One of the major concerns of this age and time is how people
hurriedly want to rise to the top in society without adding any value or even
if it means at the expense of others. This is largely due to the fact that our
society places value on the wrong things. There are many millionaires and
perhaps billionaires who have no day time job and have no value they are adding
to the society in terms of being productive in any sense. As other young people
look up to such individuals, they get the message that you don’t necessarily
need to be a person of value before you can gain societal influence. The farther
we go in this direction, the worse it is for us as a people because we are setting
a dangerous precedent.
Unfortunately, some believers are also getting caught up in
this web, albeit in a way that isn’t really obvious to many. While unbelievers
are trying to cut corners to gain influence, believers are trying to
“spiritualize” their way to influence. So we now have many believers who have refused
to work, not because they can’t get something to do, but because they have no
value for work and they have no value for the growth process. They believe in
some kind of miracle that will suddenly land them in affluence. So rather than
getting involved in any work, they prefer to loaf around all week long, trusting
God for a special breakthrough that will suddenly make them overtake every
other person who seems to have gone ahead of them. Fortunately for them, the
church is always open to embrace them because the church seems to be one place
where you can enjoy love even when you are unproductive. Spirituality offers
them a perfect cover for their lazy habit or at least so they suppose. Some of
such people even spend all their time around church premises for no special
purpose seeing that hardly will anyone query them for such rather than finding
something meaningful to do. Understand that I am not against being available in
church whenever there is the need, but at the same time you can’t spend all
your working moments hanging around the church doing nothing in particular or
if you are not there as a volunteer for a cause. On the other hand are believers
who are attempting to rise up simply by association with those who are already
successful, but they themselves are not adding any value. They tend to always want to tag themselves
with other successful people who are being productive and who are adding value
to the lives of others, this tagging with other successful people offers them
the best cover up for their personal failures. Over time they develop an
entitlement mentality that makes them feel they are entitled to the success of
the people they have been tagging along with.
These are issues I believe we must confront headlong as a
body of believers. Over and over in the scriptures we find that our God delights
in processes, so He put a lot of processes in place; it takes a process for man
to be formed in the womb and be born into this world, it takes a process for a
tree planted to grow to maturity and begin to bear fruits. As a matter of fact,
the only tree that ever grew in one day also died in 24 hours, talking about the
tree that grew to serve as a shade for Jonah (Jonah 4:5-8). Likewise it will take a process for you to arrive at your desired place in life,
and your surest path to arriving there is by adding value to others in any area
you can regardless of how little or insignificant it may appear today. It is
only when you engage in something that you can begin to trust God to enlarge
your steps underneath you. If God promised to bless the work of your hands and
you have nothing for Him to bless, then you will only remain at your present
level forever.
Being a person of value is to get involved no matter how
small it may appear today. The scripture says though thy beginning was small,
yet thy latter end should greatly increase (Job 8:7). Don’t pray and fast,
expecting God to send some money into your wardrobe because they don’t print
currency notes in heaven and don’t expect someone to transfer some money into
your bank account by mistake because it will be fraudulent if you don’t report
such. This is not to say that God cannot miraculously come through for you, but
He has already designed a system of increase for you and that involves you
doing some work (notice I didn’t say a job) to add value to others. Regardless of
how insignificant your work may appear to others, the important thing is that
your hand has found something to do and you are being diligent at it. Kenneth
Copeland usually says it is only in the kingdom of God that a janitor can own a
jet and that’s because the janitor is adding value to others while looking up
to God for his supplies. Elijah was miraculously sustained when God commanded
the Ravens to feed him, but that lasted only for so long. In the case of the children
of Israel on their journey to Canaan, God was sending manner daily but
eventually the manner ceased when they got to Canaan because that was out of
the normal order, they had to cultivate their land for continuous flow of
manner. God expected them to add value to the lives of each other so that they
could get value in return and increase through that process. When you decide to
begin to add value to people’s lives, you will get value in return and such
value may be converted into cash or material blessing. This is the way God has
designed the process of increase in the kingdom. If God were to suddenly push
abundance on you without taking you through the process of making you a person of
value, it is guaranteed that such abundance will only be a waste. You must
begin to appreciate processes, it is God’s way of bringing increase.
In the parable of the talents, the man with 5 talents traded
with his talents and got 5 more talents, same thing happened to the man with 2 talents,
but the man with 1 talent didn’t do anything with his. He was a lazy man, and
you will notice that the master took the talent from him and added it to the
one who already had 10 talents. I used to read that before and think to myself
that it was unfair, why take from the one who has very little to add more to
the one who already had much? It is only sentimental to view it from that
perspective, productivity is of high value in the kingdom of God. You will
observe that the man with 10 talents was diligent and was a person of value so
God could trust him with resources and make more talents flow to him from others
who were lazy.
Many people wonder why they are not enjoying divine supplies,
but the answer isn’t far-fetched, if you are not diligent with what you have,
you are not adding any value to anyone and you are not being productive in any
sense, there is no way you can enjoy divine supplies even if you fast a whole
year. This is why many times you may see people whom you consider less
spiritual compared to you; they don’t fast and pray as much as you do, but they
have better results to show than you. It is because they are adding some good
value where they are and they are constantly trading with the talents God has
given them. Don’t ever sit down and fold your arms with the thoughts that you
have nothing, and don’t you keep trying to tag along with other successful
people just so that you can be successful by association without making efforts
to add some value to others. This is a wakeup call, God is waiting on you to
move no matter how little your effort so that He can move on your behalf. God
wants to transfer the wealth of the Gentiles into your hands but He needs to
find you diligent where you are now and with what you have now. Begin today to seek
to add value with the little you have now and you will increase because value
will be returned to you in greater measure. God will then cause resources to
flow to you because He can trust you to keep multiplying it by continuously trading
with what you have and adding value to lives of others.
Shalom!
N.B
For questions on this subject and other subjects, kindly use the Prayer request/Testimony pane. You can also send me an email or reach me by Phone on 08081249992
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