Seriously, what is Abundance?

I’m writing this one-and-a-half years into the roiling catastrophe crushing our civilisation. Almost all of us have lost some measure of wellbeing.

On aggregate, the human race is poorer today than we were before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on March 11 2020.

Since then, countless businesses have been shuttered, hundreds of millions of jobs and millions of lives lost, and too many personal freedoms stolen from us by governments ill-equipped to fight World War C. Things have deteriorated so much that many of us now answer the standard pessimist-optimist litmus test question – Is your glass half-empty or half-full? – pessimistically.

What should we do?

I suggest looking far beyond our depressing natural surroundings to identify robust sources of supernatural support. To begin with Christians, at least, can derive guidance and comfort from God’s Holy Word.

One of my favourite Bible verses is John 10:10, as rendered in the 1611 King James Version:

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

When my wife and I got married in 1998, we picked October 10, namely 10/10, for our big day to underscore our desire for God’s abundance. (We also scheduled our wedding ceremony – in church in Seremban, Malaysia – to kick off at precisely 10:10 am.)

John 10:10 teaches us, in Jesus’ own words, that God wants us to start enjoying His divine abundance first in the here-and-now, and only later with Him in the wild blue yonder we call heaven.

In his masterpiece Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote:

“This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there’s a rumour going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.”

That’s an astonishing way of distinguishing between our mortal life here on Earth and our immortal one to come. However, given our profound limitations grasping what Eternity might look like, I believe we should first focus on walking with God down here.

In my professional work as a licensed financial planner – specialising in crafting retirement planning and funding solutions for clients – I repeatedly explain that:

1. Money is not the most important thing in life; but
2. It does affect every other more important facet of life.

So, in my opinion, the economically wisest thing we can do is manage our money well (as opposed to doing so badly) during our fleeting, probably sub-century, earthly sojourn.

Years ago I created a plan I christened The Rajen Devadason Blueprint for Financial Freedom. (You may Google it OR – to learn it first-hand from me – attend any of my scheduled webinars; sign-up details are here: https://learn.rajendevadason.com/)

We owe it to our families and our legacies to manage our finances well. Toward that end, I define financial freedom as the happy state of no longer needing to toil for actively earned income because our money at this stage works so efficiently it steadily pumps out streams of passive income that more than cover all our living expenses.

I consider the pursuit of financial freedom a significant and noble life goal. But there is a danger if we solely fixate on that goal because from a Christian perspective attaining financial freedom is not the most important economic goal believers in Jesus may pursue.

Instead, to identify a Christian’s primary material goal, we should take a deep dive into the Bible, to a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to an apprentice circa AD 64.

In 1 Timothy 6:6-8 Paul penned these words:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” (New International Version)

In today’s trying times, the aspirational exertions of so many people – believers and non-believers alike – to attain financial freedom have been negated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus shrouding our planet with suffering, sickness and death.

Nonetheless one silver lining stands out in sharp relief against that malignant black cloud. It is this lesson from heaven, embedded in Paul’s almost 2,000-year-old first epistle to Timothy:

“…godliness with contentment is great gain.”

In Ron Blue and Jeremy L. White’s book Faith-Based Family Finances, they explain the importance of contentment ahead of all other personal considerations. In chapter 2 entitled ‘God’s Big Idea about Finances’ Blue writes:

“Many people misunderstand the idea of financial freedom. They see it as meaning financial independence, applying it to people who have built up enough assets or income stream to work when they want, vacation where they want, and buy what they want. I’ve observed, however, that a person can be financially independent without being content. Conversely, a person can be content without being financially independent.”

Anyone who studies chapter 6 of 1 Timothy, can identify seven cool Christian truths:

1. While godliness is an important character trait to nurture, alarm bells should go off in our brains the moment we sense ourselves succumbing to the temptation to don a practised veneer of godliness to camouflage personal greed aimed at amassing wealth. (Verse 5b.)
2. It is only when we fuse godliness with contentment that we begin to experience and enjoy the true bounty and abundance of Jesus. (Verse 6.)
3. The love of money – not money itself – is a root of all kinds of evil, so check your heart each day for its first love. (Verse 10.)
4. If our highest goal is to cleave to Jesus alone, then in addition to godliness we should pursue righteousness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness – all traits He exhibited when He strode along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, as He trekked across (and upon) that same Sea, as he traversed the length and breadth of Judea, and as He staggered down the Via Dolorosa – the Way of Suffering – bearing His cross for us all. (Verse 11.)
5. If God blesses us with material abundance, we would be wise to reject rising arrogance and cling to stabilising humility. (Verse 17.)
6. Christians should never put our hope in uncertain wealth but solely in God, our Source of all good things that our non-killjoy Creator yearns for us to relish. (Verse 17.)
7. When God blesses us – as He craves to – we would be wise to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven by sharing with others the material blessings God entrusts to us here on Earth. (Verses 18 and 19.)

Warning: Please don’t take my word for these seven principles; instead read and reread 1 Timothy 6 for yourself.

Later, after you’ve cross-checked each of the seven principles, remember to also read Proverbs 22:4, which teaches us that…

“Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honour and life.”

Is that worthy of an ‘Amen’?