A Scarcity Mindset will impact the extent of your ministry - what is your mindset?
As a consultant, the most common challenge I have run into is a scarcity mindset which can impact those I work with to achieve their potential.
So, what is it?
In its most rudimentary form, scarcity mindset refers to people who see life as a finite-pie, so that if one person takes a big piece, that leaves less for everyone else. Most people, particularly in the corporate world, have been conditioned to have a scarcity mindset. This mindset can severely limit what God wants to do through an individual, a group of people or a ministry.
The antidote for a scarcity mindset is an abundance mindset which envisions endless possibilities, believes the best is yet to come, and that by God’s grace, ideas, resources, and love are unlimited. It’s also a mindset that honors God. We see this mindset being taught by God throughout scripture, as in John 10:10 Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (NASB) Between the distortions of the heretical prosperity gospel teachings and the rationalizations of believers who have a hard time accepting that Jesus meant what He said, the default position for many Christ followers have often become either a complete spiritualization of this promise of Jesus and/or the adoption of a scarcity mindset.
All through scripture we encounter people with a scarcity mindset as well as those who have an abundance mindset. Moses demonstrated a scarcity mindset when he claimed that “he did not have what it takes” to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt when God called Him. But once he encountered the great I AM face to face he gained an abundance mindset and could stand before the strongest world leader of the time and demand, “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1)
The entire Israelite army was whimpering and all said, “we do not have what it takes” as Goliath blasphemed God daily. Until David with an abundance mindset shouted at Goliath, with only 5 stones and an slingshot, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies”(I Samuel 7:45) and the giant was slain.
This is also what the early church had to struggle through and overcome. They had to accept that the gentiles were just as much part of the church as they were, as Peter experienced in Acts 8 with the history of Cornelius. Later the new church in Jerusalem also embraced an abundance mindset when they endorsed the growing church in Asia minor as equals, not inferiors or enemies (Acts 15.) They moved from a scarcity mindset with such a parochial and limited view as to who are part of the Church of Jesus Christ to an abundance mindset, understanding as to what Jesus meant when He said, Go into all the world and the growing understanding that the gifts of the Spirit did not and do not come in blue and pink versions but that the Holy Spirit came in His fulness upon all people redeemed through the death and resurrection of Christ. That is the abundance mindset. God is able. God is far bigger than my limited understanding. God can do far more than what I can imagine or even think of.
An abundance mindset carries a vision of a flourishing creation in which people are living life to the full, free from poverty, injustice and conflict - at peace with God, nature and one another, as intended and enabled by Jesus Christ. Your life and ministry must not be measured by what “slice of the pie” you can get. Or be limited by what you see as your personal limitations. That is a scarcity mindset. No, may your expectations be as great as the omnipotence of the God we serve, the one who desires to do far more than what we can think or imagine! That is the abundance mindset.
Do you have a scarcity or abundance mindset? Additional resources are available to stimulate your thinking towards an ever-growing mindset of Abundance. Contact me if you are interested giloconsultancy@gmail.com and make sure you have five smooth stones in hand to slay the giants you are facing.
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