What does the Bible say about overcoming the financial crises?

Question:

How to cope with financial crisis in our homes, in our company, in our society?

Understand external causes

There are some external causes that bring poverty in our countries, businesses and homes. It is important to realize that all things are under the control of God, as it is written in the Bible:

The LORD makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts. He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with nobles, and inherit a seat of honor; for the pillars of the earth are the LORD’S, and He set the world on them. (1 Samuel 2:7-8)(NASB)

God has brought now a financial and economic crisis in the world and thus He humbles some, but the crisis affects us all greater or less.

Other external causes, that are not related to you, may be a hail, a drought or other disaster that has destroyed the harvest of your labor and you got in a crisis. Try to understand why God allowed this to happen to you and what He wants to communicate or to change in your life.

Check internal causes

This is how I called the causes that depend on you and you can change or remove them. One of the reasons is laziness:

Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. (Proverbs 10:4)(NASB)

Another reason is that you do not listen to the advice of wise people who seek your advantage:

Poverty and shame will come to him who neglects discipline, but he who regards reproof will be honored. (Proverbs 13:18)(NASB)

Another frequent cause is avarice, when you do not help others and all that avarice makes you not invest wisely and in due time:

There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want. (Proverbs 11:24)(NASB)

Evil passions always entail poverty:

For the heavy drinker and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe one with rags. (Proverbs 23:21)(NASB)

If you want to get rich quickly and without work, or with the smallest effort, you’ll also get poor:

He who tills his land will have plenty of food, but he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty. A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished. (Proverbs 28:19-20)(NASB)

See which of these causes match your situation and seek to be freed from them as fast as you can.

Understand God’s will

Even diligent and wise people have come to pass through major financial and economic crisis in their lives. Because all work for the good of those who love God, even these situations have their positive side. James writes in the epistle that has his name:

Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? (James 2:5)(NASB)

Financial and economic crisis are working on our character and enrich us in faith.

Learn from the crisis through which you pass

The Apostle Paul wrote to Christians from the city of Philippi, when he thanked them for the material assistance he had received from them:

But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:10-13)(NASB)

Do not cease to worship God

Let us learn from this case reported in the Gospels:

And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44)(NASB)

Remember that God is the one that impoverishes and enriches, and economic and financial crisis is a good test for our love and obedience to God. Worship God always.

Serve others even in poverty

When he was in Corinth (which was a town of rich people) and planted the church, the Apostle Paul received financial support from churches of Macedonia. Later, when he urged Christians from Corinth to be generous and help those from Jerusalem, who were passing through a crisis period, the Apostle Paul wrote the following:

Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. (2 Corinthians 8:1-5)(NASB)

Follow the example of Christians who have lived beautifully in prosperity and in poverty. God help us to do the same.

Translated by Felicia Rotaru