As I carry on with my series from last week, I would like to say that I have noticed that the majority of the top 20 on the world’s most prosperous nations are Christian countries with the exception of Japan, China and India.
by Adolf Chirimuta
I would like to believe that their success as far as wealth accumulation is concerned is attributable to a strong bible influenced work ethic.
Although most of the poorest countries have been recently evangelised, a few people have developed a Christian approach to work with the majority only practising Christianity on Sunday. Some are drifting from hard work because of the prosperity gospel and doctrine that is being preached in pentecostal churches.
I believe that God is a master industrialist and a strong believer in hard work. God is the author of work, although it appears in the book of Genesis to have been his contingency plan after the fall of man. In any case, it is a principle that he set in place at the very beginning of time when he gave Adam a digging stick and instructed that he would only eat from the sweat of his brow, and it indeed says sweat. Therein lies a principle already, for one to eat, they must first sweat.
God, being the righteous supreme being that he is, would never violate his own principles but delights in providing us with a means to accumulate wealth and feed ourselves by giving us his spirit of wisdom.
God’s wisdom constructs reality and all of creation, when it is passed onto mankind the recipients become skilled craftsmen as in Exodus 31:1-4 when the Lord spoke to Moses concerning Bezalel, of the tribe of Judah whom he had filled him with the spirit of wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver and in bronze.
The holy spirit does not send us off into a daydream, but makes us wise and productive and co-creators with God, he is a pragmatic constructor of reality and there is a pattern to how he operates.
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If you speak to anyone who has been to Sunday school or has come across a bible in their lifetime, they will tell you that the person that God gave the greatest power to make wealth to was Solomon. However, God did not drop gold bars from heaven onto Solomon, but rather gave him deep business acumen and wisdom.
Plain and simple, it is written there in the scriptures, Jews and Protestants are both wealthy because they take their financial attitudes from this great Old Testament king. In Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes a great deal about work and wealth and I would urge anyone who seeks wealth beyond measure to learn and apply those simple truths in their lives today.
Solomon viewed work as the only meaningful way to accumulate wealth. Work is good and when we work, we become co-creators with God. Work is thus a noble and an ennobling activity. Work is to be done vigorously and diligently because the only time to attain prosperity is now.
For Solomon, diligence, wisdom and pursuit of excellence were the secrets of success along with a craftsman’s pride in one’s work. Proverbs promotes all members of the household into being productive.
Household income, rather than personal income is seen as the true measure of wealth. The application of this principle by Chinese families in Asia, has caused them to prosper and surely, you and I can do a little bit better in Zimbabwe if we decide to be Christian everyday even in our work and not just on Sunday.
