One of the Scriptures we kingdom-business professionals really like to grab hold of and "claim" is Deuteronomy 8:18—"But Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth ..." And it is a great verse, full of promise and hope, and we are right to appropriate it, stand on it, declare and proclaim it and believe it.

But like all of Scripture, we must read it in its context. What else is going on around the verse of our choice? Let's take a look.

Before Deuteronomy 8:18 we read the following: "Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe His commands, His laws and His decrees ... Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God ..." (Deuteronomy 18:11-14).

And in verse 19, we read, "If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will be destroyed" ... something not nearly as "warm and fuzzy." God says He will show us how to get rich, but then immediately warns us that if we let it go to our heads and forget how it all happened in the first place, He will destroy us!

Like all of God's great promises, this one comes with important qualifications. God must be first in our lives, and if we keep Him there, and give Him the glory even after we become rich and successful, all the rest will be added to us (Matthew 6:33).

God's Covenant of Blessing

The other important thing to note in Deuteronomy 8:18 is the last few words, which like the contextual verses around it, are often forgotten or ignored. And these words are, "... and so confirms His covenant."

What covenant? The key covenant we Christians are party to, as Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29), is set out in the Book of Genesis, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will BE a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:1-3).

God promises us—through Abraham—that He will bless us, so we can BE a blessing to other people. The promise of blessing is conditional on us keeping the blessings flowing. We are blessed, because we bless!

In many places in the Bible, God promises us wealth and success—but we must heed the warning not to forget God and the conditions He sets out in His Word. I am sure most of us will know people who have become successful and allowed ego and pride to push God out of the picture. That is why we must be prepared to let God build character into our lives, testing and trying us, so that when wealth comes, we are able to handle it without it destroying us. Wealth can be very dangerous without parallel growth in wisdom, discernment and integrity.

Famed Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, imprisoned in a Siberian gulag, wrote, "When things are bad, we are not ashamed of our God. We are only ashamed of Him when things are going well." Solzhenitsyn said he had never placed much importance on God while things were going well in his life, and it was only in the gulag that he understood the importance of prayer and seeking God.

Moses' fears in Deuteronomy that the Israelites would forget God in the Promised Land came only too true. After having seen astounding miracles before their very eyes—the dividing of the Red Sea, the annihilation of the Egyptian army, water coming out of a rock and the provision of manna in the desert—they got comfortable in Canaan and were soon cozying up to the local people and their pagan gods.

They participated in all sorts of sexual excesses, worshiped a pantheon of idols and even sacrificed their children ... which of course sound very similar to our wealthy and decadent society today. Humankind has never been richer, and humankind has never been more corrupt and violent. The Bible is as contemporary as tomorrow's newspaper—abortion on demand, euthanasia, deviant sex of unspeakable varieties, and an all-consuming worship of money and power. So what's new? As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, "there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Christian author Philip Yancey, puts it this way, "Ironically, as Deuteronomy shows, success can make dependence on God less of an urgent need in our lives. There is grave danger in finally getting what we want."

What do you want? What are you praying for, fellow marketplace minister? A big promotion and raise? Your first million? Your first billion? No matter what you are praying for, no matter how big your dream, be very sure that when you get it, you are big enough on the inside to handle it without letting it destroy you.

Giving God the Glory

The Israelites in Moses' time were looking forward to a promised land flowing with milk and honey, fertile fields watered by heaven, abundant food, "a land with large, flourishing cities ... houses filled with all kinds of good things ... vineyards and olive groves ..." (Deuteronomy 6:10, 11). Moses says the Lord will bring them into the land, but immediately warns them, "... When you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery" (Deuteronomy 6:12).

As Philip Yancey says, "Moses fears the coming prosperity even more than the rigours of the desert." And Moses' warning in Deuteronomy is just as relevant and compelling to us today in our modern cities as it was to the ancient Israelites as they waited to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land.

Jesus Himself gives us the answer. He tells us that we are to love the Lord our God with ALL our heart and with ALL our soul and with ALL our mind and with ALL our strength (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30). Not "some" or "most" but "ALL"! We are to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33) and we are to have NO OTHER gods before Him because He is a "jealous" (Oxford Dictionary: "fiercely protective, uncompromising") God (Exodus 30:3, 4).

Woe betide us if we use God's success principles to build wealth and prosperity, and then puff our chests out, giving ourselves the glory! It is God who gives us the power to get wealth, not ourselves, and He is to receive all the glory and all the praise (1 Corinthians 1:31, Psalm 29:2, Psalm 96:8).

Charles and Janet Morris, in their thought-provoking book Jesus in the Midst of Success, compare and contrast the "City of God" and the "City of Man." They point out that the City of Man glories in itself, and the City of God in the Lord, "The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, 'Thou art my glory and the lifter up of mine head.'"

"We need to get a clear picture of the glory the City of Man has been seeking since Cain went off to build his city, so that we can turn and seek another glory—the glory of the City of God ... The universal striving for glory takes place especially in the marketplace—the heart of the City of Man—where money can be acquired and the symbols of status can be acquired ... The trouble, to put it mildly, is that God doesn't like the way the City of Man works."

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness ... The Lord remembers us and will bless us ... He will bless those who fear the Lord—small and great alike ... It is we who extol the Lord, both now and forevermore. Praise the Lord (Psalm 115:1, 12, 13, 18).