The Perils Of Money: Living With An Enemy

Money, like sex is the pre-eminence of man. Tell me who doesn't love money?

Today's posting is about money and it's evil characteristics, affecting every breathing man. Money is good if it is our slave and not our master!

The subject of money dilemma must be the number one common factor that affects mankind the most.

Money dilemma is always the central issue existing in every aspect of our living.

Trust me, almost all of us live under the pretension that 'we' are all doing fine. The moment someone in our midst is brave enough to admit suffering from problems with money, you can expect many more, coyly disclosing suffering the same fate and predicament.

I want to address the issue of money as briefly as I can. For a few, my experience may shed a new light on your situation. Some may have a radically different opinion, that is expected; but for many, this will help change your view and possibly your approach to your money situation. But still, at the end of it all, to many, money will remain our best friend.

In the last 6 years of my financial struggle and spiritual rediscovery, I have arisen from both experiences to understand the power of money and how it affect our lives. The only way to fully comprehend money is when you are empty of it.

(When you have lots of money, you have lots of friends. When you are down to nothing, your friends too disappear. When you have lots of money, everyone knows who you are but when you are down to nothing, and without friends, then you know who your friends were. It is during this moment you fully comprehend the meaning of friendship.)

Like friendship, you only understand money when you have none of it.

Hopefully the eight principles below provide you enlightening about money; it's advantages and disadvantages and how it can distressed our lives when we are not the master over it.

#1 - Money: Who Doesn't Want More.

At a recent meeting with some close friends, they thought I was bragging when I disclosed that I had enough money and how I dread having more. I was absolutely serious. I have always had enough money, albeit not always earning a lot of money.

When I earned less than minimum wage, I had enough money. When I earned minimum wage, I had enough money. I have enough money now.

Someone asked the multi-billionaire John D. Rockefeller the question of "How much money is enough?"

His answer was, "One more dollar than I have." He therefore, would never have enough, no matter how many billions he had.

I have seen people earn more than double of what they were earning in the previous year and they still experience a lack of money.

Money is one of those things where unless the spirit gets right, you never have enough. Having enough money is primarily a matter of spirit, not amount, so I hope everyone understand this.

#2 - Rich Means Contentment.

Don't be like Rockefeller or else you will forever be dissatisfied.

Often our change from poor to rich is more spiritual than financial. It is why the Apostle Paul could say if you have food and clothing then you should be contented.

Perhaps we should realize that instead of struggling so hard to get more, we should simply want less. The problem with wanting more is that it never stops, and most find that even when they get "the stuff," it's not what they thought in terms of real contentment.

Jesus said:

a. The Kingdom of God is within

b. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Everyone wants the kingdom, yet everyone also wants to be rich.

Just maybe, for many of you, you have enough already.

#3 - Jesus Lives 33 Years On Earth Without Money Because He survived Trusting In God's Provision.

Some will argue against this to an extreme, but I have searched for it over and over in the New Testament of the Bible. It simply isn't there unless you take a Scripture and twist it to mean what it really didn't say or you must make speculations about things that aren't written in Scripture.

No words in the New Testament promote wealth when looked at in context. Unbelievable? You may want to try searching for that elusive verse under a magnifying glass! Trust me there is NONE!

"What about when Jesus told the disciples where to fish and they had the great haul of fish?" you may ask.

Read what they did with the increase after they got it. The disciples ate the fish then left the fish to follow Jesus. When you read exactly what they did, the pattern becomes clear .

We can sometimes be masters at making Scripture say what it never meant because it is what people want to hear and it often justifies our own agenda.

Jesus NEVER pointed us towards material wealth; he did quite the opposite when you read what he actually said.

Many passages plainly point you away from riches but none plainly point you towards it, not in the New Testament.

And no, the verse, "Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health," is not talking about riches.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:8, that if you have food and clothing you should be content. I thought about that verse as I was alone one day. I had a BIG problem with it then, and I still struggle to fully understand and accept it.

"What about shelter?" I thought. How in the world does God expect you to be content with no house? That just didn't make any sense to me.

So I asked God during a quiet moment, "Father, how can a person be content with no house?" And God, my heavenly Father answered me and though I didn't like the answer, the minute I heard it, I recognized the truth of it.

The answer was, "Did my son have a house?"

"Whoa!"

Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Matthew 8:20

Not only are we not happy and contented with food and clothing, we often aren't happy even in medium or large houses. We want mansions and guess what? Given enough time, we often aren't happy in those either.

#4 - Rich And Poor, We Are The Children Of God, The Creator.

I never regretted that I chose a holiday at National Rainforest in Pahang. I wanted to see the rain forest before man destroyed it. The native children in the jungle were excited to see a mobile phone.

We trekked through the jungle all day with a native guide. He said our hike would culminate by visiting the rumah orang kaya (rich man house).

I was expecting a huge mansion overlooking a river and the rich expanse of the rain forest. When we got to this orang kaya's house, it indeed sat on a hill, but it was hardly a mansion. It was more like a shack on a hill. His house was distinguished by the fact that it had a generator. The rich man had electricity. When the rest of the village was dark, he had light, therefore everyone in the village considered him "Orang Kaya" or "The Rich Man."

I learned a great lesson from that. The native headman had no indoor plumbing, no air conditioning, no marble counters or carpeted floors. His house would not even meet minimum building regulations in the poorest neighborhoods in the entire country. However, he had electricity when everyone else was in the dark, therefore he was rich.

In many parts of the world, what we consider poverty is considered great wealth. We have so much food in almost the entire country that eating too much causes Malaysia's biggest health problems.

#5 - Money Is Not Necessarily The Source Of Happiness.

The Pahang National Park jungle was perhaps the poorest area that I have ever visited. There was no industry. The huts did not even have doors. Yet, in the midst of what many would consider extreme poverty by Malaysian standards, again I saw something.

The people were happy.

The ability to sense spirit is something God gave me long ago. When I sold newspapers as a young lad through many of the neighborhoods in Penang, the minute people opened the door, I could sense whether the house was happy or sad one.

I sold newspapers in the richest and poorest of neighborhoods. Both had their share of happy and sad homes.

The guide told me as we walked through the village with the doorless huts, "We marry around 13 or 14."

"13 or 14?" I repeated, amazed at such a young marrying age.

"What is the divorce rate?" I asked.

"Less than 5%," he replied.

Again I saw that material possessions don't necessarily guarantee happiness. In our society today, we have relatively huge wealth along with a relatively huge divorce rate.

#6 - Bad Attitudes Is The Producer Of Bankrupts.

The Joneses.

Because we often try to keep up with the Joneses, it strains our finances to the limit and beyond. My father, often quoted, "If your outgo exceeds your income then your upkeep will become your downfall."

Too often we live way above our means. Today, I have always had enough money because I have always kept my expenses well below my income. And of course I learned all these through the 6 years of very painful lessons. Whether you earn millions or minimum wage, the principle applies.

Years ago a girl friend of mine began selling a nutritional system. The system had a cassette tape explaining it. She went throughout several of Petaling Jaya's affluent neighborhoods putting the tapes in mailboxes.

She only selected the fancy houses as she only had a limited number of tapes.

Six people responded wanting the system. The system cost RM100.

Of the six people who responded, not ONE had RM100. Each had a story of why they had to wait until payday or could only pay a part now but none had RM100.

"How could that be?" my girl friend asked. "I specifically only put these tapes in BIG houses. They all had two fancy cars and RM200,000 plus houses. How could their finances be so tight that they don't have RM100?" she kept bothering me with that question.

My reply was that everyone lived next to The Joneses, who lived next to The Joneses, who lived next to The Joneses, who lived next to ...

#7 - The Importance Of Good Planning And Discipline.

From my experience over all that I have endure the past 6 years, today, I tried each day to share with people I meet what is money and managing it. Don't laugh because you thought I am not an authority about it but I teaches people how to manage their money.

I often remind people in the church that after tithing 10% of their money to the church, the remaining 90% still belongs to God, the Provider. And they should learned to honor how to manage what God has allowed them to keep.

People came to me with testimonies about what I shared changed their financial lives. The first thing I did was to teach everyone create a budget.

Surprisingly, NO ONE had a budget. No one could say exactly how much they were spending. Sure, they all knew what the rent or mortgage was, but it was often the "other" stuff that sunk them. No one could tell you with any degree of accuracy exactly what they were spending as a total.

I loved to tell the story of how one lady had come to me for a loan. She wanted to buy a car. She was going to pay for the car by the week at one of those "pay by the week" places.

She got angry at me when I would not lend her the money. I had her to do a budget. When she did, she was shocked to see that the weekly payments plus what she was spending on other stuff added up to more than what she was earning. If I had loaned her the money for the down payment on the car, it would have been a sure financial disaster.

WRITE IT DOWN exactly how much you spend each month on EVERYTHING. You may be surprised. Just something as simple as a two pack a day cigarette habit is RM200.00 per month.

#8 - Give And You Will Be Given.

I cannot logically explain this, but I know it is true. I am of the opinion that Malaysians are the most prosperous and generous people on the face of the earth, because each time there is an appeal for funds or donations, Malaysians will never disappoint and will consistently rise to the occasion.

Yes, I know we has flaws but that doesn't change the principle or the result. We benefit from our benevolence; we suffer for our malice.

God spoke a Word of Wisdom to me personally concerning money.

"Anything beyond sufficiency is insignificant."

It has taken me a long time to understand that but the longer I live, the more convinced I am of that truth.

Money is similar to food. You need it; if you run short, it gets very uncomfortable and even unhealthy. Yet excess consumption has great dangers. Having excess food is wonderful if you do the right thing. The problem is not in having the excess; the excess is a blessing. The challenge is in doing the right thing with the excess.

Even the Old Testament of the Bible listed lack of both money and food as a curse and its abundance a blessing. The problem was that it wasn't long after the abundance that the people became corrupt. It is very hard to keep abundance in balance.

That's why Jesus said it is HARD for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Money has always been and always will be an issue. It remain a bondage to most in this world; unmindful of who you are.

"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." The Pharisees, (ministers and priests) who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.
Luke 16:13-15

I am hopeful that you have benefited what I have shared with you on the principles for abundance and some guidance for using the abundance.

Do remember that the Almighty Majestic God is the Provider and we are all born into the world with nothing and will someday leave with nothing. Our riches are stored in the Kingdom of Heaven where we truly belongs.

Each time we share what we have in this world, we are actually storing up our riches in our true home, Heaven!

Everything that we have comes from our heavenly Father. Whatever we share with others were of the Father. We don't actually owned anything and the fact that we are owners are a lie from the Devil.

I know some of you will argue that you have 'earned' it through your hard labor, toiling in the field of work under harsh working conditions. Don't forget that your job itself was a blessing from God! He provides!

O our God, we thank you and praise your glorious Name! But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us!
1 Chronicles 29:13-14

In closing, I want to assign you with this paltry chore. Ask Jesus in your quiet time with Him, this seemingly insignificant teaching why he taught us to pray asking for our daily, and not weekly, fortnightly, monthly or yearly bread? Why daily?

This is not the answer to my above question but when a person lives day to day trusting Jesus for His providence, then this person is truly rich because he lives free from the bondage of insufficiency. Because Jesus, our Provider is the Owner of Heaven and earth and everything in it!

Father, give me an eagerness for your laws rather than a love for money! Turn my eyes from the worthless things of the world and give me life through your word and your ways.
Psalm 119:36-37