John F Avanzini - Financial excellence : a treasury of wisdom and inspiration

Contents

Part I

God, Your Finances, and the Thief

Part II

God's Plan: Tithes, Offerings, and Laws of the Harvest

Part III

Debt: Its Responsibility, Its Reduction

Introduction

This book represents the wisdom and God-given inspiration I have gained concerning Christian finances over the last several years.

What I have learned about God's plan for His children's financial well-being has come from more than thirty years of Bible study. In some cases, God has shown me some very basic truths through special revelation of His Word.

I have seen God's desire and financial plan for us plunderedindividually and for the Church as a whole. The devil has continually robbed Christians who do not understand their God-given authority over him. However, I have also seen knowledge and right action triumph over the deceiver, in my life and the lives of many others.

Our Heavenly Father's plan for our finances is three-fold:

1) to provide for His children's needs,

2) to provide for the preaching of the gospel, and

3) to provide plenty for His children so that they can give joyfully to others.

This book is written to accomplish two purposes:

1) to help those who need an immediate turnaround in their personal finances to be blessed of God, so that they can be a blessing to others, and

2) to assist those who are already enjoying the Lord's financial blessings to be an even greater blessing to others.

This book is divided into three parts, combining needed general information with practical, step-by-step instruction.

Part I gives an overview of God's desire and plan for your financial abundance, as well as information about just how the devil will try to rob you, often before that abundance even reaches your hands! You need to know your enemy to fight him effectively!

Part II outlines God's plan, requirements, and laws for reaping the financial harvest you need or want. You will see how tithes and offerings are essential to obeying the laws of the harvest.

Part III speaks of debtabout how and why we enter into it, the special responsibility it holds for Christians, and specific suggestions as to how we can reduce and eliminate it while we wait to reap the full harvests God has promised us.

It is my sincere prayer that this book will be a blessing to you, and that you will use the knowledge in it to help others prosper and be blessed.

John Avanzini

Part I

God, Your Finances, and the Thief

God Wants Abundance for Us

Child of God, I alert you to the fact that Satan is clearly waging a battle of containment against the saints of God. He is not concerned nearly so much with driving you backwards as he is with containing you where you are, and keeping you from getting where God wants you to go. Can you identify with that?

In your prayer life, if you desire a greater walk with God, you will find that the devil will let you continue to pray at your current prayer level. As soon as you try to break into a new dimension of prayer, frequent distractions occur. People come to visit you. Your hours change at work. The phone rings. Any time you start to move decisively forward, Satan increases his battle of containment.

You may have experienced this containment in the realm of holiness or sanctification. You achieve a certain walk, then you stop growing. You do not especially go backwards, but you just find it increasingly difficult to move forward. Please understand , that is the stark reality of Satan's battle of containment against you!

As you start to grow in the revelations I am bringing to you in this book, you will quickly realize that at this very moment, the devil is waging a powerful battle of containment in your finances. He will tell you that you are getting along okay, so just don't rock the boat! He will even try to deceive you into thinking that this book is just another prosperity message, but do not be distracted!

Please recognize that this is the vital biblical message your spirit-man has been hungering after, the message of deliverance from insufficiency! Do not let the devil continue to contain you in your present financial dilemma!

The Truth You Know

One of the primary deceptions so many Christians believe is that the Bible says , the truth will set you free. The Bible does not say the truth will set you free. The Bible says something very different. Read carefully what it actually says:

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John 8:32

Do you see it? It is the truth you know that has the divine power to set you free. Please hear me. The only truth that can set you free is the truth that you personally know. You can walk around with the truth (the Bible) in your right hand, placed lovingly over your breast; you can walk around with that precious Bible right over your lungs, and still have a horrible cancer grow in those lungs that will eventually snuff out your very life.

Many Christians die prematurely in the presence of truth, with the Bible on the nightstand next to their death bed. Keep this thought in mind. The presence of truth cannot and does not heal! You see, it is not the presence of truth, but the knowledge of truth that has power and sets you free. Hear the Scripture:

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

John 8:32

It is time to order our lives line upon line, precept upon precept, concept upon biblical concept. We must build a foundation of truth so powerful that Satan cannot contain it.

Now hear me well. I want you to break out of the containment building that Satan has constructed around your finances. However, please be careful not to mistake a mere penetration of Satan's containment in your finances as a breakthrough. There is a vast difference between a penetration and a breakthrough, and I want nothing less for you from this book than a total breakthrough!

Perhaps you have made an occasional penetration in the wall of containment Satan has placed around your finances. Maybe you have already gained enough bits and pieces of knowledge to understand that God does not intend for you to be poor, and that He has a biblical plan of abundance for your life.

I want you to go beyond bits and pieces. It is time for you to start gathering great quantities of spiritual power. When this power is complete, it will bring about a total breakthrough in your finances which will move you permanently beyond Satan's containment!

Remember, any time you want to break through a spiritual barrier, it takes great spiritual energy; it takes the power of God working through you! The breakthrough comes only when you allow that energy, that input of biblical truth, to continue and continue to grow. It literally takes a violent effort, not casual daydreaming and wishing, to accomplish it.

The same energy that has brought you previous breakthroughs, the same level of effort that has swept you to past victories, must now come forth for you to achieve a financial breakthrough as you are guided by this book. You must gather many biblical principles and apply them, not so that you can make just a little hole and peer through a small, rapidly closing penetration, but so that you can achieve nothing less than a total breakthrough!

Satan has contained you in your finances long enough! Jericho's walls must come down! As you understand the truth of this powerful revelation, as you know this truth by putting it into practical application in your life, you will experience a powerful new day in your finances.

If there is still any doubt that Satan is containing you in your finances, let me quickly prove to you that he is. Right now, you can think of several people who are not as smart nor qualified as you are who are making more money than you make. How can this be unless the devil has put an invisible wall around your financial potential? You see, the devil does not care how much money non-Christians make, because as long as they control it, their money will not be used to finance the preaching of the gospel.