Over the years my wife, Marty, and I have sown a lot of seed, believing God for different things. And God has been faithful to His Word. He has blessed us in many ways, including bringing us to a place where we are financially comfortable.

Yet with all those blessings, there arose a growing dissatisfaction deep inside me--a dissatisfaction with where Marty and I were financially. Don’t get me wrong, this was not a desire for more “stuff.” In fact, it was just the opposite.

It was a growing frustration with not being able to do everything we wanted to do for people, not being able to do all the things we wanted to do for ministers and ministries. And money--or more accurately, the lack of it--has been holding us back.

Don’t Sit…Get Up and Go
As I began to ask God about these things, I was reminded that, growing up in the ministry, I’ve seen how many people in the Body of Christ have the wrong idea about God’s plan for their financial blessing. Like anyone else, I am encouraged by exciting testimonies of God working financial miracles in the lives of believers. But too often believers have drawn the wrong conclusion from that. Too often, they sow seed, stand on the Word and believe God, but then sit back and wait for finances to fall out of a “money tree.” I know because I’ve done it myself.

I don’t deny there are supernatural acts of God for provision. We’ve seen plenty of them in our own lives. But these days the Spirit of God has been talking to me about James 2:26 where finances are concerned: “Faith without works is dead.”

I look at it this way: Why go through life having to believe God for supernatural miracles when you can get with His plan and enjoy divine health and divine prosperity on a daily basis?

We can either believe for a supernatural “bailout” every so often, or we can walk this earth with the windows of heaven continually open above us, pouring out blessings on our lives. Living life walking according to His will is much better than having to live from one miracle to the next.

I knew that’s what I wanted. But what I found out was for me to get it, I had to do something.

When I went to the Lord about all this, He showed me that I had been sitting back and waiting…and waiting.

I was doing all the right “spiritual” things--I was standing in faith, I was sowing seed, I was speaking the Word and I had all my confessions right.

What I had neglected to do, however, were the “natural” things. I wasn’t taking the practical, natural steps necessary to receive the things for which Marty and I were believing God.

Deuteronomy 8:18 tells us to “Remember the Lord they God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore unto thy fathers.”

That verse doesn’t say God gives us wealth. It says He gives us the power to get wealth.

So I decided to start doing. I Decided to step out in faith on our covenant with God and start tapping into that power to gain wealth. I stepped over into the “works” part of faith.

Let God in on the Action
Let me give you an example. If you had asked me about numismatics a year ago, I wouldn’t have had a clue what you were talking about.

Today however, I can tell you that over the past 30 years investments in numismatics--gold, silver, platinum, coins, paper money, etc.--have yielded an average return of 28 percent. Which is considered a good return.

Could God have told me to buy a certain rare coin, or a certain amount of gold a year ago?

Yes. But it’s not likely because if He had, I wouldn’t have known what He was talking about.

It wasn’t until I read, studied and gained understanding about numismatics that potentially good investments were opened up to me. Those opportunities were out there all the time I was believing to prosper and increase financially, but they never really were available to me until I educated myself. They were not an option until I took the power God gave me through covenant and put it to work.

I’m not saying I rely on myself to get anything done in this earth. I always purpose to rely on God. I look to Him an His Word for wisdom. I look to Him for my financial increase. I look to Him to multiply the seed I sow.

At the same time, however, the more knowledge I have, the more God has to work with.

If you think about it, it’s not likely that God will use me to pioneer great breakthroughs in brain surgery. He’s probably going to use someone who is knowledgeable or has some experience in that field of endeavor to do that.

My point is, God has given us the tools and the power to prosper. He has given us a brain. He has given us the mind of Christ. He has given us His Anointing for increase. But it’s up to us to put all of that to use. And doing that typically requires some simple “natural” steps on our part.

For me, it meant doing something beyond my regular job as executive director for Kenneth Copeland Ministries. It meant taking it upon myself to start reading about ways to gain wealth such as real estate, investments and so on. I had to make a move in certain areas in order for God to move.

And really, these were areas that Marty and I had been interested in for a long time. They were things we had thought about doing, things we had talked about doing…but things we never did.

Leaving Never-Never Land
One of those things I had dreamed about ever since I was a kid was to own a big ranch in the mountains--a ranch so big, you could get on your horse and ride all day, but never reach the end of it.

Will it ever happen?

I believe it will, though I admit I’ve had plenty of opportunities to doubt and give up on it. I studied ranching and I’m in the ranching business on a small scale. Right now it doesn’t’ seem feasible in the natural that my ranching business is capable of producing that big ranch in the mountains.

But I’m not letting go of my dream. To do so would be to give up on life itself. God gives us those dreams--and no dream is too big for God.

Now, I agree that dreams like this sound wonderful. But how do we get them out of the spirit realm and into this natural realm?

Habakkuk 2:2 advises us to do this: “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.”

An interesting study was conducted at Yale University in 1954. The senior class was asked if they had any specific financial goals. Of that class, 3 percent said they had goals and had actually set their goals down on paper. Another 10 percent of the class had specific goals, but had not written them down. The remaining seniors had no goals.

Years later, it was discovered that the 3 percent of students who had written down their specific goals outperformed the other 97 percent. They were more successful financially than the rest of their classmates put together.

When I first read this study, I thought, Sure, but did that happen because those students wrote out their goals? Or was it because they were the overachieving, driven-to-success type of people who write down things like that?

Either way, I believe it’s

time the Body of Christ becomes the type of people who write things down--God said we should. Visions, dreams, prophecies, words from God, goals, desires--it’s time we write them down and stick with them, keeping them before our eyes and in our hearts at all times.

Personally, I have found that writing down my financial goals helps me stay on course.

For example, for years Marty and I have wanted to own a lot of real estate. It was just a desire both of us had. We talked about it, but never did much about it.

Then last year, I started reading and studying about real estate. We prayed about it, then stepped out in faith and started buying some properties. To be honest, our income stayed about the same for a long stretch when we first stared doing this.

Our income hadn’t changed but our knowledge had. And when our knowledge increased, our understanding increased. Suddenly we were empowered with wisdom to make some decisions--tough decisions, I might add. For the first time in our lives, we started choosing to invest instead of choosing to spend.

Getting God Into Our Business
What had happened? We became educated and began making wiser choices--choices were drawing our visions and dreams out of the spiritual realm and into the natural. Choices that would enable us to be a greater help to others, support more ministries and get more of the Word out to the world.

We noticed our faith started growing as well. And why not?

We finally knew what to believe for. Our faith had specific goals to latch on to. By keeping our dreams and visions ever before us, it became easier to make those once tough decisions and stay on course.

I discovered when we as believers move out on faith, we actually empower God to get into our business and start moving some things in the right direction.

Today, I cannot drive by an apartment complex without thinking how much I would like to own it.

Why? Because now I know the value of owning one.

I may not have the money to buy and apartment complex right now, but someday I will.

Because I’ve started taking natural steps to go along with my dreams and faith, I can already see that complex as mine. And I see something else too.

Just beyond that complex…there is a ranch.