Daily Devotionals

A watchman (that’s you), should keep an eye on the economy of their world. Your watch is incomplete if you do not understand the economy of your world. You have to understand that your quest to watch over your world must have an effect on the culture and economy of your world. If you ever look back and cannot define how you have impacted the economy of your world for the better, then you are getting it wrong. You are watching your world and steering it towards a better future. That future must be economically better than the present day or there is no point in doing so.

The Holy Bible has a lot to say about the economy of people. The theory in the Bible is that people-groups prosper economically when they are God-fearing and build a just society. When they “sin” by forsaking righteousness and injustice increases in their world, they are plagued by hunger, famine, diseases and another nation comes along to annex them. When you think about it, you realize that God fought against the economy of the Egyptians with the ten plagues in the days of Moses. God did not threaten the Pharaoh with religion or lack-of-access to the afterlife. The plagues that Moses brought down from heaven attacked their economy.

You must understand the economy of your world. You will fail to put things in proper perspectives without having a good grasp on the economy of your world. In the Book of Jonah, the Lord scolds the prophet, “should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:11 ESV). The Lord is not only concerned about their numbers, but also concerned about their productivity. The remark about “much cattle” is a reference to the state of their economy. In any town, village, city or sphere of life you operate, you have to understand the economy.

Why do some people sacrifice so much for others? What do they know that the rest of us don’t? While most of us would rather focus on our personal betterment without giving any thought to the collective wellbeing, some people cherish the chance to serve the larger world ahead of themselves. What on earth could make a man lay down his life for his friends? It is counterintuitive, but we get more benefits from altruistic behaviours than selfish conduct. This is because you will not get fulfillment from the things you get, but from the things you give.

A 2020 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked to determine if selfish people did better in life. The result was shocking. It revealed that people with selfless attitudes and conduct were more wealthy than their selfish counterparts and also had more children. We would have thought selfishness would make you richer than selflessness, however, that is not true. It is not a coincidence that the wealthiest people in the world are considered to be some of the biggest givers. Elon Musk once said he considers all his companies to be philanthropic ventures. Companies inspired by solving problems for the human race. This is different from companies created primarily to make money and build wealth for shareholders.

Imagine for a moment that you are Jesus. If faced with a choice to keep your own life, would you? In the real sense of it, you would not. This is because the significance and impact of your self-sacrifice outweighs whatever personal gain you envisage for yourself. If Jesus turned down the cross and continued his ministry to teach, heal and deliver, it could never have the same impact as it once did. At that point, he had already trained scores of disciples that could teach, heal and deliver. The most productive thing only he could do was to sacrifice himself as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Selflessness aligns you with the greater good and bestows a deep sense of accomplishment difficult to explain with words.

The first step towards functioning as a salt and light of the world is to grow your soul to understand that life should not be about you. If you reject this mindset, you cannot manifest as salt and light of your world. So, you could see the need to watch your world and steer it, but you will never get started without this important mindset shift. It is hard to serve God and yourself at the same time. There will always be a conflict of interest between doing things for yourself and choosing to put others ahead of yourself. It becomes easier when you make the decision to be selfless and stick to it.

Jesus got to a point where he had to surrender his life for the greater good. A point whereby his personal interests and the collective progress were not in alignment and he had to choose saving the world over his own life. He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). It takes some deep understanding about how the world works for a man to get to a point where he gives up his life for his friends.

It is fun to declare in public that you want to function as the salt and light of your world. However, the day-to-day demands and implications are serious matters. If your assignment means sacrificing the things that make you happy, how would you respond? Are you open to the idea of delaying your marriage for decades? Watching as others get married and have kids. Would you sacrifice taking on a job for the freedom to pursue your vision? What if you had to spend another ten years in school to get a PhD inorder to be fit for your high calling? And are you submitted to the person or institution that embodies your mission? These are the things you must make peace with, if you want to watch over your world for God.

Creativity is about developing your original ideas that are useful to your world. You create something that has some utility to your family, school, community, city or nation. Creativity is productive and requires you to go beyond religiosity and onto true spirituality. Religious people produce nothing and are at best, described as rent-seekers. Rent-seeking is an economic concept that refers to people (or entities) that want to partake and increase their own wealth without any value creation, or increase in productivity. Religious people want to get things without creating any benefits or wealth to the society. This mindset is counterproductive and inhibits creativity.

Christianity is not about asking God to miraculously give you everything you want. Christianity is not a call to bland religion or generic spirituality. Religious values like “follow peace with all men” or “love others as much as you love yourself” are nice, but not the core of Christianity. Christianity is a call for you to advance the mission of Jesus. A mission to love the world so much that you are ready to sacrifice your personal ambition, goals and aspirations just to serve the world (John 3:16-17, John 15:13). Jesus declared that he came to serve and not to be served (Mark 10:45). We see that this thing is not about getting stuff, it is about service – your service to the world.

Creativity is driven by spirituality, a kind of spiritual practice that makes you take responsibility and partner with the Divine to make things happen in your world. You have to shift perspectives from “God will do it for me”, to “God will do it through me”. Your prayer changes from “God do it for me miraculously”, and it then becomes “God empowers me to solve problems”. This mindset shift is required as it drives you into greater productivity (fruitfulness!). As you seek to solve problems and serve your world, wisdom and knowledge is made available to create solutions, frameworks and technologies to obtain results.

If we made a list of the biggest problems facing society today, here are some of the things we would list. Moral decadence in the society, lack of appropriate role models, religious fanaticism, cultism, poor education, indiscipline, drug abuse, political manipulation of youth organizations, unemployment and underemployment, breakdown of family values. However, we can argue that society has been plagued by a single problem; breakdown of the family unit. The breakdown of family values created the necessary conditions for every other problem. It has been said that family is the smallest unit of society. If you want to heal society in a thorough manner, you have to start from the family level.

The studies conducted around mass shootings in America revealed some disturbing facts. Like the fact that 75% of the most recent school shooters in the USA, including the 18-year-old in Uvalde, Texas, were raised in broken homes without fathers. Your world might not have that same problem (mass shooting), but the effects of broken homes can be observed if one takes a close look. There is no substitute for having a father and mother, selflessly building their home with godly virtues. You are a product of your family background. Nobody becomes a light of their world without adequate parental care and training.

As a watchman tasked with steering us towards a better future, you have to realize the importance of family values. Your watch must include plans to strengthen the family. There will not be a world to watch over if the institution of family is eroded. You must teach people to make Christ the head of their homes once again. The love, peace and trust that would characterize such a home would mould good people who would make a positive difference in their world. You must defend the sanctity of marriage as a divinely established union between a man and a woman. The most important battle to be fought this decade (and century), is the battle for family values.

We need to get serious about lighting up our world. This is a very sacred duty that requires much thoughtfulness. You have been tasked with steering us towards a better future. It is time to figure out how best to pursue this assignment. Your world is subject to several influences, and your failure to be a positive influence will have a disastrous outcome. You need to be associated with doing what is right. You do it in such a manner that other people can see the good works that you do, and as a result they will praise your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing. It is no good to retreat from the larger society and cluster in smaller groups, quarantined from the world. Many followers of Jesus in the modern world seem content to retreat behind the walls of their church. This is not the best policy, and it is an action that contradicts the sacred scriptures. Apostle Paul wrote about how impractical it would be to ignore the world (1 Corinthians 15: 9 – 13). Christians are to be equipped in church so that they can function and bear fruit in the world. Failure to do this is an invitation for evil to prevail.

We need to see your good works so that we will praise your God. There are so many things you can do in your capacity as the salt and light of the world. The world is lost and in need of guidance, awaiting the emergence of the watchman. Some of the biggest problems in the world today include spiritual emptiness, poverty, hunger, diseases, and illiteracy. By the grace of God, we know that you have answers and solutions to all of these problems. For example, you can help people overcome spiritual emptiness through bible-based discipleship. There is nothing else that can satisfy a sense of purpose. It is time to step up. May the Lord be able to depend upon you in your day.

You need to shift from the pursuit of personal success to a focus on contribution to the advancement of your world. A desire to make a better future for yourself is not bad or even selfish. However, you have to realize that every world must balance the takers and givers in the system. The takers use the collective resources for their own personal betterment without giving any thought to sustainability of their world. The givers sacrifice their personal ambition and short-term profit for collective good. No society can enjoy long lasting peace and prosperity if the takers outnumber the givers.

Jesus beckons on you to act with a mindset of taking responsibility for the betterment of your world. Serving as the light of your world requires a shift in mindset and motive. You take your place amongst the givers and are no longer content to take. It is very important to understand that the benefits you enjoy from society today is from the labor of “givers” in times past. They labored to build a world driven by justice, compassion and living with integrity. It is a rich legacy, and now, it is your turn to shine your light and place contributing to society ahead of your personal success.

At the end of it all, you have to focus on what really matters. You will not be celebrated for all the riches you amassed, but for impact, legacy and contributions to the larger society. Names like Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Mary Slessor and Alexander Fleming all ring a bell because of how their good works made the world a better place than they met it. In practical terms, you might feel a need to amass some riches first, and then transition towards contribution. However, this commandment to be a salt and light of the world requires thoughtfulness.

It all begins with a decision. A decision to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). You get to a point where you realize that life should not be about you, but about how you can contribute to the larger society. Christianity is defined by selflessness and it is “unchristian” to focus exclusively on your personal concerns without sparing a thought for your world. Working as the salt and light of your world is not a function of your income or resources. It is a decision to respond to the words of Jesus.

Your higher life in Christ begins when you make that switch from trying to use God to get what you want and focus on the betterment of your world instead. Beyond the four walls of the church, there are a lot of positive differences you can make in the economy, culture, and government. You should focus on how you can wield an influence over the economy of your world. The trick is to make a decision that you want to do so. You have to take responsibility for the economy of your world before you can seek productivity at that level. You will receive grace, wisdom and power for performance after you take responsibility.

Tony Elumelu lights up his world when he facilitates training, mentorship and $5,000 startup capital for thousands of African Entrepreneurs every year (since 2015). It would be naive to think he is doing this because he has no personal ventures of his own or personal problems. You do not have to start with your country or $5,000 per recipient. It could be as simple as setting aside a tithe of your time to work for people that cannot afford your professional fee. There is never going to be a day when you will not have personal problems of your own. You have to make the switch from focusing on your personal problems to focusing on your duty to light up the economy of your world.

You serve as the light of the world through your good works. When you light up your world, people will bask in your light and glorify your father in heaven. There should be something about you that influences an aspect of society in a positive way. You need to stop thinking about “light up the world” as a spiritual affair. This is not some vague light or some internal, spiritual bliss you enjoy. Jesus was being quite explicit when he explained that you are meant to be the kind of light that is not hidden (Matthew 5:14 – 16).

In the real sense of it, darkness is not the opposite of light. Scientists do not measure darkness, there is no physical quantity that expresses darkness. As far as we can tell, darkness is the absence of light. So, the darkness in your world is due to the absence of good people to light it up with good works. Think about how dark and bleak your world would be if certain people did take up the responsibility of lighting it up. You have people working round the clock to solve problems that are not even their concern. There are many problems in your world today, and someone (that’s you, by the way), must step up and decide they will shine brighter than the darkness.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising (Isaiah 60:1‭-‬3 ESV). It is time for a fresh approach to life. The idea that there is a lot of good you could do that makes a positive difference in society. If you do not do this good you could do, there will be darkness. If you do the good you could do, “His glory” will be seen upon you. Benjamin Franklin asked himself two questions each day. In the morning, he asked, “What good shall I do this day?” At the end he asked “What good have I done today?”

A frightening amount of people do not try enough to push through their ideas, initiatives and projects. This is a collective loss to the human race. You are a part of something bigger than yourself. You are a part of a community, a society, a world, and it is the shared responsibility of everyone to contribute towards the peace and progress of their world. There is an obligation for you to contribute to your world, you have to do all you can to push through. If you think about it, you would see that you are robbing us of the glory of God. For it is written that we would give glory to God when we see your good works (Matthew 5:16).

Take a look around you right now, and understand that everything you can see, feel and touch were made by God working through human agents. Think about your country or community, and the major events that shaped it over time for better or worse. There must have been people who pushed through their political ideas (and agenda). Others who pushed through their economic ideas (agenda). There are people pushing their ideas (agenda) through music, movies and other artistic forms of expression. Our collective space is defined and shaped by people who are bold enough to push through their ideas, initiatives and projects.

Your life should light up your world. So, don’t hide your light. God has sent you to your world for a reason. You must identify the reason, and work as hard as you can with the right people towards a realization of your good works. It is not about you, it is the fact that this is about something bigger than yourself. This is about allowing the world to glorify your God because their lives have been changed for the better by your good works. Pushing out your good works will not be easy. You will be fighting off opposing works of the devil for worldly domination. Do not be afraid or bothered about that, because in Jesus name, you have the victory already!