Overcoming the Poverty Mindset
- Danika Thompson
- Feb 15
- 13 min read
Prosperity starts, in the heart.
If you want to walk in the prosperity of God, then your spirit - your mindset - must be submitted to think in alignment with God's WORD.
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
Ephesians 4:23 KJV
God's thoughts do not entertain limitation, self-preservation, worry, fear, greed, covetousness, lack, doubt, self-hatred, self-righteousness, or insufficiency. God's thoughts are life, peace, protection, faith, abundance, blessing, conquering, overcoming, contentment, righteousness, giving, selflessness, prosperity, truth, grace, and love.
The rich man's wealth is his strong city: The destruction of the poor is their poverty.
Proverbs 10:15 KJV
This scripture is not saying that money makes a man strong. A rich man's strength is not necessarily in his possessions, but in how he views himself and how he approaches life from within his heart. The spirit (mindset) of prosperity rules his heart. He sees himself rich - abounding - in every area of his life. He sees himself overcoming every circumstance of lack that he might face. He sees himself as a conqueror of his past experiences of poverty, not as a victim to them. He sees himself healthy and well even when sickness knocks at his door. He sees himself made righteous by the blood of Jesus, not by his own performance. He sees and thinks himself prosperous no matter what comes his way, because he lives based on the WORD, not on circumstances. It is not about how much money he has in his bank account, but how he sees himself in his heart, and how he sees God.
The poor man's destruction is not due to his present condition of poverty. Many have looked poverty and lack in the face, and have overcome. This man's destruction is that he sees himself poor. He sees himself as never being smart enough, good enough, talented enough, healthy enough, good-looking enough. He never has enough, and he curses what he does have instead of blessing it and thanking God for it. He curses the amount of money in his paycheck and his bank account, never wealthy enough. He curses the report from his doctor, never seeing himself healthy enough. He chooses to look for all that is wrong with him, instead of acknowledging all that is right in him by Christ Jesus. He lets his conditions and experience determine his identity and path, rather than the WORD of God. The spirit of poverty and insufficiency rule his heart.
Whatever spirit or mentality rules in our heart, is what determines the fruit that we will consistently experience in our lives. It is not what you experience that determines your outcome, but it is what you see in that experience, what you think on, how you see yourself, and how you see God, that will ultimately determine your future experience in life.
All of the promises of God must be believed and seen in the heart, to have any real power in one's life. The promises come from God's WORD, and God's WORD is a seed that must take root, germinate, and grow in order to bear any lasting fruit. The believing is the process of His promises taking root. The seeing is the process of His promises germinating and growing in your heart. The promises of God being made physically manifest in your life, is the final outcome of bearing the fruit of His WORD.
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:23-24 KJV
While the economy of the world says one must see it to believe it, in God's economy we must believe it first in order to see it come to pass.
Seeing and believing within the heart before seeing it made manifest in the natural realm, gets your soul (your thoughts, your will, your emotions) to line up with the Spirit of God within you, so that His very life can then be revealed through your body into the natural.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8:5-11 NKJV
So it is when we are walking in the Spirit and living our lives according to the Spirit, that our minds are set upon the things of the Spirit. This means that our thoughts are set on the Truth of God's WORD, not the circumstances that we face each day.
An example of this could be a client that perhaps owes you payment, but they are late making that payment and you need the money. You can spend days or weeks meditating on how you're going to lose everything, you'll be poor, have to sell your house, relocate your family, and just focus on the worst. Or, you can meditate on the WORD of God, that says He shall supply all of your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
Another example applies to one who has a poverty mindset towards their own health. A doctor's report or a bloodwork lab might cause one to fix their minds on all that is wrong with the report, and meditate on it for days, weeks, and even months. This mindset is that of being impoverished in health, not prospering in health. You can tell yourself that you are believing for God's healing in your body and you are walking in faith, but in reality, your thoughts and your conversation are meditated upon sickness. This is not being spiritually minded, but carnally minded, which ultimately leads to death. This is not walking in the Spirit, but in the flesh. This is allowing experiences to rule in your heart, not the Truth of God's promises.
When we can't visualize in our hearts the Truth of what God says, and instead we can only see our present conditions through the lens of our past experiences, we take our souls out of alignment with the Spirit, we start walking in the flesh and thinking carnally, and our own mindset hinders the life and power of God from being made manifest through our mortal bodies and in our physical life.
The picture that is painted upon our hearts, is what will ultimately be the picture of our lives.
Whatever is in our hearts, will come forth out of our mouths, which will then become our actions, which produce our character, and all of it ultimately paints the picture of our lives.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.
Proverbs 18:21
This scripture tells us that we have the power of either producing life, or death, with our words. And the accumulation of our words - which spring from our thoughts - will bear fruit that we will eat in our lives. If our thoughts and words are sickness, we will eat the fruit of sickness. If our thoughts and words are poverty, we will eat the fruit of poverty. This is a spiritual law.
A spirit of poverty overtakes many, even those who have a bank account with many zero's, because the poverty mindset is not an experience but a heart posture and an inner belief system.
Is Murphy's Law more real to you than God's WORD?
Do you break into cold sweats of worry & fear every time there is a downturn in the economy or every time you receive a financial report that isn't what you expected?
Do those who are closest to you tend to give you nicknames such as "penny-pincher" or "cheapskate", "scrooge" or "tightwad"?
Are you constantly complaining about the cost of things?
Are you always trying to get a deal, or get things for free, not wanting to pay the full value of a thing?
Are you hoarding or holding onto things that you should be letting go of?
Does the blessing and good-fortune of others bother you?
Is what you wear and what you drive a big deal to you?
Are you obsessed with success, accomplishments, accolades, or the accumulation of stuff?
Do you feel secure only when you have a certain amount of money in the bank, and feel immediately insecure if your bank account drops below that amount?
All of these are signs that illustrate one with a poverty mindset.
Unfortunately, the topic of finances seems to be a topic the Church either doesn’t want to talk about on one hand, and on the other hand the topic is mis-taught and abused.
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus addresses the "unrighteous mammon" head-on in teaching the parable of The Shrewd Manager. In this parable, Jesus tells of a rich man who finds out the manager of his finances was mishandling his possessions, so he asks the manager for a report before firing him. The manager thinks of a sly- and dishonest- way to get out of the mess, and ends up showing the rich man falsified reports of those who owed the rich man money, while also decreasing the debts of those who owed. This way, the debtors would have the manager's back if the rich man were to come and ask if the documentation was legitimate. The manager brings the reports back to the rich man, and he is commended not for being dishonest, but for his shrewdness when dealing with money and for using money to prepare for the future. Jesus said,
The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the sons of light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to make friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.
Whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been faithful with worldly wealth, who will entrust you with true riches? And if you have not been faithful with the belongings of another, who will give you belongings of your own?
Luke 16:8-12
If we cannot be faithful with worldly wealth, how can we be trusted with the true riches of God's promises? If we cannot be faithful with our finances, stewarding them for the Kingdom of God, how can we expect God to entrust to us other things such as healing?
God expects us, through the knowledge of His WORD, to be able to steward worldly wealth, and to do it well. The Church should be the leading example in the world of a prosperous people who understand how to steward wealth unto GOD and His purposes, and yet it seems to be the exact opposite as a whole.
In order for us to steward money faithfully we must acknowledge that God is the source and owner of our money, and we- like the steward- are managers of His money. If you don't believe your money ultimately belongs to God, when you die and go to be with the Lord, tell me how much of your money you take with you...? Exactly. All the silver and gold is the Lord's. And when we follow the instructions He has given us in His WORD about handling finances, we can demonstrate our faithfulness in stewardship as well as our trust in Him as our source.
One can be a tither, a hard worker, be successful in the eyes of the world, and even have tons of money in the bank, while still being ruled by a spirit of poverty. It is possible to face poverty and lack and yet have a generous and prosperous spirit, just as it is possible to be monetarily wealthy and yet have poverty rule the heart. A poverty mindset paints a different picture upon everyone's heart:
I never have enough money
I never have enough favor
I never have enough help
I never have enough time
I am not strong enough
I am not smart enough
I am not good-looking enough
I am not talented enough
I am not healthy enough
You can be confessing God's WORD half the time, but then believing, thinking about, and conversing about something different. What you believe, what you meditate on, is what you are going to get. Your confession is only effective when it is in alignment with what you believe. Otherwise, your confession is just works, a mere ritual you are using to try and earn something that you don't believe you actually have deep down in your heart. Faith can arise, but it will always hit the ceiling of what you truly believe. And what you believe is what you see in your heart.
So how does one overcome this cycle of impoverished thinking? Change your meditation. Think on God's WORD and get it rooted in your heart:
This Book of the Law [the WORD of God] shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Joshua 1:8
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law [WORD] doth he meditate day and night. 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 1:1-3
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.
Psalm 19:14
Oh, how I love Your law [Word]! All day long it is my meditation.
Psalm 119:97
My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for they will add length to your days, years and peace to your life.
Proverbs 3:1-2
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
My son, pay attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not lose sight of them; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and health to the whole body.
Proverbs 4:20-22
No matter where you are, or what you are doing, you can meditate on God's WORD. His WORD brings love, truth, grace, life, healing, health, freedom, and prosperity. His WORD destroys fear, doubt, sickness, death, and poverty. A mind focused on God's WORD and God's thoughts, is a spiritual and prosperous mindset. One with this mindset, sees themself as GOD sees them- prospering, overcoming, conquering, healing, rejoicing, and having all sufficiency in all things.
How do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself as the rich man- prospering no matter what difficult circumstances you face, always having enough and extra in God's supply, always being enough because of Jesus?
Or do you see yourself as the poor man- never having enough, never being enough, and being overtaken & overwhelmed by every hard circumstance that you face.
Jesus faced lack time and time again when He walked the earth. But He never let it overtake Him. He faced it, and He overcame it. He never let a need or an apparent lack rule His heart, because the WORD of His Father ruled His heart. He never let present conditions dictate the final outcome. He always exalted the Truth of what He knew about His Father and He always trusted His Father's care and provision- above the "facts" that He faced in a given moment. Jesus understood that circumstantial facts, did not always display the Truth. He was always thankful, because He knew He had all sufficiency in all things, and He knew His Father prospered Him in all things. In fact, when Jesus faced conditions of lack, they often ended in multiplication. He always saw Himself as having more than enough and extra. What Jesus saw in His heart and thus what He spoke, came to be His outcome.
You can be free from a spirit of poverty today, and it all begins in your heart and in your mind. You can ditch the poverty mindset, and begin thinking God-thoughts where you are not limited in this life, because GOD has no limits. You can begin meditating on His WORD, and not on your present circumstances nor your past experiences. You can set your focus on His Truth, not on the facts of your current condition. You can renew your mind and be transformed from impoverished to prosperous.
Here at Victory, we pray that the LORD may enlighten the eyes of your understanding, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, and what are the infinite riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. May you walk in the prosperity of God, and may your heart be ruled by the WORD, and God's WORD alone.
In Jesus' mighty Name, Amen.
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