Kick-starting economic growth God’s way

[notice] A fortnightly column by Johannesburg Business Editor, Patrick Kuwana. [/notice]

The Lord has given me the privilege to be in the USA as I write this article where I have been attending the Nehemiah Project Biblical Entrepreneurship conference and completing my Biblical Business Coaching certification training. It’s been an amazing time of meeting Kingdom business and economic leaders and having the opportunity to give the keynote conference presentation on “The vision for establishing Kingdom economy in Africa and in the nations”.

A lot of the talk here in the USA is about the state of the global economy and what to do to kick start recovery. What I have come to realise is that when most of the great economists of the world get together to debate strategies to kick start economic recovery the debate mainly centres around either an ‘austerity measures based strategy’ or a ‘stimulus package based strategy’. In fact the whole USA election campaign is centred on the Democrats (Barrack Obama) favouring the ‘stimulus’ approach and the Republicans (Mitt Romney) favouring the ‘austerity’ approach.

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Austerity Measures
“Austere” means “strict or severe in discipline”. Austerity measures are strict measures that are undertaken by a government to help bring expenditures more in line with revenues. Austerity measures usually include a combination of spending cuts and tax/fee increases. Most European countries (Greece, Spain, Italy and UK for example) have already imposed or are in the process of introducing austerity measures as their strategy.

Stimulus Package
This is a package of economic measures put together by the government to stimulate a floundering economy. The objective of a stimulus package is to reinvigorate the economy and prevent or reverse a recession by boosting employment and spending. The theory behind the usefulness of a stimulus package argues that the impact of a recession can be lessened with increased government spending. The global recession of 2008-2009 led to unprecedented stimulus packages being unveiled by governments around the world. In the United States, the $787-billion stimulus package dubbed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 contained a huge array of tax breaks and spending projects aimed at vigorous job creation and a swift revival of the U.S. economy.
Please note that the USA is now sitting with $16 trillion of debt, is printing money and literally about to collapse.

A quick note on debt
I remember the Bible verse that says the borrower will become slave to lender (Proverbs 22:7). I wonder if that is what we see happening with the USA with regards to China and in fact what we see with the Western world with regards to the Eastern world (Asia)?

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As a side point, the reason why I believe Africa will bring Kingdom economy to the world is that we have the majority of God’s created natural resources and we are relatively free of debt as a continent. The debt we have as a continent can easily be covered by the wealth of natural resources God has given us. As much as it seems that Africa is last in the world’s economic eyes, I believe in God’s economy we as a continent are in pole position and just need to get the leadership issues sorted out.

Kingdom Multiplication strategy
I believe there is a 3rd strategy that has not made it yet into the political economic think tanks and powerful corporate boardrooms. It’s the ‘Kingdom Multiplication strategy’. It’s actually based on the very first words God spoke to man in Genesis 1:28. This strategy is based on some key fundamental principles –

1. God created abundant resources for mankind (there is no such thing as scarce resources) in Kingdom Economy. The Body of Christ needs to renew their minds on this point because we will never make economic progress if we come from the foundational worldly economic lie of scarce resources. (This lie of scarce resources has brought about wars, murder, theft, greed, divorce, manipulation, corruption – the list just continues ….).

2. Man is created in God’s image and hence we have been given the power and mandate to be fruitful and multiply (increase the wealth of humankind) from the resources that God initially created.

3. We are not owners of any resource on this earth – we are stewards and we need to steward all that we have been given according to the rules the owner (God) has given us. These rules are in the Bible.

4. God has given each person unique talents, gifts and passions and each person should be given the opportunity to use them through productive work so that a return will be produced. We are created to work – God worked for 6 days and then rested. We are created in God’s image and hence one of the attributes of God is work.

5. Diligently adhering to the economic principles that God has given us in the manual (the owner’s manual on how to do it successfully). Deuteronomy 28:1-14 gives some insight of the results a nation can experience by following the owner’s manual.
I find it very interesting that whenever I read about an economic related situation in the Bible I always see supernatural levels of return being achieved – 30-60-100 fold. Likewise when seemly few resources are presented to God, He has this amazing knack of multiplying them – Elijah and the widow (1 Kings 17:8-16) and the young boy with the fish (John 6:5-13) . He also seems to have a solution to debt when it’s brought to him – Elisha and the poor widow (2 Kings 4:1-7). The Bible is full of economic case studies. Now if these are the sort of economic recovery results the ‘Kingdom Multiplication’ strategy guarantees, it’s crazy that the world is still talking about Austerity Measures and Stimulus Package strategies. We as the Body of Christ are sitting with the blueprint to sustainable economic recovery and growth and we should be shouting from the rooftops to bring it to the world.

I have presented this discussion in very simplistic terms and there is obviously a lot more to God’s economic blueprint than I have covered here. The point I want to make is that the Bible that you are in possession of has the foundational principles and the Holy Spirit then comes in and tells us (believers) how to apply those principles to bring about God glorifying economic transformation.

Foolishness
Let us not be shy to tell the world the solution that the Lord has already provided. Initially the world might not understand it because the wisdom of God seems foolish to the world. But what seems very foolish to me is that the same highly learned so called economic visionaries and strategists who are being tasked to find economic solutions are the same ones whose advice has brought about the collapse. I don’t know about you but that sounds really foolish to me!