Saturday 4 February 2012

Getting Rich quickly

Every body wants to achieve his or her goals quick in life. No one wants to achieve the objectives late but always earlier. It is not bad to achieve your goals quick, it is not bad to get rich quick if that is your wish but it is bad to get rich quick at all cost. I insist on the phrase at all cost because you may want to get rich quick but not forgoing certain values you have gained. The Bible teaches us how to get rich in life and there are some few verses which I will share with you to give you a guide on what scriptures teaches and how you can go about it. Here you will learn that you have to:

  • Work hard without cheating in order to have clean riches quickly
  • Have good rest and also give enough rest to those working under you
  • Be wise in every step of your business dealings

I use to make some educative jokes when a driver is speeding too much on the road. May people who have heard me say those words have not relaxed to check why I make such phrases. I usually ask the driver to “drive slow because I’m late”. Many people will wonder why that, some will think I’m getting mad; they’ll prefer to her me ask the driver go faster so that I can reach earlier. But no! If he drives slow, he will be careful, prudent, steady, and can easily manipulate when there is danger. My point is that I’m sure that I will arrive my destination; because if the driver is too fast and is unable to avoid dangers on the road, then we will all fall into accident and we may not reach our destination. In like manner, it is not by cheating that we’ll become rich. We may acquire something but it will not take us to anywhere. Our scripture teaches us to be hard working and not to follow worthless things and we shall have plenty; Proverbs 12:11 “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread; But he that followeth after vain [persons] is void of understanding.” We also learn that wealth obtained by vanity dwindles but wealth obtained by hard work increases; Proverbs 13:11 “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished; But he that gathereth by labor shall have increase.” By vanity here in Hebrew is “min-nay hab-alé or min-née heh-bel” which means by futility, through worthless. So the means by which the wealth is acquired is futile or worthless. Is stealing worthless? Is witchcraft worthless? Is sorcery worthless? Yes! You can name many other activities that are worthless such as cheating. So we can say that wealth obtained by stealing, by cheating or from dishonesty, through witchcraft, through sorcery or from occultism dwindles but wealth from hard work increases. Do not have much appetite for money or wealth. DO not exhaust yourself because of wealth. The Bible says we should work to increase our riches but scripture also consider the composition of a human being. God created us and he knows we are not robots to work without rest; even robots need grease in order to work well; they too need rest to cool down from the heat generated from friction. Our Bible says we should not worn out ourselves because we want to gain wealth, we need to refresh our bodies after doing a considerable work; Proverbs 23:4 “Weary not thyself to be rich; Cease from thine own wisdom.” When we are faithful, we’ll abound with blessings but if we are too much in a haste to be rich, we’ll have our pay; we’ll not go unpunished; so remain faithful and keep your hopes in the Lord; Probverbs 28:19’20 “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread; But he that followeth after vain [persons] shall have poverty enough. A faithful man shall abound with blessings; But he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be unpunished.”

When our Bible says we should not be worn out for the sake of riches, we need to take it serious. Science has also shown that when we are refreshed, we become more performing than those who work without rest. We learn from scripture that we need allocate a day for rest and that in this day of rest we will allow our working tools (may be machines or ox or donkeys) have rest, we will allow the servants under us, the strangers in our control to refresh themselves. This will allow then to start back at work with more energy and enthusiasm; Exodus 23:12 “Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest; that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the sojourner, may be refreshed.”God Himself worked and rested after the sixth day, who are we to work without rest? You will agree with me that people who have white collar jobs have at least a day in a week to rest and after a year they have a period of leave to regain their energy for work; others such as teachers have a rest every end of term. So it is true for business men and for labourers; we need to rest after a good working period else we’ll break down and nothing will come out of our waste.

Having rest is a wise thing to do after work, and we should not believe anything we hear but use our senses to discern those that are true from wrong ones. When we are wise, we consider our business plans and all possible possibilities before choosing the best. Today many youths have entered into scam work in the hope of dishonestly making money. Some call it fast money while others call it 419 from the Nigerian penal code article 419. Many have gone to jail for this activity but many are still in it and more are planning to get into it just because of getting rich quickly. They have chosen the wrong way because it will not lead them to riches but to jail and to eternal punishment when our Lord will come to judge the world. Now for you business men, be wise because these guys are after you, they are looking for people to devour and the business men are targets because their riches are visible; Proverbs 14:15 “The simple believeth every word; But the prudent man looketh well to his going.” As you decide not to believe anything without investigating, you also need to be careful, do not hurry when you are not sure of what you may meet in front of you. I usually tell my friends that I cannot get into a business without sharing it with my friends. So for some one to scam and get me he or she must be able to convince all my friends. No business, no matter how benefiting it may seem to be can draw me without me having the point of view from my friends; Proverbs 19:2 “Also, that the soul be without knowledge is not good; And he that hasteth with his feet sinneth.” This verse is not saying that if you are hasty you have sinned but that when you are hasty, you can err. This is confirmed by Proverbs 21 verse 5 that when you plan carefully you surely have advantage but when you are hasty, you surely come to poverty “The thoughts of the diligent [tend] only to plenteousness; But every one that is hasty [hasteth] only to want.”

Handling debts as a Christian

Our Bible acknowledges the need to borrow. Borrowing money is not bad in its self what matters is the purpose of the borrowing and the actions we put forth after borrowing. The questions we need to ask ourselves are “For what purpose am I borrowing? Will it be of great use borrowing, or I can wait and work for it? Is the timeline for this need so short that I cannot make up before it dies down? How will I reimburse this and when? Our Bible gives us some hints on how to live with this real human problem. When we talk of borrowing many people move straight to money because this is what is mostly down in our daily life and mainly people have taken it to be a necessity. I remember one of my brothers told me the General Manager of his bank called him last year asking if he knows he can borrow money from the bank and if he knows the condition to have a loan. The fact is that since subscribed to this bank he has never taken a loan and for 8 years he has been receiving his salary from the same bank. It was abnormal for the manager to see that this client has not taken a loan especially that he is a civil servant who does not earn a salary that is relatively high compared to the private sector. So many people have taken borrowing to be a necessity, and some even go for financial loans without calculating what they are to do with it. Some loan money with no project apart from going to drink and dance in night clubs with friends. There are certain loans that a painful and stressful to pay and others are not. It depends on what you have done with the loan. You can borrow a good or an animal, in fact any thing material which you have to pay back in the time limit defined. We shall look at some few aspects we need to respect when taking loans and see how scriptures recommend them to us. Here we will learn that we have to:
  • Respect our loan engagements
  • Learn to lend to others when we are blessed with wealth
  • Be sure that we are in real need before going in for a loan
  • Abstain from being sureties for debts

A loan is like a contract which one has to respect based on the conditions of the loan. Our scripture say if you borrow anything from someone and it happens that what you have borrowed is injured or dies in case of a living thing, then you have to make full restitution. So if I borrowed a car and fall into accident with it I have to fully give the car to the owner whether by replacing the car or repairing to its full state. If I borrowed a horse for a journey and it dies, then I have to replace with another horse of the same quality. That is respecting our engagements. This is what our scripture teaches in Exodus 22:14 “And if a man borrow aught of his neighbour, and it be hurt, or die, the owner thereof not being with it, he shall surely make restitution.” When you are blessed, do not forget your old debts. Many people forget this and when they have they make new plans and continue accumulating debts. This is not God’s wish for our lives. We learn this from the wife of Elisha’s son, when the husband died with debts. The son feared the Lord and God blessed the wife through Elisha the prophet and she had more than enough oil to sell and pay the debts of her late husband. The prophet did not tell her to go and live a good and luxurious life with her children but he asked her to go and pay the debts and then use the rest of the oil for her children 2 King 4:7 “Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy sons of the rest.” We have to respect our engagements or the engagements of our families; after all we are part of the family. The one who borrows and does not pay back is a wicked person Psalm 37:21 “The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again; But the righteous dealeth graciously, and giveth.” But the righteous is polite, kind, decent even with debts and he gives. Are you polite as a debtor? Do you give even when you have debts? Then tell yourself what you are from this scripture passage.

God’s wish for us is not for us to borrow but for us to lend to others. God wants us to overflow with spiritual things as with material things so that we can help those who are needy around us. It is not God’s will that we need because he promises to meet us at the point of our needs; the psalmist says he shall not want because the Lord is his shepherd. God is ready to bless us but we have just one little step of faith to do. Trust in the lord with all our mind and all our soul; then He will bless us and we shall be the ones to lend and we shall not borrow; Deuteronomy 15:6 “For Jehovah thy God will bless thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over thee.” There is one thing we need to learn from this passage and others; that when we are blessed, it is not for us to be greedy with it, only thinking of what to do for ourselves, but it is for us to show goodness to others. We need to use God’s blessing to bless other people’s lives; that way they will see God’s glory through our act and come closer to God, trusting Him as well. In Deuteronomy chapter 28 it says the Lord will bless all the work of your hands and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. Yes! It is to many nations not to one because you are fully blessed. There is no need to borrow because you have it and you are satisfied with what you have now. Deuteronomy 28:12 “Jehovah will open unto thee his good treasure the heavens, to give the rain of thy land in its season, and to bless all the work of thy hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.” When I read this verse I think of the nations of the world today. Many of the nations today are surviving on debts. It is a great sign for us to mend our ways and go back to God, he will provide all our needs and even more for us to lend to other nations. We read that the US is the greatest debtor in the world, and to our own eyes we say it is the greatest nation in the world. Since last year we have been hearing about the financial crisis in Europe; it is high time we mend our ways. The same is true with Africa because we keep on borrowing but we forget that our problem is corruption and embezzlement of public funds. Yes it is true that we are making progress in our financial issues these years but we need to make more and stop borrowing but start lending to the Europeans and the west when we shall be blessed. It sounds funny to you right? But that is it, what the human eye sees impossible is possible in the eyes of God. We just need to humbly come close to God by changing our ways and respecting God’s rules as prescribed in the Bible.


We do not just have to borrow because we need to have money. We need to borrow when we have a real need and a defined project for that particular need. We should learn to borrow only when we have a real need. It should not be a want; that is you want to have people see you like… I have seen people who go for heavy financial loans in order to run a marriage feast or ceremony. Many have had the loans which have taken them more than three years to reimburse. Imagine how you will live with your new wife without money or with a heavy debt? They consciously start their marital life with problems; stupid problems because they have done nothing concrete with the money. When they look around they see nothing which they can say we used the money for it. You should therefore be sure that you are in real need before we go for a loan. Our Bible says when you borrow you are indebted to the lender and you also become the lender’s slave. You may not be physically a slave but mentally you are because you will be worried and legally you are bound to pay the debts you owe. Proverbs 22:7 “The rich ruleth over the poor; And the borrower is servant to the lender.” Our Bible teaches us to owe no one. So we have to pay all our debts in due time. The only thing we should owe any body is love and apart from that we should pay our debts in time. Romans13:8 “Owe no man anything, save to love one another: for he that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law.”

If you have the means to borrow without putting up security for the debts fine; but if you do not have the possibility then put the security but be sure of your engagement else you may lose more than the value. Many people have lost their houses or cars or companies or farms because of loans. They did not analyse well how they will pay back and hence the period cut them and they lost the thing they kept for security. Proverbs 22:26,27 teaches us to be wise in such dealings but what remains is that we should be careful when taking loans and should respect the appointment else we shall be in trouble. We learn here that we should not be sureties for debts because when the debtor will fail to pay, we have to bear the cross as surety “Be thou not one of them that strike hands, [Or] of them that are sureties for debts. If thou hast not wherewith to pay, Why should he take away thy bed from under thee?” When you stand surety, you are like a guarantee or collateral and so by law you have to bear the debt if it is not paid in due time. That is a vow you have taken as concerns the debt and Biblically you have to fulfil your vows; and our scripture teach us to better stay off vows than to take them without respecting them Ecclesiastes 5:5 “Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.”

We have to be contented with what we have

To be contented means to be willing to accept a situation or comply with a proposed course of action. In that way we are reasonably happy and satisfied with the way things are. This is a good way of managing and preventing prolonged stress on our businesses and in our homes. Do not waste your time comparing what others have or what others think about you, concentrate on what you want to be, on what you want your business to be and on what you want your home to be and forget about the distractions that come; they will always come and what matters is how you manage them. If we are unable to have contentment with what we have then we will get on to worries and our Bible encourages us not to get worried. If the Lord is your shepherd, then why should you be worried because He will provide all your needs.

Do not get worried about your wants; the truth is that you do not need. I usually tell my brothers and sisters that ‘we do not have but we never lack’. Psalm 23:1 “Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want.” If you are not contented with the riches you have then you will never be satisfied even if you are given the whole world. Our scriptures tell us that the love of money is vanity; it is meaningless because you will never be satisfied if you love wealth. Ecclesiastes 5:10 “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance, with increase: this also is vanity.” Our Bible tells us not to even be worried about the basic needs such as food, drink, clothing because our Lord knows we need them and He will provide for us, but we have to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these needs will be given us (Matthew 6:31-33). Jesus Christ says we should be contented with our wages; Luke 3:14 “And soldiers also asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse [any one] wrongfully; and be content with your wages.” Does He mean that we should not strive for higher heights? NO! What He is saying is that we should be willing to accept the situation. If we cannot accept the situation, then we will be forced to extort, to cheat or to fraud in order to have more but these things are not acceptable by God and our Lord Jesus Christ tells the soldiers here.

To be contented is a Christian virtue and we have to live it. If we cannot hold on to it then when we face hash conditions we will be swept away from the ways of God. The apostle Paul gives us the example of his life and he says he has learned to be content in what ever circumstance. Most importantly, he says this is not by his strength but that he is ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within him Philippians 4:11b-13 “for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.” We need to understand that godliness is not a means to financial gain but godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Timothy 6:6 “But godliness with contentment is great gain:” This should make us understand that godliness is not about material things. We should not come to God only when we need something, we should not look at God only with the eyes which sees what God will offer us. Many people today have lost the image of God and they only talk about God when they think of this blessing, that blessing and so on. They forget that their work as humans and as Christians is to glorify our creator in everything that they do and in every situation they find themselves. Some have fixed God to be like a robot who must bless when certain prayers are repeated some specified number of times. I have read books with prayers and phrases which say, ‘this prayer is very powerful’, ‘this prayer when said 10 times or 3 times, God will answer it in a special way’, and some theologians have also written things like that. I have read about the “prayer of Jabez”, and the author said God will always answer this prayer expanding your empire when you say the prayer. This is what is pulling most Christians now and moving them away from the focus. God is nota mechanical being or a robot who will only answer when certain codes are repeated as prayers for Him to react. That is not the God I know! If we accept those claim, then who is God over who? The person praying who controls God or God who gives us what we need and not what we want? 1 Timothy 6:7-10 “for we brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out; but having food and covering we shall be therewith content. But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” I have seen people taking very risky trips to meet men of God for wealth, for promotions and so on. None of these men and women go to ask God for His will in their lives but they what a miracle; the miracle which they had fixed in their minds. I hope and pray that what they will have will be God’s will in their life!

When you are contented, you are satisfied and you will concentrate on your own business and therefore you will work with your own hands. When you concentrate on your own business there are no distractions and so you will surely abound and therefore be capable of helping others who are in need; 1 Thessalonians 4:11,12 “and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your hands, even as we charged you; that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and may have need of nothing.” The consequence of this is that when you are quiet and contented, working on your own business you will lack nothing and hence the needy will have a part in your blessing. If you are never satisfied, you will never give because you will always want more even with the little you have you cannot give. Hebrews 13:5 says “Be ye free from the love of money; content with such things as ye have: for himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee.” What causes the trouble in our society now is lust; because people are not satisfied with what they have. Even Christians, and when they ask God they do not have because of the motive behind. ‘I want to show people that…’, ‘I want people to see me like…’, ‘I most have this because this person has’, ‘How can this small man have this and I do not?’ Self centeredness is what is killing most of us today. We are more concerned about our pleasures than God’s glory. James 4:1-3 “Whence [come] wars and whence [come] fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your pleasures that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend [it] in your pleasures.”

Scriptures teaches us to budget

Our Bible teaches us to budget. Budgeting is a plan for allocating resources and it is important for every business man and even families. We need to budget how we will pay our electricity or water bills, how we will pay our rents or how we will pay our taxis or fuel our cars in the month and most importantly how we will run our giving in church or charity per given period we chose. This is necessary to avoid the head ache or stress generated when there is lack due to poor management of the available resources. Budgeting will help us do away with worries. The Bible calls the person who does not budget a lazy man or woman and they are told to take the example from ants who prepare food for their summer by gathering her food in the harvest though the ant has no ruler. Proverbs 6:6-8 “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; Consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no chief, Overseer, or ruler, Provideth her bread in the summer, And gathereth her food in the harvest.”

Budgeting requires a careful and conscientious attention and so budgeting will increase your resources. The one who does not budget is lazy and therefore hasty, the lazy never cares for details and this will only lead to poverty. Proverbs 21:5 “The thoughts of the diligent [tend] only to plenteousness; But every one that is hasty [hasteth] only to want.” When we budget, we carefully consider consequences of each action we wish to take so there is good judgment and our scriptures say if we do this we foresee the evil and keep away from this evil but he who does not budget is not prudent and so is simple hence he gets into projects or actions eyes closed and is punished; proverbs 22:3 “A prudent man seeth the evil, and hideth himself; But the simple pass on, and suffer for it.” This verse also teach us to save; we save our actions, we save our plans, we save our resources when we see evil and hold back. So we do not get into investment when we see that it will not work. To carefully budget we need a good knowledge of what we are about to do and our scriptures say with this we will be filled with allprecious and pleasant riches. Proverbs 24:3,4 “Through wisdom is a house builded; And by understanding it is established; And by knowledge are the chambers filled With all precious and pleasant riches.” Good sense is acquired as we come close to God, and this is the foundation of a well established man. So with wisdom we can build the house likewise we need wisdom to build our plans and our understanding is used to establish that this is true or acceptable, then our knowledge can now be used to complete our plans with that pleases us. So we can not base our plans on knowledge. We need the wisdom from God to build these before our knowledge can be applied to fit in our desires which are real riches else we shall be drawn away from real riches because real riches comes from God.

Do we really need to budget? Can we not just wait and when God wants to bless us He will do it? I’ll answer with some ones comments. A pastor said he usually budgets with his wife what they will do if by some means they gains a certain sum of money. I just imagine you budgeting what you will do if you had one million, ten million or fifty million now. This is money he does not have but he does not know how he will get it. The pastor said this is a way to prevent stress if by any chance he is blessed with that. There are people in our societies today whom if you give them just 100000 Fcfa they will fall sick. A friend told me when they had their first salary from the school of post and telecommunication; some students wrote a very long list of what they will buy; a car, 5 pair of suits, a set of chairs, some pair of shoes and so on. This list is from an amount of around 1 million Fcfa. The reason is that these guys have never held or manage more than 100000 Fcfa through out their studies. So when they receive this they think it’s a big sum and how will it look if an old man in the village who has only been managing from his pocket of maize react when he is paid 2 millions for compensation on say a road passing through his farm? This story is just to show us the importance of budgeting as compared to our daily life. But what does our scripture say? The man who does not have a rule, self-discipline, self-will, a governing power, a principle governing his conduct is like a broken down city without a wall. So if we can not establish rules governing our businesses, our own spiritual life, our family life, etc then there is not protection for these things. They can crumble at any time because there is nothing to guide it, you will never know when it is working well or not. Proverbs 25:28 “He whose spirit is without restraint Is [like] a city that is broken down and without walls.” Our scriptures say we should not be naïve else we shall pay the penalty (Proverb 27:12). Just as we need to evaluate our decisions to follow Christ and consider the consequences, our Lord in the spiritual insight also teaches us to be diligent and to plan well knowing the cost in order to work for what ever we want to do before we move on not to be mocked by people. Luke 14:28-30 “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and count the cost, whether he have [wherewith] to complete it? Lest haply, when he hath laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all that behold begin to mock him, Lest haply, when he hath laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all that behold begin to mock him,” When we budget, we keep aside something in order to achieve our planned goal. The apostle Paul taught this to the church in Corinth as a way of gaining time; and every Christian would budget based on what he or she gains as income to know what to save. 1 Corinthians 16:2 “Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come.”