Eight Steps to Destination: Prosperity Overflow by Creflo Dollar

God wants us to prosper spirit, soul and body in every area of our lives. Follow these eight steps to the fullness of what God intended for your relationships, ministry, job and finances. Start planting the Word of God in your heart and watch as your harvest overflows!
God has a place He wants us to go: Destination: Prosperity Overflow. I believe with all my heart that God wants us to prosper. In fact, I believe that prosperity is an expression of God’s love to us. Now please understand, I’m not just talking about money. Prosperity includes money, but it is more than money. God wants you to prosper in your spirit, soul, emotions and physical body. He wants you to prosper in your anointing, relationships, marriage and job. He wants you to excel toward the promises of God.
God has already done His part. He’s already made lots of things available to us, but if we don’t understand the process that we need to take to arrive at our destination, we could live the rest of our lives without ever coming into what God fully intended for us.

There are eight steps in this process. If your destination is Prosperity Overflow, you’re going to have to understand and respect this process. So let’s look at it carefully and see how each step impacts your life.

Step 1: The Word of God
The Word of God. This is where everything in the process starts. If you’re going to end up at Destination: Prosperity Overflow, you’re going to have to start with the Word. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1).
The Word is the incorruptible seed, the seed that will always produce, the seed that will never fail. It is the origin for all prosperity—the gateway to the blessings of God. We can’t achieve prosperity without it.
Prosperity is Word-determined, not money-determined. No matter what we give, our money won’t have a future if it’s not backed up by a “Word seed,” that is, a revelation from the Word of God. It’s the Word seed that causes that money seed to increase. So many of us want to give a money seed, but we don’t have a Word seed. And so we release the money seed without any force behind it.

For instance, imagine a preacher who has never experienced a financial breakthrough. When the offering comes, he always puts something in, but things never get better for him. Why? Because even though he gave a money seed, he never received a revelation from the Word concerning his financial breakthrough. He planted the money seed, but it had no future without the Word seed.

It’s the Word of God, the Word seed, which determines prosperity in every area of life. Word seed will prosper you when the doctor tells you you’re sick. Word seed will prosper you when you feel like you’re about to lose your mind. Word seed will prosper your marriage when things seem down and out.
The process to Destination: Prosperity Overflow starts with the Word.

Step 2: Your Thinking
If you ask people why they read the Bible, they’ll give you all kinds of answers. But the reason you should read your Bible is because it governs your thinking. It shows you what type of mind-set you should have. And that’s the second step in this process: Word thinking, or prosperous thinking.

Third John 2 states, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” The prosperity of your life is based on the prosperity of your soul—that is, your mind, will and emotions.
You will be as you think. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If you think you’re going to be poor all your life, you probably will be. If you think you’re going to break out of this financial situation, then you’ll break out of it.

Consider how you think. Do you have a lack mentality? A poverty mentality? A sickness mentality? A mentality of defeat? You’ve got to look at your thinking and what influences your thinking, because everything that’s going on in your life can be traced back to how you think.

Step 3: Your Emotions
The Word of God will lead you to start thinking thoughts that are in line with the Word. And thinking that lines up with the Word will produce emotions that line up with the Word.
God gave us emotions. They are a gift. Jesus had emotions. The Bible says He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). It is fine to have emotions…but we must make sure that emotions never have us.
Emotions are feelings caused by pain or pleasure that will direct you or move you in a direction. God has given you emotions. If you don’t learn how to control them, they will move you to places you don’t need to go.

If the devil’s going to move you out of the will of God where prosperity is concerned, then he’s going to do it by enticing your emotions. He tried to do that with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was sweating blood because He was “deeply distressed” (Mark 14:33, New International Version). He was resisting, not allowing His emotions to take charge.

As Jesus resisted, the King James Version says He “went forward” (verse 35) and kept praying. When your emotions try to move you out of God’s will, do like Jesus and keep moving forward. Keep doing God’s will, regardless of how you feel.You have authority over your emotions.

Step 4: Your Decisions
It’s extremely important that we understand how to govern ourselves and take charge of our emotions because how we feel will determine the next step in this process: the decisions we make.
Life is a series of decisions. Every day you wake up, you make a decision. According to Deuteronomy 30:19, you’re a free moral agent. You can choose life or death, blessing or cursing. And when you make decisions in line with the will of God, heaven will back you up.

Look what happened when Jairus made a decision and interrupted Jesus’ plans in Mark 5:21-23: “When Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side.… Behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.”
Now, look at what Jesus did in verse 24: “Jesus went with him.”

Did you get that? Jesus stepped off the boat, ready to accomplish the will of God for His life. But when Jairus interrupted Him, Jesus turned and went with him.

Then in verse 28, right in the middle of this situation, a woman with an issue of blood arrived. She had made a decision, too: “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” Jesus stopped and healed her right there on the spot. Shortly after that, Jairus’ daughter was healed, too.

In both circumstances, Jesus was doing one thing when He was directed elsewhere. There’s a powerful principle here: Jesus has put His ministry and His Anointing into the hands of people who will make decisions that line up with His will. When you make a decision that lines up with His will, He will stop, turn and show up at your house to remove burdens and destroye yokes. That’s how powerful a decision is!

Step 5: Your Actions
Your decisions will determine your actions. And your actions cause the increase. Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). So start acting like what you just decided. Start talking like what you just decided. You may not be able to buy a $500 suit right now, but get yourself a good suit and have it dry cleaned. Get yourself a nice tie and a little handkerchief. Start walking like you’re already in the overflow. God weighs your actions (1 Samuel 2:3), so start doing what you can. Let your actions show what you believe.

Step 6: Your Habits
Your actions will determine your habits. You will develop in whatever you are doing on a daily basis. So you’ve got to check what you’re doing and saying every day, because what you do and say determines your potential.
If you lie, you have a potential to become a developed liar. If you sneak around looking at pornography every day, you only have the potential to develop in that. So make sure you look at your actions because your actions will determine your habits, and you don’t want habits in your life that are out of line with the Word of God.
Step 7: Your Character

Your habits will produce Step 7: your character. Character is what people have come to expect from you. Understand this: You will never rise above the limitations of your character.

Over the years, Brother Kenneth Copeland has defined character as doing what’s right because it’s right and then doing it right. The character we should desire is, of course, the character of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What was His character? Love. We should begin to develop in the character of agape love so we can learn how to love people with agape love.

Step 8 : Your Destiny
Finally, the type of character you develop will determine your destination in life.
What’s your destiny? In John 10:10, Jesus says it succinctly: “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)” (The Amplified Bible). There’s your destiny. Enjoy life! That’s where you’re headed. Amen!

The Word produces your thinking; your thinking produces your emotions; your emotions produce your decisions; your decisions produce your actions; your actions produce your habits; your habits produce your character; and your character produces your destiny. Where you end up in life will be based on how you handle that progression.

You’re destined to live an overflowing life. You’re destined to be healed, to be at peace, to be wealthy. You’re destined to be happy. You’re destined to be sound. That’s what you were born to enter into. Life in the overflow! That’s your Destination: Prosperity Overflow.