More Than Money…
Then He said to the crowd, “Don’t be greedy! Owning a lot of things won’t make your life safe.” — Jesus in Luke 12:15
Somehow The Gospel came down to…get money, give it to church or an anointed pastor/minister and then prosperity will come. We shall eat and be fat and make merry. Though we don’t say this outwardly, it seems to be the grand plan. The plan seems to be deeply ingrained in us. And so…we proceed.
We find a way to look for this money/prosperity with the hope that we can have more money than “them”. The “them” that we should be evangelizing to, are seen as the enemies rather than “soon-to-be-converted-fellow-soldiers” in the army of Christ. In the midst of this tussle, we find creative ways to “hammer”. We find spiritual ways to do it. But the end game is that we are both going in the same direction.
This is where the word meets the world. Whosoever wins, is the one that believes in “the system” the most. If you believe in the system of the word, the word will triumph. Same for if you believe in the system of the world. This brings me to my next point.
The biggest issue in Christianity today is secularity. Being secular involves efforts to delink everything from the spiritual. Secularity involves being able to explain everything on the face of the effect. What that turns a spiritual person into — is someone that is not different. When the sacred is move to the secular, the sacred loses its potency. Virtue is lost. The ability to operate from another level (the supernatural) is lost.
Child of God, you are different; created differently to run your race. You are different and your difference is like that of salt. You don’t see salt in a mixture but you will know whether it is there or not. Salt blends in but performs it function either in providing savour or preserving the food. You will go through what others go through but since you are empowered by grace, you will overcome.
The sole aim of secularity is to make the sacred to be “normal”. It aims to make the sacred to be a choice; maybe, maybe not. It aims to make you ignore boundaries. Everything is ok and can be done if you so wish. Secularity aims to bend the truth and make truth to become facts.
When a society bends truth and varies it, it is looking for trouble because when you bend truth to your satisfaction, the outcomes are not nice. It will be a society filled with people who are variants. Can you imagine a child that chooses not to be educated? and the child then tells you that Bill Gates was a dropout and succeeded in life. The child has some truth but, it is “bent truth”. The child is making life’s decisions based on outliers. You get my drift.
Facts change, truth does not.
Facts change. Truth does not. Before 1993, you can boldly say “Lagos is the capital of Nigeria”. That was a fact. That fact has since changed. Truth is that sowing and reaping are real. Night and day. Those do not change. When you sow, you will reap. If you do not sow, you will not reap.
The Christianity that feels like “I have paid my tithe of a billion dollars and that is why the TV broadcast is on and our cathedral is the largest in town” is not godly. The faith that can be bought with money is not faith.
Money has its place. Faith has its place. Prayers have its place. Worship has its place. Brotherly love has its place. If all we require in church can be bought, then that means there is no supply of the Spirit of God there. The things that only God can do cannot be bought with money.
Let me end my epistle with something I thought about. A good friend of mine informed me that he was starting a ministry in Maiduguri. Yes, you heard me well, Maiduguri. I have known him to be a man of such. God has always called him to unusual places and Borno State was the next point of exploit. As he told me about his plans, it dawned on me that no matter how much I would give to him, I could not offer him protection in the land that Boko Haram had become a menace in. I could not give him any assurances. All I could do was pray. And then I realized, that God needs us more than what we think we have to offer.
God needs us to depend on Him.
So more than money, we need dependency on God. We have ourselves to offer to God. We have prayers to offer. We need to be people of intercession; we need to give our time to God. God needs our heart and pockets and desires and children…everything. We don’t give one part and leave the rest.
Let us flee from the feeling that since we have paid our tithes and offered material resources and we are the monetary pillars of the church, we are good.
I will leave it at that. But at least you get my point.
Regards,
Gabriel.
You can check other uplifting articles on matters of the faith that I have written. They are Rules of Engagement On Social Media For The Christian Soul,The Gentile’s Prayer, Faith Cometh…, Selah Moments, Rooting The Book of Ruth, Timely & Timeless, Me & My Entertainment, The Athlete & I — A Critical Look, My Fellow Prisoners , Holy Paradox, Let’s Hear Jesus Out On This…, Colourful! , Me, Jephthah & Retold Stories, More Than Money…, The Boundaryless Life and The Giving Giver
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