we have belongs to God, and we are just put here to manage what He has given us, then we will have a better chance of remembering that God is the one who provides for us.
Sunday’s sermon, on October 19, 2025, entitled, “The Beginner’s Guide to Prosperity,” warns us that life may get good, and we may forget God. We can be surrounded by abundance and forget who our guide is.
Based on Exodus 13:1-16, when Israel is on the edge of leaving Egypt, God warns them about the dangers of comfort in Canaan.
Our pastor emphasizes three practices when facing prosperity:
1) Practice stewardship.
2) Practice abstinence.
3) Practice your testimony.
First, we should practice stewardship with the things that God has entrusted to us.
For the Israelites, everything that would lead them to prosperity, namely their first-born child, would be dedicated to the Lord. God’s people would then sacrifice a lamb to buy back their blessing of the child, so that they could manage God’s possession.
In other words, God is the owner of their abundance, and the Israelites become the caretakers.
Secondly, we should practice abstinence as a reminder to be grateful for what we do have.
For a week each year, the Israelites had to eat only unleavened bread so that they could remember leaving Egypt, knowing what God had done for them. They needed to remember what life was like when they were solely dependent on God.
Today, one way for us to practice remembering God’s goodness is to take a Sabbath day off from our regular work week, refuse to do anything productive for one day, and be grateful for the abundance that God has given us.
Finally, we should practice our testimony to remember where God has brought us.
Whenever the Israelites would practice the week of eating unleavened bread, they could explain to their children that this consecration was done to remember how God had delivered them from the hand of the Egyptians.
In a like manner, we can share our testimony to others of when God has brought us out of struggles and given us hope in Christ.
If we share how God has delivered us, it can bring glory to Him and help us remember His goodness.
In short, our money is meant to be put back into God’s hands and then managed by us.
We can consecrate our income, our possessions, and our retirement and be good stewards, practice fasting or the Sabbath, and share how God has delivered us.
In this way, we can remember God’s faithfulness and give Him the glory for how He sustains us.
—Ann Elizabeth Yeager