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Two extremes have defined the attitude toward money in the household of faith. As we now proceed from looking at Jehovah Jireh, our God who provides, to discuss the issues of finance and stewardship in His house, it may be necessary to outline in detail, some of the features of those two extreme positions and their impact on saints.
The Holiness Movement
The first negative attitude is that of scorn and disdain for money, championed largely by the Holiness Movement. The Holiness Movement tried to "help God" by inserting words He never put in the Holy Writ. Where 1 Timothy 6:10 says, “The love of money is the root of all evil,” the Holiness Movement made it out through various preaching and teachings that money in itself is evil. So saints were scared of money in itself and thought that the best way to show practical holiness was to live in and celebrate lack!
Poverty was thus given free rein to the point of developing a tap root of systemic lack which has plagued generations of saints till today, even though they had sound testimonies of genuine salvation. The evidence of this state of affairs is the large army of begging saints on various social media using all kinds of strategies to seek support -- not for kingdom advancement, but for basic sustenance.
We all must realize that our spirit man transitions instantaneously on conversion from darkness to light and from death to life eternal in Christ Jesus. As we grow in grace, giving the Holy Spirit right of way, He uses the Word and circumstances of life to sanctify our souls wholly. Our physical body however, is substantially prospered (or not) depending on our understanding and applications of the laws of holistic prosperity. If the physical body is not given the right balance of nutrients, exercise and rest, it will decay or crumble. If we put a yoke that God did not give us on the physical body, it will snap, and the spirit and soul can be negatively affected.
Undue poverty can therefore rank equally with ingestion of liquor, cigarette, drugs and other harmful substances and immorality, as abuse of the BODY which happens to be the
The Prosperity Movement
On the other hand is near idolization of money by the Prosperity Movement. The mantra of this group is another addition to the essence and meaning of scripture. The favorite text is taken from Ecclesiastes 10:19: "Money answers all things." So saints set out to acquire the capacity to answer all things and “finance the gospel program.” They deem God as inadequate, and an old senile fellow who needs help!
The outcome is inadequate spiritual preparation before seeking wealth, leading to massive backsliding, handling the word of God deceitfully for private gain, and generally affirming the truth of what the Holy Spirit enthused through the mouth of Paul of Tarsus in Philippians 3:17-19:
“Brethren, join me in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of which I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame – who set their mind on earthly things.”Speaking further, the Holy Spirit used Paul to state emphatically in verses 20, 21:
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”
Personal Consecration
There may be some people who God will test their hearts by asking them to give up wealth or pursuit of wealth so that He can be their self sufficiency. That is what is called personal consecration.
Personal consecration of a vessel should not be turned into a doctrine. Otherwise a good deed done as unto the Lord may become an instrument of error and satanic deceit! In the year 1997, God effectively and suddenly made my wife and I millionaires! We did not look for the wealth, neither did we covet it. But because God had ordained it, wealth literally came looking for us as we sought first His Kingdom and focused intensely in the will of God and His assignment for our lives!
When that wealth came, the Lord tugged at our heart to test whether we could release it joyfully and without struggle! By His grace we passed the test. We released it and He became our Jehovah Jireh, meeting us at the point of need in a literal sense. The Lord then took us into another paradigm that we consider greater than accumulation of money: Jehovah Jireh provides the allocation for every assignment, right on time!
Since then, we have gone forth into every assignment from Him with that same confidence, knowing assuredly that He Himself has already made provisions and decided beforehand the vessels He will use to meet the needs. We therefore do not fret over money, neither do we give it any room to put us under pressure. As a matter of fact, non-availability of specific funds for any assignment has been to us an ultimate sign that we are running ahead of God, or trying to do His spiritual work in the flesh!
Without fail, God has provided everything needed for every level of the assignment He has placed in our hand concerning mobilizing and networking the remnant; teaching to disciple the saints; and training, equipping, activating and releasing labourers into the vineyard.
This was a personal consecration, so we did not turn our experience into a doctrine. We recognize there will be brethren God has assigned to be mighty Kingdom entrepreneurs, operating with the economic wisdom of Joseph to turn around dead corporations, communities and nations. We know there will be vessels God will empower to run Kingdom venture capital corporations which will advance seed funds to extremely talented and gifted saints who have great wealth-building ideas, but no start-up funds. There will be saints who will operate in the spirit of Daniel and serve God in high political offices. And these are not going to get into office through contentious political jockeying which overheats their national political landscapes! The God of heaven will literally lift them from where they are to where He has assigned them through the same kind of favor and grace which was evident in Joseph, David, Daniel, Nehemiah, Zerubbabel and others too numerous to list here.
With this scriptural approach, we can discuss money in the atmosphere of holy reverence for God, and complete rest in His providence as Jehovah Jireh. We will stay true to the spirit and letters of the Word as we share what the Lord will download this week. Pray for us to receive all that God has for His saints, and to faithfully share same without interference from the soulish realm or Satan. Bind all distractions of all sorts, amen! Matthew 18:19; Ephesians 6:18,19; 2 Thessalonians 3: 1-3.
To be continued...
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