April 24, 2010
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It’s
a choice
- Last week we talked about Freedom
From Entitlement. This week we want to engage the
motivations for
choosing the security of entitlements versus the risk of responsibility
and
becoming entrepreneurial. Overcoming the poverty mentality is really
another
way of looking at spiritual maturity. Choosing, or deferring, life and
creativity and
prosperity and our destiny are decisions we all make every day whether
we intend to or not. This
day I call heaven and
earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and
death,
blessings and curses. Now choose life,
so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the
Lord your
God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your
life, and
he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your
fathers,
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deut 30:19-20 NIV The thief
comes only to
steal and kill and destroy; I have come
that they may have life, and have it
to the full. John 10:10 NIV Why
we choose security over destiny
– The servant who buried
his talent for fear of losing it describes the poverty in most of us at
some
level. Notice his attitudes; I’m suggesting that there are clear social
and
theological reasons for choosing poverty. Can you see them? "Then
another servant
came and said, 'Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a
piece of
cloth. 21 I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out
what
you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.' Luke 19:20-21 NIV "The next
servant
said, 'Master, here's your money safe and sound. I kept it hidden in
the
cellar. To tell you the truth, I was a little afraid. I know you have
high
standards and hate sloppiness, and don't suffer fools gladly.' Luke
19:20-21
The Message Bible The
slothful servant believed God is a hard man. He is
a God of both justice and mercy. God’s goal for us is competence and
fruitfulness. I think the servant understood the justice but missed the
mercy.
God himself is willing to help us get there. In fact, “He gives the
increase!”
However, the penalty for not trying is “wicked and slothful servant.”
That’s
not a label I want! Secondly,
the servant understood that God takes what He
did not sow. Here is where we totally miss the nature of God. Like the
servant,
we often believe that God should give us things (entitlement
mentality). The
truth is that God expects us to “sow our talents” until they multiply.
Paul
said, “I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” (1 Cor
3:6) The servant’s
instructions were to put the
money to work (do business) until he returned (Luke 19:13). Get it?
It’s our
job to sow, do business, and take the initiative. Will we make
mistakes? Of course!
I would much rather make a mistake trying to build the Kingdom and
inherit my
destiny than sit around waiting for an entitlement to show up and call
it faith. Can
you see where the anointing to increase is? If we
are willing to sow (show initiative and use our talents) God gives the
increase. It’s only when we become willing to step into our talent that
“life”
begins. The life that Jesus promised isn’t for the timid and faint of
heart;
life is inherited by those willing to step into their land with
courage, persistence,
and discipline. Their watchword is “competence.” They arrive at
competence
through mentoring. It’s not magic… or even hard. In fact, it’s fun! For God did
not give us a spirit
of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 2
Tim 1:5
NIV What
are talents and minas?
– You can view talents and minas as
money, talent, opportunity, gifting, etc. We each have been given an
exciting
destiny. Our job is to choose it and sow into it to make it happen.
Let’s go
one step further. God has written into our heart’s desires the role he
would
like us to play in the Kingdom. Your assignment isn’t just what you
have a
talent for, it’s something you really enjoy doing. For many in poverty,
the
good news is simply too good to be true! They don’t believe it. The
social drivers
– This battlefront is also seen in
cultures and politics. Listen to Dinesh D’Souza, a US citizen who
emigrated
from India. “In
most countries in the
world your fate and your identity are handed to you; in America, you
determine
them for yourself. America is a country where you get to write the
script of
your own life. Your life is like a blank sheet of paper, and you are
the
artist. This notion of being the architect of your own destiny is the
incredibly powerful idea that is behind the worldwide appeal of
America. Young people
especially find irresistible the prospect of authoring the narrative of
their
own lives.” Pg
261, The
10 Big Lies About America by Michael Medved PS: I highly recommend this book. It exposes ten common misconceptions about the history of the United States and it will leave you an informed, unashamed patriot… proud of our spiritual heritage and exited about the role we’ve been given to build the Kingdom. Examples
of entitlements
– I’m giving some examples of entitlements
in the US available to everyone. Social
Security
– Social security is a government pension fund that is
mandated through taxes. Everyone pays into it. It does provide some
income upon
retirement. The downside is that it has encouraged an entire middle
class to
believe their retirement was covered so they generally have not saved
for
themselves and they are not passing along any inheritance to their
children.
The fund may not exist! The government has spent the money, so baby
boomers
approaching retirement are not likely to receive their benefits.
Inflation
tends to make the payments inadequate to live on, and the bankruptcy of
the
system makes it the largest “Ponzi scheme” a government has perpetrated
on its
citizens in history. The sad mystery is the wealth lost to Americans
who never
considered the option of investing their own savings in either a
business of
their own or as stock in another prosperous business. Welfare
–
Welfare in the US was reformed in 1996 to limit the duration of
benefits and
encourage education and employment. Since then, the welfare rolls have
declined. Prior to that, the system paid more per child. The net effect
was
that mothers didn’t need working fathers, and marriages were negatively
affected. In 2004, 56% of black children lived in single-mother
families,
compared to 22% white and 31% Hispanic. Welfare created a culture of
dependency
and gang activity, and reinforced the poverty mindset. Star Parker
wrote a book
about the whole ugly cycle aptly entitled Uncle
Sam’s Plantation. Education
–
Public schools in the US are funded by state and federal funds. This
was not
the case historically, but education is now considered an entitlement.
For
grades K-12 the government has given us the most expensive education
system in
the world on a per child basis and it ranks 25th
in the world when measured
by academic
performance. Christians are opting for home and private
schooling options
in ever greater numbers because the federal government mandates the
absence of
prayer and imposes either an amoral or immoral perspective on many
issues. Sex
education is used to promote the gay lifestyle, for example. Conclusion
–
There are many more examples of poorly performing entitlements. They
are simply
illustrations of the importance of personal responsibility. When we own
the
issues and take responsibility to act, great solutions appear to every
problem
(see one of our prior newsletters The
Next Great Idea). Expecting a secular entity like
the government to
provide for you can make God’s real provision invisible. That is the
blindness
of entitlements imposed by the poverty mentality. What if the blinders
come off
and we look at something, like poverty, through God’s eyes? Eradicating
poverty
– The goal of reducing or eliminating poverty
worldwide is noble, Kingly and Biblical. The two traditional solutions
offered
are church outreach programs or government outreach programs. One
relies on
tithes, the other relies on taxes… sounds about the same doesn’t it –
“What can
we do with other people’s money?” I
simply want to suggest that the real answer is
Releasing Kings, becoming entrepreneurial, allowing free markets and
personal
initiative. Government and Church can facilitate the work of Kings but
those
institutions cannot perform the work God has assigned us. God works
through
such things so mightily that 100’s of millions are being lifted out of
poverty
as we speak. Listen to Fareed Zakaria, of CNN and Newsweek: “Over
the past quarter century,
the global economy has doubled every 10 years, going from #31 trillion
in 1999
to $62 trillion in 2008. Recessions have become tamer than ever before,
averaging eight months rather than two years. More than 400 million
people
across Asia have been lifted out of poverty. Between 2003 and 2007,
average
income worldwide grew at a faster rate (3.1 percent) than in any
previous
period in recorded human history. In 2006 and 2007- the peak years of
the boom –
124 countries around the world grew at 4 percent a year or more, about
four
times as many as 25 years earlier.” Pg
43, The
5 Big Lies About
American Business by Michael Medved
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