Toxic Friendships 3

How do we avoid those toxic relationships?

How do we evade the common purse that offends God?

It is important to look at our fathers of the faith to get our lesson.

Abraham ran away from those partnerships even when the other partners requested them.

Remember when he was seeking a burial place for Sarah?

He refused to be given under any circumstances.

Receiving a gift unites someone with the source of that gift.

Remember also when he rescued Sodom?

Again, he refused his dues, however entitled he was to them.

Remember his argument?

Lest you say that you made Abraham rich.

A gift is a shortcut and a trap. It is the easiest way to unite purses.

Look also at him and Isaac in the case of wells.

They insisted on using water from the wells they had dug instead of sharing the available ones.

And even with Jacob they insisted on building on the plots of land they had purchased instead of the easily available lands as custom may have dictated.

Jacob insists of being paid by his father-in-law instead of sharing the wealth he had helped increase.

A common purse is a covenant with ambiguous terms. It is a covenant with shifting goalposts.

The worst part of it is that once entered it is almost impossible to exit because I continue enjoying the spoils of the same.

Treat this as an opening of our eyes to the devious nature of purses and the corrosive influence they exert.

And it does not only happen when Jehoshaphat meets Ahab.

It might happen when both were in their prime spiritual condition.

But it doesn’t stop when one party backslides or deserts the faith.

What do you think happened to Uzziah’s purse partners when he became a leper? What do you think happened to Asa’s purse friends when he lost God’s favor?

I believe the common purse is the reason repentance becomes very difficult for most, because there are friends who are ready to accompany you to hell due to that purse. There are friends who will stand with you no matter what because you are sharing a common purse.

That is why corrupt governments only change from a revolution, because there are purses supporting even the killers of their people. And they do not support because they agree with what they do. They only support because of the common purse they share.

Probably the most powerful way to avoid common purses as ministers is doing what David did; diverting all the gifts and emoluments to God’s project.

David had the project of building God a temple, a temple he was forbidden from building.

Yet he realised that whoever will build it would require immense resources.

He therefore transferred any extra resource he got, from the spoils of war to tribute to personal gifts, into that single project.

Transferring all giving directed at me to ministry would more or less make me incorruptible. Since corruption at its root is using communal resources to meet personal needs, or transferring communal resources into personal purses.

Incidentally, organisations and governments have that clearly spelt out in their statutes; that anything a leader receives by virtue of his position belongs to the organisation he serves.

There is a case involving a former leader being charged with personalising a watch he had received while on a tour in a foreign country. Simply because at the time he received it he had been representing the country he was then leading.

But few Gospel ministers want it to apply to ministry, though that is the point at which it is most applicable.

And I say this because there is nothing in us as ministers that draws giving to us except our association with God and His work.

Many people equate giving anything to a minister with giving it to God

My person fades into insignificance when taken out of the context of ministry.

Nobody thinks of the tribe of a minister before giving anything to them. Nobody thinks of their filial relationship to a minister before giving anything to them.

Personalising gifts is therefore as corrupt as in the case this former leader is dealing with, only that God never takes us to a physical court.

Allow me to demonstrate the beauty of dealing with gifts David’s way.

Imagine someone giving you a very expensive Bible for your use and you in turn give it to a fellow minister because you realise he needs it more than you do.

You have released three people from the ensnaring a gift normally does.

The giver has no way to connect his gift to you or the final recipient. And you have nothing tying you to the giver or recipient because you have become a channel for both. And I have seen a lot of that happening in my ministry.

I must hold the gift for me to share the purse.

Doing that also gives givers an opportunity to see first hand why you are in the ministry God has called you to and appreciate it.

They can then entrust more resources to you because they know there is nothing personal in your ministry.

They will stop looking for places and issues to give to because they know there is a safe hand to do it.

Of course, it will kill the manipulator because he will know that nothing he gives will stick on your person. He will also be thanked not for his personal gift as manipulators require but as a minister.

Gifts are powerful.

It means that the easier we learn to dissipate their power, the easier it becomes to escape from their grip.

A conduit is not easily polluted due to its way of operating.

A river is always fresh because it is always passing along what it receives.

Lakes and oceans become salty because they continue receiving water yet do not release any, meaning that only evaporation that releases water, increasing the concentration of other materials and sediment.

And I have seen that in the course of my ministry

Many times, God would tell me that the moneys (or portions of them) I receive are not mine and that He will send somebody to take them. And someone would come to me with the exact amount God had indicated was not mine to use.

And the same has also happened with resources where I would be gifted and God indicates that the gift was not mine, many times directing me to the ones needing them.

This releases me to listen to God concerning the things He allows to pass through my hands as opposed to hoarding them to the point of becoming a dead sea.

It is evident many ministers become uselessly salty through the gifts God allows them to handle.

Worse is that it opens them to entrapment by the sources of those gifts.

I know that this is a hard teaching.

But do we have any choice, really?