Giving and Money

If you will allow me I want to state that you probably should do some press ups before reading this post because I am saying some things off the normal.

Do you realize that money was the reason Ananias and his wife died? That had money been removed from the equation their story could have turned out otherwise?

You see, they had given their parcel of land for God’s use without reservations.

It is possible that the apostles advised them to sell the land as the church then did not have need for the land or the logistics of disposing the same. You realize deacons were chosen later.

The dynamic of greed and deception came in when they held the wads (or whatever their money was held by) of cash after selling the land.

Then the same people who had willingly and freely given their piece of land started seeing opportunities, new opportunities that never existed when they were giving the land.

Of course the devil saw an opportunity to bring in deception that resulted in death.

Who then was at fault here? Could we really wholly blame the couple?

I think the church leadership should take a lot more blame for the death of the couple than the couple did. I am not saying they were guiltless. And I will give a verse to explain what I mean.

And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. (Acts 5:8)

It means that they had had an earlier agreement that the couple would sell the land. Were it not for the revelation of the Holy Spirit Peter would not have known that greed had overtaken them.

What am I saying?

I am saying that were it not for the fact that the couple was asked to sell their land and bring the money to the apostles, there was no way greed could have overtaken their generosity. Money was the catalyst to that greed.

In short, giving and money are not very compatible.

As a farmer will tell you, it is easier to give someone a chicken or goat than the money you get from the sale of the same. It is much easier to give someone a plate of food than give them money for them to buy the same.

Money is sticky to its holder. Things rarely are except to the stingy.

Attaching monetary value to things is therefore is an easier way to make people stingy than asking and expecting the things as they are.

People who would normally not spare a thought for you as far as money is concerned do not have any problem giving you a very expensive piece of furniture when they buy another one. People who think giving a dollar as support to a minister may not have an issue giving everything in their garage when asked for the same. And people who may call a minister a leech when asked for money may very freely give out their very expensive washing machine and cooker after buying new ones.

I believe money is a tool from the enemy just like many other weapons. And it is a tool he has used with the greatest impact over the ages.

Sadly, the church has not seen the need to deal with the same, I think because the leadership benefits greatly from the error manufactured by that tool. The wielder of the purse may have a difficult time knowing the dangers the contents of the purse hold for the rest of the people.

I will not be surprised if I learnt that Judas’ desire to sell Jesus was developed by his control of the purse since his departure to the priests came immediately after Jesus defended the pouring of that very expensive ointment on Him. It is even possible that he started pilfering the contents of the purse after realizing that nobody cared or even noticed.

In short it is possible that Judas was corrupted by the purse, or the money in the purse.

Do you realize that in the Old Testament all giving was in kind? That even in the event the designated place was far someone sold his livestock and went and bought others?

No one in the Bible tithed money. They simply tithed whatever they dealt with.

In short giving is never an issue if we remove money and monetization from the picture.

It is when we monetize food (sugar costs x, milk costs y, flour costs z) that our hospitality develops cold feet.

You also realize even in the social sphere that marriage became difficult when we started monetizing dowry and bride price.

Exchanging or giving livestock was a joy in the past. One side gave and the other side gave and there was joy all around.

But when a price was attached to a cow and a goat and a sheep a girl simply became a commodity that was bought, many times going to the highest bidder.

A cow from the in laws was treated special because it represented a relationship. Where my wife comes from the first cow I gave was given a special name which would always remind them of their son in law. And in many places such livestock was guarded better than the rest because of the ties they represented.

But money does not behave anywhere close to that.

Young people get to love each other and their relationship is monetized when they want to actualize it. Each of them is treated as a commodity and their relationship treated as a liability by one side and an asset by the other.

To add pain to the injury, they are told that even their celebration of marriage (wedding) should also be monetized. 

It is no wonder that marriages are breaking at breakneck speed nowadays. You see they have become a merging of two commodities as opposed to the uniting of two people desirous of making a life together.

I divest. I was talking about money and giving, especially to ministry.

Modern ministers are so foolish as to expect someone would generously give money to ministry when they are not submitted completely to God and will therefore pamper them to hell without realizing that they are increasing the capacity of hell.

However, some know what they are doing and would not mind a hell heading crowd supporting their ‘ministry’ since it also is heading there.

I shared a post recently, showing that there are two causes of generous giving, actual worship or free flowing freedom from the same. But whichever way, money rarely comes easily.

A person totally submitted to the Lordship of Christ has no problem giving money as we see with Barnabas. And a person in a seeker sensitive church has no problem giving as it pampers his ego as we see with the golden calf in the wilderness.

As I always say, people submitted to the Christ I serve will have no problems supporting me even without knowing what I do as Christ will direct them.

Incidentally it is impossible to convince anyone about my orders from Christ as I also have issues understanding some of them since lordship is more about obedience than understanding.

No wonder Paul said we are fools for Christ as some of the orders we receive make us doubt our sanity or even thinking capacity.

That is why it is impossible to convince money to follow Christ’s orders.

If someone who had freely given his piece of land could ‘hide’ some of the proceeds when he sold the land, how do you expect someone give their money just like that? Or have you forgotten Christ’s statement about the camel and the eye of the needle.

Yet it is not all doom. God still has people submitted to Him that their money is completely subject to His Lordship.

Read Job 31 to find one such person.

Allow me to close with this verse

And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. (Luke 16:9)

Money can only serve God’s purpose when the one possessing it is completely submitted to that purpose.

Infidelity

And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. (1Corinthians 14:35)

I have become a farmer, albeit a very ‘small’ one.

Like I have always said, Biblical revelation is easier to understand with a farmer’s perspective.

I am therefore learning, and many things at that, especially as I study animals and birds in my compound.

I recently posted that a cock has a lot more responsibilities than just giving a seed.

Let me today write a bit about ducks. Incidentally this is the first time I am interacting with Donald’s relatives.

I first bought a couple and we had quite a fight making them enter their bedroom. But eventually they settled.

Then I bought two other females and the battle was in the first day when we had to group them with the chicken.

In the next day the first ones comfortably entered their room but the rest rebelled.

When the male saw that they were refusing to enter, he left his room, followed by his partner and slowly led them to the chicken’s room and from that day they always ‘sleep’ there.

Then I thought that the drake may be immature to give seed to the ducks and I bought a mature one.

The two ducks transferred their loyalty immediately, even having a difficult time getting inside because the big drake would not. It was when he agreed to get in that the struggle ended, after a few days.

Then I got to think about marriage.

Do you realize that a similar thing happens when a woman transfers spiritual authority to someone other than her husband?

They might sleep on the same bed and even continue being faithful to each other but in the spirit the marriage snapped.

And it is so whether that other man is a bishop, prophet, pastor or witchdoctor.

You see, marriage starts in the spiritual and is then consummated in the flesh.

And that is why Joseph was told to take Mary his wife though they had never had sex. (I have written on the dangers of dating due to this)

If your husband is the prayer request you take to whoever, please know that you are being unfaithful to him.

You see, a husband is the head of the wife spiritually before these other aspects come into play.

It means that if you are not spiritually submitted to your husband you are an adulterer in the spiritual realm; meaning that your marriage is already broken in the spiritual, however romantic you may be to each other.

The clearest example we can get in the scriptures is Michal, David’s heartthrob.

When she agreed to being married off after David fled the palace, she transferred her spiritual authority to another, effectively dissolving her marriage to her first love.

That is why much later when she comes back to him she is unable to connect to his spiritual pulse as we see when she is commenting on David’s dancing.

Her father had no legal basis or authority to take her to another man because David had paid the requisite dowry. She is the one who transferred the same to him and later to another man.

Or don’t we see Jonathan going to demonstrate his submission to David in the wilderness yet he was the crown prince and in the army that was looking to kill him?

That is what happens when another man (or woman) is given spiritual reins of a woman’s life. She becomes unable to submit spiritually to her husband.

That disconnect is the spirit is not discerned unless in the spiritual. But it can be felt and its impact seen.

A man with a wife who has transferred spiritual submission elsewhere can sense the distance growing though he cannot explain, let alone understand what has happened.

Then, due to that spiritual disparity, they will start growing apart. And many times actual unfaithfulness is the result with the man many times being the culprit. Yet he is the victim of spiritual adultery in the wife, an adultery he may never know exists.

This is why we have enough cases of hyper spiritual ladies complaining about adulterous husbands. And it is the same with very churchy women.

Their spiritual loyalties are elsewhere and the husband has his spiritual authority hanging. And that low hanging fruit is very attractive to temptation.

Now there is no excuse for sin. But I am convinced that wisdom dictates that we use all the means at our disposal to block all entrances of temptation, and for the woman it is complete spiritual submission to your husband, however unspiritual you might deem him to be.

Or haven’t you read this?

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. (1Peter 3: 1, 2)

What else do you want me to say?

Stretching the Scriptures

There are religious clichés we have used through the ages that they have taken the authority of scriptures. 

Sadly, some of them are as opposed to the scriptures as a statement from hell.

You see, when the serpent told Eve that she would not surely die, he was not entirely false as they did not die immediately (at least physically). But it was dangerous because it twisted God’s words to fuel rebellion. It was thus a lie packaged as a truth.

One such statement has disturbed me for a long time because it appears all true and scriptural, though the scriptures are really contrary to it.

It says that all sins carry the same weight to God. And I know that you may have even quoted that ‘scripture’ in your preaching. In short God treats all sins alike.

But is that scriptural?

Is mass murder the same as a white lie? Is bestiality the same as bending the truth to impress in an interview?

Does the Bible at any time even imply such a thing?

If sins are the same, why then are their sentences different? Why should one give a sin offering while another is stoned yet another is burned?

But you see, we must protect our transgressions, especially against being pointed out. And what better defense than pointing back by showing that all sins are equal.

Do not judge me for sleeping with someone’s wife because last week you lied that you do not have money because you were not ready to lend to someone who never repays debts (and all sins are equal to God).

In short, that statement is a clutch people use to protect themselves from being held accountable for their transgressions.

It is not any different from the stretching of the ‘do not judge’ 

Like I have always posed, have you ever heard anybody quoting the said statements when they are walking right? Have you ever heard someone using them to defend their right living?

Those statements find their validity in sin and the pursuit of sanitizing it.

Do not be a party to distorting scripture to defend sin and lawlessness. God hates it and must judge it.

Between Which Lines?

But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. (Isaiah 66:2b)

Some believers are so good at reading and explaining things that are not written in the Bible. They seem or want us to believe that they know more about God’s heart and workings than He has said in His word.

Some of us, however, are not that bright. We do not desire or even look between the written lines of the divine writ. We are content with what is there as it is already heavy enough to follow. Reading and understanding between the lines is therefore beyond our capacity. And we are content with what is written anyway.

In any case, what is the need of knowing what lies between the lines when what is on the lines is so clear?

How is it that someone who picks the Bible and reads it is led to Christ yet they do not even know of anything in existence between the lines? Were we taught anything between the lines when we believed?

Let me pick a case to get us understand what I am saying.

God hates divorce. And that in the Bible is clear as day.

Yet have you noticed how many will jump at you if you write that statement somewhere?

Where is there so much argument about such a clear statement?

Hate is not the same as being biased against, or ambivalent, or displeased with. Hate is a strong word.

Has anyone ever said they hated you? Did you read between the lines? Which lines?

The God who will hold us accountable for every idle word we speak can therefore not be expected to issue a word that does not mean what He is saying or means.

Please get that into your foolish head and never try to explain something God hates.

Trying to use homosexuality to make it appear less hateful does not change a thing because God still HATES divorce. Homosexuality is an abomination and not the perfume to cover the stench of divorce that God hates.

The reason I enjoy reading the Bible is because I do not try to understand beyond what is written and so am always given understanding for what is written.

But those who think they are brighter take a peep in the darksome places between the lines to bring in strange doctrines to help explain away their disobedience and lack of pursuit for right revelation. Sadly, pulpits are full of them.

I have been kicked out and punished and banished for questioning leaders who did or taught things opposite to what the Bible clearly says. In short I was punished for refusing to accommodate the between the lines theology, a thing I will never do.

And even on this net there are people who hate me because I punch holes in their between the lines doctrines.

I always ask, why look between the lines when the lines are clear and understandable?

And divorce is not the only thing God hates. But it is a good place to start.

Do not entertain divorce anywhere, not even in your mind, because you will then be doing something God HATES.

It is a good thing to start hating what God hates.