True Prosperity Is Soul Prosperity

True prosperity is soul prosperity. 3 John 2 (NIV) says ‘I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.’ The King James translation uses the word ‘prosper’ rather than the phrase ‘getting along well’. The Greek word from which the translators derive this understanding is ‘eudoo’, literally meaning to have a ‘well journey’. Every person desires to have prosperity, a ‘well journey’, in life but we often view prosperity solely through the lens of the external economic and material such as bank accounts, houses, land, debt, size of ministries, etc. John’s view here is primarily the soul, and by extension, the body. It is very little about the external, but the internal. Our soul is our mind, will and emotions.

Notice in the next verse he congratulates them because they ‘walk in the truth’. When our soul is immersed in the truth of the gospel, the good news of Jesus, and the unlimited grace of God we have internal prosperity. We choose to walk in truth, good news, and grace. The walk of truth is a choice; therefore a life of soul prosperity is a choice. I’m not saying it’s easy or instantaneous but it is a choice we make daily, weekly, yearly in the midst of good and bad circumstances. The walk of truth is not a life without challenges and trials, but it is brings the abundant life of soul prosperity.

As a pastor I often counsel people inside and outside my church on decisions in life; choices to make, how to make them, and the consequences of those choices. Very often believers already know the right choice to make. The comment I most often hear is ‘I want to’. They know what’s right based upon the written word of God and their inner witness. They want to do the right thing based upon that word, but their struggle is really believing it firmly enough to say ‘I will’. Soul prosperity is discovered in moving from saying ‘I want to’ to saying ‘I will’. It is found in moving from knowing the truth to walking in the truth. To know the truth in the depths of your heart, brings you from ‘I want to’ to ‘I will’. Then, and only then, do you have a ‘well journey’.