Why I Love Money

BAD MOUTHING MONEY “All is vanity of vanity!” the preacher wailed over the radio. I was driving to work one sunlit morning, about eight o’ clock, with my radio tuned to a popular Christian radio station. I had hoped to find some spiritual gem that would revive my soul and put me on a good footing to meet what I anticipated to be a challenging day. A well known and influential pastor, for the better part of half an hour, spoke disparagingly about money. He combed the book of Ecclesiastes for proof that money and wealth did not bring happiness. He triumphantly echoed the cry of Solomon, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” And then he gloated, “You’ve never seen a U-Haul behind a hearse.” The preacher, like many others of his kind, was condemning a folly that does not exist! Of course the preacher, nor anyone for that matter, has never seen a U-Haul being pulled by a hearse. People, no matter how materialistic and greedy they are, are smarter than that. They know that money and material possessions are to be used and enjoyed while they are alive. They know it is no good to them in the grave. That is why the preacher has never seen a U-Haul being pulled by a hearse, and he never will. Finally, when the good pastor was all preached out, he began to make an appeal for money! I don’t think so! Poverty Conditioning I went to church one Sabbath and listened with interest to the pastor’s sermon. His pivotal text was Philippians 4:11, 12. “…I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether living in plenty or in want.” (The New International Version). According to the Apostle Paul, sometimes he had little and at other times he had plenty. Well, this pastor developed his entire sermon around being content with little! Why little and not plenty? The truth is, I … never heard an exposition on how to be content with plenty. As I sat there I suddenly realized my Church conditioned me to be poor. I was never told how to be content with plenty so why then would I expect to have more than a little of anything in my life? If the cornerstone of my soul, my innermost being - my Church, my religion, my spirituality - blocks my mind from conceiving plenty, how can I achieve it? Dr. Joe Dispenza, in his book Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind, recounts an experiment with cats carried out by Colin Blakemore and Grant Cooper at the Cambridge Psychology Laboratory. One group of cats was raised exclusively in a chamber with horizontal stripes and a second group in a chamber with vertical stripes. At the end of the study they found that the “horizontal cats” could not perceive vertical images; they kept walking into the legs of chairs for example. The “vertical cats” avoided horizontal planes such as a table top or simply walked off its edge. Dr. Dispenza concluded from this experiment that “we are able to perceive only what our brain is organized to tell us.” What in human experience is more potent as a “brain organizer” than religion and spirituality? Even politics is a distant second. The constant drum beat of Christianity is that money is bad or at least too much of it will lead to one’s damnation. Adherents to religious Faith and people in general, need to be taught how to be content with abundance. Some people don’t know how to handle success. I think Christian leaders should … assume that He who is “rich in houses and land” and who “holds the wealth of the world in His hands” will bestow abundance upon His followers “according to His riches in glory.” Christian leaders should, therefore, prepare their followers to be content with much. This work is imperative since, as I will demonstrate later in this book, God gives more not to those who have little but to those who already have much. It is dangerous for the saints who do not have tens of thousands of dollars or any other kind of material wealth tied up in this world to believe they are immune to temptation in the time of trouble. They are just as vulnerable as Believers with large cash reserves. The same power that will deny the rich access to their money will tempt the poor with money in a bid to get them to deny their faith. What matters is not how much money the saints have during the great tribulation; it is the content of their character that will make them overcomers. It is this kind of religious thinking and teaching (large cash reserves is hoarding, sinful, wasteful and worthy of harsh judgment) that has conditioned godly people to settle for poverty, make them financially inept and incompetent to deal with the vicissitudes of a life, made unnecessarily harsh. I have seen ministers come to old age, their energy spent in the enthusiastic response to the call to gospel ministry, broke and penniless, living from hand to month. Why was this so? Because they were “cats” living in a spiritual chamber with only poverty stripes and the minds of those who have been thus “organized” will walk off the edge of poverty, lack and want. Let every person who worships a God of abundance and love “Go to the ant…. Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest.” (Proverbs 6:6-8) Well what do you call what the ant does? Hoarding? No! A thousand times no! Rather it is using the strength, wit and wisdom God gave to it to provide for unfavourable times. Large cash reserves for old age mirrors the ant’s supplies for winter.