HERE IS WHY I LIKE TALKING ABOUT MONEY

From Chudi Onyemeri to A Noble Friend,

My dear friend,

I have been receiving some kind of messages that makes me concerned. I have been receiving messages that makes me feel a pang in my chest. I People have been asking me why I talk about money so much. I want to use this medium to correct as asumption. I love talking about money, I WILL NEVRE STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. I LOVE SEEING PEOPLE BECOME RICH AND HAVING ENOUGH WITH THEM. I grew up in a very poor neighboorhood. We used to live on the smallesst house on the street. Poor people around us were richer than us. I sued to scrap the pot to eat meal. I never had a trouser as a school uniform in High school until I was in the final class in high school. I know what it is like to live in poverty. I know how it feels like to see your parents working and struggling and never able to buy you the clothes you desire as a child.

I saw my good and hardworking dad struglle from one job to another. he was a bricklayer at a time, a security man at another, a trader at a point, a labourer at another time. He did all sort of job to keep us but it was never enough. My mother sold Corn to keep us alive and stay away from hardship. My mother was the financier of the home. I hated that as a child. I hate seeing my parents struggling to raise us up. This pain birth in me a desire to be rich. A desire to make it in life.

When I and my friend, Tade met a man whom we refer to as RARE Mentor, he told us some valuable secrets. and he made us promise him that we are going to teach other this secret. It is not that I like teach. I prefer living it than teaching it. I and my partner are teaching it because our RARE Mentor said we should.

I would rather be silent on the issue of money and making it quietly if RARE Mentor had not said we should.

After I and my friend, Tade Esan took on this assignment, we found out that, African families are bombarded on a daily basis with television commercials and newspaper ads that tell us to want and buy more and more things that we really don’t need… As a nation, we are up to our eyeballs in credit-card debt and second mortgages, and “financial anxiety” is a major factor in stress-related health problems.

Since money is the most common means of exchanging goods and services in modern society (ATM Cards notwithstanding), we have to teach our Africans from the earliest possible age how an Orthodox Christian approaches money. The “love of money is the root of all evil”, according to I Timothy 6:10, and while the actual money itself is neutral, the way we make it, save it, and spend it can be either “good” or “evil” and affect our journey toward salvation. (Judas Iscariot coveted silver, and look what happened to him!)

What is money to an Orthodox Christian?

In the Nicene Creed, the First and Second Ecumenical Councils summarized the basics of the Orthodox Christian Faith, including the belief that God the Father created the “visible and invisible” — the world we know and see, and the world of the angels, that we can’t see — and that He created everything from nothing (see Genesis 1:31). He created the earth. He created the plants and animals. He created us. And He created in us every ability we possess: the ability to think, to reason, to make the decision to love Him or reject Him. He created in each of us unique talents and skills, so that we could act as caretakers for the rest of creation and “mediate” between Him and the world — offering part of it back to Him with praise and thanksgiving, and using the rest to sustain ourselves.

In the Old Testament, the “offerings” made to God by His followers were the most perfect birds, calves, lambs, and bulls, taken to the Temple to be killed and burned by the priests. God was given the “first, choicest” of what was raised by man.

After the Sacrifice of Christ, the Church also offers the fruits of man’s labor to God — bread (made from the wheat God created) and wine (made from His grapes) — only to have them returned to us, transformed, for our salvation. We also understand stewardship — the giving of our love, talent, time, and the fruits of our labor — as our personal “offering” to Him through the Church.

In our society, we apply our talents and skills “on the job” or in a profession. The result of our labor can’t usually be seen and quantified easily — there aren’t 10 full bushels of wheat in the warehouse at the end of the day. Instead, we receive a paycheck (or a direct deposit notice), which is the world’s measure of the “value” of our labors. For us, money is what we have at the end of the day when we use the skills and talents God has given us in His creation. Money is the “fruit” we are able to offer back to God — and the most significant in our cultural context because money is our standard for all types of exchange. Once we have earned it and offered some back to God, money is a tool we can use to do God’s work (e.g., provide for the homeless and hungry, spread the Gospel) and provide the necessities for our family’s own life: food, clothing, shelter, education, savings for emergencies and retirement.

I teach money because I want people to serve God with it.
I teach about it, because without it you can hardly know the intent of a man heart.

I teach because I hate poverty.

I teach because Money Is a Spiritual Issue

I Teach about it because it is Powerful

I teach because Money brings happiness but does not buy happiness. You cannot be happy without it.

I teach about money because Debt is expected but avoidable.

I teach because A little more money will solve many though not all problems.

I teach about money because it is a hard subject for many to grasp.

I teach about money because the greatest battle of man after sickness and disease is the battle against poverty.

I teach because you can serve God well when you have money. The Good Samaritan could help that traveler who was in danger because he had money. He took him to an Inn, and asked the people there to bill him for the expenses. Perhaps the Levites had no money with him. So the Levite is bad because he overlooked the problem of that man. Do you if he had the money to take care of him?

These are my reasons
Warm Regards

I Remain your Noble Friend,
Chudi Onyemeri
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