An insightful conversation between an ex-New Ager Melissa Dougherty and Pastor Mike Winger reveals how New Agers think:

"This embodies the golden rule...whatever you give you give back; everything is a cosmic mirror; however you treat somebody you will be treated back. Whatever you ask God, the Universe, that's the vibrational setting you are putting out there—you had to get it back.

So this is basically a Law of Attraction Scripture."

Wow—so the New Age belief system embraces Scripture when it aligns with their views. Or rather, when it seems to align with their views.

Most in the Word Faith movement seem to also take it this way, but they call it the principle of sowing and reaping (Galatians 6:7). It's the same thing.

Coming at it from a biblical mindset, Mike Winger responds brilliantly:

"It's not about giving to get..."

Incredulously, he asks: "it's more blessed to get by giving?"

He explains that the law of attraction then becomes the sin of covetousness that undoes the goodness of my giving. That would be the opposite of what Scripture is saying, and exactly what Jesus warned the hypocritical Pharisees about in their giving: having given to receive praise from the masses, they would receive nothing from God (Matthew 6:1-4).

"It's about enjoying giving for the sake of giving, and the joy of giving for the sake of them being blessed. Fullstop."

Sharing an example of marriage, he relates: "if you do something for your spouse...and they have no gratitude and then you're all mad at them for it: you did it for [yourself]. For a response...to get them to be kind to [you]." But a more mature response might be to respond with an understanding that they didn't want what you did for them. "So you're not upset, you're just learning something about [your] spouse." You weren't doing it for you, you were doing it for them, so now you'll seek something that will serve them.

"If you give away a million dollars, you're not going to get two million dollars in return...You will have zero dollars left. That's the law of math!" God is not a giant slot machine.

The bottom line is we are free to give, and not be anxious about our possessions, because we know God will provide for us.

It's helpful to bring in other bible verses to get a wider picture of God's teaching on a subject. So Paul writes to Timothy and talks about people who use godliness as a way to make a profit. He minces no words and calls them out as false teachers who are conceited and understand nothing. Rather, when we're content with what we have, that is true profit (1 Timothy 6:3-6).How New Age & Word of Faith Misunderstand the Bible (Mike Winger and Melissa Dougherty), 1/09/2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3NVJU82du8, 13:20 – 21:00

Let's look at it from a worldview perspective to be clearer about it.

Hopefully this table helps to unravel yourself from the Word Faith way of thinking.

Instead of thinking about how your words might be powerful enough to tap into a spiritual law that even God aligns himself to, think about how God's Words are powerful, and how twisting his Word might be particularly offensive to him. Words are powerful—so treat God's Word with better respect.

We can start to do that in a small way by simply getting a topic bible (e.g. www.openbible.info/topics) and reading through more than one verse on any one issue. This is what Mike Winger was doing when bringing in that helpful corrective from 1 Timothy 6.

Another helpful corrective is to consider other topics and how they interact. So this might be at the level of worldview, or systematic theology, or biblical theology (a rather unhelpful name for a thematic study with care towards what stage of time each passage relates to). 

I'm constantly struck by how this way of thinking violates the 'now but not yet' paradigm we live in. It promotes this life so much, as if getting worldly goods, health, favour, and having your best life now was the message of Jesus. Instead, the reason we only see glimpses of perfection now is because we ought to be pointing to the life to come. That's where our hope should be: what God has promised when the world is put right and he restarts with a new heaven and a new earth. (See http://propheticengineering.org/series/mission-of-the-church for more on what living in the 'now but not yet' means.)

So the kingdom of heaven on earth that we pray for (Matthew 6:10) is not the fullness of the kingdom, but signs and wonders to point people to Christ and Christ's second coming. We want people to hope not in this life, which will always end in death, but in eternal life with God. That's where true riches lie. And that's why God will never let you get entangled with this world so much that you fear losing what your great wealth—that's the curse of riches: you fear losing it all. So when we're content with what we have, there's the gain—we no longer fear losing this fleeting life we have.

And that lack of passion towards getting more will actually point more people to Christ than if someone were to be "blessed" by receiving much in this life. If a person is satisfied and content in Christ, despite not having much, that is going to speak volumes as to the wonder and goodness of Jesus.

So, follow the laws of maths and economics, not the law of attraction, and, if we're going to be attracted to anything, let's be attracted to Jesus: not for what we'll get from him, but just for being his.