“Pastor, my life is a struggle. The salary I earn finishes even before I collect it. Please help me”

Oh wow! I’m so sorry about your situation, but I’m sure that God will come through for you if you don’t give up on Him. However, just so we don’t assume anything, let’s touch some foundational matters that exempts man from perpetual struggle.

1. REDEMPTION

Genesis 3:
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

I’m sure you remember the story of Adam and Eve, how they transgressed against the commandment of God and got punished for it. Among the punishments that came upon man is stated in the scripture above.

So it says, “cursed is the ground for your sake; you shall eat in sorrow all the days of your life”. This means that one of the ways you’d know you may be under that curse is that you’d be eating in sorrow. To eat in sorrow can mean that you work really hard yet cannot afford a comfortable life, and the worse part is that there’s no hope that the situation will change. That scripture says, “you shall eat in sorrow ALL THE DAYS OF YOUR LIFE”. That’s a very hopeless situation; no matter what is done, the situation cannot change.

That’s a lot to take in, but that also explains the position of anyone who is not redeemed. Jesus died to redeem us from the curse of disobedience to the law, which means the moment you receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour, your ground is no longer cursed. Although God cursed the ground because man sinned, but a program was created that exempts certain category of people from the curse, and that program is redemption.

One of the signs that shows if you are redeemed is that your hope will be alive – no matter what is happening to or around you. God cursed man’s hope for success because of sin, but He reactivated that hope by redemption. Let’s see how scriptures put it:

1 Peter 1:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Clearly, man had a living hope before sin corrupted the relationship between God and man, so God restored that hope through the resurrection of Christ. This means that anybody who hasn’t received Jesus is operating on a dead hope. He may live to chance, but definitely not hope. No man can be sure of a better tomorrow except a man who is in Christ.

One of the ways you’d know people who live to chance is that they can’t boast of tomorrow. They may make plans, but they also know that their plans only succeed by chance. Anyone who boasts among them pay darely for it. King Nebuchadnezzar learnt this truth the hard way; he didn’t know that God only gave him a chance to succeed. Daniel chapter 4 has that story.

The thing about chance is that your success is determined by luck, which means you’d just keep trying until you succeed. And even when you do succeed, you still have to continue trying things to sustain it. There’s no guarantee that you’d maintain success as long as you’re operating by luck.

One of the emotional experiences I’ve had on the harvest field was a beggar who approached me to give him money to buy food. The Holy Spirit drew my mind to the way the beggar communicated his need to me, the grammar was clean. I suddenly called him back to ask how a beggar could speak so clearly. It was at that point that he narrated his life’s story. Apparently, he was a manager in one of the banks that folded up years ago, he had a house in Lagos where he lived comfortably with his family. But after he lost his job, there was no hope of getting another one. He sent his wife and two kids to the village to live with his mum, while he slept at the corridor of his friend’s house in Lagos. He got so depressed and started smoking and drinking. He couldn’t control his tears as he told me his story.

When he was done, I told him how bad I felt about the situation, but then I also told him that life without Christ would be full of crisis, and that such a man isn’t different from a chicken waiting for slaughter.

Long story short, he received Jesus into his life and miraculous things began to happen from there. One of the first things that happened was that his brother who lived abroad suddenly remembered him; he sent money to an agent to rented an apartment for him. As if that was not enough, he got a job.

So, when you feel hopeless, it’s very likely that you haven’t genuinely received Jesus into your life. If you have, perhaps you derailed, and all you need to do is to rededicate your life to Him.

This article is already too long, so let me conclude with the second foundational matter:

2. KNOWLEDGE

This one doesn’t even require explanation. Hosea 4:6 already tells us that even though you may have received Jesus, there’s a possibility of suffering destruction if you lack knowledge.

However, it’s important that I say this; it is true that no knowledge is a waste, but knowledge can be stale, which means it can become unusable. Unfortunately, many Christians have continued to apply revelations that have stopped producing enviable results. Revelation is progressive; there are things I was so confidant of years back that I’m not very proud of today. Coincidentally, they worked back then, but now I realized that they only worked because God was merciful.

We’d all mature to a point where God expects exact and precise knowledge from us. And if we don’t get it, we may have to suffer for it. So just in case your hope is alive, yet everything you try keep failing, then maybe there’s a problem with the foundational principles you learnt as a Christian. If the foundation be destroyed, there isn’t much that the righteous can do.

I hope this has brought enlightenment to someone.

Remain ever blessed, in Jesus precious name!

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