Economic meltdown has become a household phrase in recent times. Many say it without knowing what it means and how it occurred but everyone is feeling the effects.
What exactly is economic meltdown?
In the past 40 Years, the world has experienced a huge surge in knowledge, information, technology and financial prosperity. What suffers this period is the concept of Godliness with contentment. 2 Timothy 6 Vs 6-11. The financial prosperity resulted in human greed and disdain for the poor. The truth of the poor being close to God’s heart as evidenced in pro 19:17 “he who lends to the poor lends to God and he will repay” was lost to the world and even the church. There was a general craze to be wealthy and to “belong” and everyone became intoxicated by material wealth. Greed and covetousness took over. Credit without real money became extremely easy to facilitate the extravagant lifestyles of everyone. The financial system was propelled by speculations, promises and good works ethics and principles were no longer observed. The latter was replaced by quick profit and fraudulent practices in the name of risk taking. When somebody finally demands real money, the whole financial system collapsed like a pack of cards hence the melt down (frozen credit to promote businesses). What then are the challenges of this melt down when everyone became poorer in a short period of time? How does God expect us to behave as Christians in the time of economic crises?
Luke 6:20-49
Blessed are the poor. Where is the dignity in material poverty and waiting on God for provision? Romans 14:17 says “the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, not eating drinking and making merry.
Blessed are those who weep. Why do we avoid the blessedness? We all want to be happy all the time. Nobody wants to work hard and wait patiently for the reward of hard work. This delayed gratification is regarded today as failure yet we were admonished in lamentations 3:26 that “it is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord”
Luke 6:29-36 “Love your enemies and do good to those who spitefully use you.” Pray for your enemies not against them as we are apt to do in church in recent times. It takes real hatred to pray against a perceived human enemy. What happened to forgiving seventy times seven and God forgiving us as we forgive those who wrong us? Only our enemy as Christians is the devil and we should spend more time resisting him and fighting him instead of one another.
What type of fruits are you bearing?
The fruit of the Holy spirit in Gal 5:16 is for every Christian is to bear. We cannot cherry pick parts of the fruit and reject other parts. The whole fruit of joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance is what we should strive to exhibit in our character. Living out all these parts of the fruit of the Holy Spirit is the antidote to another economic meltdown in our life time.
The question is “are we willing to take up this challenge?” We need to take the step of confessing our sins and surrendering our lives to Christ. Even if we are already born again, we need to confess the sins we are still struggling with. Acknowledge our proneness to sins like lying, cheating, demanding and receiving bribes, corruption, stealing from employers, ignoring the plight of the poor, manipulating bible facts, financial books and minds of people, covetousness, lack of contentment, ingratitude etc.
If you are not convinced, let us look at the actions of a bible character in the bible during times of economic hardship and see what we can learn from his example.Isaac (Genesis 26)
Note that for most human history, cultures have been primarily agricultural. Therefore, the closest thing to our current economic meltdown was a famine – a time of agricultural disaster when food became extremely scarce despite all of man’s efforts. What can we learn from Isaac?
Do not go down to Egypt – trust in the Lord of the covenant, You will see that spiritually, Egypt symbolizes great material wealth and knowledge; In other words, the ways of the world i.e willingness to get wealthy by any means and worldly wisdom. This is a time when we are greatly tempted to abandon righteousness and do whatever we think is necessary to survive – a great mistake made by many Christians. If we are willing to listen to God who is acutely aware of our conditions, he will direct us just as He directed Isaac to “dwell where I tell you to dwell”, in fulfillment of His covenant with Isaac’s father, Abraham (and today we have a better covenant). This is a theme that God would echo through the ages to His chosen people Israel
Do not underestimate God’s ability and grace over you. Isaac, out of fear, resorted to deception because he was afraid that his wife’s beauty would make him a target of the envious. Trust God and work hard, and do not be fearful of success making you a target. As a child of God, you should never base your actions on the fear of men but on faith in God.
Do not strive with men, even if your success makes you a target. This perhaps is one of the most difficult things to learn. If you truly trust God, you will know that your prosperity is determined by Him. Look at Isaac! Isaac was forced to move because of his prosperity. He would dig wells and others would show up to claim the fruit of his hard work. Amazingly, instead of fighting them, he simply moved on and started up elsewhere. Eventually, because his ways placed God, even his enemies came to make peace with him (proverbs 16:7), because God’s favor on His life was evident to all. Instead of obsessing about those (real or imagined) who are out to stop your progress, concentrate on serving God and obeying his voice.
Do not use your position or success to settle score. Isaac could have repaid the people of Gerar in kind for their bad behavior towards him. Instead he accepted their peace offer and even hosted them to a feast. Alas, during times of hardship, some people you trusted may wrong you or disappoint you. Do not respond in kind when you are now successful and thriving, even, if they do not see or acknowledge their fault. Paul said “do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good’ and render to no man evil.
Let us look dispassionately at our lives and make amends where necessary to enjoy the fullness of the blessing of God at this point in History.
Prayers...
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