LIVING A LIFE OF HONOUR

“Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ’Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God”. —Proverbs 30:8-9 (NIV)

It is difficult to live an honourable life when you're constantly broke and penniless. I am not saying it's not possible to be poor and still maintain your integrity, but I'm telling you it's hard. When you are in a financial hole, you can easily be tempted by money. But if you're in a good place financially: a place where all your basic needs are met and you still have enough letfovers to share with others, you'd agree with me that it would be easier to fend off money temptations in this state than if you were broke. 

I should probably make it clear at this point that nobody can have too much money. Just look at the lives of some of the richest people in the world today, most of them still chase and lust after money, and some would even go as far as to lie, cheat and steal to acquire it. 

This is where contentment comes in. Remember what the Bible said, “godliness with contentment is great gain”. When you have contentment, even though someone where to tempt you with let's say a million naira, and though you may not have that kind of money in your bank account, but because you're doing okay financially and also because you have contentment, you can say to that person: “to hell with your money”. 

Buy when you are broke and have contentment, the truth is that contentment alone may not always suffice. Because when you think about all the problems you have in that moment: your sick mother’s hospital bills, your house rent that is almost due, how you are neck deep in debt, you really start considering giving in to temptation. Also, if you're rich and lack contentment, then you don't just wait to be tempted by money, you go looking for the temptations yourself because of greed and love for money.
 
Most Christians have this misconception that as long as they remain good christians: read their bibles, pray regularly and attend church meetings, that their finances would automatically be taken care of. But that's not always the case is it?. Yes, God would always meet our needs. After all, He said in Matthew 6, that if He feeds the bird in the sky, how much more we his children? In another place he said that he makes the sun shine on both the good and the evil (Matthew 5:45)

However, money is another thing entirely. Money has it's own set of laws and principles. You must be taught about money if you must know how to earn, keep and make it grow. And school is where we ought to have learn about money, but unfortunately we were taught abstract knowledge with no practical value in school.

As a Christian, you must know that it's your personal responsibility to learn about money. The Government will not teach you because the primary responsibility of Government is to secure the lives and property  of it's citizen and also to provide certain basic amenities. 

The church would not teach you about money and I don't think that the church should. The main purpose of the church is to make the bride fit for the coming of the bridegroom; in other words to prepare us for heaven. 

The Bible introduced us to the fundamentals and principles of how money works. Like the parable of the Talents for example which talks about the three servants who were each given talents by their master before traveling. The first was given five talents, the second two talents and the last servant was given one talent. The man that was given five talents traded with his and earned five more talents. His master was lavish in his praise of this servant. Then the second guy who received two talents also traded with his and earned extra two talents. His master was very pleased with him too. Then the third guy simply went and buried his talent in the ground and when his master asked him what he did with his, this was his reply: “Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine” (Matthew 25:24-25)

What a foolish man! Yet, this is what many of us are doing today. We fail to invest our money but keep it in a non interest earning savings account where it continues to lose value. To put it more bluntly — we simply bury our funds!

This year I read a very important book on finance ‘The Total Money Makeover’ by Dave Ramsey. That book was such a eye opener! I strong feel that if I had read that book earlier, let's say two years ago when I had just gotten employed as a Civil Servant, my finances would have been so much better than what it is as at the time I wrote this piece. 

As Christians, we must educate ourselves financially if we're to live honorably. The unbelievers don't pray, read the Bible, nor have the Holy Spirit. But how is it that they control most of the wealth of the world today? Because they understand how money works! They spend time to read, attend seminars and listen to tapes on finances while we simply stay in our various churches and confess “I am rich and highly favoured”. Yes, there is no doubt that we are rich in Christ because he said that “for our sakes he became poor that we through His poverty might become rich”. However, it takes knowledge of how money works to experience the reality of that Scripture. 

Hosea 4:6 says, “that my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”. No where is that scripture more real than in this area of finances. Today, lots of good Christain homes are on the verge of collapse because of financial problems. Pastors embarrassing themselves and losing respect from politicians because of money. Some even go as far as giving out fake prophecies just to make money!

Being a good Christian here on earth means that we get to spend eternity with God in heaven, but it doesn't always guarantee a living a good life here on earth. Whether we like it or not, we need money here on earth to not only have a comfortable and stress-free life, but more importantly, to propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations of the world.