And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the Lord your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers: 13 He will favor you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the issue of your womb and the produce of your soil, your new grain and wine and oil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to assign to you. 14 You shall be blessed above all other peoples: there shall be no sterile male or female among you or among your livestock. 15 The Lord will ward off from you all sickness; He will not bring upon you any of the dreadful diseases of Egypt, about which you know, but will inflict them upon all your enemies. [Devarim 7:12-15]

There is a movement within some Christian circles called “The Prosperity Gospel”.  That is to say that every believer should be rich and prosperous and that if you are poor it is due to some sin in your life.

In this week’s reading Moses instructs Isreal that if they obey HaShem’s commandments (mitzvoth) then they will be blessed.  What exactly does that mean?

Everything that HaShem does is for our good.  Moses states “Remember the long way that the Lord your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years, that He might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts: whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 He subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known, in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the Lord decrees [8: 2-4].

We see that HaShem allows hardships in our lives to test our faith, but also to correct us from sin.

In the Besorah HaTova (Good News), Yeshua states in Matthew 8:20 “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."  We also see in the life of Shaul (Paul) that he was shipwrecked, jailed and tortured for his faith.  Neither man lived an exactly prosperous lifestyle.

Yeshua tells us that we should “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:33

This is the crux of true prosperity; it does not come from material possessions and riches, but from seeking HaShem and living out the mitzvoth.

And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you? Only this: to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in His paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, 13 keeping the Lord’s commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good. [Devarim 10:12, 13]