How Does God Want to Prosper us Individually?

When God created Man, He created them in His Image and His Likeness.  But this was designed to be a process, just as when you have a baby, he or she is born of you, with your image, and as he/she grows he takes on more and more of your likeness, but is not fully complete until the age of maturity. But in the giving of His image, which happened in the natural, we receive not only the promise of the full endowment of His being, or His life, but we’re also granted the faculties and capacities to attain the promise of bearing His Likeness.

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

The Hebrew word for “image” can also be translated as “pattern,” as in natural life, or “model” as in building a house.  When Adam fell, he fell from the place bearing the image of God and also lost the promise or the potential to bear the likeness of God.  However, the design never changed, except that God stopped working along this line to produce what He desired to produce.  He was designing Man to bear in the flesh what is good in the spirit.  So the image remains intact, but the work unto it stopped.

God would not grant eternal life to an image which is defiled and unholy, unfitting to receive what is holy and divine.

However, in due time, He would redeem this lost effort and bring it back to His workmanship. It was done by sending His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the lost world, became flesh like any man, but remained sinless  until He died on the Cross and finished the work of redemption by paying the penalty of our sins and made atonement for them. He not only redeemed those who choose to believe in Him, but He also restores them back to the process being perfected or prepared for the transformation into His Likeness.

This image is made up of three parts in Man: spirit, soul and body.  Prosperity of life in the Kingdom will involve each part.  Let us look at some scriptures:

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Th 5:23 NASB)

Paul was describing the three parts of man being prospered into the fullness at the coming of Christ.

“Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.” (3 Jn 2 NASB)

The work of God in us through His Holy Spirit will engage all compartments of our lives, including our well being in this time on earth. It is clear that John is praying for a “worldly” prosperity here.  So long as prosperity in the physical does not hinder prosperity in the spiritual, God desires us to be blessed in all things, starting with the spiritual and spreading to all aspects of life… never forgetting our current situation.  He made Adam and Eve as physical beings and granted physical blessings, so it should never be assumed that He merely wants to bless us spiritually without care for our physical lives.  But the eternally important is not of this world.  Ultimately, our well being will be in His Glory and His life. God the Father will fill us with Himself all in all.

Photo credit: toxichristi

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