Business But Not As Usual

God created His world and invested His resources there for the purpose of profiting and benefiting his creation.
An inadequate knowledge, understanding or ignorance of this purpose is the tap root of all the woes mankind is wading through today. The long gap between the wealthy and the peasant, between the rich and the poor. Even the reason for the certainly of some of those who are rich today but will become poor tomorrow. It is this same reason.

Ignorance of God purpose for blessing mankind with His resources. Which is for growth multiplication and expansion, benefiting others in the process.
Nigeria my own country remains the most gifted and bestowed of God resources, but with pain and grief, I would rather avoid repeating what we all know is happening now. Ignorance on the part of the leaders to understand that the resources are meant to be traded with to benefit those they are governing.

So they helped themselves with it. Line their pockets and wallets in Swiss, and other coded accounts in Europe with it. Misplaced priorities and spending on vain frivolities and irrelevant white elephant projects etc.
The effect? Epileptic function of infrastructural facilities, high crime rate, unemployment, poverty, dysfunctional health care system, corruption, name it.
During the oil boom Iraq was making heavy money, so was Nigeria.

I got informed by reading a write up in Readers Digest of what the then Iraq leader was doing with the oil money earned. What was he doing with it? He was investing it both at home and abroad. What of Nigeria? Our then Head of State made those who care to listen to understand that money was not Nigeria’s problem but how to spend it … Notice the word spend again!
While one was investing another was “spending…. .. and even having problems with spending it. If the head is sick what then happens to the body?

One leader was investing and another was spending.
‘There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise: but a foolish man “SPENDETH” it up’ proverbs 20:21.
So also was ignorance on the part of the governed. The citizens. My own countrymen. The only language they understanding is “Spend” Some men even made a proverb out of it that what is written on money is “Spend”. So at parties they spend and “Sprayed” it on musicians who in turn squander and spend it on women liquor, drugs, and other vanities such as jewelries.

And today 80% percent of the naira sprayers and 80% of the musicians sprayed are historical dustbins. Except some few smart ones among those musicians maybe about 20% who believe you don’t spend and squander everything you are ‘sprayed’ with. The rest 80% of then are in the limbo today.
What other things did Nigerians not spend the oil money on? More wives, and more children and of course more naming ceremonies with opportunity to squander and spray money again.

More chieftaincy titles with funny and obnoxious sounding appellations.
The fashion trends did not help matters either. Today its high heeled shoes and baggy trousers, tomorrow it is ‘selecto’ shoes and ‘pencil’ mouthed trousers. So the spending spree continues. A life insurance marketer that sells an investment/pension scheme or retirement plan policy to an average worker or business man in Nigeria in seventies and eighties is simply speaking Greek or Latin.
Until finally Lucifer ‘solved’ the problem of how to spend the money for our leaders in the mid seventies by helping them to organise FESTAC (festival of African arts and culture).

Then did the hammer began to descend in quick successions early in the eighties. First it was austerity measures followed later by SAP. The rest is history.
Wealth is meant to be created, distributed and invested. Not just for consumption only. Otherwise it grow wings and flies through the window the book of proverbs warned and advised in the bible.
Jesus said a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of things which he possesses NOT in the abundance of things which he invests. He is saying in essence that wealth is not a question of abundance of possessions but in abundance of investments.

That was why in the parable of the talents The Lord put the records straight that He is not against investments but against covetousness, which is not only idolatry but an offspring of selfishness and greed.
You create and distribute it with what is available, are it with the 5 talents, 3 or 2 or even with just 1, which the wicked and slothful servant would rather bury than invest. Then you gain more profit and invest the profit again and multiplication follows and the wealth keep increasing. Jesus understood what God His Father meant when He said ‘Be fruitful, and multiply……’ God’s purpose for everything He created was growth, expansion, and increase.

That the entire creation itself was an investment. And the returns and dividends all of us can see today. Just from a modest garden in Eden surrounded by vast jungles unto massive skyscrapers in Dubai, Tokyo, Paris, London, Abuja, Arkansas, Djakarta, etc.etc.
When God invests what He expected is expansion not just mere consumption of the returns on the investment, but re-investment and the end result multiplications. It is a principle that works on it’s own accord. The law of multiplying effect.
Consumption of the returns is the habit of many uninformed men all over the world. Just a little return from an investment or a bonus, the next thing is to go ashopping, holidays and spending sprees.

God’s principles say NO. You invest it again so that more comes, and you keep on with the circle until you have a large investment portfolios or businesses. And the end result is what is called wealth and riches. This was how God started the entire creation. All men on the face of the earth today began with a male and the female. Adam and Eve. And they kept multiplying.
Investments grow of their own accord it expands and fulfill God original purpose for all things and benefit others. Others feed and get blessed by your investments. That is why there is no where in the bible that Jesus condemned investments. But rather supported it with parables upon parables.

For instance the parable the talents, the parable of the husband man that leased his vineyard expecting a dividend at the end of the year etc etc.
Jesus invested just 12 disciples and 120 others and see the returns. 5,000 another 4,000 then churches began to spring and blossom in Cappadocia, Antioch, Galatia, Corinth etc. And see what is happening today, yet you aren’t seeing anything yet. What we are seeing is just a tip of the iceberg.
God invested a seed of 12 men through Abraham, Issac and Jacob to start a whole nation called Israel today. A nation that has lasted all histories and empires.

God and Jesus His son are role models of investors. Be an investor today with whatever come into your hands and don’t be a spendrift and a waster. Invest and stop coveting greedily. Practice what is called ‘delayed gratification’. Learn to deny and discipline yourself. That is Jesus standard for whosoever wants to follow His principles. What you are accumulating today will afterwards come into your hands tomorrow even with more if only you could deny yourself and invest with the little you have today.
Dr John F Demartini said: don’t spend your life working for money, save money and hire it to work for you.
If our leaders in Nigeria had hired our oil money to work for us, we won’t be where we are today.

Iraq leaders did. And twice the country was leveled to near rubbles both in 1990 and 2001, yet the cities were rebuilt again without asking for aid or support from any western nation (who will even oblige them anyway?).
All because the country have more than enough in her reserves which her leaders invested during the oil boom era; but which our own leaders spent and even had problem with spending.