Saturday, August 31, 2013

Wealth and Revival

The key to the fullness of the spirit is Christians Connecting with each other, loving one another as Jesus has loved us. He will only put his new wine in wineskin that is made of love.

The greatest barrier to Christians connecting is our wealth. In a traditional society, people were bound together by mutual obligation. I helped you with your harvest, and you helped me with mine. If a woman was sick, the other women came to care for her family. Most exchanges of goods and services took place through giving and sharing out of mutual obligation.

Most of these transactions have now been monetised. If I need someone to help with the harvest, I pay someone to help. If a woman gets sick, she pays someone to provide childcare and do the housework. Very little giving and haring takes place outside of immediate families.

Our wealth makes this possible. Most goods and services are now paid for with money. Wealth has contaminated our relationships. People form relationships with the people they work with or for recreation, but they have limited interaction with the people in their communities.

Christian relationships have been casualised in a similar way. We go to church on Sunday to receive services from the ministry team and pay for them with tithes. We have only casual relationships with other Christians.

God may have to take away our wealth to get us back into connection with each other. May be this the key to the evangelist David Pawson’s question to New Zealand. He asked.

Who is willing to pray for economic ruin to make revival possible.
This is a hard prayer to pray. I am not sure if I am up for it.

2 comments:

Dennis A. Smith said...

You are dead right about this vital key to relationship building and as you will I'm sure already know, this is called the 'Gift Economy'. I have shown aspects of HOW this can be worked out in business in my post The Gift Economy in business (http://www.dennis.co.nz/2013/07/the-gift-economy-in-business/).

You (and David Pawson BTW) may be in error, although it is certainly in line with human nature, to assume that the removal of financial blessing is a requirement to increased understanding and application of faith in areas of finance. The Holy Spirit definitely has ways of touching people outside of direct adversity. . .

Others setting an example by hearing, then understanding and then being obedient and exercising faith can also be a powerful motivator. I call this the power of one - when one person says, "I will!" or "I do!" or "I did!" then often others are motivated to do likewise especially when their faith is evident as their motivation. Cross-cultural challenges can also be the breeding ground for increased faith, giving, relationship building and godliness in decision-making. There are many other ways excluding financial stress for people to make wiser decisions and commitments for the Creator is not limited to prescriptions, rules or formulas to achieve His purposes.

Preaching and teaching on their own, especially outside the context with any of these sorts of things is however often ineffective.

The key here is motive - where our heart is - WHY not so much WHAT or HOW MUCH we have or give or do not give. The point you raise however in regards to the monetisation of life related matters that are naturally relational is CRITICAL in current times, and especially so in understanding where the reality of life in 2013 coincides with scriptural advice on Mammon.

I have written about the importance of sacrificial giving in the Samoan context on my blog too. Samoa is known for it's giving - people hospitality and other formal gifts but as I say in the post, "The Lord is wishing to use Samoa to teach and bless the world through sacrificial giving, returning to her roots of hospitality and the gift economy, but to do this now in faith, rather than for reasons of culture, religion or economic benefit."

Enjoy the read at: http://www.dennis.co.nz/2013/05/sacrificial-giving/ and keep writing this sort of stuff. We need more of it!

Samuel Nelson said...

I am afraid that economic ruin will lead to bloodshed. I think we should pray for something else. Let us pray for brotherhood among Christians. The Scriptures teach us to serve one another out of love. By "one another", the Scriptures means Christians. For our own good, we must follow this practice. We must also do this in order to shine before the world and before other Christians.