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From Prosperity to Poverty

Recent years in Canada, and especially in Alberta have seen business slowdowns, decreasing profits, layoffs, new housing slowing down, foreclosures, personal and business bankruptcies, bank failures, investment company collapses, the loss of retirement funds, and problems that go with the downturn.

After years of plenty, we seem to have developed an attitude of entitlement. We have been blessed with so much in recent years, I think many have taken this to mean this is our right. So with that being said, why is there so much negativity and volatility in our economy today? Why are we now filled with fear and trepidation?

Firstly, I want to point out that God is sovereign over these things. He foresees them all. He causes or permits them all, and when He causes or permits something, He does so with purpose and design. Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” and 19:21, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” None of these recent events have surprised God. His purposes and designs are being fulfilled according to plan. What reasons might be behind these things?

The first possible reason may be to expose the greed we have seen in the recent actions of a major retailer, paying bonuses to executives while taking away pensions to others. It shows how human nature looks to self instead of others. People are so easily caught up in scams looking to the lottery to “supply all their needs.”  People’s greed is exposed when others suffer.

But what about in the life of the believer? The book of Job in the Old Testament begins, “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). He was a good upstanding man. But in the last chapter of the book, Job says, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6). He was “blameless,” but later he repented. What does that mean for us?

It means that the godliest people in the world are like a clear glass of water with a sediment of sin hidden at the bottom of the glass. And when the glass is bumped—with Job’s suffering, or with our current economic crisis—the sediment of sin is stirred up and exposed, and the water becomes cloudy. That’s one of the things that recessions are for.

When things are good, people often forget God. The Israelites were like that and we are like that. We The economic instability helps expose that pride so we might learn more deeply to rely on God rather than self.

At the bottom of every Christian heart—no matter how advanced in faith and godliness—there is the sediment of self-reliance. Then God shakes our lives, sometimes to the foundations, to show us our self-reliance and clean it out with a new, deeper trust in Him.

In many ways, this instability is a gift that helps to recognize our sins. If we have been that way, may He give us all the grace to repent and receive the forgiveness that God offers in Jesus Christ.

Secondly, it causes us to wake up and help a world in need. It’s astonishing how blind prosperity makes us to the miseries of the world. When things are good, our view becomes very narrow and self-absorbed. Statistics show that the more you make the less you give. God has some remedies for that kind of indifference.

Economic instability affects all of us. But what is God’s point for it? If it bothers us, we should be bothered by the fact that millions always live in need. One billion people do not have safe water to drink. Sixteen thousand children die every day from hunger-related illnesses. Almost eighteen million children are orphaned in sub-Saharan Africa. The recession is a wake-up call that there are people in our world who are suffering – and much worse! As the church, as Christians, we need to be more actively involved.

Expressing love to one another through acts of kindness. That is what we are called to do, especially in this day and age of uncertainty. We are too quick to point people to government agencies instead of being that life-changing agent to that person. Jesus said the poor will always be with us. What is our response to them?

Thirdly, it helps us appreciate His grace rather than our goods. God sends recessions and struggles to his people to get us to refocus on His grace rather than the pleasures of the world. Here’s the clearest recessionary text about this in the Bible—2 Corinthians 8:1-2. It describes the roots of the joy of the Macedonian believers in their “recession.” Paul writes, “Now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia. They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor. But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity.”

I think most of us want to be generous. Where does it come from? From prosperity? No. Extreme poverty. “Their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity.” This passage describes how the church, God’s people should respond when there is a need. Here are people overflowing with generosity when the economic times are very bad.

Where then did the generosity of the Macedonians come from? Was it from their supportive and sympathetic culture? No. Verse 2 says they were “being tested by many troubles.” That means they were being harassed.

Where then did this generosity come from? Paul says it came from joy, an abundance of joy. Verse 2: “But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity.” Their joy was not rooted in prosperity or popularity. So if the generosity came from joy, where did that joy come from?

It came from the grace of God. Verse 1 says, “Now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness (grace) has done through the churches in Macedonia.” People are grumpy from the economic instability. The Canadian dream is a dream of entitlement and it is no more. But if we really saw our sin in its true light and the magnitude of God’s grace, we would have joy in hardships. Even in these days of the recession, God’s grace overflowing in Jesus for sinners like us is the most glorious thing in the universe.

Our joy is not rooted in circumstances. God has relocated our joy in his grace, not our goods—in His mercy, not our money, in His worth, not our wealth. If the recession can help us refocus on Him, it will have done the most important thing possible. Our focus and satisfaction should be in Him.

Fourthly, we learn to depend on God to continue His work when it seems impossible. We see this all over the Bible. God does His great work again and again when it looks least possible. He promises the heir when Abraham and Sarah are too old to have children. He splits the Red Sea when Israel is hopelessly trapped by Pharaoh’s army. He gives manna when there is no food in the wilderness. He stops the Jordan River when it’s time to take the land. When a city stands in the way, He makes the walls fall down. When Goliath defies the armies of the Lord, God sends a boy with a sling and five stones. When the Son of God is to come into the world, God calls a virgin to conceive.

When God works in the impossible, our faith increases. In 2 Corinthians 8:1-2, when God wants to raise money for the poor in Jerusalem, He uses afflicted, poverty-stricken Macedonians and fills them with joy because of God’s grace. It seems like He is trying to get blood from a stone.

But for us, it is a reminder of where our treasure is—there our heart is as well. Are you like the Macedonians? Their joy was invincible because it was rooted in the grace of God? May God open our eyes to the glory of his grace in these troubling days. When he does, the last purpose of the recession that I will mention will come true.

Lastly, a recession happens to refocus our resources towards others. Buildings exist for people, not the other way around. Every church and everything in them is for God’s glory and the benefit of His people. Acts 4:34 describes the early church: “There was not a needy person among them.” This is what the church does. Every member will have his needs met. That is our mandate. We don’t live in an “every man for himself” community. We live and practice an “every person for each other for the glory of God.” We are not independent, we are interdependent, on God and each other.

Economic instability has affected all of us, directly or indirectly. May we learn from these hard times to depend on God, treasure Him and share that grace and love with those in need.

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