9 Ways To Partner With God

The best situation is to have God as the senior partner and ourself as junior partner in your life. Prosperity in all parts of our life comes when we partner with him. But most believers don’t understand what this means.

Prosperity is Not Automatic. Poverty is not automatic.

Just because you are a Christian doesn’t mean that you are automatically walking in God’s ways. If we want to walk in God’s blessing, we are required to walk in his ways. The Bible is very clear that behavior determines outcome. To get his outcome, we must walk in his behavior.

God desires prosperity for all his children, but nowhere in the Bible does it say that we are automatically blessed because we are saved. We must learn God’s principles of blessings. Here are some of the principles we find in the Bible.

Hard work with wisdom: Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. Proverbs 6:6-8 (NLT)

Another one of hard work with wisdom: Lazy people are soon poor [this includes Christians]; hard workers get rich. A wise youth harvests in the summer, but one who sleeps during harvest is a disgrace. Proverbs 10:4-5 (NLT)

So what is it like to walk with God as senior partner? The following 9 points are things to understand.

1. He Is Owner, Not Me

You start by understanding that he is senior and you are the junior partner. Another way of saying this is: you are in a covenant relationship with him as a bondservant.

Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, Titus 1:1 (NASB)

What is a bondservant? In Roman times, a bondservant was someone who voluntarily entered into a slave relationship with their master. They did not have to do this. But they gave their lives and control of it to their master.

When applied to Christians, “bondservant of Christ” describes a person who has surrendered all rights of self-ownership and lives in wholehearted, obedient service to Jesus as Lord, motivated by love rather than compulsion. Every Christian should be a bondservant, but not every Christian is. We do this by saying, “Jesus, I give my life to you. I follow your desires and commands, not my own. You bought me by your death on the cross. I acknowledge this. Your death was not just for salvation, but for all of my life. I am yours.”

As bondservants, we ask God how to use our resources and how to live our lives. In the world, we do what we want with our lives. But as a bondservant, nothing we have is our own. We have given all back to God. We realize God has given us our talents, gifts, abilities, and possessions so that we can promote his will on earth. When we do this, we are partnering with him as senior partner.

In 1 Kings 17, the poor widow recognized the voice of God through Elijah the prophet when he told her to give him her last meal. This did not make sense in the natural; however, because she obeyed the Lord, she never again ran out of food for her family. This is an example of how a bondservant lives.

There is a common misconception that God claims 10% of our finances and that we can do what we want with the remaining 90% of our money. The truth of the matter is that God claims all of our money. A bondservant gives all of his money to God and then asks how to distribute and use it. A bondservant also asks, “How do I spend the other 90%?”

So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. Luke 14:33 (NLT)

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. Psalm 24:1 (NLT)

In God’s way, we trust God to order all our circumstances. In the world, we position ourselves to order our circumstances. In God’s way, we steward, distribute, and use our wealth to further his kingdom. In the world, we accumulate our wealth for our kingdom.

Jesus clarified God expects us to use our resources in his parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-29. He gives us resources and then he comes back and asks us how we used them. As we walk through life, we need to ask God constantly how to increase and use what he has given to us. In the kingdom, we function as “God’s treasurers” and his stewards.

2. We are Limited By Heaven, Not By Earth

When you are the senior partner in your life, you are limited by what each can provide and what you can marshal to yourself. When he is the senior, you are limited by his resources he brings from heaven.

Scripture is full of examples of how God’s sovereign economy transcends the natural worldly economy. When we are following him, we are only limited by the voice of God in our lives. If God guides you into something, he will provide resources you don’t have or see how to get. This is where faith comes in. Here are some examples to see this principle in the Bible:

During the plague of darkness in Egypt (Exodus 10:21-23) there was always light in Goshen where the Jews lived.

God supernaturally ordered paid taxes for his disciples in a difficult financial circumstance through a fish in Matthew 17:27.

God told Jeremiah (Jeremiah 17:8) that his people would continue to bear fruit even in a time of famine.

As a bondservant, he will teach you to walk with different eyesight – his versus yours. You do this by listening to his voice. Staying before God and following his leading will never limit you.

3. We Learn to Be Generous, Not Hoarding

Jesus is very generous. He wants to teach us to be generous so that we become like him. God gives and receives. The world hoards and accumulates. Give and receive? Or you kidding? I want to keep it all for myself. I know best what to do with it. Being generous is definitely not the way to use my money.

Now ye Philippians know also that in the beginning of the Gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. Philippians 4:15 (KJV)

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” Luke 6:38 (NLT)

Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. People curse those who hoard their grain, but they bless the one who sells in time of need. Proverbs 11:24-26 (NLT)

Jesus showed God requires we surrender to him the little we have before He can bless it and multiply it in feeding the 5,000 (Matthew 14). The worldly mindset teaches us to depend on our ability to leverage our finances, manipulate people, and control circumstances to experience an increase.

4. With God we have Favor, We Don’t Have to Find it

When we are in control, it’s all about winning friends and influencing people to satisfy our own agenda. But with Jesus as our senior partner, he will bring people along to help you along. He will promote you as you need to be promoted.

Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people. Luke 2:52 (NLT)

5. God Helps Us Solve Problems, We are Not On Our Own

In God’s way, our source is God. In the world, our source is man. This includes the ability to solve problems we come across in our lives: relationships, business problems, church problems, work problems, etc.

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 (NLT)

He will give us answers to problems.

“I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. I know where to discover knowledge and discernment. Common sense and success belong to me. Insight and strength are mine. Proverbs 8:12, 14 (NLT)

Being a problem solver is key to walking in God’s kingdom economy; those with a worldly mindset often worry, have fear, and complain about their challenges, which keeps them limited for the rest of their lives.

The word of God teaches us that sound wisdom, discretion, prudence, understanding, and power to live with God. Go to him with every problem and ask him for a solution. He has it.

6. We Give First Fruits, not Last or No Fruits

It is important to give the first of our increase (fruits) back to God. This is a principle that acknowledges it came from him to begin with. The principle is to give him the best part of everything you produce. This is almost always the first of your increase or income.

By doing this, we honor him by giving back the first increase that he gave us. So many times, we act as if it’s a duty to give back to the Lord. I want to change that narrative. Giving back to him is an honor for me. It acknowledges where our wealth comes from. It acknowledges who our God is.

The worldly way of thinking is that we generate our money and we might give him some at the end after we have done all we want to do. Usually, there is nothing left. If we do this, it is not acknowledging his goodness and trust in him. In the worldly mindset, the priority we have is to put our own needs first in everything we do.

Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine. Proverbs 3:9-10 (NLT) 

7. We Can Walk in Faith, Not Fear

In God’s way, we operate in faith. Faith is believing there is someone bigger than me, Jesus. Faith is believing that he will take care of us. Faith is believing that what he said he would do, he will do. Faith knows the future will work out well. In the world, we react out of fear. We believe that the future is our enemy if we aren’t careful. Faith is knowing that God has only good for us.

For we live by believing and not by seeing. 2 Corinthians 5:7 (NLT)

Those with a worldly mindset usually react to challenging circumstances with fear, which causes them to respond in ways that rarely honor God. Scripture says that there is no fear in love, so the person who operates in fear cannot at the same time walk in faith.

Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 1 John 4:18 (NLT)

When Jesus is your senior partner, fear has no place in us because it has no place in him.

8. We Can Be Content, Not Endless Striving

When Jesus is our senior partner, we can walk in contentment. In the world, we are ever striving for more.

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. Philippians 4:11-12 (NLT)

In the kingdom of God, we learn that contentment has nothing to do with how much money or possessions we have. We have learned to be content when we have much or when we suffer with little. In the world, the more we have, the more we crave. Possessions never satisfy us; only God can fill our soul’s longing.

Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” Luke 12:15 (NLT)

We are not talking about happiness, but contentment in partnering with God.

Seek the kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Psalms 37:4 (NLT)

Biblical prosperity has more to do with pleasing the Lord and making him happy than obtaining wealth so we can experience our personal happiness. This then gives us the personal happiness we are looking for. 

9. We Work in a Team, Not as a Lone Individual

Finally, walking with Jesus means he will pair us up with others to help in our assignment. Our purpose almost always requires a team. Rarely can we do it on our own. The size varies, but he loves networking us with others to help us on our path.