Here's a critical point that I learned just this summer: Christians use prayer as a crutch, or as a magic wand, when it comes to their economic needs, and God doesn't usually respect that. Yes, God does answer prayer, but I'm sure you know that He doesn't always answer it in the way that we want Him to. You see, there are principles that God has set up that we must abide by, and if we don't abide by them, then God's economy won't work for us, and we will likely perceive that our prayers for economic success have gone unanswered, even though the answer has been there all along. It's just that we don't or won't see it, because we're not abiding by God's principles, or because we just don't know about them.
Consider III John 2, "Beloved, I pray that in all respects, you may prosper and be in good health just as your soul prospers." So success requires responsibility, as Lk 12:48 says, "…For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." God requires a certain level of maturity from His people before He will allow them to come into financial prosperity. Most people don't realize what this entails though.
One of God's principles is that we get out of and stay out of debt (Rom 13:8). This is a major problem in the US and even worldwide, and statistically, Christians are no better than non-Christians in this area. I have to admit that I didn't really take this lesson to heart myself, until about 3 years ago, after I went through my divorce. Since then, I've managed to avoid debt, and I've decreased my level of indebtedness by about half. The result of that has been a tremendous lifting of weights from my life, so that we're not nearly as pressured as before. You see, if I had no debt, I could've attended Bible College and become a pastor or a missionary, or even just given a lot more to ministries, and many more people would have entered the Kingdom of God than what have as a result of my life so far. Yet because of my debt, I've been enslaved to making monthly payments, which has required me to have a particular kind of high-paying, high-pressure job, which in turn has prevented me from traveling and has dramatically increased the level of stress and distraction in my life. God's purposes cannot be accomplished through debt.
Unfortunately, Christians usually just don’t see that. They fall prey to the world’s media and enticements just as much as the non-Christians do, when it comes to credit advertising, among other things. Today, some ministries even encourage debt by allowing people to charge their giving to their credit cards. Christians believe what the world teaches about having a "good" credit rating by seeking debt by buying cars, computers, etc, through both trade credit and especially through credit cards. Buying on credit feels just as good to Christians as it does to non-Christians, and we get just as excited about suddenly having a $5000 credit line as they do too. Yet I believe that this is the very essence of materialism, being so motivated to buy and have material goods that you’re willing to disobey God to get them, and in so doing, you sacrifice your ability to operate freely in God’s kingdom. You become a slave to the enemy, as I described in my own situation above. Perhaps this is why God instructs us, in Phil 4:11, "Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am," and again in I Tim 6:8, "And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content." You see, even if you don’t have a lot of money, you can still be financially free if you stay out of debt and can be content to live within the means that God has provided for you up to this point. And that financial freedom, at whatever income level you’re at, allows you the ability to give or to go when there’s a need, and to be free from the stress and arguments that debt causes.
A 2nd principle of God's economy concerns the love of money, which as I Tim. 6:5-10 says, is the root of all evil. Most Christians know about this verse, yet they don't really understand what it means. Many think that this means that having money, or being rich, is evil, but that completely misses the point. Money, in and of itself, is neither good nor evil. It's just an inanimate object. It's the person who has it (or doesn’t have it), and what is in his heart, that is good or evil. So it is what you do with money and how you think about money that is good or evil. So a poor person, someone who lives in a slum, can have just as much love of money as someone who is rich. If you find yourself constantly lusting over things that you don’t have, or perhaps buying things on credit, or envying people who are well off, then maybe you need to examine what’s in your heart concerning money. Having it or not having it is not the important point. It’s what’s in the heart that’s important.
I Tim. 6:17-19 finishes this concept by showing what those who do have money should do with it, namely, become a conduit for money, through giving, which God can use to bless people and further His Kingdom with; "Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed." James 4:3 says the same thing in a different way, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." God doesn’t see anything wrong with having wealth at all, as long as you use it responsibly and for the advancement of His Kingdom, whether that’s giving to your own church, to the poor, to missions, to charities, or whatever. But God will not support one of His people becoming wealthy if all they will do with it is spend it on their own lusts or for their own aggrandizement. So if he/she is properly following God’s will, a rich person will likely be one of the most humble, least ostentatious, and most generous people around. (Mk 9:35, "If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all.")
A lot of what we, as Christians, think about wealth comes from a popular Christian misconception that wealth is somehow evil or sinful. This may have had its beginnings with some of the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi, but it’s just as or more popular among Protestants today as it is among Catholics. It causes us to feel suspicious of rich people, or to feel guilty about having a lot of money ourselves. And if someone in church starts becoming more prosperous than the rest of the congregation, frequently various individuals in church will begin a campaign to sabotage that person’s success by criticizing them and/or gossiping about them. But since Satan knows what would happen to him and his kingdom if a great number of God’s people started becoming financially mature and prosperous, he has promulgated this deception in the church as one of his main strategies to thwart the Kingdom of God. As a result, even when otherwise very progressive pastors preach about prosperity, they frequently talk only about the people getting jobs, raises, and promotions, with the small incremental increases in income that accompany those successes, because that is how they’ve been taught to think. Perhaps if pastors began to talk about people starting businesses and doubling or tripling or quadrupling their incomes, or even more, then the people would begin to see more success in their lives.
A 3rd principle of God's economy concerns work. II Thess. 3:6-13 lays out the principle that if someone isn't willing to work, then they don't deserve to eat either. But it also talks about being disciplined and working both day and night. There are several other passages that talk about being diligent and so on as well, as I'm sure you know. In today's economy though, people have lost sight of what that means, and they (at least in the US, and including most Christians here) assume that they have a right to a certain amount of time off, leisure time, based on the standard of a 40-hour work week. However, I believe that this is not a Biblical concept. The Bible does say that we need to rest, especially on the Sabbath Day, but I think that the Bible's concept of rest is much more limited than what most people today receive it as. As a result, I believe that most Christians, along with most of the rest of the world, would rather sit and watch TV than work to achieve a goal as we used to do.
Honestly, that has everything to do with how we think and what we think about, which is a 4th principle of God's economy. This is a big subject, and it won't be easy for me to explain it all. First, let me say that we, as Christians, have allowed our thoughts to be conformed to this world, so that we think largely just like the world thinks (as opposed to Romans 12:1-3). This has led to several unfortunate results, foremost of which are that we've allowed Satan to control our finances, thus preventing us from serving God and advancing His Kingdom the way that He would like us to. This is why so many ministries, both here and throughout the world, have to live on a shoestring and are constantly begging for money. You see, because of the bondage of our thoughts, despite the vast financial and material resources that God has blessed the USA with, the church here is little freer financially than churches in third world countries. There is a well-known statistic that about 95% of the money in the US is held by only 5% of the people, most of whom aren't Christians, leaving 95% of the people to chase after only 5% of the money here. Frankly, that contradicts how God's economy should work, since "Great wealth is in the house of the righteous, but trouble is the income of the wicked." (Prov 15:6)
Why is that? Well, as a man "thinks in his heart, so is he," (Prov 23:7) and "what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man," (Matt 15:11). So whatever we're thinking about and talking about, that's the direction that we'll head in, and that's what we'll become too. That's why Paul admonishes us to "think on these things," "whatever is true.. honorable.. right.. pure.. lovely.. of good reputation.. excellence.. and worthy of praise," (Phil 4:8). That's also why David says, "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes," (Ps 101:3), which pretty well excludes most of what is on television and in the newspapers and advertisements from what we should be looking at. Our culture bombards us with all the wrong stuff, and it conditions us to go into a passive-receptive mode anytime the TV or radio, etc, is on, so that we receive all that rotten stuff into our spirits, further conditioning us to think just like the rest of the world thinks, rather than like Christ would have us think. That's why it's so important for us to take "every thought captive to the obedience of Christ," (II Cor 10:5). As a Christian, you may already know that, intellectually; yet, how many of us have applied that same principle to our economic lives as well as to our spiritual lives?
You see, there is a reason why the things that are on TV and in the print media and on the internet are there. There are vested interests, controlled by the god of this world, that want to keep things the way they are, where 95% of the wealth is held by only 5% of the people, most of whom are not Christians. They want us to see that condition as normal. The world's economy is ruled by the "principalities and powers," (Eph 6:12) through the men that they control, and it is in their interest to have cheap materials and cheap labor in large quantities. That’s why many industries have left the US for Mexico or Japan, and now they are again leaving Mexico and Japan for Thailand and Malaysia. Unwittingly though, we Christians have acknowledged this condition and have put our stamp of approval on it, because we have all been taught in Sunday School that verses such as Eph 6:5, "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ," apply in today's economy to our jobs, since slavery supposedly doesn't exist in most countries today. But in thinking and believing that, we've basically accepted a role of slavery for ourselves in economic terms. Yes, the verse does apply to people in that position, but it does not require that we stay in that position. There are many references in the Bible to how people can get out of being slaves, and to the principle that people, especially God's people, ought not to be slaves anyway, from God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt, to being able to buy oneself out of slavery, to the Year of Jubilee. God intends His people to be free (Gal 5:13), spiritually, politically, and economically. But having a job, or being a slave, while it may be necessary in the short term, because of mistakes that we've made and because of how we've been taught to think, will never lead to our being economically free and able to pursue God's will and God's Kingdom the way that He wants us to. How can it? After all, jobs and slavery are both designed to serve the interests of the master, not the servant or employee, so getting free of a job, or of one's position of slavery, is something that the system that the masters have created, will oppose.
In God's economy, He wants all of us to prosper, and while that means different things to different people, there are probably few of us that are prospering to the extent that God intends us to. So many of God's principal people in the Bible were quite prosperous and successful financially, from Abraham to Paul, and while I haven't taken a poll, I think every one of them, if not serving as the king or as a prophet, became prosperous by having a business of some sort. For Abraham and his family, it was their livestock business. For Boaz, it was his farm. Job was a farmer, shepherd, and merchant. Jesse and his family had herds of sheep. Jeremiah got into real estate. Jesus and His family were independent carpenters. Many of the Disciples were independent fishermen. And Paul was a tent maker. From this Biblical pattern, I think we can find the 5th principle of God's economy, which is that it is based on His people primarily having independent businesses, and where people are employees or slaves only temporarily, because of mistakes that they've made or as a means of getting started in life, such as with apprentices. In fact, nearly all people that have become financially independent have done so by starting and building their own business, though this must be done only in conjunction with all the other principles of God's economy too (James 4:13-17).
Think about it. If you've been tithing and giving offerings, and I'm sure you have, then you have a right to expect God to "open the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows," (Mal. 3:10) right? But have you honestly seen that happening in your life? One translation renders "until it overflows" as "until there is no more need." Have you honestly been blessed financially to the point where you don't have any more need for financial blessings, in spite of having tithed for most of your life? Why not? You're a child of God. One would think that by tithing, giving, and praying, that God would have blessed you and all others like you to the point where you didn't have any more needs, and that’s all the more so for ministers (not to distinguish ministers from the rest of us, but I think that people would believe that if it was going to happen to anyone, it would happen to a minister.). And realize that it's not just you personally that wouldn't need any more, but everyone that your life touches too, since by habit, you will give much of what you have to supply the needs of others less fortunate than yourself, right? But is it possible to achieve that level of blessing through a job? Frankly, No. It can't. Jobs have a specific, stated level of income: You work for x hours, doing whatever the job is, and you'll be paid x $ per hour that you work. That's just surviving. But with a business, you invoke the principles of leveraging of time and of compounding to produce potential exponential growth. This is a situation where God can intervene miraculously and where He can, in fact, bless a person to the point that "there is no more need." Even the widow in II Kings 4 was instructed, basically, to start a business selling oil, and God miraculously provided through that. So when it comes to God's economy, I would venture to say that having a business is the way to go.
Now, at the same time, although God through prayer may miraculously create something where there was nothing, such as the widow's oil in II Kings 4, or the flour and oil from I Kings 17, most of the time, He's more likely to let us work the principles that He's established in the earth, and then through favor with other people and through having new ideas and so on, establish the same result in our lives, namely prosperity. But that means that we have to learn and use these principles, and one of them (#2 above) is work. As I mentioned before, this was something that I just learned this summer (June – August, 2002). I discovered that I'd been using prayer as a crutch, trying to get God to do something that He wanted me to do instead. I was praying things like, "Lord, make my business successful," and then I would sit back and wait for customers to come by, and so on. There were 2 problems with this: First, I wasn't doing the work that I knew how to do. I was hoping that God would miraculously bring people across my path so that I wouldn't have to go out and find them. Here, I found that God wanted me to learn that I had to commit to doing whatever amount of work was necessary, no matter what it was, to achieve my goals and so become successful. And secondly, while God did want to answer my prayers, I wasn't praying specifically enough or correctly, that is, in His will. So now, I'm learning to pray things like, "Lord, help me to be strong enough, persistent enough, and diligent enough at my business to be able to achieve (whatever)," or "Lord, help me to be sensitive to people's needs and to find how to fulfill them," with respect to my business, and so on. And since August, I've seen our business really take off and begin to prosper, where it hadn't been prospering before then. But I'm working a whole lot harder at it than I was before too. And this really is the part of the work principle that Christians typically don't understand: You have to work hard enough, "paying your dues," so to speak, that you deserve to have success. Oddly enough, from an economic standpoint, this equates to walking worthy of the calling by which you have been called (Phil 3:12-14 and I Thess. 1:11).
Phil. 3:12-14 also introduces the 6th principle of God's economy, though this has to do with what and how we think. This is the principle of vision. "Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained," (or perish, in some versions) (Prov. 29:18). This can be a revelation from God, but it can just as legitimately be any worthwhile goal, and actually, most of what we think of as visions for business and life in general can be "inspired" by God just as any prophetic vision for a ministry can be. The point behind this though, is that the vision, or goal, or dream, is required in order to give direction and purpose to our life. Without vision, our lives become unrestrained, and like a ship without a rudder or without propulsion, we will drift aimlessly, accomplishing nothing. Then, once we have a vision, or worthwhile goal, for our lives and businesses, we need to establish clear and measurable objectives to move us along in that direction. For instance, if you want to have a business that will support a school for orphans, the school for orphans would be the vision. Then you figure out the amount of money required to support it, and the objectives in business to achieve that level of income become interim goals, so that you can focus your activities on specific things that you know will get you there, through patient and persistent work on those specific things. That is actually a 7th principle of God's economy too: Focusing of your efforts, which is only enabled by having a vision.
The idea of focusing your efforts is that if you concentrate on doing just one thing for long enough, you will eventually get it done. But if you do one thing and then after a while, you get bored or discouraged (Gal. 6:9) and go do something else, and then something else, and then something else, you will never get anything done. This can be derived from Phil. 3:12-14 too, though I'm sure there are other verses as well. So once you find something to do as a business, keep on doing it until it's successful. Actually, this also relates to the work principle, and even to the thinking principle. It's called counting the cost (Lk 14:28). A lot of people, after having been taught by society and TV to think in terms of a 40-hour work week and maximizing convenience and leisure time, find that the amount of work required to run a successful business is more than what they're willing to pay. The prize of success and financial freedom isn't worth the cost of a lot of hard work to get there, in other words. So they quit and go back to their jobs, just like the Hebrews wanted to return to Egypt and to slavery after Moses had brought them out of their captivity (Ex 14:10-12, etc).
The 8th principle of God's economy is that of prioritization and delegation. This is another thing that allows you to focus your efforts better, by clearing away low priority, distracting activities (TV, sports, clubs, etc), so that you can concentrate on the more important things that are directly going to contribute to your success. The Bible illustrates this with the situation between Moses and Jethro, in Ex. 18:13-27. Moses wasn't able to lead the people effectively because he was spending nearly all his time acting as the sole judge in the camp, as people with all kinds of petty complaints were coming to him. Jethro counseled him to appoint leaders of 1000's, 100's, 50's, and 10's, so that they could judge the less important or less weighty issues, leaving Moses with just a few very serious cases. This was delegation, but it allowed Moses to prioritize his work so that he got the most important things done first, such as communing with God and implementing the directions that God was giving him for the setup of the camp, the Tabernacle, and the priesthood. A lot of times, again because of society having taught to us be lazy, we like to do the easy stuff first and save the more difficult, more important work for later. But then later becomes tomorrow or the next day, and soon we find that much important work is being completely neglected. God gave the vision to you, or to the leader or business owner, so you are the one responsible for seeing it to its fulfillment and completion, which means that you need to focus your efforts where they will produce the most results, which are only on things that will most directly contribute to achieving whatever the goal is. You can get other people to help out and do the less important stuff.
This is also the principle of time management, "redeeming the time, for the days are evil," (Eph 5:16). Here in the US, where the pace of life is typically very fast, a lot of people with businesses find that they have to use pocket calendars (or various electronic devices that do the same thing) in order to manage their time sufficiently to get everything done. That way they always know what is coming up next, what they have scheduled, and where they have exactly how much free time so that they can schedule other things as they come up. In fact, a lot of people schedule in time to rest, time to read the Word and pray, and time to spend with their families, so that the affairs of their business don't crowd those things out altogether. That way, they achieve balance in their lives.
The 9th and last principle of God’s economy concerns risk, or should I say, it concerns faith. Mark 11:20-24, the classic Biblical text on faith is the foundation for this, though there are many other verses on faith too. Verses 22-24 say, "And Jesus answered saying to them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him.’ Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you." Faith, the belief that God is going to do what you asked Him to, involves risk. Peter had to get out of the boat in the Sea of Gallilee. As Christians, when we witness to people, we risk being ridiculed or laughed at, or in some countries, killed. The principle is the same in business. If you don’t risk anything, you won’t get anything. You have to have faith that God will come through for you, but then you have to demonstrate that faith by taking action, in spite of the risk of losing (James 2:17-18). The rewards of winning must be greater to you than the fear of failure, or the desire to stay in your comfort zone. By staying in your comfort zone, you will achieve nothing more than mediocrity, both in business and in Christianity, but by taking the risk of being in business, you at least have the chance of being successful. Then, as you step out in faith, God has the opportunity to move on your behalf and bring that which seems impossible into fruition.
So each of these principles works with and is dependant upon all of the others, and if you don't do all of them, you're not likely to be successful and free financially. But these are the principles that God has laid out for His people in His economy.
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- Tim and Tammy King