WHERE IS YOUR TREASURE?

WHERE IS YOUR TREASURE?

“Many studies have revealed that the average person possesses 500 to 700 different skills and abilities - far more than you can realize” - Rick Warren.

How will you describe Prof. Dr. Dr. Kofi Antobam? Prof. Antobam is a product of Yale University. As a Law professor of 55 years good standing, the 85-year old Antobam has lectured in about 30 Law Faculties and 15 Law Schools in many countries across the globe. Five years ago, some public-spirited, non-partisan, and non-profit global Christian movements, among other things, awarded Prof. Antobam one billion Pounds Sterling for his service to humanity. Despite being conscious of his aging life, Prof. Antobam decided to use 50% of the money on his daily needs (until his death), and to hide the remaining amount in a treasure hole under an armchair in his living room for future eventualities. I met Prof. Antobam at a leadership conference in Accra, Ghana, a fortnight ago. The disappointed professor recounted how the house in which he was a tenant had been set ablaze by some unidentified mob while he was on a holiday trip to Israel. He was very frustrated and worried because he had already spent 45% of his global monetary award on things that make him happy.

The Holy Bible (See: Matthew 24:14-30) recounts a story of a certain man and his three servants. The man before travelling into a far country gave the three servants five talents, two talents and one talent, according to their abilities. The servant who received the five talents traded with them and gained five other talents. Likewise, the servant who had received the two talents gained two other talents. But the servant that had one talent went to dig up the earth, and hid his lord’s treasure (talent). After a long time the lord of those servants returned and called on them to render accounts. The lord commended the faithfulness of the first and second servants who received and worked with their five and two talents respectively, and set them rulers over many other things. The lord however described the servant who received the one talent as wicked and slothful. He further instructively took the one talent from him, and gave it to the servant who had the ten talents. Besides, the wicked servant was severely punished.

Like the wicked servant and Prof. Antobam, many people have hidden their God-given talents in the earth (ground). They have refused to trade with them.  Real laziness is refusing to work with your God-given talents. Some have not even made the attempt to discover them at all. Many more people do not even appreciate the purpose and value of their talents.

Real treasure is a product of wisely making good use of your discovered talents. Talents use the raw material of time to produce treasures. This means that serving humankind with your discovered God-given talents at every moment (time) of your life is the only secret to your great treasures. Any person who diligently uses his discovered God-given talents shall surely stand before great people. Certainly, with an ordinary talent and extra-ordinary perseverance nothing is impossible! We must therefore discover, develop (by voluntarily serving humankind with them) and trade with our talents. For Bishop Dag-Heward Mills, “If you are too busy to (discover and) develop your potential (talents), then you are too busy (for nothing)”. Parentheses are mine.

A wasted life is a product of not discovering, developing, or using one’s talents. The fact that you are seemingly being productive in what you are doing does not mean that you are or will be successful. Real success is permanent! Everything God does is forever! What have you been doing with your 24 hours? Do you spend your time on your job or work? Your job only gives you a salary or wage but your work is what you were created to do. Discovering, developing, and trading with your God-given talents (work) gives you “sweatless” treasures and satisfaction.

God has deposited 500 to 700 talents in your being! That is why it is wisely said that your future (greatness) is in you. Your education or job can never make you that great person God created you to be. Education at best will help you to rightly use your five senses to effectually make the most of your talents. Any form of education that is not integrated with one’s talents is a certified frustration. Many frustrated persons in life have been educated outside their talents. No wonder many balloon graduates continue to wrestle with unemployment.  Their so-called education never taught them that their real employers are within their bosom-talents. Your talents are naturally designed by God to cause you to appear before great people (employers). Your qualifications are your talents! Real employers employ the services of real employees for their gifts, talents and skills, nothing more; nothing else.

Real talents are God-given. However, they can only be discovered when a person has a right relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus through the Holy Spirit enables a person to spiritually discern that person’s talents. No real talent is discovered, developed nor profitably used by human efforts. Human efforts will at best help you to hide such talents in the ground under the guise of being productive in what you think are your talents and skills. Your job is not your work! Why are you slaving yourself for salary and wages which never bring you satisfaction? God has deposited your work in you to make you fruitful for His pleasure (purpose).

Real talents are God-centred. This means they are only used to promote God’s kingdom on earth. Only lazy, wicked, and foolish people use their so-called God-given treasures for any purpose outside God. Luke 12:16-21 recounts a story of a certain rich man whose land (talent) yielded plentifully. “And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? ...This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and goods. AND I WILL SAY TO MY SOUL, SOUL, THOU HAST MUCH GOODS LAID UP FOR MANY YEARS; TAKE THINE EASE, EAT, DRINK, AND MERRY. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God”.  People who are not rich towards God are real fools. The language of a real fool is “I, me, and myself”. They are rich only unto themselves. But real success is self-transcendent! ARE YOU A RICH FOOL?

Richard Obeng Mensah, author of right your writing.

borncapy@yahoo.com/www.richard-obeng-mensah.blogspot.com

WISDOM QUOTES OF RICHARD OBENG MENSAH - SERIES 9

WISDOM QUOTES OF RICHARD OBENG MENSAH

  SERIES 9

Some people say they will fight till their last blood. I disagree with them because there is no power in mine blood, likewise theirs. I will rather depend on the Blood of Jesus in all life battles. 
 
Mine life scars are mine stars in life. I will celebrate my scars while on earth because Heaven does not need them.

Faith does not make me to lose mine senses but it empowers me not to depend on them.

Self-deception is hearing God’s Word and not doing what the word says. 

The fact that somebody is in prison does not make that person a prisoner. 
 Many prisoners have never been to prison. Imprisonment is a state of mind. 

We can never be independent from God and still be significant to creation. 

 Being liked by people is never a condition precedent to real greatness and success.

REFLECTING GHANA AT 55

REFLECTING GHANA@55

It is time for Ghana to be the destination of the world. Being the gateway to Africa is not enough!

Ghana attained 50 years in 2007. This jubilee was commemorated to champion African excellence with three main objectives – independence celebration; reflecting on the evolution, development, achievement and drawbacks over the past 50 years; and to look forward to the future, to the vision of excellence in all fields of endeavour in the next 50 years toward, and to Ghana’s centenary anniversary as a nation. 6^th March, 2012 marks exactly five years after the Golden Jubilee celebration. This means that Ghana is now 55 years old, and if Ghana were to be a human being she would be moving towards retirement! It is left with 45 more years to embrace centenary celebration. What does Ghana have to show for the past five years insofar as her “vision of excellence in all fields of endeavour” is concerned? Are we excelling spiritually, physically, mentally, and socially? Are our partisan politics, economic policies, health delivery system, justice system, educational system and so forth really championing African’s excellence? Are we celebrating or evaluating the vision of excellence? Ghana@55 is not another opportunity to read new beautify and nice speeches, or make hollow promises. Rather, we must visit our past and check whether we as a people have been able to maintain our integrity. Fellow Ghanaians, it is time for reflections; it is time for self-evaluation.

Age is not a condition precedent to real excellence, real success, and real greatness. The 969 years of Methuselah attests to this fact. No wonder Elihu (See Job 32) bluntly told the three friends of Job that old age does not denote nor teach wisdom.“I said, Days should speak, and multitudes of years should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty (give) them understanding. Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement”. Divine wisdom on the other hand is a prerequisite to real excellence, success and greatness. It is superior to age. Ask Jesus, Joseph, Mary Jones and Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. The Hebrew word for five is hey. Ghana is in her hey! days.  The number five signifies inspiration or revelation. It also denotes grace and favour. Therefore, Ghana’s 55^th birthday is a signal that the nation is in her kairos moments. This means Ghana is in God’s full set time for her real manifestation. This is the reason why I am calling on all Ghanaians to truly reflect on the real prosperity of our Motherland. Our mother is more than a Gateway to Africa. The contents of her attitudes, character and history is more than colonial and slavery mentality. No nation or kingdom on this earth is greater than our mother. No people on this earth are superior to our brothers and sisters. No airspace, land, and territorial waters on earth are richer than that of our mother. Our mother is getting older, and older. It is time to appreciate her heroine efforts and give her the honours she deserves. It is time to stand up for Ghana. It is time to arise and shine in the year of the Lord’s grace and favour. We must act on the following issues.

Firstly, we need divine understanding to know the times. Divine understanding comes by the “inspiration of the Almighty”. This means that we must reconnect deeply to our roots (God and His Word). We can be independent from colonial masters but never our Master Creator (God); that would be childish and imprudence. If we still need to maintain an interdependent relationship with our former colonial masters, how much more do we not need God? Ghana needs the Sprit of God and His guidance, and not necessarily the so-called development partners. They are only part of the secondary stuffs. Real excellence is the fruit of God’s Spirit. Spirit of excellence is ONLY of the Lord; ask Daniel. We need divine revelations and inspirations to act wisely and now! It has been said that real life is only and truly lived by revelation (which comes by the Holy Spirit) not necessarily by education, partnerships or long life. True! It goes without saying that real excellent visions will fall in place if our connections with God and His Word is made our absolute priority. Ghana has needlessly wasted her life for many years because of her disconnections from or loosed connections with the true source of all her life needs. Promotion only comes from God. Remember, righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to every people. Without God and His Word, life is only a mere experiment. Where are the so-called historically great nations like Babylon, Egypt and Libya? Today, the so-called advanced and developed nations are wrestling with economic crises. Development outside God is a packaged of deceptions!

Secondly, we must honour our heroes and heroines. They include the living and the dead. It is sad that most heroes are only recognized after their death. Ghana must take a new turn. We must truly reflect on the priceless contributions of our forefathers towards the development of this country. The question, however, is how such heroes should be honoured? I believe that the best way we can honour our heroes and great leaders is not only preaching their farsighted and heroic deeds, and visions, but also by taking some practical steps to build upon and perpetuate their good works. Great leaders shall surely die but their good works remain. The existing good works of such leaders is indeed a reflection of their personality. It would therefore be a sheer hypocrisy on our part if we extol such good works without, practically, doing anything to ensure their sustenance and fruitfulness for the benefit of successive generations.

Paradoxically, the dead cannot be honoured. They are usually remembered and paid tribute to. We only honour them by endorsing and perpetuating their good works, which are useful to our advancement in certain respects. It becomes quite pathetic, if not regrettable, that we always appear to be honouring our past leaders and statesmen but we on the contrary dishonour and maltreat them even during their lifetime.  We have killed many of our prophets (leaders), and even continue to propel the death of many of them today. It is undisputed that the way we have been treating our past leaders, heroes and statesmen, before their passage to eternity, has not been the best. Undeniably, our past Presidents Rawlings and Kufour, as well as President Mills have contributed their quota to the total development of this nation, no matter how you see them. It is time to honour them and many others in all fields of endeavours. We must thus reflect the selfless sacrifices and commitments of the Big Six and our various presidents and Head of States since Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. We must extol and perpetuate their good works, and learn from their flops!

Lastly, we must change our poor and wrong mentality about leadership and partisan politics. Real leaders are mostly not found at the seat of governments, law making assemblies, judicial corridors, intellectual parlours, or in business suits. Jesus says it is true. Real leaders are compassionate, selfless, sacrificial, and serviceable. They are always ready to lay down their lives for others and also for the cause they champion. They see leadership to be God first, people second, and themselves last. Real leaders passionately and selflessly lead a cause or champion visions, not people. Leadership and followership relationship does not mean that leaders must place their needs before followers. Besides, positions, titles, personality and charisma are not leadership; ask President Obama. Fellow Ghanaians, it is time to reflect the true meaning of the generic terms of a leader and leadership. With this exercise, we shall surely elect voices, not noises, to lead us in all fields of endeavour come the next general elections. Real visionary leaders are voices. They do not use noise to make news but they make moves to cause waves. When the waves are silently wavering, the media effortlessly receive such waves and trumpet them! Such waves make the media true airwaves because they air the waves. It is a sad commentary that blind and balloon leaders and leadership in the country before and after independence continue to misunderstand the true essence of the media as the fourth estate of the realm. The media, among others, exists to airwave the bad, good, and great moves of the main organs of government with the aim of promoting and securing the welfare and interest of the populace. No wonder only balloon and blind leaders are afraid of the media.

In addition, we must change our wrong mentality about partisan politics. For Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “...Politicians (are) men prone to having a high blood pressure of words and are anaemia of deeds”. I respectfully disagree in part.  The statement is wholly true if we insert either blind or balloon before “Politicians”. I sometimes cannot help but to empathize with those who hold the assertion that politics is a dirty game, although I disagree with that position. In Africa, partisan politics continues to be viewed as a forum or breeding ground for greed, oppression, corruption, political unrest and dishonesty! Unfortunately, these aberrant conducts are experientially true in the Ghanaian politics. After about 55 years of political independence, Ghana is still battling with political insincerity. Recurrently, government of the day often appears to be an expert in tracing and explaining the country’s teething problems and failures rather than seeking to find lasting solutions to them. Emphasis is placed on problems rather than the pragmatic policy interventions needed to arrest the situation. Besides, the success stories or achievements of most statesmen or political parties that have exercised governmental power are mostly relegated to the background. Instead, their failures are the only things that are trumpeted as if nothing good can be credited to them. Certainly, this is political insincerity. Our politicians must be seen to be candid, trustworthy and fair in order to generate and sustain the trust of Ghanaians. We need maestro, not macho politicians. Besides, the Christian Council of Ghana and all like-minded bodies should consolidate their critical role in the Ghanaian politics by encouraging and supporting mature and faithful Christians to live up to their calling of being involved , concerned and dedicated to the principle of orderly change within the governmental processes. The Ghanaian politics needs the Christian light and salt. Who knows but that it is for such a time as this that there are many Christians in Ghana than ever? If there is any dirt in the Ghanaian partisan politics, let’s help to clean it. Ghana@55 gives us the best opportunity to reflect on how we can make our partisan politics a clean one. Yes! We can!

Ghana@55 should be reflected throughout 2012. True reflection will energize and inspire us to renew our commitments to our Motherland. The commitments to be faithful and loyal to her; to serve her with all our strength and with all our heart; to hold in high esteem our heritage won for us through the blood and toil of our fathers; and to uphold and defend the good name of Ghana. God is ready to help us to make these commitments a reality because we are in the year of His grace and favour. During both our individual and congregational reflective and evaluative moments, let’s endeavour to make the following prayers to God:

God bless our homeland Ghana.

And Make our nation great and strong

Bold to defend forever,

The cause of Freedom and of Right

Fill our hearts with true humility

Make us cherish fearless honesty

And help us to resist oppressor’s rule

With all our will and might for evermore.

Amen!!!

Richard Obeng Mensah, author of Persecutions are Promotions. He was the 2009 National Best Student Author/Writer. borncapy@yahoo.com/www.richard-obeng-mensah.blogspot.com.