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Emmanuel Makandiwa, UFIC

So you use a good name to acquire great riches because great riches will follow after a good name. This is something you need to start considering especially young people.

The book of Wisdom, the wisdom of God – Proverbs. There is a reason why I am choosing this chapter, Chapter 22. It is because it deals specifically with a certain age group.

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold. The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all. A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished. By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life.

Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward: he that doth keep his soul shall be far from them. Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

A good name is rather to be chosen than not just riches, but great riches. Even though the riches are great, still choosing a good name is important. Choosing a good name above great riches. He is not just talking about having a good name for the rest of your life and yet you are broke — having a good name and you are not prospering, you are not married.

You should have food on the table. Inasmuch as you would want to have a good name it is not sustainable if you do not have anything to eat or put on or if you do not have a source of income to pay for your bills. I can almost guarantee you that you will soon lose that good name. It does not work like that, it will not serve its purpose.

So He is not talking about having a good name and remain broke, He is advising you to maintain a good name in order for you to attain great riches. That is the understanding you should have and no one must use that scripture against any form of acquiring properties and prosperity saying the Bible says we should go for the good name instead of the great riches.

The Bible is actually saying have a good name first if you really want to attain great riches. Your priority should be getting a good name, working towards a good name. Work for a name. Just like in business and in the market place if your name is tarnished you cease to have any cashflow into that organisation.

When your name is tarnished you lose customers just because of a name that is not good. You need just one paper to write badly about you and say that you are selling rotten chicken and that is the end of your career. You just need one person who can move around telling people that your perfumes can cause cancer and once that news begins to spread your company will begin to go down.

I am talking about the importance of a good name. Work towards a good name rather than going after riches. So you use a good name to acquire great riches because great riches will follow after a good name. This is something you need to start considering especially young people.

If somebody assigns you a job, no matter how simple it is, any job such as washing his car, do it well, do everything very well. Get a name out of that. Do not let anyone regret having sent you to do something. Everything that you find your hands touching, you are working towards a good name. Washing your clothes, ironing or cooking, there is your name attached to that. If we are going to have the best meal cooked by you we will surely discuss and ask who did that? In everything that you do make sure that a good name is preferred than great riches.

Have a good name.

The second verse reads… “The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all.” The rich and the poor, take note of that these are names given to people. The poor and the rich, these are classes of people, categories. You belong to one of the two.

You have to make a choice whether you become poor or rich. It is the result of a decision. If the rich are rich because they made a decision to be rich it also means the poor made a decision to be poor. Maybe not to be poor but they made a decision not to be rich.

The rich and the poor meet together and God is the Creator of them all, let me explain a few words right there. The meeting here is not referring to a meeting, the actual translation says there is one thing in common. Which is all of them have God as their Creator.

Created by God

You have to understand that if God is the Creator of the rich and the poor, then it is not God who created the poor and created the rich. By creating them both He is not talking about their condition. God created them rich. All of them were created rich, every person created by God was created rich. But God also gave us power to recreate ourselves. We also have the power to reverse what He created.

That’s why when God created rivers just as we see rivers right now, but we can make a decision right now to change its course and say we do not want it to flow this way, let’s close it here and open another river that goes from here to there. We can do that. We can re-channel rivers. It is God who created but we can give His creation direction.

God created every person rich but the poor are creating themselves. Compromising God’s standard. Let me put it this way so that you can understand. The poor and the rich have one thing in common, they were both created by God which means everything given to the rich person who is now rich was also given to the poor. They all have 24 hours in a day. When the sun sets its happening to both of them at the same time, yet it appears as if the rich man has more time. It is how they use their time.

This is my belief that all of us were created rich by God, being born again is another story that comes after but we were all created prosperous right when we are born. That is why unbelievers accumulate billions of dollars and yet they have never been to church, not born again and have never spoken in any tongue. They can still do business and make money. Not because they are born again but simply because they are born. Every one created by God was given the ability to prosper. You need to understand this.

Begin to study what makes poor people poor and what makes rich people rich. Where is the secret? Why is someone qualified to have a billion dollars and I do not have a million in my account. Think about it and meditate on it. What makes one poor. People do not need to visit a place to get riches. The people you see prospering in life, the prosperity you see on the outside is as a result of the discoveries they did in the inside. They knew how to externalise what is internal. Riches do not come from places but are contained in us. We are created by God and everything needed in this life was granted to us.