Job 36:11
‘If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.’
- DAILY READING – Revelation 15; Esther 6:14-8:17; Psalm 107:1-22
Strive Masiyiwa is considered one of Africa’s most successful entrepreneurs. Though he had been a business man for some years, yet life was a pile of frustrations for Masiyiwa until he encountered God.
In the mid-1990s, few would have guessed that cell phones would become a major growth sector in African countries. But Masiyiwa did. He offered to develop a cell phone network in tandem with the Zimbabwean state telecom company, but the Mugabe-controlled government rejected his offer. The state telecom refused to grant Masiyiwa a license to cell frequencies, claiming it had the monopoly. That was when Masiyiwa sued, in 1994. The case went on for five years, and at one point, Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ruled against Masiyiwa’s company, Econet, leaving, apparently, no chance to appeal. For Masiyiwa it was a dark period of tribulations, he felt he had come to the end of the road. His wife had been urging him to come to church for years, but he had resisted. After the Supreme Court defeat, he dropped her off one Sunday at Church and drove around aimlessly, then he decided to return and sat at the back of the church. As he listened to the preacher, he became convicted and surrendered his life to Christ. He was so hungry for God that he read the entire Bible in 3 weeks.
And soon after his encounter with God, the court case was miraculously revisited and judgment was ruled in his favour. As his heart continued to pant after God he began to have a series of dreams from God that eventually led him to greater innovations in his business. Today, he has built a fortune simply by obeying divine instructions and following Biblical principles. And one of the biblical principles he strongly follows is in the area of giving. He tithes 10% of his annual income to his church. Together with his wife, he personally pays the school fees of over 30,000 Zimbabwean orphans. He is also involved in numerous philanthropies. He finds that as he sows into God’s kingdom and helps the needy, he is rewarded with increase.
Today he has become the richest man in Zimbabwe and one of the richest men in the world. His South African based Econet Wireless is now a global telecommunications group with operations, investments and offices in more than 15 countries.
In 2011 a CNN interviewer asked him. ‘I’ve read that you read the Bible for an hour every day, is that correct?’
”Oooh!” said Masiyiwa. “That’s when I’m busy. I can read it for four or five hours on the weekend.”
Indeed as Masiyiwa seeks first God’s kingdom other things are being added to him. He credits his success solely to God.
3 John 2 says ‘Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.’
Truly when our soul prospers, inevitably financial prosperity follows. When we truly serve God and follow biblical principles, we will end up above and never beneath.
When we truly commit to serving God and serving the interests of the Kingdom, then God commits Himself to blessing us. Therefore, instead of seeking first our own interests, let us seek first the promotion of God’s kingdom.
In Haggai 1:4 God questions “Is it the right time for all of you to live in your own paneled houses while this house remains in ruins?”
Our priority must be the advancement of God’s house. Kingdom service is a covenant with God, And God empowers us for wealth through the revelation and application of this covenant. When we decide to make God and His kingdom our priority, then God makes us His priority, and takes care of us.
Exodus 23:25 – 26 says ‘And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.’
Indeed when we do what God commands, we provoke His blessings, and when God blesses, it cannot be reversed.
Job 36:11 says ‘If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.’
We serve a covenant-keeping God, who says in Psalm 89:34, ‘My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips’
When we keep our part of the covenant by serving God, He keeps His part by prospering us.
PRAYER: Father please help me to make You priority in all that I do. Grant me the grace to always seek first Your kingdom so that every other thing can be added unto me in Jesus Name. .
quote :
For you to enjoy victory in the Kingdom of God, you need to develop a Kingdom mindset, that thinks in line with the Word of God. – WORDBITE 222.
[ADAPTED FROM THE BOOK TRIUMPH OF LIGHT OVER DARKNESS]