I have spoken a lot about war. However, I am going to take a different approach today. I’m not putting down my sword just yet, but there are some things that are running rampant through the Body of Christ that I think needs to be addressed. Put your steel toe shoes on and get ready because I’m probably about to step on some, if not all of your toes.
We hear promises in the Bible about everything. God promises you wealth, peace, joy, freedom from guilt, good health….the list could go on forever. Those are all wonderful things and I do not deny that they are promised blessings from The Father. However, we many, many times forget the parts about what is between those promises. For example, peace is one of my favorite of God’s promises. I cannot stand being in a place that is void of peace unless I am there on a mission. Jesus is the Prince of Peace, if anyone can give it to you, He can. There are even instructions on how to promote peace in your life. That is where we get a little fuzzy on the details. We miss the fact that we have a responsibility to do certain things to welcome His promises. The Bible says things like, Proverbs 20:19 “He who goes about as a gossip reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with one who flatters with his lips.” The Bible tells you not to associate with people that gossip so that you will not become like them. Yet, we call someone when we hear something good and say, “I need you to pray with me about this.” Gossip under the cover of praying with people is still gossip. This kind of thing will RUIN YOUR LIFE! Please take my experience and use it to benefit you. Remember, if you sow division and gossip, you’ll get the same thing.
While we’re on the subject of sowing and reaping, let’s talk about……..Money! I know that plenty of religious people just stopped reading. That’s ok. The most popular subject in the church about money is tithing. First off, if you give more than 10% then you are adding an offering to what you give. If you give less than 10%, YOU ARE NOT TITHING! Tithe means 10%. It’s simple, right? Not for most people. It wasn’t for me for a long time. You say, “But I’m giving something isn’t that enough?” It is a wonderful thing that you are giving something and I am not taking away from the importance of that. However, I must explain some principles here. God made everything in existence. The trees, me and you, even the materials that your cell phone are made of all came from His creative power. He set certain guidelines in place for all this stuff to take place. Then, He put these guidelines in this thing that we call The Bible. We can either follow His guidelines or go against them. He gave us these guidelines so that we could live the best kind of life. Tithing is a principle that was designed to sustain you financially, supply for the needs of the church building, and bring happiness to you as a result of your decision making. In addition to that, if you take what is less than 10% of your income and put it in the little envelope on Sunday and say to yourself and God, “This is my tithe.” Then your income will begin to reflect that. Then we want to blame God for our finances not being abundant even though we are not being obedient to one of the places in Scripture that has been quoted more times that a line from Star Wars (Malachi 3:8-10). It’s not His fault, it is ours.
Here is the crux point of this entire message. If you approach God with an idol in your heart, He will deliver you over to that idol. What does that mean? If you ask God for something that you want so bad that you do not care what He has to say about it, He will give it to you. Eventually, you will learn why He didn’t want it for you in the first place. When that happens, you will return to Him and give Him glory. His glory is the reason that we exist. If you go about your daily life and do the things that you do for any reason but to give Him glory, that is idolatry. I’ll tell you my story and how it fits into this message. I wanted to go to engineering school so that I could work on and design aircraft. I got the idea to pack up me and my wife and move from Coastal Georgia down to Daytona Beach, Florida. I prayed to God over and over again to make the things happen to make it happen. I had made that school and the company I wanted to work for an idol. I barely got there, struggled the entire time that I was there to make ends meet. I lost my job, financial aid, and basically got evicted for not paying rent. I barely got back home to Georgia. When I got back, I slowly began to realize what He was up to, on a very small scale of course. He began to reveal His hand. I cannot even begin to express how great His grace is to an overgrown idiotic guy like me to bring me out of where I was to where I am now. It was shortly after returning to Georgia that He revealed to me my gifting as a teacher and that I began to write this blog. For what He has done for me, I give Him glory.
Grace And Peace Be With You Always!!!
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