Serving God I wish leaders would appeal to the congregation on the basis of the love of God and their desire to see His name established on the earth. We are in a battle zone. Good and evil are fighting for ultimate supremacy. We should serve God because we love Him. Prosperity, blessings or favor should never enter the equation. Serving In Prosperity: An Awesome Responsibility. ... From everyone who has been given much, much will be required ... (Luke 12: 48) Wealth and talents are given to the righteous for a practical purpose. They will spend it on the will of God while the wicked will not. Therefore, it is to the benefit of God that He gives you the knowledge, the energy, the people, the children, the ideas and the financial support to continue His ministry. For the eyes of the Lord move back and forth throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. (2 Chronicles 16: 9) God searches for people who want to do His will so that He can support them. But almost every testimonial that I hear is about giving money to a ministry and getting money back within a month so that they receive a bigger house, a better job and more money. You ask and you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4: 3) » The Prosperity Of The Wicked. I would like to remind you that the wicked are also wealthy. The righteous serve God and cannot get away with doing the slightest wrong, yet the wicked seem to pile wicked on top of wicked and have fun doing it but they never seem to be corrected. In fact they seem to be more prosperous! Often this is because they will do anything immoral or illegal to get money, but no one can deny that God also helps them. In fact, the people to whom God made the promise about returning the tithes had this complaint. You have said, It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the Lord of hosts? So now we call the arrogant blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up but they also test God and escape. (Malachi 3: 14) In the end we will learn that it is not a blessing to escape correction. The wicked will not respond to correction, so the best that God can do is to allow them to prosper because it will all be used as a witness against them in the judgment. Their disobedience in both poverty and wealth is a testimony that the problem is not Gods unfairness or harshness, it is their selfishness and wickedness. In contrast, our obedience in adversity is a testimony to the strength of love and loving obedience. The writer of the Psalms also sought to understand this and concluded that only at the end of time will we understand this financial injustice. The Wicked Prosper. For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pains in their death, and their body is fat. They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; the garment of violence covers them ... They mock and wickedly speak of oppression; they speak from on high. They have set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongues parades through the earth. The Righteous Suffer. Look, these are the wicked; and always at ease, they have increase in wealth. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence; For I have been stricken all day long and chastened every morning. The Wicked Are Rejected In The End. When I tried to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight, Until I came into the sanctuary of God; then I saw their end. (Psalm 73: 3-9, 12-14, 16-17) Job also had this complaint about the wicked being protected because God does not correct them. Live A Life of Prosperity Without Any Consequences. Why do the wicked still live, continue on, also become very powerful? Their houses are safe from fear and the rod of God is not on them. They spend their days in prosperity, and suddenly they go down to Sheol. They say to God, Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of your ways. Who is the almighty that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we entreat Him? (Job 21: 7, 9, 13-15) It is the wicked who are concerned about what they will get if they approach God. » Punished In The End. The wicked will get their reward in the end, so you may not see it in this life. For the wicked is reserved for the day of calamity. They will be led forth at the day of fury. (Job 21: 30) You see, just as poverty for the righteous is a test of your motives, wealth for the wicked becomes a stumbling block in the judgment. The righteous remained faithful for the right reasons, but the wicked will not even respond to God even when He throws everything good at them. Prosperity is not a sign of Gods favor and poverty is not a sign of Gods abandonment. » The Reward Of The Righteous. The righteous will be rewarded in this life, but persecutions will occur. Peter said, Behold, we have left our own homes and followed you. And He said to them, Truly I say to you, there is no one who had left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life. (Luke 18: 20-30) But that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses, brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms along with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. (Mark 10: 30) However, if we look at the life of Jesus and the disciples and the fact that their lives were deprivation followed by martyrdom, we must conclude that the rewards in this age are not a normal life. The care and attention of good church members will provide the loving family we gave up. Their hospitality will provide the homes we have in our homelessness. Their generous contributions will provide the money we need as we become beggars. The gifts of God that we receive give us the status and the dignity we need to prove that we are not simply hopeless losers begging for charity, but we are called by God to live like our Lord while we minister to the flock. However, the modern day spiritual con men can perpetrate a fraud without evidence of the power of God, because they have redefined Gods power and our responsibilities in terms of visible wealth as Gods favor.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 08:01:55 +0000
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