Cultivating a Mindset of Abundance

Lest the title alarm you (“Paul has gone over to the prosperity gospel!”), let me open with an explanation.

I heard it said once that every heresy is an over-emphasis on one doctrinal truth. Concentrating on one singular truth and ignoring the rest of the testimony of Scripture produces a warped doctrine that is all the more dangerous because there is some truth in it.

The prosperity gospel is just one such heresy. It emphasizes one precious truth – the generosity of our gracious God. Meanwhile, this heresy ignores such vital truths as the value of suffering, the sovereign wisdom of God, the wickedness of the human heart, and the necessity of generosity.

The prosperity gospel is wrong about a lot, but they are right about one thing: our God is generous and gracious beyond all telling.

I am reading the Gospel of Luke in my personal Bible study.

I am in the middle of Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” (his version of Jesus’ famous “Sermon on the Mount,” probably a sermon Jesus delivered several times, which is why it appears in two gospel accounts).

As I was reflecting on Luke 6:27-36, I remembered something I first encountered in a book on the Exodus, how the Hebrew slaves had to recalibrate their thinking once they were free. Now that they were under the gracious rule of Yahweh, they had to pivot from a mindset of scarcity – all they had known as a slave nation – to a mindset of abundance. They had to begin to learn how to think of themselves as Yahweh’s covenant people: remembering that He is faithful and that He will provide and protect His people – a mindset of abundance.

I think this text in Luke demonstrates what a “mindset of abundance” looks like in the way Jesus’ followers interact with others:

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough honor (especially significant in an honor-shame society): “But I say to you who hear, ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either’” (Luke 6:27-29).

With a mindset of abundance, there are enough goods: “Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them” (v. 30-31).

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough good will: “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same” (v. 32-33).

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough money: “And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount” (v. 34).

With a mindset of abundance, there is enough mercy and grace: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (v. 35-36).

This all made me wonder how often my anxiety springs from a mindset of scarcity. Anxiety in a believer is a kind of forgetfulness, really.

I sink into a mindset of scarcity because I forget who I am. When I am anxious, it is because I forget who I am in Christ, His beloved, chosen and sealed by His Spirit (Eph 1:3-14).

I sink into a mindset of scarcity because I forget how attentively God cares for His own. When I am anxious, it is because I forget that the same God who clothes the glorious flowers is watching over me (Matt 6:25-26).

I sink into a mindset of scarcity because I forget how generous God has already been with me. When I am anxious, it is because I forget one of Paul’s most penetrating rhetorical questions: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).

And when I am anxious in this way, I cannot afford to be generous, and I conceal the beauty and power of the Gospel from people around me.

This is surely one of the key aspects of my sanctification, one of the most important ways God is bending the trajectory of my life toward holiness: by making the mindset of abundance more and more natural for me.

I want the mindset of abundance to take up residence in my heart. And I want to operate out of that relaxed and generous mindset in my interactions with people around me.

Persevere, Paul Pyle Pastor of Discipleship