Landfill

From the Landfill to the Boardroom
By Kenneth Copland.

If you’ve been struggling with financial lack, here’s some news that may surprise you: The solution to your problem is not more money.
Most people will tell you it is, but they’re wrong. Poverty—or lack of any kind—is not a money problem. It’s a spiritual problem that came on mankind through the curse of sin, and it can only be solved by a revelation of what Jesus did about it on the cross. It can only be conquered by renewing your mind to the fact that “… though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
In the 46 years I’ve been in ministry, I’ve been shocked to see how dramatically that scriptural truth can transform people. When they stop believing what the world says about their financial condition and start believing what God said, poverty completely loses its hold on them. They move out of the landfill into the boardroom. They become living testimonies to the fact that God “raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people” (Psalm 113:7-8).
I’ve seen it happen again and again. Not just in prosperous nations like America, but in some of the most poverty-stricken places on this planet.
Take Nigeria, for instance. Some years ago, I was there preaching at Bishop Benson Idahosa’s church and he arrived to pick me up for the service in a snow-white Mercedes limousine. It was one of the most beautiful cars I’d ever seen, and in a nation where in those days even a bicycle was considered a luxury, it was a sign and wonder on wheels.
I know how Bishop Idahosa, who has since gone home to be with The LORD, operated in ministry. He lived by faith and taught the people in his church to do the same. So I knew there must be a story behind this car. As we drove through the streets, the story began to unfold. Pointing to the ragged-looking peddlers along the roadside, Bishop Idahosa said, “You see those people? They’re selling used motor oil. It’s cleaned up and filtered and then they sell it cheap to people who don’t have enough money to buy new oil.” I could tell just by looking at them it was a miserable business. The poor selling to the poor, and everyone staying poor in the process. So, Bishop Idahosa’s next statement was a stunner. “The woman who gave me this car used to be one of those peddlers,” he said. “She was living on pennies a day, but then she got hold of The WORD of God. She found out that Jesus had delivered her from poverty and learned about sowing and reaping. She believed it and started acting on it. Before long, God put her in the real oil business. She went from selling the used stuff to selling the real thing—in a big way!” I didn’t have to ask him if she was successful at it. I was riding in the answer to that question. Clearly, God had done for that woman what no amount of charitable handouts ever could have. He’d lifted her out of poverty, not by sending people to give her money, but by sending her His WORD to get the poverty out of her!

Watch out for continuation!!!