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The Great Investment

Berkley Publishing Group

Chapter One

I have experienced success and struggle, power and poverty. I have thrived and been thwarted by a fluctuating economy. I have lived on both sides of the track, and my shoes have walked down shantytown streets and sidewalks paved with gold. I know that hard work and determination can overcome humble beginnings, and that circumstances beyond our control can tumble fortunes like a house of cards. For some, success was handed to them as they were born into wealthy families and were given choices and opportunities denied to most. I have seen people go from wealth to gross poverty through one bad business decision, one prolonged illness, a lawsuit, a problem child. Success is fragile.

I have traveled to various regions and experienced many diverse cultures. I have observed certain communities that resented success and have come into contact with others that catered to its magical charms as if it was the end-all destination in life to be rich. Yet regardless of viewpoint, I have noticed a common tendency to have disdain for those on a different socioeconomic level. We often shun others whose life circumstances remind us that ours could have been different. Rich and poor alike develop a fraternity that denies membership to people whose financial status is different from their own.

One would think that the faith community would be the one place where all could find access without fear of rejection, but unfortunately that is not the reality. In fact the status and wealth of parishioners has been an on-going conflict in the thoughts of the church for years. Sadly many have walked away from the faith of their childhood finding it limiting and inflexible. Often it is not the faith that they resent but the financial climate of that community of faith that conflicts with their own goals, values and objectives.

I have watched with great fascination as the church has moved from fad to fad and from phase to phase. In the process we have often gone from one extreme to the other, disregarding the significance of balance. Balance is a difficult thing to attain. Yet balance and prosperity go hand in hand. No one would last long in business if they never balanced their accounts or checkbook. Yet we often fail to balance our thinking and have found ourselves with insufficiencies because of dangerous extremes.

MONASTIC FRUGALNESS

One need only look over the shoulder of the church to see that we have come through many eras of growth to arrive at this juncture of the twenty-first-century. Glance in the rear view mirror of church history and you will see somewhere in the depths of the Middle Ages, in a musty, monastic cell, a robed monk knelt in prayer. His gnarled leathery hands are clenched tightly as he recites the evening prayers that have graced the end of each day from the time he first took his vows and stepped foot into the community that became his family, and continued as such until the expiration of his life on earth.

Like many before him and many after him, he aspired to a higher degree of spirituality than available to the laity who were bound to carnal pleasures and material acquisitions. His trek to godliness led him into a life of vows--vows taken to separate him from the world and its influences. They were vows of chastity and poverty. He would ever marry, nor touch a woman, and would never own property, other than the brown, worn cloak on his back and the tattered prayer book beside his bed. His denial of physical pleasures was motivated by the idea that the things of the world were a passing evil and in direct opposition to the things of the spirit of God. Thus, if one wanted to attain live a more spiritual life, he had to separate himself from the temporal, deny the flesh and turn to a life of long prayers, hard work and frugal living.

What a wasted life, filled with lost opportunities, missed laughs and too few smiles. This quest for God, while admirable, denied those who pursued it even the legitimate pleasures of marriage and family. Good men denied reproduction while mad men produced child after child. The wealth left in the hands of the wicked when the Bible plainly says that the wealth of the unjust should be laid up for the just. These well-intentioned men thought self-denial would allow them an indifference to the world around them, as they awaited a better world tomorrow. They did not realize that we are sent here to affect the world we are in while we wait on the world to come. Whoever writes the check controls the flow. Economy and effectiveness are comrades in society. Economy rules the globe more than morality. Whether we approve of it or not, the financial climate has global impact and personal ramifications.

The monastic frugalness philosophy served a purpose for the rich and the poor. It allowed the once self-indulgent convert to pay penitence for his or her own sins by self-denial. It comforted those who had never had financial freedom with the privilege of demonizing the unattainable fruit as the forbidden fruit. It was simple to them: money was evil, happiness was evil. God wants us frugal and flagellating. It glorified works of men to pay the debt of sin. But the truth is this is a debt that God alone can pay.

A WORLDWIDE TRADITION

The monastic tradition of denial of the flesh is seen throughout history, in virtually every religious tradition and every group of people on the planet. Christianity is not the only world religion to place frugalness on a level with godliness. Buddhism and Hinduism, among others, have a long history of religious asceticism. The more you could separate yourself from the material world, and get rid of the desire for the sensual pleasures of the world (things that looked good, smelt good, tasted good, felt good and sounded good), the quicker you could attain to a higher spiritual level. In fact, in many traditions it was considered an honor for a son to devote himself to a monastic lifestyle, in hopes that the prayers and sacrifice of the son would somehow bless and atone for the family left dealing with the carnal muck of marriage and raising children and making money and putting food on the table.

Unfortunately, poverty as equated with godliness is one extreme in the Christian's view on wealth, and sadly there are those today whose theology is still effected by the curse of this extreme thinking. Historically, it is easy to identify the monastic frugalness of certain streams in the broad river called Christianity. It is also easy to criticize the tenets that led to the priesthood being celibate and poor for life. But the reality is that this same philosophy moved from the hallowed walls of monasteries into the country churches on back wood roads of farming towns across America. It crept into the tambourine beating services of storefront churches in the '50s and '60s.

It was a message sailing on the winds of the Depression, thirty years before but still palpable to the poor who didn't rebound from the hard times. This message demonized success in a manner that helped to comfort the impoverished with the hope of heaven. It suggested that current suffering was but a small price to pay for the luxury of the sweet by and by. It almost intimated that future bliss was being paid for by the emptiness of the present. All that was humorous, enjoyable and entertaining was considered demonic, including television, the circus and dancing. All emblems of outward success were renounced. Jewelry was out of the question, but no one could afford it anyway. Fine clothes were considered a sign of vanity, but who would be fool enough to spend their meager livelihood on suits and silk dresses when they had a house full of children to feed and bills to pay?

You see, the old saints who taught us back then had nothing so it only seemed right to preach that having things was of the devil and those that had things were living opulent lives now but were going to burn in hell for that success.. Deep in the psyche of those old-time believers was the sense of satisfaction that their lack brought them closer to God. Not having things put them on a higher plane than those who did. They sang with sincerity the verse, "I'd rather have Jesus than silver and gold, I'd rather be his than have riches untold ..." A true believer was not like the High-Church type who worshipped in cathedrals and wore furs and lived high off the hog. A true believer, and true faith, was simple and quaint. True believers worshipped in clapboard meeting houses or downtown storefronts, and more often than not lived down with the hogs. These were devout Christians who meant well. They were only trying to insulate themselves from the pain of want and desire. This was the holiness movement, strong in spirit but often weak in theology. And although those who embraced this philosophy did have a strong spiritual life, their influence in this world was weak.

The Depression passed, times changed, but these people didn't. The world evolved but they remained steeped in antiquated concepts that were reflective of slavery and poverty. The global economy took a step forward, but they lagged behind. Yes, many didn't have the means to take advantage of all the opportunities that world offered, but it was their sluggish mentality that kept them shackled to the past and their poverty. With better education and an embracing of the changes around them, they could have, if not kept up, at least stayed in the race. Sadly, they turned their backs on progress and demonized success. How much more impact these good Christians could have had if only they availed themselves of the riches the world offered.

Don't get the wrong idea, poverty can build character. I learned much about God's love for me and ability to faithfully provide daily bread for my family through poverty. But the scripture that speaks of never seeing the righteous forsaken or their seed begging bread (Psalm 37:25), does not tell us how bad it has to get before the righteous would be labeled as being forsaken. It only tells us that they would not be forsaken.

My whole definition of poverty was changed as I started to travel around America and visit third-world countries. As you walk the dusty roads of South Africa or fan the flies away from your row in Jamaica you realize that we have little sense of real poverty. When you see your American brothers and sisters sleeping in the streets and eating out of garbage cans, you understand what it means to "do without." Around the world there are many righteous who are going to bed hungry. Their sustenance is meager and gives them a minimal allowance of vitamins and minerals. And, amazingly, although they are not full they are not forsaken. "Give us this day our daily bread" is a daily prayer request for food, something only fully understood by someone who doesn't know where his or her next meal is coming from. Yet, even in the most extreme cases of impoverishment there is still a knowing in many of them that somehow or another God still provides. Their meager fare doesn't at all indicate there is a lack of faith, as some have suggested. It is their faith that allows many of them to survive the tempestuously painful realities of their existence.

Many are the prophets whose powerful ministry called down fire and yet they were financially challenged for a season. In spite of their lack, they remained faithful to God. For them, as for many of us, poverty builds character in trusting God. I have often commented to my wife that we give our children everything except what made us strong--in other words, a struggle. It is in the furnace of affliction that faith shines brightly. The white heat of an unquenchable faith burns with passion in the hearts of people who have believed God in spite of, as opposed to those who believe God because of. The furnace polishes faith. No we don't want to go through it. But if we must, we find praise in the midst of pain. There is a grace to endure hardships that reveals God.

But please understand that doesn't mean that we should seek calamity; we shouldn't create a crisis for God to resolve. This would be like when Satan tested Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). We don't need to test God. Often people do not maximize themselves supposing that either God will do it for them. But the adage "Got helps those who helps themselves" is true. He has gifted you with the abilities but it is up to you to exercise them.

There are others who think that they will get "extra credit" for being self-degrading. No, this is not the way. We don't drink poison because we like the taste of the antidote. If life has, through no fault of our own, landed us in a crisis situation we know that He is the Christ over the crises. But just because one experiences God in poverty does not mean that poverty is godliness.

Continues...

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Excerpted from The Great Investment by T. D. Jakes Copyright © 2002 by T. D. Jakes. Excerpted by permission.
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