The Blessing We Don't Always Talk About

This week on The Weekend Joyride, Mac and Rhoni start with something light: coffee.

Good coffee. Colombian coffee. Cold coffee. Coffee standards. Possibly coffee snobbery.

But from there, the conversation turns toward a word that can make some Christians uncomfortable: prosperity.

Not greed. Not showing off. Not money having your heart.

Mac and Rhoni talk about biblical blessing, generosity, provision, peace, purpose, family, and what it means to be blessed so that blessing can flow through you. They also reflect on Leanna Crawford’s “How Can You Not,” Patrick Mayberry’s “Watch What God Can Do,” the rich young ruler, and the difference between discernment and becoming a professional critic.

At the heart of the episode is this thought: prosperity is bigger than a bank account. It is the goodness of God touching every area of life.

Blessed people becoming a blessing.

• Juan Valdez Coffee — https://juanvaldezcafestore.com/pages/our-story
• Generous Java — https://generousjava.org/
• Third Coast Coffee Roasting Company — https://www.thirdcoastcoffee.com/
• Fara Coffee — https://www.faracoffee.com/
• Counter Culture Coffee - https://counterculturecoffee.com/

Music / Artist Mentions

• Leanna Crawford — Official Website - https://www.leannacrawford.com/
• Patrick Mayberry — Official Website - https://www.patrickmayberry.com/

Scripture References

• Genesis 1:26–28 — creation, blessing, fruitfulness. 
• 1 Timothy 6:10 — “the love of money” passage. 
• Luke 18:18–30 — the rich young ruler passage discussed near the end. 

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Transcript

Welcome to the Joyride

Mac 0:06

Welcome to the weekend joyride. I'm Mac, and Rhoni and I are glad you're riding along with us this week. We're going to talk about a word that can make some Christians a little uncomfortable: prosperity. Not greed, not showing off, not money having your heart. We're talking about blessing, generosity, provision, peace, and the goodness of God showing up in real life. And because we don't want to get too serious too fast, we're also admitting something about ourselves today. We may have become coffee snobs. A little faith, a little real life, and apparently a very specific opinion about coffee. Let's get into it. The weekend joyride.

We May Be Coffee Snobs

Mac 0:46

We wanted to talk a little bit about coffee today. We're coffee snobs. Are you coffee snob? We're coffee snobs.

Rhoni 0:55

Hugely.

Mac 0:57

Where did we get that? Oh, we got that from um our kids and our parents worked in Colombia.

Rhoni 1:02

Where we tasted real coffee and what it was supposed to be like.

Mac 1:06

Yeah. And Colombia, the country of Colombia, has this chain that's a lot like Starbucks that is called Juan Valdez. Now, to me, Juan Valdez was always the brand guy on the side of the Folgers coffee through. Right.

Rhoni 1:19

Well, they always had the commercial with him riding his donkey through the mountains.

Mac 1:22

Through the mountains, getting the coffee. Well, apparently he does.

Rhoni 1:25

There's a real Juan Valdez, or there was.

Mac 1:28

So there's a chain of anyway. We started drinking this uh Juan Valdez coffee, and it's just Oh my gosh. It's not, you can't really, you have to get it in certain ways in the United States. You have to get it through Miami or something like that, don't you?

Rhoni 1:44

Well, I get it through Amazon or through the Juan Valdez site. Well, I I say I get it. I got it, but but since their days in Colombia when we discovered what real coffee should taste like, we came back changed.

Mac 2:00

Yeah.

Rhoni 2:00

And so then we went to a couple of great coffee places. There are some great coffees in the Austin area, but but I don't want to move away from coffee before we

Coffee That Helps Others

Rhoni 2:11

talk about generous Java.

Mac 2:12

Well, there's generous Java.

Rhoni 2:14

Generous Java is great. And that tell them a little bit about Generous Java.

Mac 2:18

Generous Java. We came across Generous Java because they were part of our joy512.com group. Uh uh David Carroll in Generous Java, and he brought it to us. And it's kind of a cool deal because you buy Generous Java coffee on a subscription, and part of the money that you pay goes toward really good uh deals. Yeah, causes.

Rhoni 2:44

Yeah, and it's fresh roasted coffee, really good coffee. I believe it's roasted in Houston. And if you want to get a subscription kind of coffee and you want to change the world with your coffee subscription, we highly recommend generous Java.

Mac 2:58

We also, while we lived in Austin, we became accustomed to Third Coast coffee.

Rhoni 3:05

Oh yeah. Remember their Mexican chocolate coffee?

Mac 3:08

Oh man, you walk in there and it just smelled good. Do you remember? Oh, sorry.

Rhoni 3:14

Sorry, I'm excited about that. They had that one that was it had deep cherry notes. Now, before Columbia, we didn't even know that coffee had notes.

Mac 3:23

Notes, yeah.

Rhoni 3:24

We didn't know that. And I liked that one better than you did, but it was really, it didn't really taste chocolatey. But when you become a connoisseur of coffee, you do begin to taste these hints. And that one that had the dark cherry notes, I cannot remember what it was called, but I loved it. It was so good.

Mac 3:42

And I have to admit, I'm still, you know, Ronnie can fix uh a pot of this coffee and then tomorrow morning fix a pot of another coffee and say, okay, what did you and and I didn't taste the difference, you know. So my palate is not as um uh discriminating as hers is when it comes to coffee. Uh but uh we do enjoy our good coffee. And when we have to drink hotel coffee, oh no, we don't do that. We even bought our own Keurig to take with us sometimes.

Rhoni 4:10

Well, yeah, but I'm too I'm snobby about courage cup.

Mac 4:12

About Keurig, it's gotta be perfect. Yeah, it's gotta be perfect.

Rhoni 4:15

Now now Farah coffee has courage cups, has K cups.

Mac 4:19

Farah is a great coffee. Farah is a great one, roasted in Austin. Can't you get that at HEB?

Rhoni 4:24

Uh some sometimes you can get it in HEB, but I started ordering from Amazon because we missed good coffee. And so Farah is a really good brand, but then my coffee palette took me to discovering and even tasting the difference between coffees that are acidic or more acidic than others. So people that know me know that I I do health kicks, and you know, there's so much to know about health that you can't get it all in one year. It's like you know better, you do better. So, you know, you start out by knowing you need to drink water. So one year it's your you know trek to get on the water, and then another time it's okay, get rid of processed fruit food. So, you know, you just grow in your certain kind of deodorant.

Mac 5:14

Yeah, almost aluminum-free deodorant.

Rhoni 5:16

We can talk about that on one episode. Um, we've had a journey with that. But back to coffee, I really decided that okay, now that I know and I'm already hooked on coffee, let's look at cleaner coffees. Which led me to counterculture. I am smitten with counterculture, right?

Mac 5:41

These days, yeah.

Rhoni 5:42

Well, here's the other part. We also know a friend of ours who roasts his own coffee, spiral horn coffee.

Mac 5:52

Oh, sure. Yeah, Mark Headley.

Rhoni 5:54

Yeah, yeah. And so Mark taught us all about different coffee flavors and how the flavors are really toxic. So you really want good, cleaner coffee. But I like to drink a little bit of decaf with my calf. And apparently, I didn't know this, but apparently it's very difficult to get decaffeinated coffees that don't ruin the taste of the other coffee. In fact, it's apparently hard to get really good tasting decaffeinated coffees. So in my coffee journey, I always have to taste the decaf in the line that we're doing. And so counterculture has a really, really good decaf line.

Mac 6:38

And that's what we've been drinking now for a while. Yeah. Love it, love it. So I don't know why we wanted to talk about coffee other than we're just using it. All the time. So uh if you're looking for good coffee, you know, we have several that we recommended here. So we do.

Rhoni 6:54

And if you're if you're interested in counterculture, they actually have, to bring us full circle, they have a Colombian coffee that really does rival that Juan Valdez coffee.

Mac 7:05

Yeah, and it's funny, counterculture does different names for their coffees, like the one we're drinking right now is 46, I believe. And we looked it up, and the reason they call it 46 is because in earlier times they had different blends that they would try, and people would more often than not pick the blend called number 46, blend number 46. So they just thought, well, we'll just name it 46, and that's what we that's what we drink.

Rhoni 7:31

Yes, but they have uh several different coffees, and the one that we really became smitten with is one called Gradient, and Gradient is their dark roast coffee from Columbia with dark chocolate notes, roasted nuts, berry. So I think that just it pulled on me. And then 46 has dark chocolate and smoky full-bodied notes. So we're big fans of Gradient and 46, and their decaf, which is called slow motion, is also very good.

Mac 8:10

I don't even know these names. Rhoni just orders them and we put them

Cold Coffee Conversion

Mac 8:14

in the canister and start drinking them.

Rhoni 8:15

Yeah, I yeah, well, go ahead and tell on yourself about cold coffee though, since we're on that.

Mac 8:20

I always thought cold coffee was terrible. Like I would never drink cold coffee, but you put a little splash of this, you know, special cream in it and get it over ice, and I can hardly wait till we shut this thing off so I can go get some right now, in fact. So I've really taken to drink, I'd probably drink a cup of cold coffee a day. In fact, I had one on the way to work this morning. I thought it's a hot day. I think I'll just make some for on the way to work. And I did. I drank it on the way to work. So now an afternoon cup will do me.

Rhoni 8:48

And I do believe in giving credit where credit is due. So, yes, our kids got us into good coffee when they moved to Columbia, my parents and my and my kids. But the whole designer cold coffee movement, that's a whole movement. I watched my granddaughter and my daughter, but my granddaughter would swagger down the stairs and get her coffee in the morning before school. And and they have this whole little bar set up that has flavorings and different kinds of creamers and stuff. And I would just watch her get her little cup of ice and pour her coffee in and then make her cream go in there in the way that it it swirls kind of pretty, right? And that's how she would start her morning. So I I jumped in one day and I was like, okay, I think I can do this. And I brought it home to Mac.

Mac 9:46

And now I think actually Presley did that for me too. She I said, okay, make me a cup of that. And she did, and it was fabulous. Yeah.

Rhoni 9:54

So I mean, I don't even think we need we we don't even want to do the math on what we spend on coffee now. No, let's don't. Let's don't.

Mac 10:00

Let's just move on to the next topic.

Rhoni 10:04

Yeah.

The P Word

Mac 10:16

This week we're gonna tackle a word that can make some Christians a little nervous.

Rhoni 10:21

It's the P word.

Mac 10:22

The P word prosperity.

Rhoni 10:24

Mm-hmm. And honestly, that's a topic that I'm comfortable with.

Mac 10:29

I am too.

Rhoni 10:30

Because before there was sin, and before there was shame, even before there was human failure, there was the blessing.

Mac 10:42

God spoke it to us in Genesis 1.28.

Rhoni 10:45

Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. That's what God said. It's the first thing that He spoke over mankind, and it wasn't lack. No, it was blessing. I mean, that is an amazing thought. I don't know how we got so off base with that. I mean, you think about we live in a blessed nation. It's almost like if if we're going to insist upon painting God as a God who doesn't want good for his children, then really think about what you believe about God. Like, how can you believe God's a good God?

Mac 11:21

Where does that even come from, though?

Rhoni 11:24

Something that uh Pastor Jerry Seville said, I loved him.

Mac 11:27

Yeah.

Rhoni 11:27

Uh he said that really kind of stopped me, and I kind of went, Yeah. If he said, if prosperity offends you, you might have a problem with the God who created it. Now let that soak in.

Mac 11:40

Yeah, that's a statement.

Rhoni 11:41

That's a statement. He was reminding us, of course, Jerry is in heaven now. He was reminding us that before there was sin, there was this blessing that we've talked about, and how God's plan included increase from the very beginning. If you think about what he did with Adam and Eve, he he set them, he created a world for them. He planted a garden for them. And in that garden there was everything they needed, but there was also everything they wanted. Yeah, everything they could want in life was planted in that garden. Ready for them to just was ready for them.

Mac 12:15

Use it. Yep.

Rhoni 12:16

And he he prepared a good world for Adam and Eve. It was always his intention, and that's where he planted them.

Mac 12:25

To be fruitful and to multiply.

Rhoni 12:27

And to have what they wanted to enjoy life.

Prosperity vs. Greed

Mac 12:30

Yeah, that's all part of God's plan. When he called Abraham, he said, I will bless thee, and thou shalt be a blessing. And that's where I think people might miss it. The blessing was never supposed to stop with Abraham. The blessing was supposed to flow through Abraham. And that's the difference between prosperity and greed.

Rhoni 12:49

Greed says, Get more for me, but faith says, Bless me, so I can bless others. And that's what Brother Savelle was saying. That God is not, God isn't against prosperity. He's against greed. And there is a difference. It's where your heart is. It's it's that a person whose heart is right with God and turned toward God, filled with love and motivated by good things. Money in the hands of someone whose heart is right is a good thing.

Mac 13:19

Yeah.

Rhoni 13:19

There is a difference. He's what God doesn't want is for money to have your heart. People misquote this all the time. Money is the root of all evil. No, it's not. That's not what it's not what it says.

Mac 13:30

It says the love of money is the root of all evil. Because it can replace everything in your heart.

Rhoni 13:37

Right. And people also get this. I I'm just gonna say it. People get this wrong too. They think that this idea of of greed and the love of money is only present with people who are wealthy. And this is not so. People who are in extreme poverty and people who are desperate, and sometimes people who live well but who are poverty-minded put more emphasis on money. Get your money, sit on your money, don't give your money. You better, you better work hard for your money. Yeah, you know, money changes people, money, money, money. It doesn't have anything to do with uh your status, really. The love of money can grip the heart of anybody from any walk of life.

Mac 14:21

Yeah.

Rhoni 14:21

And that's what God is against. Yeah. It's not against the having of it and the using it, it's against the letting it have you.

Mac 14:29

Yes, and not using it for the proper things. We were talking uh this evening over dinner, and and we were talking about Elon Musk. Yeah. And how he is the first trillionaire in the world after his SpaceX IPO that came out. They sold stock in SpaceX today. And it was funny because Ronnie made mention of the fact you saw you said that you know it's funny how you and I can talk about, oh no, let's not spend that hundred dollars this week. Let's wait till next week. But Elon dude, let's buy the whole block, you know.

Rhoni 15:03

I know you could he could buy every house on our block and give everyone a Cadillac and fund all of our children's uh lives. And and it wouldn't put a dent in a trillion dollars. But that said, you can't feed hungry people with nothing.

Mac 15:18

That's right.

Rhoni 15:19

You can't support ministries with nothing, you can't fund missions with nothing. Yeah. Bottom line is you can't help your children and you can't bless your community if you have no money.

Mac 15:30

The blessing isn't about what gets to you, it's about what flows through you. It's kind of like a couple of weeks ago or last week, we were talking about our pastor talking about uh we have access to God all the time. It's just he wants access to us too. It's a two-way thing. It's a it's a thing that flows. So this is just as much that it isn't about what gets to you, it's about what flows through you and how you do that.

Rhoni 15:58

And and that speaking of Elon, some people love him, some people don't. I happen to like the guy. The thing I like about him is that whether you agree with where his heart is or the things that he wants to accomplish, I think ultimately he is trying to do good in the world. Yeah, it seems and I think that's important. Maybe he's not spending all of his trillion dollars on quote the church, but he does seem to be a good person, a fundamentally good person, even if maybe he's a little extravagant here or there, but that's not for us to judge, right?

Mac 16:38

And I don't really even know that I've ever heard of him being extravagant. I mean, we you know, we've lived in the Austin area and we've heard stories about how he doesn't have a home. When he's in Austin, he sleeps on the floor. I don't think it's that way anymore, but I think he has spent that time, that kind of time, sleeping on the floor in his office. Uh he's he's one of those guys, you know.

Rhoni 17:00

But it comes back to this. How did we confuse prosperity with greed?

Mac 17:05

Oh, that's a good question.

Rhoni 17:06

Those are two separate things. And Christians really need to reevaluate where your issue is if you have a problem with prosperity.

Mac 17:18

What is that saying? Don't judge somebody's uh living until you've seen their giving.

Rhoni 17:23

Right.

Mac 17:23

Yeah. I mean, we don't know what Elon does, for instance.

Rhoni 17:26

We don't know what he does with his money, but But we know some of the things he does with his money.

Mac 17:31

And we do know that he spends a lot of time using it to to better all of us, the world, you know, to to make the world a better place, whether it's putting satellites up, so parts of the world that have never even been connected can have internet, things that have never been done before.

Rhoni 17:49

Yeah, and I think just back to who we are as Christians and believers, I think we just need to calibrate ourselves um and get back to thinking about the goodness of God, the goodness in our lives, and what he does to bless our lives. This is worth thinking about what generous people have impacted our lives.

Mac 18:11

Oh, that's a good that's a good thought. My um original immediate answer was to throw it back to you. You answered. But you asked me. So I'm gonna think about that for a second. What generous people have impacted my life?

Rhoni 18:25

Well, I I can answer.

Mac 18:26

Okay.

Rhoni 18:27

But first of all, it goes back to my parents.

Mac 18:29

Yeah.

Rhoni 18:30

My parents have always been willing to help me.

Mac 18:34

Yes.

Rhoni 18:35

Even when I probably needed to not need help. There have been times that they came through for me more than once. Now think about that on a God level. Don't you want goodness for your children?

Mac 18:52

Right. Oh, of course, yeah.

Rhoni 18:54

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, who's who do you who can you think of?

Mac 18:57

Well, I you you know, it's natural. I think of my uh my parents, my dad specifically. You know, back in the day, I might show up to dinner or something after I'd, you know, already moved out of the house. I might show up and maybe my jeans had a rip in the knee or something like that.

Rhoni 19:13

Because that was cool.

Mac 19:14

It wasn't yeah, but it wasn't what it is today. I mean, I didn't buy those jeans that way, they just got that way, okay? But I'd show up and he'd, you know, he'd call me over. So come here, son, and he'd grab that rip and just rip like half of my cat leg off. But then he'd turn around and hand me 20 or 30 dollars to buy a new pair of jeans. Back then, you could buy a new pair of jeans for that. He's like, you know, it's kind of like one time as kind of a joke, he told Ronnie, don't bring anything cheap around in here. I know.

Rhoni 19:44

I know.

Mac 19:44

And that's yeah, but again, we don't apologize for that.

Rhoni 19:50

Your dad had so much class and taste, and and that's okay. We don't apologize for that. And I think just as Christians, we should really think about how we became uncomfortable discussing blessing. I'm I won't apologize for it. Yeah, I just won't apologize for it. And I think as long as our hearts are right toward God, the question is will you do with your blessing whatever God asks you to do with it? If he asks you to go help someone, or if he asks you to pay someone's rent.

Mac 20:26

Are you ready?

Rhoni 20:27

Are you ready? Will you do that? If you have the money, will you do that? And and that is, I think that is how we should let that sink in for just a little bit. And we'll

Leanna Crawford: “How Can You Not”

Rhoni 20:37

keep talking about this throughout the show.

Mac 20:38

There's a song that that has come to our attention, uh, and it's not brand new, it's uh two years old, 2024, I think. It's by a a young lady by the name of Liana Crawford, and it's called How Can You Not? And the gist of the song is how can you not believe that God did this? How can you not believe there's a blessing? How can you not? You get the idea now. So let's just tune in Liana Crawford's song for a minute. It's called How Can You Not?

Leanna Crawford 21:11

I see the sunrise in the morning and a million stars at night. I hear the birds they can't stop singing, Hallelujah. I see his goodness when I fall down and his grace that picks me up every day. I can't stop singing Hallelujah. How can you not see God in every little thing, in every little moment? How can you not feel love? How can you not? How can you not?

Rhoni 22:16

Yeah, she's still an upcoming artist, but she grew up in Washington, so she's a Pacific Northwest girl. Homeschooled, she was raised in a Christian home. But along the lines of what we're talking about, she went on a mission trip in Haiti. And during that time, God called her. She felt a strong calling to move into the music ministry. But she also began to see music as a mission field, how she could reach people with her music.

Mac 22:51

And then she moved to Nashville. That's where all the music people are happening. Even in even in, I know you think um Nashville as country and western, but Nashville is where a lot of Christian artists are based right now, just because of the the concentration of musicians and uh record companies and things like that. And she was signed to Matthew West's group, Story House Collective, and she's toured with Michael W. Smith and Matthew West, Jeremy Camp, Tenth Avenue North, Matt Mar, Plum, Jordan Felice. That's uh So she's not new. That's pretty good exposure right there with that. No, she's not new. She's won, you know, she's been nominee of the K Love Fan Awards, all that. That's uh it's really fun to see.

Rhoni 23:36

But she was writing poetry as a young girl and turned those songs into or turned those poems into music. But the characteristic of her music, though, is a recurring theme that God meets people in ordinary struggles. Um she writes a lot about how God shaped her story. And that song, How Can You Not, it really does resonate with this idea of God wanting to bless you, recognizing that his goodness is already showing up in your life. It's about what we focus on, it's about where our eyes are, opening your eyes to God's fingerprint in your life and in creation. It's a good song.

Mac 24:18

It is a good song. And she's married to, I looked up her husband, and she's married to a professional basketball player.

Rhoni 24:24

Really? Who is she married to?

Mac 24:26

She's married to Cody Zeller, I believe is his name. And uh and he's he he's been with the Portland Trailblazers, the Miami team, and several other teams. He's been around in the in the basketball world since like 2014. So he must be a tall fella, I bet.

Rhoni 24:42

All right. Well, you can watch for her because she's gonna be in the music arena, but she also has a new song called Thank God, and that's going to be released next month in July. Okay, good. The title track is Thank God. That was released in May. Her songs are more of a sit in the kitchen and talk honestly rather than a preachy platform kind of singer.

Mac 25:08

Sounds like the weekend joy ride, what we try to do.

Rhoni 25:13

Her songs sound a lot like uh, if you want to think about the the the P word. It is, it's a lot like it's not what shows up in your bank account. Sometimes prosperity and blessing are just realizing that God protected you, that he guided you, that he carried you, and that he blessed you in ways you didn't recognize until later. That's a lot of what

Prosperity Is Bigger Than Money

Rhoni 25:35

she sings about.

Mac 25:35

That's interesting. That takes me back to a conversation that you've had with someone before who said something about, you know, I don't see the prosperity on you.

Rhoni 25:46

Oh yeah.

Mac 25:47

It was uh that was a thought all about money.

Rhoni 25:50

Yeah, I don't mind, I don't, I don't mind sharing that. I think I've shared this before, but if you haven't, so in talking about prosperity, I had a friend who kind of tongue in cheek said to me, Well, you're not a millionaire. So how can you believe in that? You're you you know, you're not a millionaire, you're not prospering.

Mac 26:13

And I said, You give, you divide, and I'll do all this for the church. You're not a millionaire.

Rhoni 26:18

And I was just kind of taken aback and I said, Whoa, whoa, wait. How can you say that I'm not prosperous?

Mac 26:27

Yeah.

Rhoni 26:27

Number one, look at my life, look at my parents, look at my children, my children's children. First of all, we're all healthy.

Mac 26:38

Yeah.

Rhoni 26:39

Second of all, we live well. Third, I'm not raising my grandchildren. My kids live well, they do well, and they're they're good in the earth. They do good for people.

Mac 26:52

Yeah.

Rhoni 26:52

And you can look at my life and see that we're comfortable and your husband loved you. My husband loves me, and we have really the things we want in life.

Mac 27:06

Right.

Rhoni 27:07

We go to a church that blesses us. Yes. Every setback we've ever had always is followed by a comeback.

Mac 27:16

A step forward, yeah.

Rhoni 27:17

Yeah, we've we've had some stuff to deal with. We haven't just lived on Easy Street, but when you look back at our life, you see that we always have a comeback and it's always ushered in by God Himself. We've grown in our relationship with God. If today were my last day, I can say I have been absolutely, totally, 100% blessed. Yeah. And so somebody that would make a statement like that that, well, you're not prospering, just like you said, they only have their eyes on money.

Mac 27:47

Yeah.

Rhoni 27:48

So as we continue to talk about prosperity, we need to make sure people understand that prosperity is synonymous with the blessing. And the blessing includes so much more than just money. Just, you know, it's not just money. Yeah. Okay.

Mac 28:04

We've heard the term we're blessed to be a blessing. Well, that can apply to money, but it can also apply to everything else. You know, your blessing. If you're walking around in the blessing, it's easy to pass that on to someone else. They see it on you, they see it on you, they feel it on you, and you can easily um, you know, bring them into that too. No, look at what's, you know, look at the blessing.

Rhoni 28:27

Well, we use that term in church, the blessing. We use that a lot, and sometimes that can be Christianese. What does it really mean? When people are blessed and they're wearing a blessing, they are empowered to prosper. That's really what that means. You are empowered to do good in the earth. So whether you are a front row Christian, or you're Elon Musk, or you're somebody that doesn't even recognize God, but you're doing good in the earth, that's that's that's blessing. That's blessing and prosperity, yeah, right?

Mac 29:05

It is.

Rhoni 29:06

Uh and so there's I just don't apologize for it. And I I really still wonder how Christians got confused and put prosperity and greed together. They are nowhere in the same, they should not be attached to each other.

Mac 29:22

Agreed.

Rhoni 29:23

They are different.

Mac 29:24

Yeah, I've always considered it a blessing to live where I live, to live in this. I I I thank the Lord too in my prayers for living in this country. Oh, yeah. For living today, first of all, waking up this morning and then living in this country, living in this state, and living right where I live in this in this city. It's to me, it's such a blessing. And I I think the founders also believed that that free people, because we live free, yeah. We're blessed in to do that, can accomplish extraordinary things. They believed in opportunity and they believed in enterprise and ownership, churches helping people, communities helping people, and families helping people.

Rhoni 30:10

Yeah, the idea was that flourishing mattered. Yeah, yeah, that's the idea was that opportunity mattered. Freedom mattered. Yeah. And when good people prosper, good things happen. Yeah.

Mac 30:23

When good people prosper, more people get blessed.

Rhoni 30:27

Yeah. So how is it that we're so comfortable celebrating athletic success? Yeah. The player that makes four million dollars.

Mac 30:33

Yeah.

Rhoni 30:34

Uh, and then they go give to the boys and girls club, and that makes a big deal on TV, and everybody talks about oh, great, how great that is. Yeah. But then we're sometimes uncomfortable celebrating business success.

Mac 30:46

Oh, you're suspicious of somebody who is success. Yeah, it's silly.

Rhoni 30:51

We've got to, we really have to get quiet before the Lord if those things bother you with the church. That's good. As we wrap up that conversation, I'm gonna just go ahead and make everybody mad, I guess. I don't know. Um, because I'm gonna talk about Joel Osteen.

Mac 31:07

Okay.

Rhoni 31:08

I don't know why every time prosperity comes up, somebody eventually brings up Joel Ostein.

Mac 31:13

That's funny, yeah.

Rhoni 31:13

It's silly because I'm gonna tell you right now, we love Joel Osteen. We have met him, we found him to be gracious. I actually went to a few meetings of his dad's church way back in the day. He's kind, encouraging. He is exactly what you'd hoped he'd be when you meet him. And you don't have to agree with every minister.

Mac 31:39

No.

Rhoni 31:39

But I I'm telling you, I've become increasingly uncomfortable with how quickly Christians criticize other Christians. Now, the Bible tells us something here that we need to pay attention to. It tells us to be discerning. Yes, we should discern when people are evil, or we should discern when people heart, when when someone's heart may not be right. Discerning is not judging. I'll say that again. Discerning, having a scratch or a you know, you wonder about someone's heart and motive. Yeah, that's different from judging, right? But there's a big difference between discernment and becoming a professional critic.

Mac 32:26

That's that's exactly right. If you don't like a ministry, you don't have to support it. If you don't agree with a message, don't listen. But maybe we should spend less time judging somebody else's calling and more time asking God for uh for revelation in our own life. Teach me, God. Teach what why am I why do I feel like that?

Rhoni 32:46

Yeah, uh the Lord is so faithful. If if you've got something that's bothering you about someone like that, ask him to show you what is it that's bothering you so much. But the Lord will absolutely teach you, and he continues to teach us more and more about generosity, and about what it means to have increase and what to do with it. Yeah, the the Bible teaches about harvest, seed time and harvest, and how that's a part of life. Yeah, and it's a part of his plan for this blessing. It is, but also we know we could go into a whole show about tithing and giving and all the different ways that the Lord has outlined for us to bless with our money and to expect harvest with our money. But again, it's really all about being open to the blessing, to understand more about being blessed, and to not become critics of other people that you may not agree with who may be blessed.

Mac 33:44

I like this. If somebody else's blessing bothers me, maybe that's a conversation I need to have with God.

Rhoni 33:52

Yeah.

Mac 33:52

Oh, that's good.

Rhoni 33:53

Absolutely. I mean, have we ever asked God for our own revelation about blessing? And that's something we should think about. If you know, before we before we launch into attacks of people, it would be better just to go back inward. I've always heard that before you point one finger at somebody else, there's four fingers pointing back at you, it'd be better to just go, okay, I'm just gonna ask the Lord about that. Let the Lord teach me that.

Mac 34:21

And when you do that, when you ask God to teach you about things, he he will teach you about that. You know, just hide and watch what what he'll do.

Rhoni 34:30

Yeah. And just to tie it all in, we have Father's Day right around the corner. I've been thinking about that too.

Mac 34:35

If your child needed help, would you not help?

Rhoni 34:39

Of course you would.

Mac 34:40

If yeah, if your child needed encouragement, wouldn't you encourage them?

Rhoni 34:44

Most parents spend their entire lives trying to create a better future for their children. And I think just to kind of come into the home stretch on this discussion, as Christians and faith people, we can't openly voice this anti-prosperity message, and in the same 24 hours, turn around and talk about your great job, how your investments are making money, how you're looking at possibly selling your house and buying a new one, how you're planning a vacation for your kids. You know, we can't we can't be double-minded like that. Yeah. And so it's it's well worth some soul searching if the P word offends you.

The Rich Young Ruler

Rhoni 35:38

And before we close on that topic, let's just also make sure we have broadened that definition that prosperity is really not just about money. It is about peace, it is about purpose, it is about health, family, friendships, it's the marriage that survives a storm, it's the lovely things in life like sitting on a porch, it's knowing God, even, but I want you to think about this too. When Jesus told the story of the rich young ruler, and the rich young ruler was ready to follow him, and he said, Tell me what else I have to do. And Jesus saw that greed was in his heart. He was rich, but he was also greedy.

Mac 36:23

Yeah, right? Yeah.

Rhoni 36:24

He said, Then go sell everything and give to the poor. He couldn't do it.

Mac 36:28

Couldn't handle it.

Rhoni 36:29

And it wasn't because he was prosperous, it was because it was the love of money had his heart. And go back to that story and look at what the disciples said. What did they say? They gasped when Jesus said, you know.

Mac 36:46

Yeah, sell everything. Yeah.

Rhoni 36:47

He said, one thing you still lack, sell everything that you have and divide the money among the poor, and you will have rich treasure in heaven, and come back and follow me. And when he heard that, he became very distressed and very sorrowful, for he was rich, and it says exceedingly so. And it's not, it's not that he was rich. Listen to the next line. This is verse 24, and this is from the Amplified Classic. Jesus observing him said, How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. Difficult, not impossible, difficult. It's easier for a camel to go through the needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Not impossible. And another thing I want to point out here, kingdom of God, that's an entirely different topic here, not always talking about heaven, okay? Not always talking about eternal life. Kingdom of God is a different topic. But look at verse 26. Those who heard it said, then who can be saved? All of the disciples said, then who can be saved? Why would they say that if they were all poor?

Mac 38:02

Yeah.

Rhoni 38:02

Why would they say that? They would high-five each other and go, hey guys, we're in.

Mac 38:06

Yeah, we gotta do it. We're all poor, we're in. Yeah.

Rhoni 38:09

They were astonished and said, Well, if you're gonna say that, who can be saved?

Mac 38:13

How can we do this? Yeah.

Rhoni 38:14

That is a clue that the disciples were not poor. Okay. But then Jesus answered by saying, What is impossible with men is possible with God. And Peter said, See, we have left our own things and followed you. The point being, money didn't have their heart, Jesus had their heart. Yeah. He was the center of their heart.

Mac 38:35

Yeah.

Rhoni 38:35

They were not greedy, they were blessed, and they went around blessing others. Yeah.

Mac 38:42

And again, if somebody else's blessing bothers you, maybe that's a conversation to be had with God.

Rhoni 38:55

That leads us to another artist that I'm hearing about, Patrick Mayberry. Now he sang with passion.

Mac 39:02

That's another one of those groups that was affiliated with, uh, a lot of times affiliated with the church that that members come and go and and uh not necessarily come and go, but sometimes other other ones come up to the front and sing. And I gotta say, looking at his picture online, he looks kind of like how he sounds, I think, in my mind.

Rhoni 39:23

He was a Chris Tomlin fan when he was younger. But then he moved from Tennessee to Chicago and began working in a church there. And really became more of a worship singer.

Mac 39:39

Kind of, yeah.

Rhoni 39:40

And then stepped out on his own. This is what's interesting about him. He was raised in an environment in the Church of Christ where they discouraged the use of instruments in a worship setting. But then he loved the guitar, so he picked up the guitar. One thing led to another, and now he's got some songs out. But this one is a good one. It's called Watch What God Can Do.

Patrick Mayberry 40:06

A mountain with a single with a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little song to listen for in the radio.

Nothing Missing, Nothing Broken

Rhoni 41:03

It is.

Mac 41:03

It's funny how it is controversial.

Rhoni 41:05

You know, we just wrap it up with this thought that some of the wealthiest people we've ever known were actually still very bankrupt in things that mattered.

Mac 41:13

And some of the richest people that we've ever met weren't wealthy money-wise at all. So I think that we've all met people who have a lot of money, but don't let have a lot of peace. They don't have the blessings. Right. They just they may have money.

Rhoni 41:33

Right.

Mac 41:33

But they're not very happy people.

Rhoni 41:36

Right. Bankrupt in things that mattered.

Mac 41:40

Right. And on the other hand, there are people that have very little money that are the happiest, I would call it the richest that you've ever seen.

Rhoni 41:48

Money didn't have their heart either.

Mac 41:50

Yeah.

Rhoni 41:50

Yeah. It's sweet. So it's just as we wrap this conversation up, prosperity is so much bigger than a bank account. And it's the goodness of God touching every area of your life. That's prosperity.

Mac 42:06

That is prosperity. And that's something that we should all strive for. So maybe prosperity isn't a dirty word after all.

Rhoni 42:14

It's not.

Mac 42:14

Yeah.

Rhoni 42:14

And prosperity is simply God's goodness showing up in our lives so consistently that we have enough left over to share with others.

Mac 42:23

It's blessed people becoming a blessing.

Rhoni 42:25

The whole Bible, people, it's good news. It's good news for your family.

Mac 42:31

It's good news for marriages.

Rhoni 42:33

Or for purpose.

Mac 42:35

Yeah.

Rhoni 42:36

Provision. It's it's the goodness that every one of us expect, need, look for, hope for. Nothing missing and nothing broken is the meaning of shalom. And when Messiah came to the earth, the angel announced peace on earth, goodwill toward men, peace. There's shalom now. There's there's a way for people to have nothing missing and nothing broken, and to have their relationship with God restored, basically restoring the blessing.

Mac 43:11

The blessing of God was never meant to make us bigger. It was meant to make us better.

Rhoni 43:18

We'll see you next time on the weekend joyride.

Closing Thoughts

Mac 43:27

Thank you for joining us for this week's weekend joyride. We hope this conversation gave you something to think about, especially if the word prosperity has ever felt uncomfortable to you. Maybe it's not just about money, maybe it's about God's goodness showing up in your life through peace and purpose and provision, family health, and enough left over to bless someone else. And somewhere along the way, we also discovered that coffee standards matter. We're not saying we're difficult, we're just refined. Thanks for listening and laughing with us and riding along. We'll see you next time on the weekend joy ride.