Blessings for Sale --2

  

This blog is a continuation of the 'Blessing' series (The 1st part of the series can be checked HERE). As already discussed, blessings are the most misconstrued topic in Christendom. It's stuck to our psyche that devotion to God ends up in material blessings. This theology of Christians is not very different from the Hindus. Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune, wealth, and well-being is worshipped fervently by Hindus to get more wealth. It's weird that the God of the Bible is also looked upon in the same way. Also, the theology of being chosen by God is marked by one’s prosperity and poverty is because of one’s sins. This concept mirrors the prevailing caste system of Brahmins and Sudras.

There are pastors who believe that God gives you a 'key' to open blessings and such pastors have delusional goals of making it to the top 10 richest pastors in the world. Sadly, many have become Christian psychopaths preying on the sheep entrusted to them (Ezekiel 34:1), grooming in such false theology in people's minds. Peter on behalf of all the disciples’ clearly states to Jesus in Matthew 19:27, “See we have left everything and followed you. So, what will be there for us?”. I urge you to check the poignant response of Jesus in the subsequent verses.

Today, the Church finds it cumbersome to help the widows, fatherless, the orphans and the saints who are in aggressive mission work. It feels it has a greater calling and has come to the point of distorting what pure religion is in the sight of God. The Church is hoarding its resources and refuses to spend the funds got in God's name for those who mean the most to God - the widows, orphans, fatherless and the saints serving Him full time. We have become abusers of the very people that God wants to bless.

Riches need not necessarily lead you to the love of money. If that is the case, then people like Abraham, Job, Joseph and David would have been lovers of money. They are classic characters of the Bible who teach us how to channelize money to worship God. These men were rich but loved God, not money.

If the blessing of a man’s life depends on how much he has, then the lives of the rich and the famous – movie stars, pop stars and sports stars - would be examples to us on how we too should live and label it a blessing. Contentment is worth more than all the wealth we could possibly accumulate. The Bible warns us, ‘People who want to get rich ‘fall into temptation and trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge into ruin and destruction.’. (1 Timothy 6:9)

We need to understand this truth. God’s highest desire is neither to make us rich, nor to make us successful, popular or famous. God’s dream is to make us right with Him. Today, you find people misinterpreting this truth which talks about Jesus like this, “but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”. (Philippians 2:7-8). We brazenly misinterpret telling that God made Himself lowly to make us rich. We sell garbage by manipulation to the Church.

Having walked the faith journey for the last 6 years, I can confidently say favor and grace of God has always upheld me to be a revolutionary for Him and turn many to Christ and to His mission. Even through the abuse I faced in Christendom, I was able to focus on God's purpose in my life and learnt my lessons well. Fulfilling God's purpose in our life does not require riches. I urge you brothers and sisters to lead people to Christ without promise of riches and guiding them to love God for who He is. This will undoubtedly enrich their experience of salvation rich rather than filthy promising them out God will bless them with riches. For this "Lakshmi" is enough.

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Blessings for sale! Part 1

  

"Blessings", The one word loved and adored by all of us. However, we fail to notice how God used it for His purpose that impacted His divine mission. Today, as Christians we exploit this word 'blessing' more than any people who belong to other faiths. We are constantly bombarded through preachings which says, that God would  grant all the desires, make us heads, and we would reach the top. People throng Churches to see if the promises come true or not. What they really expect is blessing of wealth, name, fame and a life without difficulties or hindrances. Eventually, they come to know that this is a surreal life they are longing for.

In present times, we ridiculously equate luxury and riches to blessing. We quote Genesis 13:2 “Abraham was very rich in livestock, silver and gold.”.  Our deep longing for riches mars our interpretation of Biblical verses. As Christians we heavily lean towards the life of riches and wealth rather being content with a life of just our needs being met. The Theology of work project comments, ‘The writer of Genesis states early on the story about the creation of humans, “God blessed them” (Genesis 1:28). The word “blessings” or “blessed” is a central feature of the biblical story. Part of the blessing of relationship with God is very definitely tangible, in-the-hand stuff. And these material blessings are thoroughly integrated with the other benefits of knowing and loving the creator.’.

Dealing with this subject in Christendom is like walking on egg shells. No one wants to decipher the real meaning of the word from God's perspective because we are shaking the foundation of their age old beliefs. Money can be earned in various forms both good or bad. Let us analyze few instances in the Bible, to understand the perspective:

1. Joseph's brothers hate for him ended in trading him for twenty pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28).

2. Achan's greediness forced him to conceal the rich spoil, i.e. silver and gold for his future settlement (Joshua 7:21). 

3. Samuel, one of the greatest prophets, sons Joel and Abijah were corrupt dishonest judges in Beersheba. They profited by taking bribes to pervert justice (1 Samuel 8:1-3).

4. Judas traded Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. He meets the Chief Priest to know what he would get in return if he hands over Jesus to them. The ransom satisfied Judas and he starts working on a successful plot (Matthew 26:15-16).

5. The Chief Priests with no shame or remorse bribed the Roman soldiers with a large sum of money to tell a lie about the resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 28:12).  

Well, if money is a blessing from God then the above incidents from the Bible do paint a sordid picture indeed. Money that we so desperately long for was used to kill our Savior and also tarnish the very fact He rose again. Let's ponder over our misrepresented thought process on 'blessing' before we delve deeper into this series in my upcoming blogs.

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Secured yet Scared!

 

The ones who are established with a stabilized income source are the ones who are most scared of losing their security. They want to do everything to ensure nothing is disturbed. Putting this in a Church context, the Church leaders and Pastors are careful that they don’t say anything that can cause offense, even the right and hard stuff. The fear of losing people and income threatens their security. So, they ensure to speak everything favorable to the crowd. They hand pick verses from the Bible that talks about encouragement and blessing of success.

The celebrity preachers have found this mantra and keep speaking words of success, prosperity, goodness and wealth. They are always in demand. People are willing to get them at any cost because they are tied to their personal prosperity. Micaiah’s are rare to be seen today. Let me take you to 1 Kings 22 where it talks about the Jehoshaphat’s alliance with Ahab. Ahab the wicked king befriends Jehoshaphat and urges him to go with him to fight Ramoth-Gilead (1 Kings22:4). Jehoshaphat was unsure about the whole thing but wanted to oblige based on the word from a prophet. Ahab had readymade 400 prophets (22:6) and were summoned. They all prophesized favorably and predicted victory. Because the spirit of the Lord was pricking Jehoshaphat’s conscience he wanted to check if there is any other prophet beside these 400 Prophets. Somewhere down in his heart Jehoshaphat could sense something is wrong. Then we notice Prophet Micaiah is contacted and instructed what to say. 1 Kings 22: 15 The messenger who went to call Micaiah instructed him, “Look the words of the prophets are unanimously favorable for the king. So let your words be like theirs and speak favorably.”

Micaiah was far from being compromised with cheap thrills of money or security. And this is what he said, “As the Lord lives, I will say whatever the Lord says to me” And he was harder to Chenaanah when he mocked Micaiah. As a consequence, we are told Micaiah was put in the prison and instructed to be provided with little bread and water until King Ahab returns. Micaiah ends the conversation with these lines, “If you ever return safely, the Lord has not spoken through me.”. The end for the king was a disaster as we learn from that chapter.

 Security at the cost of Mission can be very costly. I have been going to various trainings and speaking assignments in Churches. I have been personally instructed several times to mellow down, speak favorably, so that the crowd is happy and not offended. This is utterly sad and unfortunate state. In my faith journey, I am ready to risk everything for the sake of the Gospel and I wouldn’t budge from the true Mission God wants every single person to follow. As Dr Eric Mason points this out, “The popular preaching of our days is going to catch up with us! We promise people that if you follow Jesus that He’ll bring your dream to pass. We have made better entrepreneurs, dream chasers, and personal purpose Gurus than we have disciples.”. As long as the crowd is successful the Church assumes they can be successful and secured. Can we strip such false security and disturb the people in your Church who have lived comfortably all their lives? Every soul is a Church lying vacant for years, some for decades. They become the student of the Church all their lives. We need revolutionaries not just good Christians. Jared Wilson stated this powerful statement, “The mission is to make disciples of Jesus. Don’t settle for just well-behaved pagans or self-righteous Pharisees.”

 

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