The Bible presents two broad ways and dispensations when speaking of prospering and the principles of enterprise.  Both ways involve diligence particularly in sowing seed which refers to applying an input.  The input could be our business ideas, our career efforts, and our investments in skill development, sacrificial giving or even financial investments of our surplus.    These two ways are different but we often can confuse one for the other or be found in a mix, not really having left one approach fully while seeking to enter the other.

Egypt, in the Bible, was a luxurious and wealthy empire but for the children of Israel it represented the place of their captivity and bondage where they were enslaved to deliver target productions of bricks.  It represents a dispensation of wealth which enslaves the child of God to mammon – a wicked and crafty hard task master.  Egypt can appear welcoming, rewarding and fair – but has a natural disposition to kill, steal and destroy when the opportunity presents itself.  Canaan is the land of promise, flowing with milk and honey, but occupied by hostile tribes occupying cities with mighty walls, representing strongholds of thought – which must be pulled down.

Between Egypt and Canaan is the wilderness experience, a place where the Israelites grumbled and murmured – never understanding the ways of their God, but often seeing His acts of deliverance and miracles of provision.  In the wilderness, the Israelites though not in Egypt still think like Egypt but on a journey out of Egypt to the place of promise.  Only few of those who left Egypt enter the Promised Land, but a new generation of Israelites enter and become the citizens of the Land of milk and honey – the land of rest.

When we consider wealth, we see the three environments.  Egypt, The Promised Land, Canaan and The Wilderness.   We also should know where we are.  Many Christians are still struggling in the wilderness having left Egypt.  The unsaved are in Egypt. But wealth and beauty is in Canaan.

Deuteronomy 11[8] “Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, [9] “and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’ [10]  “For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; [11]  “but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, [12]  “a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

[13] ‘And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, [14] ‘then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. [15] ‘And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’ [16] “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, [17] “lest the LORD’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you.

Ezekiel 29 [3]  Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. (KJV)

Psalms 95[8] “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial  in the wilderness, [9]  When your fathers tested Me; They tried Me, though they saw My work. [10]  For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ [11]  So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’”

In  Holy Scriptures, we can locate our environment and seek salvation to enter into rest.  One can also see that the experience and expectations differ depending on where they are with God.  My prayer is that you enter the land that drinks water from the Rain of Heaven

Extracted from Wealth out of Ashes.