Contents 1 Poverty: A Blessing Or a Curse?. 2 Qualifications for Walking in Prosperity 3 Our Authority in the Area of Finances 4 The Bible Way to Release Your Faith 5 Honor Your Pastor And Receive God's Blessings 6 Sowing and Reaping and The School of Obedience 7 Godliness is Profitable in All Things Chapter 1 Poverty: A Blessing Or a Curse? CHRIST HATH REDEEMED US from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. —Galatians 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us! If we stop reading right there, we'd know Jesus redeemed us. But what did He redeem us from? The rest of the verse says, "...FROM THE CURSE OF THE LAW, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3:13). GALATIANS 3:14 14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. I couldn't do justice to a study on prosperity without explaining the great Bible truth of redemption. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law! The curse of the Law includes spiritual death, sickness, and poverty. The first curse that God said would come upon man for breaking His Law is found in Genesis 2:17. God said to Adam in Genesis 2:17, "... in the day that thou eat-est thereof [of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil] thou shalt surely die." Adam and Eve were permitted to eat fruit from all the trees in the Garden of Eden except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The curse of spiritual death was to come upon them if they disobeyed God. Genesis 3:22-24 tells us that man did disobey God, was driven from the Garden, and could eat no longer of the tree of life. Man became the slave of sin and death. Death has always been a mystery to man. It was not a part of the creation or part of God's original plan. The Bible tells us that physical death is an enemy of God and man. First Corinthians 15:26 tells us that physical death is the last enemy that shall be put underfoot. When you die physically, your spirit and soul leave your body and go to your eternal home (Luke 16:19-24). Although several kinds of death are spoken of in the Bible, there are three kinds we should familiarize ourselves with: 1) spiritual death; 2) physical death and 3) eternal death.