THE TRUTH ABOUT MONEY AND THE CHURCH: While money is useful and valuable, it is not a measure of whether God is pleased with a person or not. There are many poor Christians that God is pleased with just as there are also rich Christians with whom God is pleased. There are many rich Christians that God is angry with, just as there are many poor Christians that God is unhappy with. The weight of our wallet does not determine where we stand with God and should not determine our standing, position and role in church. Sadly, this is not the case. Gain should not be equated to godliness. Three critical truths have been distorted in the bid to make the rich comfortable: The bible makes it plain that the path to great riches is often laden with compromise, and that those intent on being rich MAY be putting their souls in jeopardy. God is not against riches or the wealthy, but He counsels caution in our quest for wealth. These warnings are even more important in a country such as Nigeria where brazen demands for bribes await businessmen at every turn. THESE LIES MUST STOP IS NOT ESPOUSING POVERTY, NEITHER ARE WE DISPARAGING RICHES. But don’t be deceived; it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich to be on the right side of eternity. But thank God, Jesus made it clear that though difficult, it is possible. What is dangerous is this unrestrained preaching of prosperity without the balancing counsels of caution and concomitant teachings on integrity, and an emphasis that Christians must live above bribery and corruption. The bible also makes it clear that while welcoming the rich into the kingdom with warm open arms, we should be comfortable if the pews are peopled with simple ordinary people. In the words of the bible, our crowd will often comprise “not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble.” What is the lesson: once we are succeeding in getting an influx of the rich and powerful committed to the Lord such as we experienced in the early 90s, that is the time to be very careful that we do not change the standards of God’s word. Sadly, we have changed the standards with dire consequences. While we are not to turn the rich back, we are not to flex the standards of God’s word to accommodate them. The rich are welcome on God’s terms, not their own terms. Thirdly restitution has been banished from the pulpit. We welcome rich new converts whose networth is powered by filthy lucre from government and private employers. We never encourage them to return whatever they can in the way they can. Brethren will you be happy if someone stole from you, claims to have repented, but refuses to return what belongs to you? . SCRIPTURES 1 Tim 6:3-10 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, 4 he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, 5 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself....
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 16:39:02 +0000