Fear has prevented many Christians from possessing their God-given inheritance. The fear of becoming materialistic has caused believers to neglect this important part of what is theirs in Christ: the inheritance of things. This fear is based on a wrong definition of materialism.
Materialism is not a result of having things but of letting things take a place of priority in life. Materialism tries to fulfill emotional or spiritual needs with material things. Material things will never fill the void that only God and His Word can fill.
Having wealth and riches does not mean a person is materialistic any more than not having them means he or she is spiritual.
Abraham was the first man to really walk with God and repossess the land and the wealth in the world God wanted for him. He had to repossess it. The wrong people possessed the wealth of the world, and God wanted it back in the dominion of people who would walk with Him as He had designed in the beginning.
The Apostle Paul revealed how through Christ any man or woman could enter into the family of God and become His heir. This would not be by means of natural birth into the nation God began with Abraham. Instead, it was through the spiritual birth into God’s family of faith.
Romans 4:13 sheds remarkable light on God’s attitude toward this inheritance we have received: “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (NKJV).
Notice Abraham and his seed would be heirs of the world, and this inheritance would come by faith. Abraham’s example of faith would become the standard by which we can understand it. He put his faith in God’s Word despite the circumstance and conditions that surrounded him. He believed God would fulfill His promise, and then he acted on what he believed.
We are the seed of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ according to Galatians 3:29. It says, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (NKJV).
God’s promise is that we, too, would inherit the world. From Abraham’s day until this present time, God has looked for men and women to inherit the world and all that is in it. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein” (NKJV).
Jesus said it Himself in Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (NKJV). Inheriting the earth is not a promise for future generations any more than meekness is. Faith is now. God wants His influence to reach every aspect of life. He wants the fullness of this earth to transfer into the hands of holy people now.
We can see this again in Psalm 37:11, “But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (NKJV).
This word for inherit means “to seize, possess, and even expel or cast out what does not belong.” We are to not only receive our inheritance, but we are also to seize it, defend it, and destroy anything that threatens it.
We are heirs of the world!
