Ten Prosperity Commandments
Rev. John W. Adams
7. You Shall Not Abase Your Wealth to Idle or Evil Uses.
The Seventh Commandment has to with purity. Like all essential Truth the ideal of purity must be served in outer as well as inner
action. It is not to be interpreted as dealing with only one type of impurity. Incorporated in it is an essential Truth that applies
to all thought action.
Money is an outer form of spiritual substance. Like all form, it has only the life and power of the divine idea that animates it.
The animating idea of money is supply. Money is a medium of exchange used in our modern civilization for the supplying of our material
needs. When you awaken to the truth that God is the source of your supply, you recognize money as a symbol of His abundance in your life.
The creative process in mind through which prosperity is demonstrated is clearly indicated in the first three commandments:
- You shall look to no other source but God for thy supply.
- You shall make no mental images of lack.
- You shall not speak the word of lack or limitation.
When you associate wealth with thoughts of greed, selfishness, or lust you are defiling your mind and making base use of God's golden
stream of spiritual substance, which carries within itself the potentiality of limitless supply for every possible need. When you associate
unworthy thoughts with wealth you make unworthy use of wealth. When you make unworthy use of God's good, the laws of life take bitter toll
of you and you pay the price in negative ways. This not something God does to you, but you do to yourself.
Sometimes wealth is used to gratify a lust for power. People become money mad and use their wealth ruthlessly in order to increase it
and so satisfy their ambition. Dishonesty, misrepresentation, and trickery enter into their business dealings, and their wealth is used to
oppress rather than to assist their fellow man. Thus they debase their wealth.
Many people cannot stand prosperity. They lead a steady, useful life until they begin to demonstrate wealth and then they are thrown off
balance. This lack of balance may become evident in wastefulness and extravagance. This is an idle use of money. Everything in God's kingdom
is to be used intelligently.
Allowing wealth to be an excuse for laziness is another way of debasing it. Any use of wealth that hinders one's soul progress is an idle use.
It is a mistake to think of money as the root of all evil. It is the love of money. This means to love it exclusively while leaving out
the essential spiritual things of right living. No where in the Scriptures is there a condemnation of wealth as such; only the condemnation
of the wrong use of wealth.
Jesus knew that wealth was every person's divine heritage, including you. Wealth is a symbol of God's abundance and as such it is a
blessing. When used in a way appropriate to the divine source from which it comes, you can truly say: "The blessings of God make me
rich." - Rev. John - (Adapted from "Prosperity's Ten Commandments" by Georgiana T. West)
