Why do so many people find it easy to believe that being a Christian is a sentence to pauperdom rather than a licence to be resourceful and productive? The idea that having wealth is a compulsory route for every responsible Christian is reprehensible to many. Why is it more tolerable for them to think that poverty is a virtue worthy of cultivation? At the slightest provocation, they ask without a hint of irony: " How does a rich man carry his wealth through the eye of a needle?"
To what purpose does poverty serve other than making a person feel helpless and hopeless? What can we say is the value of a poor Christian in terms of restoring and empowering another person who is about to perish in penury? That question is relevant and cannot be easily dismissed. Because you discover from page to page of holy scriptures that Christianity in its stark essential definition is about being your brother's keeper and not your brother's killer! Honestly, to embrace poverty is to reject holiness. Indeed Jesus did not come to raise poor people! He preached to poor people so they could rescue themselves from poverty. In Luke 4:18, Jesus said: " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor..." The fundamental and pre-eminent purpose of Jesus being authorised to preach the gospel is for the poor to hear and recue themselves from the strangle-hold of poverty.
If there's no prosperity, there is no holiness! It is true that the love of money is the root of all evils; but poverty gave birth to the love of money. So poverty is the mother of all evils, while prosperity is the mother of holiness! God can afford to be holy because he is prosperous. It was only after he had manufactured the heavens and the earth that he called the seventh day of rest " the holy day." Genesis 2:3 (NLB version) says: God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from his work of creation. Holiness means rest! It's only prosperity that can give you the impetus to proceed on the journey of life to your place of rest i.e.holiness.
Abraham was already very wealthy and prosperous before God gave him the command to live a holy and blameless life. (see Genesis 17:1) Let's face it: you cannot serve God with poverty. He is too big to be served with a sense of inadequacy. If you are still struggling to escape the trap of destitution, you won't even have the money to obey Jesus. A poor man cannot even preach the gospel effectively because he would be despised and frustrated. Nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. (see Eccl.9:16) Let us be very clear about these things. It's true that without holiness, no one can see God. But when power and wealth are not in place in the life of a Christian, holiness becomes an oppressive illusion. So we should stop deceiving ourselves and making excuses for our ignorance and complacency. It's worth repeating: Without power and sufficient resoures in the life of a believer, holiness is elusive!
It is instructive that in the ranking of what constituted the blessing of obedience for the ancient nation of Israel in Deut.28, God placed high ranking, resourcefulness, fruitfulness, ever-increasing productivity, security and prosperity far ahead of holiness!
Truly, the strategy of grace is revealed whereby God gives unworthy people wealth and power so they can become holy. Without the fear of contradiction, the fundamental thing that grace does is to rescue people before anything else from the strangle-hold of economic adversity.
Despite our pretensions to the contrary, even Satan knows it is easier to be holy and reject evil when we are blessed and prosperous.
Then the LORD asked Satan: " Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth - a man of complete integrity. He fears God, and will have nothing to do with evil" Satan replied to the LORD. " Yes, Job fears God, but not without good reason! You have always protected him and his home and his property from harm, you have made him prosperous in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But take everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face! " (Job 1:8-9 NLB)
Now we know: the core point of the test was: If Job's prosperity, his wealth and resources, and his graceful existence were taken away from him, would he not despise God ? It was not about whether Job was innocent or guilty!
Job, God's standard-bearer on earth, enormously wealthy, influential and generous to the widows and the poor, was detrimental to Satan's relentless campaign to plunder the world's riches for the diabolical benefit of his servants. Job, the devil knew, was a threat that had to be eliminated. He had always wanted to dispossess Job, steal his properties so that he could transfer them to his numerous servants ferociously willing to do his bidding. So Satan had rehearsed his mission even before he went into God's presence: to get permission with the express purpose of testing Job, but a hidden agenda of destroying him.
But Satan found himself hitting a brickwall of limitation when God said: " Spare his life." For all the theological wrestling and philosophical posturing about the causes and solutions of Job's suffering; about Job pleading his innocence in the face of his friends' mounting skepticism, it is instructive that the way they were finally dismissed by God showed they had embarked on a futile journey they were not qualified to understand. Here they were arguing about Job's innocence and the charge of sin against his life. Clearly they were off-course. Look at how God put a quick end to all their worthless hairsplitting about Job's innocence or guilt. Obeying God's instructions, Job had prayed for his friends after they had brought sacrificial offerings to him, and his fortunes were restored in greater measure. People who had despised him during his trials even gave parts of their wealth to reconcile with Job. What are the lessons?
Instead of Job demanding from heaven for the quick and accelerated restoration of all he had lost, he was busy arguing his innocence with antagonistic religious hypocrites who pretended to be friends. He could have said: " Hey, life is not worth living here one moment without money. If I cannot have my blessings now, then what are you doing with me here on earth, Lord? " It is crazy and foolish the way we think: " I have lost my wealth, my children; my health is gone: but it's not my fault; I'm innocent. See me-O! " Who cares? Whether it's my fault or not, give me back my children, give me back my money...! And, really when you think of it, that's what grace is all about. Whether you deserve it or not, you can be blessed far beyond the reach of any curse!
It is typical. We laugh at each other's downfall and blame some secret ugly sin behind the afflictions of our so-called friends. We quote and argue the finer points of scriptures to demonstrate the depth of our learning. We measure our better sense of morality against our brothers and sisters but we leave aside the central issue: of what use is the poor Christian, afflicted and financially helpless, to the expansion of the kingdom of God on earth?
The main thing Satan is after is your secret inheritance of wealth and riches!
One moral of Job's story that should not be forgotten is that if his friends could not help and bring him to the place of restoration, financially and health-wise, they could at least have left him alone and kept their running mouths shut. (see Gal.6:1)
Before going further, let me register the daring proposition here that having wealth is the compulsory route of every responsible Christian in the pursuit of eternal life. Having wealth is the constructive means to the end of eternal life! (To Be Continued)
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| Felix N.Jarikre. |
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