DELIVERANCE FROM POVERTY

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory. – Isaiah 60:1-7

Poverty is a curse; it is an evil that destroys. It is important we break the curse of poverty. Some people struggle so hard and get nothing. The reason is that somebody somewhere has put a curse upon them. What are the signs that a curse is working upon your finances, and how can you get rid of the curses? There are five major ways to recognise this.

1. Working Like an Elephant and Eating Like an Ant – if your gain comes through very great hardship and sorrows, there might be a curse working against you. In other words, if you have to sweat so much before you can get a little to eat, all along the way, there is one sorrow or one problem or another. It means there is a curse working somewhere. In Genesis 3:17-19, there was a curse pronounced on Adam:

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days

of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Here, we have the first curse placed on man. God sai“dY, ou will sweat before you eat”. Does that suggest that he was not working before? No! God asked him to dress the garden and have control of it, and eat whatever he wanted. The point is that the work he was doing before the curse was easy. He would do a little and will harvest a lot; a little effort and plenty gain.

After the curse, the reverse was to be the case. He would work like an elephant and eat like an ant. Other people will trade with the same capital that you are trading with. They will make one trip, buy the goods they want, and as soon as they arrive, customers are waiting for them. They sell all to customers, make their gain, go home, and rest for some days. They go again and buy, and as they return, those who are going to buy are waiting again. You saw them prosper and thought it was the best business. Then you gathered some money, made the same trip, brought your own merchandise and nobody is interested. There is a curse working!

If you are a true child of God, what God says in Proverbs 10:22 should be happening.

The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. – Proverbs 10:22

In other words, as far as God is concerned, you can become rich without sorrow. You do not have to work until you die before you become wealthy. When you begin to work so hard and you are getting so little, something must be wrong somewhere.

• Unsuccessful Ventures – When you find someone going from one business to another without succeeding in one, they become commercial vagabonds. There must be something wrong somewhere. If whatever you try fails, whereas other people are doing the same business and are succeeding, definitely, a curse must be working somewhere.

In Genesis 4:9-12, there was a curse again that God placed on a certain man:

And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed

from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

When somebody becomes a commercial vagabond, there is a curse working somewhere because the promise of God for those who are doing His will is this:

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. – Deuteronomy 28:1- 2

God did not say that you will be running after blessings; the blessings should be running after you. They will overtake you. Wherever you go, blessings will come upon you mightily. Even when you say they are too much and you run away from there, by the time you arrive in the town where you are going, other blessings will be waiting for you there. Instead of becoming a commercial vagabond, wherever you are, if there is no curse, the Bible says that blessings will be overtaking you.

There was a certain man who was not promoted in his office for seven years. Someone stole his file and hid it. Anytime they wanted to discuss promotion matters, the people to recommend him never found his file. Then he came to us, and we asked him to give his life to Jesus Christ. He did. the following month, there was change in the leadership of his department, and the new man asked for the files of everyone in his department. They looked for this man’s file and could not find it. The new Head of Department ordered them to find it. Finally, they found the file. They discovered that there was no recommendation for promotion for seven years in this man’s file. The new boss then gave the man double promotion just to compensate for all the years that had been lost.

• Sudden and Rapid Decline – the third way to know if a curse is at work is when there is sudden and rapid deterioration in productivity. If your productivity suddenly goes down and it is very rapid, then there must be a curse working. You may feel it is because things are hard in the country.

Whenever there is a curse placed upon a business or a particular fellow, rapid changes will begin to happen, and it would move fast. Within a year, someone who is already on top can become someone who is beneath. For example, I know of someone who used to have forty vehicles for his business. Within one year,

there was only one left.

Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever. And presently the fig tree withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away! – Matthew 21:18- 20

A curse was placed on the fig tree. Another Bible text says by the time they returned the following day, not only had it dried up, it had been uprooted. A curse can reduce what has been producing fruits to a dry tree overnight. Concerning those who are doing His will, upon whom there is no curse, what the God says in Psalm 1:3 applies.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. –Psalm 1:3

If it happens that a sudden calamity has gripped your business, or you are suddenly purged in your placed of work without any fault of yours; instead of making progress, you find yourself seriously retrogressing; it does not matter whatever reason you think; a curse is working.

• Abortive Efforts – the fourth way to recognize if a curse is working on an individual or a business is through abortive efforts. When one is about arriving, but never arrives. You follow up a contract, but it fell off your grip; or even if you get the contract and are asked to come for the mobilization fee, you get there and they say, “Sorry sir. The Managing Director has travelled. When he comes you can have the mon”eyH.e travelled, and never came back.

In this case, something must be working underneath. Many times, the way is open and when you are about to go in, suddenly, the door is shut. Again, another door will open, and when you want to go in, the door is shut against you. Many a time, you even spend a lot of money to get to where you are about to reach. Just before it is handed over to you, the door is shut. It is because a curse is working against you.

This is the type of curse that worked against Jericho. They had plenty of water. Their land was very plain and very beautiful. Their wives got pregnant, but they never put to bed. Their goats and sheep got pregnant, but the pregnancies were aborted. It was because a curse was placed on that city by Joshua (Joshua 6:26). 2 Kings 2:19 say it all:

And the men of the city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren.

• Inability to Account for Income – another way to know if a curse is at work is the inability to account for your income; it keeps disappearing. The money comes quite alright; you collect it, even count it, but how does it disappear? You can never tell what is happening. If you are to sit and calculate the money that has come into your hands for the past three years, you will be amazed how many thousands or millions of naira it would be. It will be difficult to point at one thing or an achievement done with the money. When such things happen, there is a curse at work.

In Haggai 1:6, God says

Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

Verse 9 of the same chapter says something similar:

Ye looked for much, and, lo, it cameto little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.

God is trying to tell us that there are two ways which you can discover that the money is coming in, but you do not know what is happening to it. It might have gone into a bag with holes. The money may be coming in, but is going out as fast as it is coming in.

Many people have this experience. They are collecting money, and they may say, “I am setting this portion aside to build a house.” Just when the money is enough to begin the building, somebody very precious to them may fall sick in the family. They will spend all the savings in the hospital. They will begin to save again, and then something will happen again in the family. Someone may be arrested for a crime he did not commit, and the savings will be spent to resolve the case.

If you fit into these five categories, you sincerely need deliverance. If the curse placed upon you is from a man or Satan, it is easy to settle. We will just break the curse in the name of Jesus! Not only shall it be broken, but it will become impossible for them to curse you again. He that has the authority to bless does not sweat before destroying curses.

A curse can also come from God directly. There is only one way to get out of it. I remember a clear case of someone who has been going from one business to another. He tried all cases in different direction and failed in all. So I got concerned and said, “Lord, please I want to remove the curse placed on this ma”n.God said to me, “Sorry son, you cannot remove it because I am the one who placed it there.”

To remove a curse placed by God, firstly you must repent. Haggai 1:5 says, “Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.” In verse 7, it says again,

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.”

I am now saying to you“,Consider your ways, and examine your lifestyle.” Find out where you have gone wrong. Ask yourself questions and give honest answers to them. After you might have considered your ways and found out where you got off the track, then do what God says.

The second way to escape God’s curses is to return your tithes.

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts. – Malachi 3:8-12

God is saying that whatever you stole should be restored. In other words, those things biting your money – the abortive efforts – will stop. All the nations of the earth will call you blessed. You will become the envy of the world. You will become so wealthy that nations shall become envious of you. If you obey God’s commands, He will surprise you.

Joel 2:12 says,

Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

In the 25th verse through the 27th verse, God says:

Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.

When God says He wants to do great things, those things must be embarrassingly great. In fact, what God will call great is what you will call impossible. It takes only one a miracle from God to lift you from the dust and put you on the throne. When God is going to do it, you will not know when it is going to happen.

When God starts blessing you, the first sign to notice is that you would not have finished a month’s salary (if you are a salary earner) before the next one rolls in. This was the first miracle that started in my life when I began to pay my tithe.

Before I began to pay my tithe, I had a car and a driver. I paid the driver about twenty naira as monthly salary. By the middle of the month, I would borrow money from my driver to put petrol in my car. So when they began to talk about tithe, I said“, Nonsense! 100 percent is not even enough to put petrol in my car, and now they are asking me to make do with 90 percent of my salary. ”

However, in the first month that I paid my tithe, I did not borrow money from my driver. What remained at the end of the month was not much, but something remained. The new month met something of the old in my pocket. That was the beginning of the end of the curse on my finances.

The curse in your life will come to an end if you will repent and do everything that the Lord asks you to do. What you have stolen from God, I appeal to you, restore, and he will surprise you. Within one day, He will do what nobody can do

for you in a thousand years.

From hence forth, you shall no more be a burden to people. God will make you a blessing to your generation, in the name of Jesus. Joseph became a channel of blessing to his generation. God repositioned him within a twinkling of an eye from the lowest ebb to the exalted position of a prime minister.

For you to fulfil the divine mandate of being born for a blessing, you must be saturated with the spirit of prayer. It is when you pray that the power of God will cut off every limiting fetter to your breakthroughs, success, family life, marriage, prosperity, healing and deliverance. God wants to give you a holistic visitation.

Prayer Points

1. Father, I claim my redemption against poverty, in the name of Jesus.
   1. Father, I possess the key of prosperity, in the name of Jesus.
   1. Father, I possess abundance upon my family, in the name of Jesus.
   1. Father, release favour upon my works, in the name of Jesus.
   1. Father, break the barrier of poverty in my life, in the name of Jesus.
   1. Sorrow of poverty, leave my life alone, in the name of Jesus!
   1. Father, deliver me from the shame of poverty, in Jesus’ name.