To break the poverty curse, we must become givers like God and not takers like men and women have been since the days of Adam and Eve. If God is the great Giver, it should be no surprise that very early on the Bible gives one of God’s names as Jehovah Jireh, the Lord our Provider (Genesis 22:8). God did not start being our Provider at the cross. He has always been our Provider. He was our Provider in the garden — only we did not acknowledge it. But now in Christ we have the opportunity to reverse the poverty curse by accepting Jesus as our Provider. To do this we have to acknowledge only one thing: that Jesus is always enough. If we do not believe Jesus is enough, we will fall back into the poverty spirit as surely as Adam and Eve did when they refused to believe that God was enough for them. If we have Jesus, we don’t have to focus on anything else. There is nothing else that we need in this life except Jesus Christ. And this includes the material realm.
How is this true? Jesus Himself gave His disciples the answer. First, He warned them not to lay up treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19). The poverty spirit is what drives us to lay up material treasure for ourselves, because we are not convinced that God is able to provide for us, or because we want more in the material realm than God has given us. Then He tells us not to be anxious about material provision (verse 25). Those who do not know God, driven by fear that their needs will not be met or by greed for more than they need, live their lives in the pursuit of material wealth and wear themselves out in the process. But we are not to be like them (verse 32). Instead, we are to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things [that is, our material and financial needs] will be added to you.”
This does not mean that we are to live in poverty or think that God does not care about our needs. In fact, something very different is the case. If we are consumed with desire for the advancement of God's kingdom and His righteousness, our motives will be so refined and purified that it gives us a place to come to God and ask unashamedly and radically for His material provision. The kingdom of God does not move ahead without financial provision. Jesus Himself knew that and lived by it. The fact that man does not live by bread alone (Matt. 4:4) does not mean we can live without bread! As we seek the kingdom, God gives the "bread." And the poverty curse and spirit are destroyed forever!