LOVE IS WEALTH

More now than ever we realize how powerful and how valuable “love” is. Love is priceless in this season we are in the world with the Covid 19 Global pandemic. Love is more valuable than money or silver or gold. Love cannot be bought. It is given freely. As I write this I am reminded of some verses on love in my favourite books.

“Love is large and incredibly patient.[f] Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous[g] when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. 5 Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated[h] or quick to take offense.[i] 6 Love joyfully celebrates honesty[j] and finds no delight in what is wrong.[k] 7 Love is a safe place of shelter,[l] for it never stops believing the best for others.[m] Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. 8 Love never stops loving.” 1 Corinthians 13 TPT
In this season there is much love being displayed in the world. From the doctors and nurses who are at the forefront fighting this pandemic; To the thousands of medical practitioners who have willingly come out of retirement to play their part; From even the musicians who have been so gracious to host live concerts and musical sessions via their social media handles;
To the communities that choose to sing songs in groups to help those who are lonely during the lock down.
Now more than ever we appreciate the value of love. Even in a lock down , you can’t quantify the joy of having family around whether it’s your mother, your father, sister, brother, spouse or children. My heart goes out to the elderly who are on their own at this time. For the young single adults who live on their own, now more than ever you would appreciate the virtue of loving yourself and loving your own company.
The greatest symbol of love in this season is the love of God and the fact that over 2000 years ago, He sent His only begotten son, Jesus to the earth because He loves us so much and didn’t want anyone to perish. The Bible in John 3 : 16 says For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that anyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”
After the fall there was a spiritual death which led to a physical death. Gods plan was always for us to have everlasting life hence the tree of life in the garden. God then drove man out of the garden so he couldn’t live forever in the fallen state.
Fast forward Jesus died and gave us eternal life. He did this by shedding his blood for us.
When I asked the Father for an analogy of love, He said blood. Blood is the substance that carries nutrients and oxygen round the body. 55% is made up of plasma (which is 90% water, 8% protein and 2% nutrients/hormones/electrolytes ) and the remaining 45% (1% white blood cells and the remaining red blood cells. The red blood cells carry oxygen. Water is a predominant part of the blood. The earth was covered in water before creation and even now 70% of the earth is water and water is integral for all human life.

The Bible talks about the water of life in Revelation 22:1–2 “Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

The Bible says there is life in the blood in Leviticus 17:11 “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”
By Jesus shedding His blood , He gave us everlasting life where we won’t die a spiritual death but we would Live forever with God.
Notice the colour of love in the world is red. Valentine’s Day we see red everywhere. The symbol of love is the heart. This essentially means Gods heart pumping the blood of His Son for us. Now this is love.
Love is not a husband or boyfriend buying us gifts once a year but Love is the Father giving His son for us so we can have everlasting love.
God loves us hence He gave His son. The measure of His love is not in the things He promises to give us such as money, fame, success, husband, kids, etc. It is in the blood of His son. Many of us have felt He doesn’t love us because we have measured His love wrongly. But He loves us. He loved us even before He created us. He wants us to embrace His love .

Because of this love we have hope today. We have hope that the world wouldn’t end with Covid 19. We have hope that this too shall pass. We have hope that very soon the corona virus will be eradicated. We have hope that very soon we would be able to walk the earth again freely, we would be able to travel the world again and we would be able to have parties, hug our friends and neighbors etc. Because of this love we have hope that we would not be afflicted by Corona Virus. Because of His love we have hope that even if it happens we would be healed and will come out whole and healthy.
Tips on showing love in this season
1. Pick up the phone and check up on your loved ones and friends and colleagues even those that have hurt you.
2. Think of ways to help people who cannot stock up or buy food in this pandemic
3. Send money to people you know that need it no matter how small. What you think is little and insignificant will go a long way for someone else.
4. Give out your services for free.
5. Share your gift with the world in this season.
6. Pray for our leaders and medical professionals all over the word.
7. Pray for the sick.
8. Practice social distancing.
There are so many ways we can all show love in this season.

Inspirational story
There are so many inspirational stories out there exhibiting love.
1. One of the stories I heard was of a catholic priest, Father Giuseppe Berardelli who was infected with the virus. He gave up the respirator his parishioners bought for him for a stranger who needed it .
2. On the news I heard of a lady who was dropping her contact details in mail boxes of old and vulnerable people in her community so they could have someone to call if they were in need.
3. Another lady in Brazil was offering to go grocery shopping or to the pharmacy for the elderly and those who are more vulnerable.
4. Hotels are offering their rooms for people to self isolate.
5. A bank in Nigeria has offered 100 beds for isolation.
6. One of Africa’s richest women in Nigeria has also contributed 10 million sanitisers , 1 million face masks and 1 million test kits.
7. Christians Ronaldo has donated €1 million to hospitals in Portugal.
8. Chinese Billionaire, Jack Ma of Alibaba has donated millions of kits with Nigeria receiving 5.4 million free face masks, 1.8 million personal detection kits, 48,000 protective wears and 60,000 unit of protective face shields from his contributions.
9. South Africa’s richest families the Oppenheimers and the Ruperts have each donated $50m dollars to beat the corona virus.
There are so many inspirational stories out there. We ought to make sure we are also creating our own story by doing our part no matter how big or small.

Financial Advice
Now more than ever we need to be financially intelligent. The best time to become financially educated is now when you are at home. You need to be prepared for the aftermath of Covid 19. You need to also arm yourself with knowledge so that you are prepared for any global emergency or shut down that may occur again in the future.
For this series I’ll start at the very beginning. In order to know how to make money. It is important to know what it is and in order to know what it is, it is important to know the history. Let’s first of all look at the history of money to get a better understanding of what it is.

Before money was created, the main means of exchange was through trade by barter or gifts. For example, in terms of gifts one of the richest men in the history of the earth was King Solomon. Kings and Queens came from around the world to listen to his wisdom and they gave him gifts in return. In terms of trade by barter if you were a farmer and you had corn, but you needed meat, you could exchange your corn for some meat from a hunter or shepherd and vice versa. The more corn you had, the more you had to exchange. Your skills and energy would have been a big factor in determining how much meat you were able to get or how much corn you were able to grow. Essentially the more value you created the more you had to exchange or receive or give.
Eventually when gold was discovered, people began to exchange gold for the
things they needed. Now it got to a point where because the gold was too heavy to carry and also there was a need to protect the gold, paper was issued to back up the gold held in reserve. This paper in itself was useless and was only a value of the gold that was held. Essentially, it was a promissory note i.e. a promise to pay a specified amount. If you look at the British 50 pound note today it actually says “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of fifty pounds”. Eventually world leaders decided to separate the gold from paper currency and accept the paper as money with value on its own. It was no longer based on the value of the gold you had. Countries then began to create their own paper currency and give it value.
This led to people forgetting about the “value” they were to create and they
began to chase paper currency.
The same thing is happening again. It became unwise to carry too much paper money. I remember when I was younger, I used to see people carrying big bags of money for transactions. This is no longer the case. The money is kept in banks because it can’t be carried around and banks then began to issue cheques and then cards which are to reflect the amount of money in your account. A system was then created to transfer the money without the use of cheques or even cards. This is without actual money being moved but just numbers. Now people have forgotten about the money and are now chasing the numbers.
This has led to a new kind of money, cryptocurrencies like bitcoins. etc Bitcoins don’t have any real value, but they have been created and have been given value based on the person who created it.

People are no longer focusing on value but on the means of measuring value
which is money. Money is created artificially and so it would be scarce and only a few will have plenty of it. Its value is then determined by market forces
through demand and supply.
We need to go back to the real definition of money which is value. At the
beginning of time, your survival was dependent on the value you created. This hasn’t changed. Those who understand that value is money never run out of money and never lack money.
Gods original intention for man is to create value and He deposited ‘seeds’ of
potential in everyone, that they can use to create value. Just look at a small
orange. A single orange has at least a dozen seeds. It is impossible to determine how many trees will come from one orange because each seed will become a tree that will also bear fruits that will become trees. Now if a simple living thing like an orange has so much potential, imagine a complex being like you. You cannot imagine how much potential you have.
Let us look at it this way with a simple example. I pay money to receive a
product or a service. For example, I pay N15,000 monthly for cable
subscription or to get my hair done or I pay N15,000 for groceries at a
supermarket. So essentially you pay money for value.
So, to increase your money earning potential or to increase the money you
have, you should be thinking of how to create value or increase the value you
are creating.
Money only goes to where value is being created. Let us look at this analogy. A tree bears fruit. The more fruit a tree bears the more people it would attract to eat from its fruit.
Our focus should be on value.
Value = Money
Increase in value = Increase in money
You can’t get more money if you don’t increase value. Unless of course you steal from someone who has money because of the value they have created.
Many people don’t want to create value and so steal in different ways for
example, government officials inflating contracts, police officers collecting bribe, investment bankers stealing clients’ money, fraudsters deceiving people for money on the internet.

Why is it that some people don’t want to create value?
There are different reasons, but a fundamental reason is that they don’t
understand that money is value and also they associate value with hard work
and they don’t want to work hard.

The thing is creating value is not difficult.
The secret is to work in something that you are passionate about. You will work no doubt, but you won’t despise the work and you would push through until your work begins to pay off. There is a quote that says do what you are
passionate about and you will never work a day in your life. No doubt there is a process with life and nobody becomes an overnight success. You don’t become an adult overnight. The same way to create wealth or make money you have to follow a process. Like a farmer there is a time to sow and a time to reap. That process involves working and staying with the process. Many millennials want to be Dangote or Mark Zuckerberg but they have put in a lot of effort and paid their dues.
I love this quote by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man “I built a conglomerate and emerged richest black man in the world in 2008 but it didn’t happen overnight. It took me 30 years to get to where I am today. Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work.
To build a successful business, you must start small and dream big. In the
journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme”.

Our focus should be on delayed gratification as opposed to instant satisfaction.
As the case of farming, there is seed time and harvest time You sow your seeds and eventually the harvest will come.
When you create value, money will come to you. Money attracts value.

© Omilola Oshikoya for The Richer Life Series.