Recession - A Christian Prospect

The Bible provides a very interesting perspective on recession and one that I feel as Christians you should endeavor to understand and to adapt some of those principles during your very own experiences of a recession.

In the book of Genesis you would see that even the patriarch Abraham early in his life experienced a tremendously long recession. They called it a “famine” back then. And this famine set in motion a sequence of events which greatly shaped the life of the patriarch. His son Isaac would also experience a famine.

the overwhelming thing for me was that if all of these instances God’s blessing was manifested on them. Not that they did not have struggles but in the midst of they had challenges they found a way to connect with God and rewarded them with with a tremendous wealth in a time when those around were experiencing lack.

This continued even in the life of their descendent for generations. As Joseph himself saw the awesome how gone during a time when those around him were suffering hardship and lack. So what is it really that brought these patriarch, these men of God to a point where they were able to experience the mighty hand of God even in a time when the world was in an upheaval.

Think the answer is found in a five letter word that we use all the time with out slowly appreciating the meaning and the how of that word. It’s a word that has become commonplace in our expressions but almost never shows up in our actions. And my feeling is that once we understand and appreciate the power that is if this were an event we’ll begin to understand God’s perspective of where we as his children should be in a recession.

That word is f-a-i-t-h - Faith! and I’m sure that if I were to ask you the definition of faith that you would provide me with a really good religious answer. So here is what faith is. Faith is simply “knowing God.” And how do you know God it’s by believing his word. therefore faked results from believing the Word of God and why we are told that “faith cometh by hearing the word of God.”
The most important thing then in a recession or a time of famine is your faith - knowing God. And this is what was demonstrated by the patriarch. They knew God and because they knew God they were able to see a recession is not a time of lack and need but as an opportunity to prove the God they knew!

And because of this the people said, “We see plainly that the LORD has been with you; so we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, even between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the LORD’” - Genesis 26:28-29

You will agree that this was an unusual situation when compared to our time. Here you will see that because of the blessing of God on Isaac, the people of the land wanted to be partners with him after initially responding with envy and animosity.
There was now no question that the prosperity of a godly man in tough times can only be the blessing of God.

Reading the story of these patriarch has brought me to see that even in the midst of a recession if you would simply use your faith in God to declare that in the midst of this recession I know that my God will bless me. If you do, then like David you would be able to say, “I’ve been young and now I’m old yet have I not seen the righteousness forsaken or his seed begging bread.”

Copyright © 2001 - 2009 - Glenn S. Ferguson

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