The
key question for today is “What is
the litmus test for determining whether (or not) we are utilizing church or
personal funds appropriately?” According to the Time Magazine article, “Does God Want You To Be Rich?” the Christian
church is largely ‘split’ on the issue of prosperity
teaching because (from the authors’ perspective) the scriptures are
vague or inconclusive regarding money matters.
Co-authors, David Van Biema and Jeff Chu, state the following:
“Scripture
is not definitive when it comes to faith and income. Deuteronomy commands
believers to “remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to
get wealth,” and the rest of the Old Testament is dotted with celebrations of
God’s bestowal of the good life. On at least one occasion--the so-called
parable of the talents (a type of coin)--Jesus holds up savvy business practice
(investing rather than saving) as a metaphor for spiritual practice. Yet he
spent far more time among the poor than the rich, and a majority of scholars
quote two of his most direct comments on wealth: the passage in the Sermon on
the Mount in which he warns, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth
... but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven;” and his encounter with the “rich
young ruler” who cannot bring himself to part with his money, after which Jesus
famously comments, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Both statements can be read as more nuanced
than they at first may seem. In each case it is not wealth itself that
disqualifies but the inability to understand its relative worthlessness
compared with the riches of heaven. The same thing applies to Paul’s famous
line, “Money is the root of all evil,” in his first letter to Timothy. The
actual quote is, “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
So the Bible leaves plenty of room for a
discussion on the role, positive or negative, that money should play in the
lives of believers. But it’s not a discussion that many pastors are willing to
have. “Jesus’ words about money don’t make us very comfortable, and people don’t
want to hear [them]” notes Collin Hansen, an editor at Christianity Today.” [This concludes the Time article quote].
From my perspective, the message of scripture is never muddled or unclear.
All the teachings of Jesus emphasize advancing
the Kingdom of God. John the Baptist,
the cousin and forerunner of Jesus, declared prior to Christ’s public ministry,
“Repent…for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2) It is no accident that Jesus echoed these
exact sentiments (for they are originally His): “From that time Jesus began to
preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew
4:17) Fact is, the majority of Jesus’
parables focus on establishing the Kingdom of God in the earth. (Matthew, chapter 13, et al) Even The Lord’s Prayer (The Disciples’ Prayer)
emphasizes this concept. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in
earth, as it is in heaven” was the constant prayer of Jesus Christ. (Matthew
6:10)
At this precise point, the so-called ‘prosperity
preachers’ skid off the tracks and collide with eternal truth. Their emphasis on ‘the here and now’ directly contradicts the Pauline
prescription for true Biblical prosperity: “Set
your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians
3:2) For in the words of Jesus Christ, “where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21)
While some Church leaders busily tout and
display material success via burgeoning bank accounts, palatial mansions,
private jets and helicopters, etc., there is a veritable host of hurting and dying people that we fail
to serve! I am not a ‘hater’—not at
all—as some readers may conclude. But
sometimes I scratch my head and wonder aloud: ‘How
much is too much? Do we really
need to line our pockets and live in the lap of luxury to affirm our worldly
status or to confirm divine blessings? Are
we more about ego gratification than about serving fallen humanity and ushering
lost souls into the Kingdom of God?’
A few decades ago, I was the Minister of
Outreach at a large urban church in a southern state. One day, an elderly and infirmed lady called
the church and asked for help. Her caretaker
(an adult daughter) was traveling on business and had forgotten to buy
groceries. The caller needed someone to
assist her by driving her to the bank and supermarket to pick up necessary food
items. I responded affirmatively and was
on the way out the door when the senior pastor called out: “Where are you
headed?” I explained the elderly lady’s
dilemma and my intended mission to help.
The pastor’s response totally shocked me. “We don’t do things like that,” he remarked rather
casually. So I returned to my office and
decided that my wife and I would respond to this woman’s urgent need at the end
of the workday. John, the apostle of
love, stated it more eloquently that I ever could: “Whoso hath this world’s
good(s), and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (I John 3:17)
I must pose two serious questions to the leaders and laity of The
Church:
1)
What is the biblical reason for our existence…Kingdom-building
or personal empire-building?
2) If
our greedy quest for wealth sacrifices the salvation of even one soul…what will
CHRIST say to us?
This is entirely a matter of motives and priorities,
i.e. what we decide to “seek first.” (Matthew 6:33) Christ indeed promised to add overflowing blessings
to His people, whenever and wherever we seek the good and growth of His
Kingdom. Nevertheless, at the beginning
of this devotional, I posed a strategic question: “What is the litmus test for determining whether
(or not) we are utilizing church or personal funds appropriately?” Answer: If
whatever we are doing with our blessings builds God’s Kingdom (not
ours), we are most assuredly on the right track.
If there is indeed to be an end-times
redistribution of wealth, as many prophets and prosperity preachers emphatically
decree, what will the church DO with it? Bottom-line: We are divinely blessed…to BE a
blessing!
Why not let Jesus
Christ have the last word?
Matthew 6:19-20
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
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