To the Last Drop

How do you feel when you hear a minister has committed suicide? How do you feel when you hear of a minister lost in alcoholism? How do you feel when you hear of a minister battling depression? How do you feel when you hear that a minister’s marriage has collapsed?

Do you ever wonder how it happened? Does it worry you? Do you lose peace and sleep?

Does it become a prayer burden?

I have written about hibernating ministers. You can read that on the blog.

But today I want us to look at the exhausted ministers. I want to look at the completely used up ministers. I want us to look at the ministers who gave to the last drop.

Look at Elijah.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. (1Kings 19:4)

Do you wonder why he is praying to die when he was actually running away from being killed?

And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. (1Kings 19:14)

The prophet was exhausted, completely finished.

It was not fear that made him run away.

Facing the king and his eight fifty prophets was a more daunting task. It was laced with more danger.

We can comfortably say that Elijah was too exhausted to think or see straight.

Can you imagine the kind of host he had defeated in the spiritual realm in that confrontation at Carmel? Can you imagine the kind of warfare he was involved in when he was God’s Idler in Zarephath? (you can read ‘God’s Idler’ on the blog)

That had a very heavy bearing on how he felt at that time.

The truth of the matter is that he had given until he had nothing else to give.

That is why the first thing God gave him was food and sleep, even before He could deal with what was troubling him.

How are you as a minister?

How close are you to where Elijah was at this time?

Where do you go when you reach that point? Is there a brother you can confide in and share your fears with?

Are you that brother? Do you open your heart to all these exhausted ministers who have nowhere else to run to? Will you help them in those battles?

I know I have been a shoulder for a few of those ministers over the years though it is probably a bigger battle for the brothers helping the exhausted to hold their fort.

But it is always worth it.

 

Giving Niceness 3

For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. (Luke 7:5)

I want us to look at another aspect of giving that God approves.

And it is the giving that does not attract anything to ourselves since we stand to gain nothing from it. It is a giving that could open us to insults from the ones we gave to or towards.

This centurion is famous in the scriptures for one major reason; he understood authority. To the point that Jesus said He had not seen such faith in Israel.

But behind that was a faith-guided lifestyle.

How does someone build a synagogue he is prohibited from entering? How does someone build something he would defile by entering; a building he would be stoned had he attempted to enter?

Yet he built it anyway.

How does someone seek the healing services from someone he is disqualified from hosting for someone who treats him as an infidel?

Isn’t it interesting that his servant was a Jew that he ‘knew’ qualified for that healing? I am sure he could not have ‘risked’ looking for healing for his person or family if we are to go according to his reasoning.

For me, that is exceptional giving.

The other person who gave in such a way was the Samaritan we call good.

He invested his time, care and resources for a person who would have easily spat on his face. A person who may have wished that he had died rather than having his life saved by a Samaritan.

It is possible he ordered the innkeeper not to reveal his identity because what he was pursuing was healing for a person he had found in need.

Yet they gave. And God commended them for so doing.

Do we ever give in such a way? Will we give like that?

Simply because that attracts God’s approval and of course blessing.

But it is more exciting giving for the cameras and rewards and ‘revenge’.

But those have their rewards here and nothing from God who knows the heart from where all giving originates.

Though the rewards for worldly and selfish led giving are many times immediate, the substance of the rewards for God led giving are eternal because they start at the heart.

That is what I want us to pursue.

Giving Niceness 2

Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain. (Proverbs 25:14)

I want us to look at one or two things about our giving in view of my last post.

The primary one is giving for show. It is showing the extent of my generosity.

It is giving that is not prompted by a heart full of love.

Do you know what that is like?

It is like cheating in an exam.

Everybody will applaud you for an excellent job and excellent study habits.

But the One who matters, the One who determines everything beyond success, knows you as a thief, a cheat, plain and simple.

Incidentally, in these digital times, one great concern for the educational systems is graduates whose success was outsourced, many times from the so-called third world countries.

I know people who never went to college who earn their keep by doing assignments and even projects for university students in the west, even PhD students.

And that student will boast of the honours degree they get that way.

Incidentally, the higher the pass one’s customers get, the higher the rating he will get and the higher the pay he will receive from future students.

The workforce is even more worried as these cheaters will come to the job market, not just what in the past was called half-baked, but ones who barely entered the kitchen, leave alone the oven where the baking is done.

That is how God looks at our giving when we do it for beholders. It is how it is when we give for the cameras.

You see, God looks at the heart. He looks at the motive.

There is giving that is detestable to God. There is a giving that offends God.

And it is not because it is not generous.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. (1Corinthians 13:3)

That is God’s standard, love.

Any other reason is not acceptable to God.

I understand that some supporters must see their giving to continue supporting. I understand some donors insist on those pictures to continue giving.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with pictures.

But God looks at the heart. God looks at where those pictures are coming from or going at the heart level.

God will approve one picture and judge another one for the same reason, He sees beyond the simple giving that we will see.

That is why you will see Jesus’ teaching about giving in a completely different way than we may expect.

Like giving dinners to people who have no capacity to reciprocate. And loving enemies.

And of course in Matthew 6 when He is talking about the whole aspect of public versus private religion.

A Biblical example is in order though it might not be so exactly to the point.

Remember Saul getting delighted when David fell in love with his daughter? Yet at that time the same David was his enemy, the same man he had denied his other daughter that he had promised to the person who killed Goliath.

Why did he lower the requirements to ensure that David had to comply?

And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. (1Samuel 18:21a)

That was not a giving prompted by love. It was not a positive giving.

It was a giving whose driving force was extermination.

Or the time David was giving Uriah a leave from war.

Those were gifts, abominable ones in God’s eyes though very generous to any beholder.

One reason I am a minister is to help connect God’s people to God’s standard in all things.

You see, I have been able to minister for almost 40 years because God’s people have consistently given towards the ministry God has called me to.

In short, for the most part, you can say that I live off the giving of God’s people.

To me, it would be a disaster if your giving is not acknowledged by the God I am ministering to.

It would be better for you that I starve from lack of your giving that giving me support that does not go according to God’s revelation through His word. And I am sure I will never starve because God always has people He raises for the support of His ministers.

Incidentally, He could still use you to give in a way that is not a blessing to you. And I will have no idea. Or do you not remember that it was the Midianite soldier who prophesied for Gideon to confirm God’s order?

It would sadden me so much for any of my supporters to be used in such a way.

That is why I am writing this to help you examine your giving to ensure that it is not only generous or even sacrificial, but also that it meets God’s threshold.

You see, very few ministers care whether the people supporting them will through that support access spiritual dividends. They just care that they are supported.

Many do not care to teach their people the kind of giving that is acceptable to God, provided it reaches their desk. Money is just money, becomes their mantra.

But I would rather starve than enjoy the support of someone whose support is not recognised in heaven, some that is even detestable in God’s eyes.

Ananias gave sacrificially, and died. And that is not the kind of support I want.

That is why I tell people expressing interest in supporting me to pray about it so that they can get heavens go ahead concerning it.

And I know that directly limits the kind of support I can access because many flee when I refuse to give figures and burdens and promptings. Because then they would be opening their purses for God’s exclusive use, a very scary prospect.

I want the people giving towards my ministry to grow through that giving. I love to see people who give towards the ministry God has called me to get better clarity about their resources, not just the support they are giving me.

That is why I do not mind when a key supporter is redirected elsewhere as they prayed since they stopped supporting me under God’s direction, many times because there are many in ministry who are not as visible as I am who also need support.

God is at liberty to redirect support just as He is at liberty to redirect His minister.

He is at liberty to shift my support base as He is at liberty shift my ministry base.

He is the boss, not only of the ministry He has called me, but also of the people He calls (mark the word called) to support me as I minister to Him.

Provided my supporter is growing in their relationship with God, I will be content whether it is me they are supporting or somebody else.

Just as obedience is what God uses to judge my ministry, it is obedience to His prompting that He will use to judge the people He has entrusted with supporting ministry and ministers.

I am never the gauge God will use to judge a giver. It is obedience to His leading that He will use.

And I am writing this at the point I really need support as I am going through a very tough stretch.

But you do not have to give me to be obedient to God. It might actually be the opposite.

But the non negotiable is that you MUST listen and do what God tells you to do.

God does not only tell His servants to give. He tells them where and how to give.

That is the only giving that pleases God.