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Money for Nothing
By Robert
Word of Faith.
"Prosperity Gospel"
The names SOUND spiritual, don't they?
Appearing on TV, these men and women try to convince people that in order to receive God's blessing, they have to give. After all, it is "better to give than to receive", isn't it? And if you give, God will give you seven, ten, a hundred-fold in return, right? He will bless you with houses, cars, good health, money that you cannot spend fast enough, jewelry, lots of the hottest, flashiest clothing in ALL the latest styles, and keep you young, fit and ready to go out and enjoy yourself!!! God WANTS you to be happy,to enjoy this life, to enjoy ALL he puts before you!!! After all, if you give to God, he HAS to give back to you, doesn't he?
Well, DOESN'T He?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
These "pastors" and "preachers" are little more than wolves in sheep's clothing, preying on the desperate and the frightened masses who yearn for all the wrong things. They are little more than slick, dressed-up hucksters, trying to sell a twisted version of the Gospel to people who are in dire straits financially, or who see the Jone's across the street "doing better" than they are, and desire to live like them. Watching their "services", you get the sense that it is a longer, dressed-up version of an infomercial, only instead of onion slicers and towels that absorb an oceanful of water, they are trying to sell you on donating to them so you can have "your best life now." On TBN and similar stations, you can hear them telling you that you need to give money to them so God can bless you ( a "seed-faith offering“). The Creflo Dollars, the Joel Osteens, The Kenneth Copelands, the Benny Hinns and so on and so forth. The cry, and whine, and beg you to send money in, to make that offering so that you, ye, YOU can have your own McMansion!!!
To make matters worse, they claim that if you are ill, poor or in bad shape, then you have no faith and are weak in the Lord. How many people out there have given what they could not afford, only to sink further into despair and debt and be accused of not having faith? How many have given their last dime to be gobbled up by the hungry purses of these "churches", only to be told that they haven't given enough? How many have been left to rot, while the money the money they give vanishes and is NEVER accounted for?
Too many, I fear.
FAR too many.
Sadly, as much as these "ministers" are to blame for hawking "Word Of Faith" and the "Prosperity Gospel" as "gospel truth", they are not alone in the blame; too many people are looking for all the wrong things from the Lord to begin with; they seek material goods and personal comfort of this world. Instead of trusting the Lord to oversee their daily NEEDS, they desire their WANTS. They seek the financial security of THIS world when the primary thing they should be seeking is HIS KINGDOM:
"Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? ( For after all these things do the Gentiles seek: ) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. " ( Matthew 6:31-34, KJV, emphasis mine)
James tells us where all the trouble comes from:
"From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. " (James 4:1-4, KJV, emphasis mine)
Jesus gives us the best advice on what we SHOULD be valuing:
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:19-21 , KJV, emphasis mine )
And Paul tells us :
"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses." (1 Timothy 6:6-12, KJV, emphasis mine )
The sad truth of it all is that what we call "wealth" on this planet, God calls "pavement" in heaven. True riches are not material things that will spoil, rot, can be stolen or eventually rust or crumble. God is spirit, and must be worshiped in spirit and in truth. And being a spirit, God is more interested in you SPIRITUALLY than he is physically. it doesn't mean that God doesn't care PERIOD, but his concern is the ETERNAL state of your soul, not mere flesh that can be restored with but a thought. God gave man free will so that he could make choices and build character, which cannot be simply created. God wants people who HONESTLY love him for who he is, not a bunch of mindless robots who are TOLD to worship and love him. For God, the real riches are those qualities that make a person who and what they are; qualities that money can NEVER buy, nor could ever HOPE to create.
And the fact that these "ministers" tell the masses that if they do not give that they are sinning, they forget what Paul said in scripture:
"Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." (2 Corinthians 9:7, NIV, emphasis mine)
God does NOT put a GUN to someone's head and DEMAND money from them; only a thief does that, and the Lord is NO thief. If God blessing someone required money constantly, then what did the thief on the cross pay with? or Lazarus when Jesus resurrected him? Lazarus was dead, and scripture NEVER records him having paid Jesus anything (If it were THAT important, you would think scripture would have mentioned it, right?). Or the woman bent over for 18 years that Jesus healed at the synagogue? Or the leper who asked the lord 'if you will, you can make me clean"? Or the madman of the Gadarenes?
I think you see my point here.
As for these "ministers", the Lord has some VERY harsh words for them:
"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" (Matthew 18:6-7, KJV)
"But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord. But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish. They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—a beast without speech—who spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”
( 2 Peter 2:1-24, NIV, emphasis mine)
"Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." (James 3:1, NIV, emphasis mine)
GOD DOESN'T PLAY GAMES.
WOF AND "PROSPERITY" PREACHERS: BE WARNED.
So in the end, what we need to realize is that we give out of a spirit of charity, not because soemone in a slick suit sporting enough "bling" to blind an alien on Pluto says so. Anything aside from that is, sadly, money for nothing.
I bid you all peace, and to the preachers who preach this, I bid that you REPENT and return to the Lord.
YBIC,
-Robert
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