Richest woman in the world

Encouragement

 

Today I am the richest woman alive. There are a lot of reasons for me to say that and not one of them has to do with money or possessions. Let me tell you about it. I am a child of God.

1 John 3:1,  Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

God love me. What an absolutely excellent thing. Now, I know that God loves every person who ever lived, but I know it and I feel it and I accept it. I can hear God’s voice, or the voice of the Holy Spirit, however you want to put it.

John 10:27, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.

I have the fruit of the Spirit and I work very hard on developing them.

Galatians 5:22-25, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

I have Jesus who is in heaven on the right hand of God and he is my advocate for when I may do something wrong.

1 John  2:1-2, My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

When I die I will go to heaven because I am born again, I have been redeemed from everlasting death and consequently have everlasting life. I have the armour of God as defence against the enemy, but also to stand up to the enemy.

Ephesians 6:14-18, Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

Okay so far I have everything that every other Christian has. It is really incredibly special but not that unique. The thing that I am really excited about is that yesterday I had the opportunity to encourage a fellow believer. I saw someone who I know to be a faithful follower of Christ who was just so despondent and in such a low place in his life. I was able to let the Holy Spirit lead me and use the right words that he needed so that he could feel better about himself. Do you know how awesome that feels? It’s so good! And do you know what? I was feeling about 10 times better than I felt before I had spoken to him. But how often do we not fall into the trap of agreeing with someone who is down and out and commiserating with them? It is the natural thing to do. It is the easy, comfortable thing to do. But today I didn’t do it. Today I overcame my flesh and reached out to a fellow believer in faith and that makes me the richest woman in the world.

1 Thessalonians 5:11, Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.

This is what we should be doing daily and I am going to aspire to do much more of it, how about you?

Perfect Order

Someone wanted to borrow money from me so that they could buy a non-essential item and then they would pay back the money over the next three weeks. Now I’m asking the question, “Why not just save for three weeks until you have enough money to buy it yourself?” There is so much of this back to front business going on. People want things and they want them now. They don’t want to wait until they can afford them. The banks lend money to people and then charge interest and in the process the articles cost way more than they originally would have. Children demand items of fashion clothing and technology and parents put themselves into debt to provide. Instead of working for money, people steal cars and television sets and computers. There is no self control, but above all, there is no order. In chapter one of Genesis the creation of the earth is described. First of all God created light, then he separated the light from the dark. Next was the expanse which separated the waters under and above the expanse. After that dry land appeared and then came the plants and vegetation. On the fourth day the lights came on. The sun, moon and stars were formed. After that the fish and birds were created. On the sixth day God created animals and man.
Everything was made in order. There was no surprise or mistake. Everything was made the way it was supposed to be made because there was a reason. There couldn’t be animals before the plants were made because then they wouldn’t have anything to eat. And so God didn’t and doesn’t leave things to chance and He doesn’t do things haphazardly.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 tells that there is a time for every matter under heaven. In other words there is order. Christians often speak of seasons in their lives and I have experienced it to be so. You can’t go back and have the same experiences you had 10 years ago. That time was for that time and fulfilled a purpose in your life. Sometimes we go through long dry seasons and other times there are joyful and profoundly productive seasons. We cannot force these seasons and we cannot accelerate or retard them. If we interfere with the work of God we reap the consequences.
In the New Testament we read of the life of Jesus. He was born the same as any other baby, went through the growing up process and started His ministry at the age of 30. It was a process and even though He might have been ready for ministry five or ten years before, but Her waited until God released him into his ministry. When he was baptised and the Holy Spirit descended on him it was the sign that he could go forward and do what he had to do.
How many of us are willing to wait? We want to be like Achan who took robes and gold from Jericho despite strict instructions not to do so. He saw these things and coveted them and wanted them. He hid them and as a result he and his whole family were killed. It must have been beyond heart breaking. He couldn’t wait for the next victory, which was over Ai. When the Israelites defeated Ai, God allowed them to take the spoil. But Achan hadn’t known that would happen and he decided that because he wanted something now he would take it now. And it wasn’t something he needed, it was just greed.
If we look around we can see how we are being, not so subtly, encouraged to buy this and that and the other thing. Advertising is constantly telling us that we need to have a new car, or clothing or cell phone so that we can compete with the Joneses. And the sad part is that we don’t stand up against it. We borrow the money, apply for the loan, get the finance we need and then we have to work even harder to pay back the interest we are being charged.
We need to look to God and seek His perfect order for our lives so that we can live in peace and contentment. We need to seek the unhurried rhythms of His grace so that we can live the way He created us to live.

Read your Bible, pray every day

We aren’t merely puppets in God’s hands and neither have we been programmed to do the things that God planned for us to do. It takes effort to be in His will. First of all it is a conscious decision that we have to make to accept Jesus as our saviour. Secondly we have the responsibility of growing spiritually by reading the Word and by keeping up a relationship with God. We have to make sure that we are 100% sure that we want to follow Jesus and that we aren’t lukewarm Christians who just go to church on Sundays and read a daily devotional when it suits us. We should all be very much knowledgeable and aware of the contents of the Bible. It isn’t privileged information for pastors only. It isn’t just ministry and theological students who have to study the Bible. It isn’t just for missionaries to know the Bible. It is for every believer. Someone once said to me that it’s impossible for anyone to spend more time reading their Bible than it is to watch television. I proved her wrong, but times change and I want to say that we should be spending more time in God’s Word and in prayer than we do on social media.

How often don’t people complain that life doesn’t come with a manual, but it does. The Bible is our manual for life. There are no questions we can ask that don’t get answered in the Bible. If someone wants to practice law they have to go to university for a number of years and they have to study and memorize all kinds of laws and precedents. Imagine going to court and having someone represent you who has never studied law. What a disaster that would be. Likewise how can we step into the courtroom of heaven and ask God for something if we don’t know what is written in His book?

James 4:1-5, Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

If we don’t read the Bible and in the process discover that we should be asking God for His will for our lives, we are going to fall into this trap. We look at the world and at people who aren’t believers and we see the things they have and the things they view as being important and we are deceived into thinking that those are the things in life that really are important. Things, stuff, possessions and money are not bad, but they aren’t the most important things in our lives. The state of our souls is way more important than the state of our bank account. We are led to believe by the worldly way of thinking that we are less than good enough if we don’t have enough money. But here’s a newsflash, if money is our motivator, we will never have enough. There are billionaires that died of starvation because they were too mean to use their money to buy food for themselves.

1 Timothy 6:7, For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Note that this verse does not say that money is the root of all evil, but that the love of money if the root of all evil. I know that there are people who have an anointing to make money so that they can finance the Kingdom, but that is different from having money as your motivator. Money can never be our reason to live. We can’t let money (the lack of it or the excess of it) keep us awake at night. We cannot be blindly led be the world and think that their way is the right way. We have to read our Bibles and we have to follow what they say. That’s the only way that we are going to be in God’s will.