If you are a Christian, you probably know about the principle of sowing and reaping, right? I say that to point out that there are some big differences between how the world's economy works and how God's economy works. But most Christians don't know the difference and don't have any idea how God's economy really does work. Most of them do know about giving and receiving, but that's where they stop. Actually working in God's economy takes a lot more than just that.
Here's something I learned back in 2004: 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. Yeah, God does answer prayer, but I'm sure you know He doesn't always answer it the way we want Him to. You see, there are principles that God has made that we must live by, and if we don't live by them, then God's economy won't work for us, and we will probably think 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 living by God's principles, or because we just don't know about them.
Look at III John 2, "Beloved, I pray that in all respects, you may prosper and be in good health just as your soul prospers." That means that success is conditional upon our soul prospering first, which means we need to change how we think. It also implies that we need to take responsibility for how our soul is prospering, that is, the media that we allow ourselves to watch, read, and listen to. 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 means though.
One of God's principles is that we get out 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 I didn't really take this lesson to heart myself, until about a few years ago, after I went through a divorce. Since then, I've managed to avoid debt, and I've decreased my level of indebtedness almost to zero. The result has been a tremendous lifting of weights from my life, so 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 the poor, and many more people would have entered the Kingdom of God than have as a result of my life so far. Because of my debt, I've been enslaved to making monthly payments, which has required me to have those high-paying, high-pressure jobs I mentioned in About Us, which in turn has kept me from traveling, giving, and doing the things I really wanted to, and has radically increased the level of stress 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 non-Christians do when it comes to credit advertising and so on. 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 through buying cars, computers, etc, both with trade credit and especially with 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. But I see this as 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. Perhaps this is why God tells 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 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. A poor person, say 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 matters.
I Tim. 6:17-19 finishes this idea by showing what those who 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 want do with it is spend it on their own lusts or for their own status. So if he/she is properly following God’s will, a rich person will likely be one of the most humble, least showy, 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 Christians think about wealth comes from a popular Christian misconception that wealth is somehow evil or sinful. This may have had its start 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 being more prosperous than the rest of the congregation, various people often begin a campaign to sabotage that person’s success by criticizing them or gossiping about them. Satan knows what would happen to his kingdom if a lot of God’s people started becoming financially mature and prosperous, so he set up this lie in the church as one of his main strategies to thwart the Kingdom of God. As a result, even when very progressive pastors preach about prosperity, they usually only talk about people getting jobs, raises, and promotions, with the small increases in pay that go with 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 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 too. In today's economy though, people have lost sight of what that means, and they (at least in the US) assume they have a right to a certain amount of time off, leisure time, based on the "standard" 40-hour work week. However, I believe this is not a Biblical concept. The Bible does say we need to rest, especially on the Sabbath Day, but I think the Bible's concept of rest is much more limited than what most people today see it as. As a result, most Christians, along with everyone else, would rather sit and watch TV than work to achieve a goal as people 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 we think mostly just like the world thinks (as opposed to Romans 12:1-3). This has led to some unfortunate results. The first is 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 US 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 tells 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 King David says, "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes," (Ps 101:3), which pretty well excludes most of what is on television, newspapers, the Internet, 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. Then we take all that rotten stuff into our spirits, conditioning us to think just like the rest of the world thinks, instead of like Jesus wants us to 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, but how many of us have used that principle in our economic lives as well as in our spiritual lives?
You see, there's 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 they control, and it is in their interest to have cheap materials and cheap labor in large quantities. That’s why all the jobs left the US for Mexico and Japan, and are now leaving Mexico and Japan for China, Thailand, and Malaysia. It's also in their interest to keep people in debt, because then we're forced to work for them so we can make the payments.
Unwittingly, we Christians have put our stamp of approval on this because we've all been taught in Sunday School that verses like 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 believing that, we've accepted the role of slavery for ourselves in economic terms. Yes, the verse does apply to people with jobs too, but it does not require that we stay in that slavery. There are many verses in the Bible about how people can get out of being slaves, and about how God's people should not be slaves anyway. God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the provision for being able to buy yourself out of slavery, and the Year of Jubilee are some of them. God intends His people to be free (Gal 5:13), spiritually, politically, and economically. But while having a job or being a slave may be necessary in the short term because of mistakes we've made and because of how we've been taught to think, it will never lead to our being economically free and able to pursue God's will and God's Kingdom the way 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 anything that will help you get free is something those masters 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 prospering to the extent that God wants us to. So many of God's principal people in the Bible were very 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. Paul was a traveling tent maker.
From this Biblical pattern, we can find the 5th principle of God's economy, which is based on His people primarily having independent businesses, where people are employees or slaves only temporarily, because of mistakes they've made or as a way of getting started in life, like with apprentices. In fact, nearly everyone that has become financially independent has done so by having their own business.
Think about it. If you've been tithing and giving offerings, 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, God would have blessed you by now to where you didn't have any more needs.
But is it possible to achieve that level of blessing through a job? Frankly, No. It's not. Jobs have a specific, stated level of income: You work for x hours, doing whatever the job is, and you'll be paid x dollars 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 where God can intervene miraculously and where He can bless a person to the point that "there is no more need." Even the widow in II Kings 4 was instructed to start a business selling cooking 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 may miraculously create something out of nothing, like the widow's oil in II Kings 4, or the flour and oil from I Kings 17, most of the time we're going to need to do the work ourselves. That's why He put all these success principles in the earth. But that means we have to learn and use these principles, and one of them (#2 above) is work.
This was something I just learned back in the summer of 2004. I discovered that I'd been using prayer as a crutch, trying to get God to do something 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 I knew how to do. I was hoping God would miraculously bring people across my path so I wouldn't have to go out and find them. Here, I found that God wanted me to learn to commit to doing whatever work was necessary, no matter what it was, to achieve the vision He'd given me.
Secondly, although God did want to answer my prayers, I wasn't praying specifically enough. So now, instead of praying things like, "Lord make my business successful," I'm praying things like, "Lord help me to figure out how to fix this particular computer problem," or "Help me to love people like You do and to be sensitive enough to their needs that I can see how to fulfill them through my business."
Another thing is that I'm working a lot harder than I was before. This 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. So I'm not watching TV like I used to, and I hardly ever watch movies or play computer games anymore either. I'm either doing something with my family, or I'm working. I don't have any idle time anymore. Oddly enough, from an economic standpoint, this is "walking worthy of the calling by which you have been called" (Phil 3:12-14 and I Thess. 1:11). It's "redeeming the time" too (Eph 5:16).
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 also be any worthwhile goal. The point is that the vision, or goal, or dream, is needed to give direction and purpose to our life. Without vision, our lives become unrestrained, and like a ship without a rudder and without power, we will drift aimlessly through life, accomplishing nothing. Once we have a vision or goal for our lives and businesses, we need to establish clear, 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. That is actually a 7th principle of God's economy too: Focusing of your efforts, which you can only do 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 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 is in Phil. 3:12-14 too. So once you find something to do as a business, keep on doing it until it's successful. It's part of counting the cost (Lk 14:28).
A lot of people, after having been taught by society and TV to think only of a 40-hour work week and to maximize convenience and leisure time, find the amount of work needed 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. 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 prioritization and delegation. This is another thing that allows you to focus your efforts, by clearing away low priority, distracting activities (TV, sports, clubs, etc), so you can concentrate on the more important things that directly contribute to your success. The Bible illustrates this with Moses and Jethro, in Ex. 18:13-27. Moses wasn't able to lead the people effectively because he was spending all his time 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 1000s, 100s, 50s, and 10s, so they could judge the less important issues, leaving Moses with just a few serious cases. This was delegation. It allowed Moses to prioritize his work so he got the more important things done first, such as communing with God and implementing God's directions for the setup of the camp, the Tabernacle, and the priesthood.
Society has taught to us be lazy, so 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 the really important stuff never gets done at all. God gave the vision to you, so you are the one responsible for seeing it to fulfillment and completion. That means you need to focus your efforts where they will produce the most results, on the things that will most directly contribute to achieving whatever the goal is. Get someone else to do the other 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 so fast, many people with businesses use pocket electronic calendars, etc, in order to manage their time sufficiently to get everything done. That way they know what is coming up next, what they have scheduled, and where they have free time so they can schedule other things as they come up. Many people schedule in time to rest, time to read the Word and pray, and even time to spend with their families, so the affairs of their business don't crowd those things out. That way, they achieve balance in their lives.
The 9th and last principle of God’s economy concerns risk, or rather, faith. Mark 11:20-24 is the basis for this. 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 can 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, but by taking a risk, 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 what seems impossible into reality.
Each of these principles works with and is dependant on all of the others. If you don't do all of them, you're not likely to be successful and free financially.
Here's the link to our other businesses, one of which is helping other people start their own businesses. And here's the link I promised you for continuing to learn how to think differently about success and money, etc. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Forgive me for taking so long. I hope it has blessed you.
- Tim and Tammy King