The Two Providers:
Scarcity or Abundance

TRUE ABUNDANCE

“One person pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.” - Proverbs 13:7 

As we mentioned previously, the past is only a memory, the future is only an expectation, the only real thing you have is the present. Everything else lives only in your mind. True abundance is the ability to experience and enjoy the present moment without any distractions. You don’t need money to have abundance. In fact, money often distracts us from abundance. There are many things that can prevent abundance; the separated identity’s projection of an insecure future, and it’s insistence on debts owed from the past are two major barriers to abundance. Both of these ideas only exist in the illusionary realm of scarcity. Freedom from scarcity is true freedom. True freedom is the ability to enjoy the present without any thoughts of scarcity. To obtain true freedom, you must believe in abundance. The kingdom of God is the realm of eternal abundance. 

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LOVE GIVES BECAUSE IT IS IN ITS NATURE TO DO SO

Detached identities cannot love, or be at peace, or be righteous, or experience abundance. These traits only emerge when we believe we are connected with others, not separate from them. So long as you are operating from separation, these qualities can only be mimicked through self inflating performances aimed to gain status, approval or reward. When you are whole, love is something you do for love's sake, not to get something in return. It’s only by being freed from our belief in separation that we can truly embody these qualities. When the scripture says, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free”, it is revealing this same principle, Christ liberates us, not to get something in return, but purely for the sake of freedom. It’s not to impose obligations or enlist us in mandatory service. He needs nothing in return from us and holds no obligation over us to respond in any particular way. His leadership, love and help remain extended to us permanently because of who He is, not because of what we do. It is completely up to us whether we take the freedom He gives us, and use it to excuse our degradation, or to empower our self improvement.

It's only when we shed our detached psyche, and learn to operate from Christ that we can begin to love as Christ loves, not with expectations or obligations, but because it is who we are. As we begin to operate from Christ in this way, our families can’t help but heal. We are no longer slaves to natural laws of cause and effect, or action and reaction. Our attitudes and emotions are now governed by a level of freedom only citizens of heaven possess. 

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“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” - 1 Corinthians 12:26

OUR HIGHEST POTENTIAL IS BOUND TO OTHERS REACHING THEIRS

What if every single person in your life was a manifestation of Christ? In disguise perhaps, as a test perhaps, but nonetheless Christ? In Christ, our fates are all tied together, interconnected with God. We must recognize that none of us can truly reach our highest potential without everyone else reaching theirs. The detached identity hates this truth, because it fears dependence on anything but itself. The level to which you fear depending on others often reflects the depths to which others have wounded your soul. Our detached identities insist we must achieve our greatness alone. Yet the truth is, we cannot become our best selves without our spouses, parents, or even their ancestors being their best, as our collective brokenness places extreme limitations on our own potential. This leaves us facing a great challenge—instead of indifference, or judgement, or seeing others as competition, we must acknowledge our need for them to become their best as well as their need for us to become our best. We must also change our definition of perfection. Perfection isn’t about flawless behavior; it’s about maintaining connection to those around us despite their flaws. We will add two cautions here, first, we must be careful not to enable their further decline into egotism by allowing them to manipulate us through our connection to them, and second, we must be careful not to develop unhealthy levels of codependency, which is when we allow our own behaviors to become dependent on the behaviors of someone else

EXTERNAL WEALTH OR INTERNAL WEALTH

Because our separated self offers no actual intrinsic worth or substance, it seeks its value externally, from looks, titles, status, money and possessions (1 Peter 3:3-4). It can only perceive the value of internal treasures like love, peace, patience and self control from an external perspective. Addressing internal values like these will make the separated self insecure, so it will avoid addressing them, or attempt to disqualify them all together. True abundance is secure because it is attached to the infinite giver, God, and receives all its needs from Him. It needs no earthly status or wealth to feel valuable or secure. Instead, it finds its value in obeying personal convictions and love. 

SCARCITY IS AN ILLUSION

Why does the sun shine endlessly, never demanding repayment for giving its light and life? Does it complain about our ingratitude? No, because the sun does not see the light as its own scarce resource, but as the flow that radiates from its divine connection. Imagine the tragedy if the sun began to see itself separate from its Creator, claiming its light as its own creation and its own material, apart from the infinite source. And what a tragedy if, in its delusion, it decided its light was scarce, and therefore giving it was too costly and burdensome. 

To the separated mind, resources are scarce, but to the mind that is whole, there is always enough. Abundance is an operating system, it is not of this world, yet this world is suspended in its provision. Abundance knows no separation, no time, no accusation, no threat, no fear, greed or scarcity. It gives without memory, it gives without worry, it gives without limits, it gives without judgment. Abundance never needs repayment or reason to give what it has to give. It just gives, because it is a giver, and it loves doing what it was made to do. 

Resources are scarce when you believe they come from you. Abundance however is infinite because it comes from God. A detached identity cannot give from abundance because it believes itself separate from God. God is the only source of real abundance. The separated self can’t fathom giving unconditionally because it can only see through the lens of its own finite self-scarcity. To the separated self, giving means loss, so the only way it can consider giving is if it can get something better in return. The ego operates in an economy of scarcity, hoarding love, trust, and forgiveness like paper money, fearing there’s never enough to go around. It gives only when it expects a return—kindness for praise, vulnerability for guarantees—turning relationships into a ledger of debts and credits. 

ABUNDANCE HAS NO WANT

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” - Psalm 23:1

The detached self is tormented by intrinsic emptiness, so it seeks to add external decorations to mask the void. Yet, no matter how many externals it adds, it will never be satisfied because it is empty inside. External additions can never fill internal voids. When we say, “I want to add something to myself,” we speak from a place of want, and therefore separation. It is rarely love when we seek to add, for adding is most often motivated by envy, jealousy, or comparing external appearances, instead of by the internal motivations of love, grace, and truth. When we imagine success is about popularity, we can’t help but use people to make us feel successful, a form of codependency or self-service. While the separated self seeks to add, love cannot help but give, and multiply, wherever it goes. Multiplication is costly, it is not focused on adding to itself, but multiplying from itself. It is not motivated by the desire to fill it’s own need, but out of an overflow of life. Perhaps this is why the first commandment God ever gave mankind is to multiply, not to add. “God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply…” - Genesis 1:28 (KJV)

YOU CANNOT OUT-GIVE LOVE

Love’s economy is abundance, an endless wellspring that gives without fear of depletion. It pours out generosity because its source is infinite, never counting any cost. Love overlooks offense, and gives without expectation. Love gives grace, not to gain favor but because grace delights in giving, and trusts its supply is boundless. You love because love is your identity, not because they earned it today. Despite your worries, you will find there is always enough when you choose love. You can't out-give love. It is a universal law—you will always be resupplied whatever love you give away. The Gospel doesn’t demand faith, it supplies faith. In the same way, the gospel doesn’t demand love, it connects you to God’s infinite supply.

FORGIVENESS IS ABUNDANCE MANIFEST

The separated self maintains a record of wrongs, but love forgets easily. Forgiveness is the ultimate sign of abundance. When someone takes something from you that you didn’t offer them, you have the choice to keep a record of that debt, or to forgive them that debt. For-giving means to give before. It is the predetermination to give from God’s eternal abundance and release any debts anyone else freely and always. Forgiveness is abundance manifest. Forgiveness is a primary tool for dismantling the illusion of separation, for the one being given to, but also and especially for one who's giving. Forgiveness is a complete rejection of separation’s illusion of scarcity and ownership, and an acceptance of abundance and shared belonging. Forgiveness is about rejecting the broken system of all debt—past, present and future. As we forgive, we embrace God’s economy wholeheartedly and invite God’s abundance to infest our potential. If you’re holding debts against anyone, let them go and free your soul from their grip. You can be free from scarcity to enjoy the abundance of the present, despite the whirling circumstances of the world. 

“When you were dead in your sins (separated self) and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” - Colossians 2:13-14 (NIV - parenthesis added)

JESUS CLEARED ALL OUR DEBTS TO EACH OTHER 

When Jesus died, He wiped out humanity’s debts—past, present, and future—making judgment’s currency worthless and revealing once and for all the deception of scarcity. His resurrection thus demonstrated the government of abundance.

"For our sake God made Him who knew no sin (separated identity), to become sin (the separated identity) on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (love)." - 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB - parenthesis added)

Jesus became our sin (separated identity), then crucified it and buried it so that we might be given as many chances as we need to learn forgiveness from Him. And in doing so, we might become God’s version of righteousness—that is, someone who is capable of for-giving. In Galatians 2:20, Paul personalizes this idea and says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (ESV) 

You and I, and all of Adam-kind, and all of creation were collectively killed that day when Jesus was crucified. The Bible teaches that He embodied our collective separated identity so that He might crucify its entire structure, then He buried it in hell where it can’t escape and cannot be found. This principle is why forgiveness is one of the greatest indications of whether a person is truly “saved” (made whole), and why Jesus tells us that unless we forgive others, we ourselves will not be able to access forgiveness. 

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” - Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)  

FORGIVENESS STOPS THE CYCLE OF SIN

Forgiveness does not negate accountability for wrongdoing; love protects the vulnerable from the vile most of all, and thus, love will remove abusers to prevent further harm to the vulnerable while maintaining hope for the abuser’s potential healing and reform. Forgiveness is the only way to stop the cycle of sin from continuing from person to person. When one person sins against another, the violation is often carried by the victim until they give it to someone else in some form—a father criticizes the career choice of his grown up son, the son goes to work and insults a coworker, the coworker goes home stressed, and overreacts to his kids, the kids begin to fight with each other, and so on… Forgiveness stops this cycle. Forgiveness doesn’t justify or excuse the wrongness of someone else’s sin, it just stops the cycle of sin that got handed off to you. 

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