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Business and Faith V - Money.

Friday, Sept 11, 2009. We are talking about the relation between Christian faith and business. Money is one of the main tools and ingredients of business. Without some equivalent of value, business is a mere countertrade economy. We need to measure and exchange the value of goods, of food and drink, of chairs and tables, of machines and clothing with the value of services and activities. This is carried out by conversion of the value of some good or activity into money, and the reconversion of money into activity or goods. This is in principle a good thing - nothing against a good tool.

But Jesus and the bible warn strongly against the wrong use of money. Since money is a tool and symbol of value, we tend to get as much as possible of it. What can be the problem with a lifestyle which is oriented towards money?

We have already talked intensively about values. Our life has many layers and many values. A money driven society tends to convert any value into a monetary value. But that is difficult to carry out for many of the layers. Life itself is so much more worth than we could measure with money, that it can be called stupid if we would try to measure it. But it is still carried out indirectly by our economy and by people all over the world. We devalue the value of human life, since we are focussed on a particular layer of life, the monetary layer. We disvalue the value of attention, of community, of the joy of understanding, since we are so focussed on the monetary layer, which we call “business success”.

How can we keep the right balance for our business, for our use of money? How can we put it all into a healthy ensemble? How can we put our way to use money, our business and our values together in a way which makes sense on a global scale, when we look at it within a complete framework? The Christian answer says: live with God. If you live with him on a daily basis, if you put the creator and Lord first in your life, all things will fall into their place. If we put him into the focal point of our life, we are able to balance all the different needs we have and tools we use. He will give an appropriate value to everything. He helps us to conduct and lead our business. With him we set the right values. He is “the truth, the way and the life”.

There is much more to say about money. How do we control our own personal expenses? Perhaps we have debts? How do we get out of a difficult situation where the payments we have to do monthly are a big burden for us? Perhaps we have to care for a small enterprise, or for a large one. How do we get it right? How do we make the right decisions to lead our personal business or our professional business into a sustainable future? Perhaps our business has no future since we try to sell old-fashioned products?

Here we cannot go into details of financial management. There are many people who can help and give advice on a practical level - either personally or professionally. But one key point will be for us to live with the Lord on all levels of our life, in particular on the monetary level. If we keep asking him how to move forward, he will help us and guide us. He can teach us a healthy use of money and a healthy way to carry out business. He will not guarantee success, but he will guide us in a way which will be much more valuable than any values our business could generate or any values we could own. He is the Lord. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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