I first heard the gospel at a little Pentecostal church over 30 years ago. The church had been around for over 25 years and had about 50 members. A new pastor had come in with the realization that if the church didn’t grow beyond this number that it’s doors would close. There just wasn’t enough money being generated to pay for a building and supply a decent living for a pastor.
The new pastor did a great job and the church did begin to grow. Slowly but surely the church increased its budget to the point where a pastor could make a decent living. The members worked hard to get others to join them. The gospel of Jesus carried with it the expectation/need that new members would help with the operation of the organization.
If the new believer coming in, read the fine print they would have discovered that 10% of their income (called either tithing or "free will" offering) was to be given to the local church for the rest of their lives. In other words, the person making $300,000 was to give $30,000 and the person making $10,000 was to give $1,000. A completely fair system of giving, seeing that the rich person ended up living on $270,000 and the poorer person still had $9,000 left over to live on. (One pastor told me that this wasn't true, the person making $300,000 should give a lot more than 10%.)
Note: Some churches actually teach universal tithing where the poorest of the poor will be financially blessed if they tithe on their welfare or disability cheque. This is a far different view from tithing in the Old Testament where only those who owned land or livestock, tithed. The poor were recipients of the storehouse tithe that is spoken about in Malachi 3 and never paid a tithe since they had no crops or herds to tithe on. They didn't receive grain or meat from the storehouse and then told to give 10% back as a tithe.
Of course, financially supporting the local assembly to the tune of 10%+ is never taught as part of an evangelistic outreach. The goal was to get them in and then later help them understand that part of maturing in Christ is tithing to the local assembly. The promise given, is that when giving to the local assembly is practiced, financial blessing is sure to follow. Not surprisingly, the person who tithes from a disability cheque never owns as nice a house as the pastor that directly benefited from their tithe. It also means that children that die of preventable diseases in Africa must not have been part of a family that tithed.
Ironically, most Christians in this teaching never reach maturity since only 18% of Christians in a church that teaches tithing, actually tithe. This creates a rather strained relationship between those teaching tithing and those not practicing it. It creates the potential for pastors to only listen to those who are shouldering the financial burden of their pay cheque and parishioners questioning a pastor's motivation in the care that is provided.
It also intrigues me that the only givers who substantially receive from church funds are the paid staff that teach this practice. Churches tend to give between 2-8% to the needy and 30-50% to staff. Even on missions trips, churches will pay a pastor to go but expect non-salaried people to pay their own way.
Is there anything wrong with giving to one's local church group? Of course not. As long as it is understood as being no different than paying for a golf club membership, except of course you get a charitable receipt for doing so. But when the impression is given that God somehow requires us to give in such a prescribed way, then that is nothing but manipulation, with no scriputural grounds for doing so.
We never thought that our evangelistic outreach was about increasing the church’s financial coffers but ultimately it is not "reaching the lost" but rather dollars that are the measuring stick of the viability of a local church. If the church had increased to 300 people but most of them chose to give their offerings to dying children in Africa, the church would have had to close its doors and the people giving to the children would have been labeled as immature or even worse, "robbers of God".
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Anyway
The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith
by Dr. Kent M. Keith
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Treasure that Lasts
As the global economy is shaking many people are taking a second look at investments. The stock market has proven to be really volatile with a few making a lot of money while the vast majority watched their portfolios shrink by half or even worse. What is sad that even during the best of times, while people were increasing their wealth on paper, the number of desperately poor in our world continued to grow.
This sounds like the farmer who increased in wealth and said to himself, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.”
Luke 12:18
The obvious lesson is that the only thing that lasts are what Jesus calls real treasure.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Matthew 6:19-21
Treasure that Lasts = People
It seems that many have been very busy investing in treasure that will not last. Why not invest in treasure that lasts an eternity?
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
Luke 16:9-13
Does Jesus endorse the idea of investing in people?
He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.[a]'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'
Luke 19:12-13
From this passage, the answer seems obvious to me. So then, if Jesus tells a story about investing in people, would it be wise for us to do the same?
What were the expectations of the master regarding a return on investment?
"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'
" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'
Luke 16:16,17
A criticism that is sometimes thrown at people who invest in others is that you shouldn’t get a return on your investment. But let’s follow through with the rest of Jesus’ story.
"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'
"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'
Luke 16:22-24
There was clearly an expectation of return on investment. Not only that, but Jesus gave the one who had the greatest return, the one mina that had been buried.
Is it possible that the 2 who increased the minas to 5 and 10 actually did this by investing in others? Did they learn the lesson from their master that the best investments are helping others succeed?
Most people invest to build their own portfolio or to build a bigger barn. Why not invest where both you and the people you invest in, can increase with the purpose of laying up even more treasure in heaven?
So, how are your investments doing?
This sounds like the farmer who increased in wealth and said to himself, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.”
Luke 12:18
The obvious lesson is that the only thing that lasts are what Jesus calls real treasure.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Matthew 6:19-21
Treasure that Lasts = People
It seems that many have been very busy investing in treasure that will not last. Why not invest in treasure that lasts an eternity?
“I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?
"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
Luke 16:9-13
Does Jesus endorse the idea of investing in people?
He said: "A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.[a]'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.'
Luke 19:12-13
From this passage, the answer seems obvious to me. So then, if Jesus tells a story about investing in people, would it be wise for us to do the same?
What were the expectations of the master regarding a return on investment?
"The first one came and said, 'Sir, your mina has earned ten more.'
" 'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'
Luke 16:16,17
A criticism that is sometimes thrown at people who invest in others is that you shouldn’t get a return on your investment. But let’s follow through with the rest of Jesus’ story.
"His master replied, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn't you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?'
"Then he said to those standing by, 'Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.'
Luke 16:22-24
There was clearly an expectation of return on investment. Not only that, but Jesus gave the one who had the greatest return, the one mina that had been buried.
Is it possible that the 2 who increased the minas to 5 and 10 actually did this by investing in others? Did they learn the lesson from their master that the best investments are helping others succeed?
Most people invest to build their own portfolio or to build a bigger barn. Why not invest where both you and the people you invest in, can increase with the purpose of laying up even more treasure in heaven?
So, how are your investments doing?
Friday, June 19, 2009
More Than Enough
MORE THAN ENOUGH
(helping those that cannot help themselves)
I had a nice chat with a friend yesterday. We ended up talking about a vision I have of bringing nutritional supplements to ALL of the neglected children of the world.
Did you know that iron deficiency, the most common form of malnutrition, affects 180 million children under age four and that 684,000 child deaths worldwide could be prevented by increasing access to vitamin A and Zinc?
Through a little bottle of children’s multivitamins/minerals, we can supply the missing nutritional building blocks for children. As it stands right now, the need is outpacing the supply and children needlessly die. The plan I showed him not only supplied the vitamins but because it comes through a business model, everyone involved can help at literally no financial cost to themselves.
31 people agreeing to work together for just one month could literally supply nutrition to 62 children for a year at no financial cost to themselves.
How does this work?
31 people agree to utilize my company's compensation plan
and SHARE the commissions for just the first month in which they start.
They each purchase an All Star pack for $499 + $40 shipping and tax.
Total cost = US$16,740.
Each pack contains a two year supply of children’s vitamins.
The total commissions that this group agrees to pool together is over US$16,800.
And voila, 62 children are helped for a full year.
and SHARE the commissions for just the first month in which they start.
They each purchase an All Star pack for $499 + $40 shipping and tax.
Total cost = US$16,740.
Each pack contains a two year supply of children’s vitamins.
The total commissions that this group agrees to pool together is over US$16,800.
And voila, 62 children are helped for a full year.
From then on, it is up to each individual as to what they want to do with their own business. It’s reasonable to assume that there would be others who would want to help children as well and this plan could easily be shared with others. At this point the original 31 people have the possibility of literally sending more vitamins to more children at no cost to themselves. That’s called sustainability.
THE NEED NO LONGER OVERWHELMS THOSE WHO CATCH THIS VISION.
How do these vitamins get delivered? By utilizing a delivery system that already exists. Tens of thousands of people travel the world everyday. We simply find a few of these people who are willing to carry an extra suitcase, loaded with high quality children’s vitamins and are willing to deliver them to any one of the many caring groups already helping these at risk children.
This plan is simple and doable. Money is not a factor. The VISION to join with a few others is all that it will take to bring some of the missing nutrients to children who cannot help themselves.
If this vision of joining with a few others interests you, please write or call me. I am coordinating getting the 31 people together. You don't have to get 31 but simply say you would like to be part of a group of likeminded people.
Together we CAN make a difference!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Year of Jubilee – The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth
Leviticus 25 is one of the more obscure and misunderstood Old Testament Laws. Every 50 years the economy in the nation of Israel was to have a reset button. All debts were to be forgiven, slaves were set free and the land was to be returned to the original owner.
I have always believed that the laws of the Old Testament weren’t just some willy nilly decrees by an uncaring God wanting to test His people in order to see if they would obey Him no matter what. Adultery isn’t wrong because the Bible says so, it’s wrong because it destroys relationships and the law simply states that reality. In other words, His laws aren’t prescriptive but are rather descriptive of what makes for a healthy lifestyle or a destructive lifestyle.
So why did God implement an economic reset button? As life unfolds human nature tends to over extend itself. Sometimes it’s because of greed, or lack of self-control or misfortune like sickness or an accident. Whether the downward spiral of indebtedness is caused by a person’s own poor decisions or are a result of outside factors there is often a deep sense of hopelessness for those who are enslaved by debt.
God understood this trap that human nature tends to go into all too easily and gave the gift of resetting the economy back to having no debt every 50 years. In other words, everyone got a fair chance to start over within their lifetime.
Wealth Transfer in Jubilee
Whether planned or unplanned, every Jubilee is accompanied by a large transfer of wealth.
Proverbs 13:22b “But the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous.”
So according to the Bible, who are the financially wicked and righteous?
Psalm 37:21 “The wicked borrows and does not repay; But the righteous shows mercy and gives.”
So, according to the Bible, the wealth of the one who borrows and does not repay (wicked) is stored up for the one who shows mercy and gives (righteous).
Meekness
Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth (land)”
So what is meekness?
—Having great power or capacity and using very little of it.
—Vines Bible dictionary says, Meekness is “the fruit of power.” “The common assumption is that when a man is meek, it is because he cannot help himself; but the Lord was meek because He had the infinite resources of God at His command.”
The sad reality is that most of us, definitely including me, have not lived within our capacity.
A friend of mine told me that if you can’t finance a house without a clear plan of paying it off within seven years, that you are over extended. When I heard that I thought that was farfetched and yet it simply requires the capacity to pay 10% more than what the bank would require off of the principle, each year.
When it comes to credit, people have simply not lived in meekness. I just heard about someone praying for someone to loan them $20,000 for a down payment so that they could increase their indebtedness by another $400,000. They actually thought that if the loan happened then that meant God was looking after them. God would never want someone to enslave themselves to a debt that could potentially crush them and stop them from being able to freely go where they wanted or worse yet, tempt them to become a wicked person by not repaying their debt.
Debt has increased at an unprecedented rate and there is about to be a correction. We no longer have a clear plan of when to push the economic reset button and yet it is obvious that the human condition of getting in over our heads financially has not changed.
I actually thought I was being very clever by leveraging the inflated value of my home in order to buy what I could not afford. It seems I was just one of literally millions who are all too willing to enslave themselves to a future of debt thinking that housing would always continue to go up in value.
Many people have been in the habit of buying on credit and then clearing their credit card debt by refinancing their houses. In other words, they increased their indebtedness, hoping that the economy will continue to move forward. As long as houses continue to go up in price there is always the safety net of refinancing in order to deal with our natural capacity to over extend ourselves. The average person in North America tends to spend 110% and many 140% of their capacity. In other words we’re just like the government that thinks deficits are a good way to buy ourselves out of momentary discomfort.
But what happens when there is an economic downturn and people lose their jobs? They no longer have the ability to pay for their $300,000 home. So they sell. As more people sell, the price of housing actually begins to go down in value. It actually starts very slowly since the last thing our ego wants to admit to, is that we are in over our heads.
Housing no longer rises at 5-10% a year. Even people who still have jobs no longer have the cushion of refinancing since they are mortgaged to the max and their house didn’t go up in value. And then they lose their job as well and now they can’t pay their mortgage. What started off as a trickle begins to gain momentum, housing prices drop a little more and the small asset, (the difference between the mortgage and the relative value of the house diminishes) and now the mortgage is higher than the value of the home. People now begin to declare bankruptcy instead of selling their homes.
Meanwhile, the banks which had been over extending themselves in the name of profit are now stuck with homes they don’t want and they sell them for less, driving the value of housing lower.
At this point some people actually jump into the housing market and there is a small surge because interest rates are low and there are some deals to be had. Banks are still willing to extend credit because they need to sell the houses they don’t want.
60 Minutes - The Mortgage Meltdown
But now there are others who need to be able refinance their mortgages but that can only happen if their house went up in value. At this point, the small surge has only stopped houses from going down in value and now this new group of people must sell. But this time the price of housing takes a modest 5% drop. People are even more uncertain about their job situation and can’t afford a mortgage that is more than the value of their homes. Many of them have financed their house to 90-110% of its value.
Many houses come on the market at the same time and what was only a 5% drop turns into a 15% drop. If you have a job you ride out this loss but lo and behold you lose your job. The mortgage is 300,000 and now your house is only worth $280,000. Oops, I got a little over extended with another a car payment and some credit card debt that I expected to clear up by refinancing my house.
But there is an answer for me, I can reset my indebtedness. It’s called personal bankruptcy. God calls this wickedness. Why? Because I will deny others what is rightly owed and they can't pay others as well. My wicked actions can literally begin a chain reaction that harms innocent people.
Now the banks are stuck with houses that they don’t want, plus they just lost $20,000 in credit card debt that won’t get repaid and repossessed a car that now costs them money to get rid of.
The bank didn’t even have a chance of forcing foreclosure and now must sell their increasing number of houses cheaper and the price of housing drops another 10% which precipitates another cycle of personal bankruptcies.
Meanwhile, those who have not ever extended themselves, have watched what they thought was a great retirement asset diminish by 25%. They see the writing on the wall and can afford to sell and still make a profit. After all, they bought at $60,000 and even though their house went up to a paper value of $300,000 they are still going to do ok by selling for $240,000. This again drives the market down a little more and within 6 months that same house is only selling for $200,000.
There is always little surges in the market because people can’t resist jumping in considering that a house that sold for $300,000 last year is now a bargain at $200,000. No one expects the downward spiral to continue.
But in all this, those that needed to refinance because of credit card debt can’t and even though they weren’t anywhere close to bankruptcy last year, the drop in housing prices has tempted them to sell or declare bankruptcy. After all, they still have a job with decent cash flow and it simply doesn’t make sense to hold onto a liability when they have seen so many others get out of their debt so easily.
When will this downward cycle reverse itself? Impossible to say. Is this cycle possible?
God gave the year of Jubilee to show us that once every lifetime, society needs to push a reset button to clear debt.
The meek who have maintained their cash by not spending beyond their capacity or being greedy for a great deal, will be the ones who can afford to buy when houses bottom out to real values. (The actual cost of the materials to build not the inflated prices that we think are the value of a home.)
And this is when, the meek shall inherit the earth.
I have always believed that the laws of the Old Testament weren’t just some willy nilly decrees by an uncaring God wanting to test His people in order to see if they would obey Him no matter what. Adultery isn’t wrong because the Bible says so, it’s wrong because it destroys relationships and the law simply states that reality. In other words, His laws aren’t prescriptive but are rather descriptive of what makes for a healthy lifestyle or a destructive lifestyle.
So why did God implement an economic reset button? As life unfolds human nature tends to over extend itself. Sometimes it’s because of greed, or lack of self-control or misfortune like sickness or an accident. Whether the downward spiral of indebtedness is caused by a person’s own poor decisions or are a result of outside factors there is often a deep sense of hopelessness for those who are enslaved by debt.
God understood this trap that human nature tends to go into all too easily and gave the gift of resetting the economy back to having no debt every 50 years. In other words, everyone got a fair chance to start over within their lifetime.
Wealth Transfer in Jubilee
Whether planned or unplanned, every Jubilee is accompanied by a large transfer of wealth.
Proverbs 13:22b “But the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous.”
So according to the Bible, who are the financially wicked and righteous?
Psalm 37:21 “The wicked borrows and does not repay; But the righteous shows mercy and gives.”
So, according to the Bible, the wealth of the one who borrows and does not repay (wicked) is stored up for the one who shows mercy and gives (righteous).
Meekness
Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth (land)”
So what is meekness?
—Having great power or capacity and using very little of it.
—Vines Bible dictionary says, Meekness is “the fruit of power.” “The common assumption is that when a man is meek, it is because he cannot help himself; but the Lord was meek because He had the infinite resources of God at His command.”
The sad reality is that most of us, definitely including me, have not lived within our capacity.
A friend of mine told me that if you can’t finance a house without a clear plan of paying it off within seven years, that you are over extended. When I heard that I thought that was farfetched and yet it simply requires the capacity to pay 10% more than what the bank would require off of the principle, each year.
When it comes to credit, people have simply not lived in meekness. I just heard about someone praying for someone to loan them $20,000 for a down payment so that they could increase their indebtedness by another $400,000. They actually thought that if the loan happened then that meant God was looking after them. God would never want someone to enslave themselves to a debt that could potentially crush them and stop them from being able to freely go where they wanted or worse yet, tempt them to become a wicked person by not repaying their debt.
Debt has increased at an unprecedented rate and there is about to be a correction. We no longer have a clear plan of when to push the economic reset button and yet it is obvious that the human condition of getting in over our heads financially has not changed.
I actually thought I was being very clever by leveraging the inflated value of my home in order to buy what I could not afford. It seems I was just one of literally millions who are all too willing to enslave themselves to a future of debt thinking that housing would always continue to go up in value.
Many people have been in the habit of buying on credit and then clearing their credit card debt by refinancing their houses. In other words, they increased their indebtedness, hoping that the economy will continue to move forward. As long as houses continue to go up in price there is always the safety net of refinancing in order to deal with our natural capacity to over extend ourselves. The average person in North America tends to spend 110% and many 140% of their capacity. In other words we’re just like the government that thinks deficits are a good way to buy ourselves out of momentary discomfort.
But what happens when there is an economic downturn and people lose their jobs? They no longer have the ability to pay for their $300,000 home. So they sell. As more people sell, the price of housing actually begins to go down in value. It actually starts very slowly since the last thing our ego wants to admit to, is that we are in over our heads.
Housing no longer rises at 5-10% a year. Even people who still have jobs no longer have the cushion of refinancing since they are mortgaged to the max and their house didn’t go up in value. And then they lose their job as well and now they can’t pay their mortgage. What started off as a trickle begins to gain momentum, housing prices drop a little more and the small asset, (the difference between the mortgage and the relative value of the house diminishes) and now the mortgage is higher than the value of the home. People now begin to declare bankruptcy instead of selling their homes.
Meanwhile, the banks which had been over extending themselves in the name of profit are now stuck with homes they don’t want and they sell them for less, driving the value of housing lower.
At this point some people actually jump into the housing market and there is a small surge because interest rates are low and there are some deals to be had. Banks are still willing to extend credit because they need to sell the houses they don’t want.
60 Minutes - The Mortgage Meltdown
But now there are others who need to be able refinance their mortgages but that can only happen if their house went up in value. At this point, the small surge has only stopped houses from going down in value and now this new group of people must sell. But this time the price of housing takes a modest 5% drop. People are even more uncertain about their job situation and can’t afford a mortgage that is more than the value of their homes. Many of them have financed their house to 90-110% of its value.
Many houses come on the market at the same time and what was only a 5% drop turns into a 15% drop. If you have a job you ride out this loss but lo and behold you lose your job. The mortgage is 300,000 and now your house is only worth $280,000. Oops, I got a little over extended with another a car payment and some credit card debt that I expected to clear up by refinancing my house.
But there is an answer for me, I can reset my indebtedness. It’s called personal bankruptcy. God calls this wickedness. Why? Because I will deny others what is rightly owed and they can't pay others as well. My wicked actions can literally begin a chain reaction that harms innocent people.
Now the banks are stuck with houses that they don’t want, plus they just lost $20,000 in credit card debt that won’t get repaid and repossessed a car that now costs them money to get rid of.
The bank didn’t even have a chance of forcing foreclosure and now must sell their increasing number of houses cheaper and the price of housing drops another 10% which precipitates another cycle of personal bankruptcies.
Meanwhile, those who have not ever extended themselves, have watched what they thought was a great retirement asset diminish by 25%. They see the writing on the wall and can afford to sell and still make a profit. After all, they bought at $60,000 and even though their house went up to a paper value of $300,000 they are still going to do ok by selling for $240,000. This again drives the market down a little more and within 6 months that same house is only selling for $200,000.
There is always little surges in the market because people can’t resist jumping in considering that a house that sold for $300,000 last year is now a bargain at $200,000. No one expects the downward spiral to continue.
But in all this, those that needed to refinance because of credit card debt can’t and even though they weren’t anywhere close to bankruptcy last year, the drop in housing prices has tempted them to sell or declare bankruptcy. After all, they still have a job with decent cash flow and it simply doesn’t make sense to hold onto a liability when they have seen so many others get out of their debt so easily.
When will this downward cycle reverse itself? Impossible to say. Is this cycle possible?
God gave the year of Jubilee to show us that once every lifetime, society needs to push a reset button to clear debt.
The meek who have maintained their cash by not spending beyond their capacity or being greedy for a great deal, will be the ones who can afford to buy when houses bottom out to real values. (The actual cost of the materials to build not the inflated prices that we think are the value of a home.)
And this is when, the meek shall inherit the earth.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Do a Little -- Change the World
Mass evangelism has had a significant impact in the expansion of Christianity. I was at a meeting just a few weeks ago, where Reinhard Bonke was sharing his vision and results of seeing upwards of 1.5 million people making decisions for Jesus in a single 5 day crusade. Wow!!!
That seems to make what I want to say seem almost insignificant. And yet, I can’t help thinking that little is much when God is in it.
Did you know that if you impacted just 2 people this year with the gospel and they did the same thing next year and that trend continued for 20 years that you would have started a revolution that would reach over 2 million people in 20 years? In 30 years a third of the world would have been reached.
And yet there tends to be a lot of angst among Christians that not enough is being done to reach others. Why is that?
That seems to make what I want to say seem almost insignificant. And yet, I can’t help thinking that little is much when God is in it.
Did you know that if you impacted just 2 people this year with the gospel and they did the same thing next year and that trend continued for 20 years that you would have started a revolution that would reach over 2 million people in 20 years? In 30 years a third of the world would have been reached.
And yet there tends to be a lot of angst among Christians that not enough is being done to reach others. Why is that?
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