The Real Reason for the Credit Crunch
I am sitting here waiting for the doctor, and a waiting room full of sick and afflicted people with the flu. Some of it is the seasonal virus. Some is the H1N1 strain. But I will take this waiting time for writing.
I had let much data pass me by concerning the credit crisis. I had been unaware for months concerning what is happening in Dubai. Some similar traits have been happening there than that of Iceland.
Many have tried to spiritualize the credit crunch as a judgment of God, directly ordered from heaven, to shake the world. In part there is a grain of truth, God is permitting it for shaking, yet in it He will be glorified!
The credit crunch has hit the world due to a balloon of GREED! Living beyond one’s own means!!!
Let us examine both Dubai and Iceland:
1. These economies especialized in specific consumer areas, which could not be sustained in a basis of credit forever. One day came when the shareholders call in the debt, when there is no capital to make face the payment there is a default situation.
2. Iceland let grow a credit balloon to a point where its own energy and fishing revenues could not pay: hence the government approach the IMF to loan 4 billion dollars to rescue the economy. The debt was over 10 times the economy size.
3. Dubai built far too much, when its oil revenues were too small to service world debt. The building construction programme and consumer economy could not sustain the weight of world debt: I.e what it has borrowed from the richer economies.
The running trend is borrowing much more than what its collateral and production can sustain. Hence we create a credit balloon which must burst one day. If it does not burst then the whole system comes collapsing down on the whole world. The principle being: SOMEONE HAS TO PAY! But in the end of the day, shareholders are selling out, leaving governments to bail out the system!
Looking at this in concrete terms, living beyond our means, serving the god of materialism has a price to pay. Western society depends on creating comfort zones, avoidance of sacrifice and selfishness abounds.
In America the overall mortgages and negative equity provoked by falling house values made it that major banks had to sell those same mortgages onto the state and hence a crisis never before seen or heard.
The symptoms can be felt in the Church today. We have adopted the survival mode. We are far more concerned about survival and maintenance ministry, where we care more for our tithing system than our caring system. We take where there is no base for it. We are seeing our major givers undermined by the contraction of this credit crisis, that we are not seeing the undermining of the financial structure of our ministries.
We have forgotten to examine the psychology of the credit crunch vs the Kingdom mentality in the crisis. We have to see that wealth distribution, financial agreements, payments, giving has been interrupted. Now the whole financial system is contracting, and giving is now not a priority in a fear driven society. Yes FEAR is the main element introduced. Fear to give, and invest is a major part introduced.
This is against the Word. The principle of sowing and reaping is a law, principle, introduced by God. It must be retaught in the context and framework of covenant. That is, it cannot be used outside of the framework of relationship with God. You cannot use this as a formula to use coldly to escape the fallout.
I believe the general church has neglected the giving ministry and those who exercise it. There has not been any teaching in many places concerning Kingdom finances. We need to teach this again NOW.
We need to see Kingdom ECONOMISTS raised up in this day to teach us to see established a Kingdom based system! We saw it at work in Acts 4. Selfishness died off when the Holy Spirit was poured out for the second time.
We also see in the book of Joel that God responds not only by giving spiritual blessing but also material blessing. We see God through the renewal of covenant, set in motion the capacity to be fruitfulness in all sown and all that was produced. How much more today!
It is not enough to recognize the principles, or even try to set up organizations but first come before God repenting for our participation in greed and lustful desire that motivates us to careless credit. This is what contributed to the current crisis. We need to make a complete turn round.
This has a spiritual root. Prosperity begins spiritually first! When we see this, we are on the road to recovery indeed. The steps and strategy will come when we walk liberated from the power of materialism and mammon.
Several weeks ago the Lord gave me a Joseph strategy which I believed came from the Lord. It was about developing an alternative economy. I sent it to strategic people, I got zero response. It just showed me that we are still depending on systems to get us through. We are depending on contacts and friends to make it happen, than by direct divine intervention.
The credit crunch is a SYMPTOM of a greater evil, and if we do not recognize it soon, our ministry, Church, business is doomed to fail. I know Christian businesses going bankrupt, I know ministers abandoning the full time ministry to go to work, in the secular field, where more hours are spent in the pursuit of production. The devotion to pastoral care being reduced and undertaken by exhausted servants.
We must look at the Biblical meaning of true prosperity. There are signs of this:
1. True and rich fellowship with God.
2. Enriched and ordered marriages and family life.
3. Enriched and deep Church fellowship.
4. Strategies and inventions blessed by God.
5. Sowing and reaping in evidence.
6. No strife, but prayerful existence.
7. Peace.
There may be more, but these 7 signs for me are the utmost important. Psalm 126 and 127 shows us these evidences.
It is more than merely a quick fix. It is returning to God with all of our heart, seeing that resources and their lack is a symptom of a greater evil than simply a symptom!
Your response to this will be determining, whether you survive this crisis. I do not believe the recovery will be quick. Our only escape is faith. It is painting the Blood of the Lamb on our doorposts. The “angel of death” is striking on all who have no mark of Jesus. Some of us forget all this because of the demands made on us due to our pursuit of comfort.
Jesus said: anyone who cares to follow Him must take up their cross.
Shalom.
portugalfire
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