We Are Who We Are Despite Our Economic Climate

For a while now, my Country’s economy has been greatly challenged. It is therefore not strange to find people, including believers, going through great difficulty all around us. There are also people around us, including believers, whose lives have greatly improved in this time. Unfortunately, some such people have made this remarkable progress by inflicting pain on our ‘neighbors’ and misusing them. People toil whilst some others are greatly enriched by their toiling; hardly doing anything themselves. These beneficiaries, some of whom are believers, enjoy the benefits of other people’s labor and owe them wages forever or refuse to give them appropriate remuneration whilst they live the lives others can only dream off or even better than they themselves ever dreamt of. These believers live lavish lives built on injustice and argue that they do their staff great favor hiring them though they pay next to nothing and use them for unreasonably long hours because the economic climate has adversely impacted on employment rate making it really difficult to get jobs. We forget that God already stated in His word how we ought to deal with staff and also that this is our opportunity to shine as light in darkness. How is it okay for us to do such injustice and claim to be “friends and children of a just and righteous God?”

Jeremiah 22: 13amp “woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his (upper) chambers by injustice, who uses his neighbor’s service without wages and does not give him his pay (for his work)”

This economic climate is beginning to separate between believers and believers. It is revealing the hearts of a number of us and showing us the extent of our love for and trust (faith) in God. So how much do you love and trust Him? We claim to trust Him but really have no faith in Him. We have, like Esau, sold our birthright for pottage because we could not just eat anything other than what we want to eat at the time we want to eat it. Like Esau, we “want what we want when we want it” so unwittingly, we have given up our inheritance. Remember that satan seeks opportunities like this to ruin us but for God’s grace and mercy. As the devil works passionately at this time seeking whom he may destroy, we have to insist on remaining who we are – Christ disciples. We can’t afford to sell our inheritance. Interestingly, as it was with Esau, one may not immediately realize the consequences of their decision or decisions until a day when they may need to make a demand on God’s word and find that they since lost the right to make that demand because of such wrong decisions made in the heat of passion and it may be too late to alter the consequence(s) of the initial decision like it was with Esau.

Genesis 25: 30 – 32 “Esau said to Jacob, ‘I am starved! Give me some of that red stew! … all right Jacob replied, ‘but trade me your rights as the firstborn son’ … ‘First you must swear that your birthright is mine.’ So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his brother, Jacob.”

Believers have been known to suffer untold loss for lack of faith; we must not submit to the loser’s life because of our current economic climate which will change. We can’t afford to, by our actions, unwittingly reject help from God which is the trap a number of us are falling into because we think we know how best to manage the situation. For some of us, our ideas seem great because it always seems like we are about to breakthrough but just when we think the break through is here something happens that moves it further and we find ourselves continuously toiling and never able to break through to our desired goal. Meanwhile, Jesus is always waiting to be called into the situation but we very often don’t think to call Him because we are misled by satan into thinking we are just about to break through on our own. Some also, having struggled so hard for an extended period, get worn out and tired and eventually give up feeling so defeated that we don’t want to try again even when we hear God telling us to do so. Oh! If we had only sought His help much earlier. We just have to tell ourselves especially at times like this that we know nothing of ourselves anymore. We have to make ourselves need His counsel so that we will seek it. We have to trust Him enough to believe in and apply His counsel despite what we know.

Proverbs 3: 5 – 7 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.”

1 Timothy 1: 17 “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Indeed, the circumstance our nation finds itself in is not new. It happened before and has even happened to other nations. Nations that were in very terrible economic situations have been known to recover and I look forward to our own Country’s recovery so my questions is this – what state will you be in when our Country recovers? Anyone can argue that they feel compelled to act the way they do because of our economic realities – as my people say “man must survive” but at what cost? It is time to ask ourselves the real questions and also make these topics the subjects of our discussions as we gather. We can’t afford to be become degenerates because our economy has challenges. We must remember who we are despite all that is going on with our economy. We are believers in Christ who live in and by the Holy Spirit who also is a great counsellor as well as helper. We must honestly and continuously assess ourselves so we continue on course.