Middle East Guest Speaker - Biblical Business
- Anonymous Speaker
- Aug 31, 2010
Business Forum: 18 August 2010
“The Gospel and Development of Third World Countries”
INTRODUCTION
The meeting was opened with a brief review of the 2010 programme to date. Aspects covered were:
- Our personal finances and living within a budget;
- The meaning and role of money;
- The deception of money and of “Super-spirituality” or living a dualistic life; and
- The role of business in the Kingdom of God.
The primary emphasis at the Business Forum is to consider and to learn how to live with and use our money in ways that glorify God and in accordance with biblical teaching.
Building up Treasures in Heaven
In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus taught: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Our actions and our energy will follow our true treasures – whether these be earthly possessions or with a focus on heaven. The question that we must answer is: “How do we lay up treasures in heaven?” The main way to lay up treasures in heaven is by falling in love with Jesus and loving his kingdom and his righteousness above anything else. This will set your heart ‘on things above’ and your actions and money are likely to follow. But the Bible also teaches on practical ways to ‘lay up treasures in heaven’.
- Earthly treasures have a way of being eroded easily – inflation, currency devaluations, risky investments, market fluctuations, corruption and greed, all contribute to eroding our investments... ‘moth and rust destroy’;
- Heavenly treasures are immune against these things;
- Jesus made careful examination of how people gave (Luke 21:1); not only how much but with a heart of love and devotion;
- The rich young ruler was advised to sell his possessions and give it to the poor, ‘and you will have treasure in heaven’ Luke 18:22; and
- The rich were told to store up treasure by being ‘generous and ready to share’ 1 Tim 6:18-19.
Closing your financial circle
Events over the past year have emphasised the need for Christians to bring their personal and family finances under control, to live within our means and get rid of debt, especially non-essential debt. This does not make of financial control an end in itself, but rather so that the people of God can get to the place of sowing generously into the Kingdom and God. We need to understand that God places money into our hands for a purpose higher than just our own needs and comfort. It is for the purpose of advancing His kingdom, caring for the needy and so showing forth His love for a desperate world. When we do this we will lay up for ourselves ‘treasures in heaven’.
We need to ensure that we have three financial areas of concern under the control: our obligations, our needs and our wants. Once we have defined these carefully and with prayer, we should’ close our financial circle’.
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If we are married we ought to sit with our wives or if we are single, preferably in partnership with a close friend or someone who loves us, and pray carefully over these three categories. It is helpful to make a list of each financial category and bring the total in line with our personal or family budget. Our normal giving may be included in our ‘obligations’ – not as though under the law, but rather with “hilarity”: 2Co 9:7 teaches that “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful (translated from “hilarious”) giver.” We must then work over time to pay off all debts and avoid incurring unnecessary new debts. (A simple and practical “debt liberation” plan was previously discussed in the Forum.) In this way we bring our finances in line with the leading of God’s Spirit and what makes good, down-to-earth sense.
Once our obligations, our needs and our wants are under the control of the Holy Spirit, we are unlikely to suddenly change our lifestyle if God should decide to bless us financially, for example by buying a new house or car simply because we have more disposable income. (Although, there is nothing wrong with doing so if this is done from a heart that is submissive to God and not controlled by the love of our money and our possessions.) Once the circle is closed and we are living in a controlled way with our finances, then God may well place more money in our hands for sowing and reaping because it brings us to the place where we might first ask God “What do you want me to do with this money or investment (or other material blessing)?” rather than cutting loose and splashing out in accordance with our new-found wealth. We were challenged in the light of Scripture to live a studied life in regard to “laying up our treasures in heaven.”
In future sessions we shall focus again on the matter of closing our financial circles and enabling us to be positioned where our finances and businesses can be used as tools in God’s hands, thus entering into our true ministry of stewardship.
TESTIMONY
One of the members of the forum gave a testimony about the way in which he fell into difficulties from failing to follow God’s leading in regard to a financial deal involving property and a trust. Both our friend and his wife felt uncomfortable with the deal, but went ahead with it anyway because on the surface it looked perfectly acceptable and made good financial sense. All the time he managed to courageously ignore the gentle niggles of the Holy Spirit in creating discomfort around the proposed deal. (If you are honest with yourself you too have to admit to occasionally “courageously ignoring the promptings of the Holy Spirit, only to end up in trouble later on.) He went ahead and accepted the proposal which ended in misfortune a few years later, leaving him as the only remaining shareholder. In God’s grace, he is not fully accountable for the losses that have been incurred, but he is now dealing with the discomfort of needing to sort out the mess that has been left in the wake of not heeding the Lord’s guiding in the first place. Out of this life’s lesson, he encouraged all of us to pray over every deal and every business opportunity in order to discern God’s will and not simply to assume a business deal is of God if it promises to have big financial returns.
GUEST SPEAKER’S ADDRESS: “BUSINESS IS THE DONKEY THAT TAKES CHRIST INTO THE CITY”
Our guest speaker for the evening started off by giving a personal testimony about the way in which God’s revelation comes to us through experience as we live our lives. The Lord hides things in the anticipation that He can reveal them to us as we hunger and thirst to know him more deeply and intimately. The Lord wants to take the church back into a similar situation to that described in the book of Acts however we cannot simply read the book of Acts and then believe that we have attained to that. He will lead us into these things through revelation over time. Let us be found sitting on the Lord’s lap daily which is ultimately what fulfils us and also the very thing that we are going to enjoy in heaven, forever.
He told us of the difficulties and conflicts of walking as a businessman whilst simultaneously honouring his calling in God, ministering in a local church in a Non-Christian country that is predominantly Muslim. Whereas official church business and titles closes doors into Muslim nations, business often opens those doors, hence the statement that “Business is the donkey that takes Jesus into the city.”
He testified about being called out of a missionary organisation by the direct inner voice and guidance of the Holy Spirit. So strong was the leading that he decided to test God on this and to knock on doors in obedience. On the first day of trying he was given a job which became the springboard for a business that later grew out of that job. That is how he knew that he was in the Lord’s will. Since then, however, he has struggled with the tensions and inner conflicts that go with the territory of ministering in the church and running a business. However, he states with certainty that much of the ministry of the church would simply not be possible in the Middle East without a business creating the “means of entry”.
God is using business to “prepare a way” into countries that are otherwise closed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, particularly in the Middle East (ME). He started in a business with two friends, yet knowing that he and his wife are called to the ME he made sure that he was not tied down over the long term and that decision enabled him to go to the ME as a businessman. His view is that God called him into business as a means to support what God wanted to achieve in the ME through his life.
He reiterated what our earlier friend had said and emphasised the need to depend on the Holy Spirit in our daily business lives. It is important to know the voice of the Holy Spirit – He will keep those perfectly safe who listen to His guiding and leading. In addition, he emphasised the importance of agreement with business partners in and through prayer over our business decisions. He gave examples of how, over time, the Lord led him and his business partners into seeking agreement in business dealings. By doing this, we remain in a place of dependency on God as our provider.
In relation to reaching out to the poor, our guest speaker relates about a time that the Lord spoke to him directly (one of very few times in his lifetime when the Lord did this), waking him up one night after a dream that related to Luke 4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed…” He clearly heard the Lord say to him “You have no right to interpret “the poor” as meaning those who live in spiritual poverty. I meant material poverty.” In pondering over this, he came to realise that the Lord intends the gospel to break the stranglehold of material poverty and its dehumanising effects on people. He noted also that the gospel is enough to break these chains.
Grameen Bank: example of a model for the upliftment of the poor
In particular, our speaker mentioned Grameen Bank, which was started by Muhammed Yunus, a Muslim professor in economics from Bangladesh. Muhammed’s passion was to do something that would change his nation. The result of that passion is Grameen Bank – you can read the story in his book “Banker for the Poor”. This enterprise started with a loan totalling USD 27.00 to 42 women in Bangladesh, a country where loansharks keep the poor in abject poverty, robbing them of both the means to pay back the loans as well as (often) the very products they helped to fund.
To date the bank has loaned USD 7.6 billion to millions of customers, 90% of whom are women, all of whom were unable to obtain microloans from the regular banking industry. The majority of people who have started their businesses with loans from Grameen Bank have been able to move above the “poverty” line, meaning that they are able to school their children, have access to fresh water, own a house, pay back a loan at USD 3.00 per week and take care of health care needs of their families, among other things. In order to qualify for a loan, clients (remember, mostly women) must undergo a course and pass a pre-loan exam before being awarded a loan for one business venture for which five people are held responsible. Apparently the repayment rate is better than most commercial banking repayment rates anywhere in the world.
At the end of our guest speaker’s personal introduction to Grameen Bank and the way in which it is set up and operates, he again heard the Lord say to him: “This is who I am, this is what I do.” Note the Lord’s comment about how He is reflected in a bank that was started by a Muslim man and operating in mostly Muslim countries – Grameen Bank is doing something right!
The last note of his address was to share a word with us based on Revelation18, a prophetic vision of the collapse of the financial systems of the world. We are encouraged to “come out from Babylon” – whatever that means. In this is a promise from the Lord to judge this “Babylonian system” on behalf of His church as shown in v.20. He left us with the disturbing but challenging question to consider prayerfully “How are we to prepare ourselves for the coming disaster?”
Download these notes here
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