God or Mammon

Of Hearts and Treasures

Matthew 6:21; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also; don’t be deceived. Wherever you see a man’s treasure, there will his heart be also. Where you see a man’s investment or riches is where his heart is. You cannot say that I have a heart in God when you have not stored treasures in God.

God or Mammon?

Matthew 6:24 MSG; you can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.

You cannot worship God and money because both are Gods and you have to worship one.  When you go to the amplification, he speaks of a place where people put trust in it. Whatever you put your trust in, you worship, whether you know or do not know. 

There is someone who gets ten thousand shillings and says that they cannot give it to a poor person because they need supper.  Where is your trust? In the lord or the ten thousand shillings? Who are you serving? Who are you going to despise? Some people do it but they do not know that they do it.

Do you know Christians who live on budgets? I asked a Christian one day, ‘help me understand, have you ever budgeted for heaven? Have you ever woken up and said that I am going to win a hundred souls this year?’ If you cannot budget for God, how come you have enough time to even budget for money? How many souls have you won this year? 

When you trust in money, when you examine yourself and realise that every time you have money you trust it, then trust me, you are worshipping money. God wants to take you to a place where you say, ‘I have God. Even if my account is empty, I have God. Even if they chase me from the job, I have God!’

Have you ever asked yourself how somebody can be faithful at a workplace, work every day from 8 am to 6pm  for five or ten years, get promotions and increased pay checks, has never defaulted to go to work except if there was a genuine sickness but you plead with them to come to church? How come you come on time at work but you reach late at church? Who are you devoted to?

Even if you make a million dollars every day, there has to be a place where you say, ‘no, this is God time.’ Do you know how many people have been literally stripped from worship? They work from Monday to Sunday. That is bondage. God deliver you and get you a job that can allow you to pray on Sunday. That is the bed of sorrow; the spirit of struggle.

What Makes Money Money?

What makes money what it is, is simple. By the authority of a man, a ten thousand shilling note was declared to be ten thousand and a fifty thousand shilling note was declared to be fifty thousand.  He added zeros to it and legalized it. People stand in front of banks to keep what a man invented.   They kill people for what a man invented. Families and friends blackmail each other because of something that a man created. They divorce because of something that a man wrote. If he wants to make a fifty thousand shilling note five million, all he has to do is add zeros to it. How then can you who can speak in tongues be subject to it? He said you can decree a thing. That is why when it came to the Christian, he told him, you come without money and buy because your currency is not paper. Your currency is God. If paper is your currency, then that paper is your God. What makes us prosperous is not that paper. We can be without it and still be prosperous.

Careless in the Care of God

Matthew 6:25-26 MSG; If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God.

Careless in the care of God. Have you ever seen a bird budgeting? Does it lack? No. Budgeting has to do with the God of this world; Plutus; the god of this world; that is why it’s called plutonomics; the study of money. The Lord God has not called us to manage earthly finances with a mentality of lack. That is why he became poor from day one. You do not enter salvation as a poor man trying to be rich. You enter salvation knowing that you are rich.

Take pride in God. He will look after you. If you see a man fuss over money, that man doesn’t know God and how he works. 

Do not worry. I do not worry about anything concerning me. Even when you do not have a cent, walk back home not worried. That is God reality. God reality looks at the things that are not seen.

Do you know why Christians do not give? They worry about tomorrow. I have a principle. When I get to a place and the devil tempts me to worry about tomorrow, I give big. I have refused to put myself in a state where a king’s son is worried. I love it when I have to trust. I love when I am in a place where my demand is bigger than what is on that machine; I love those places. He says give your entire attention to what God is doing right now. What is he doing? Phaneroo, your home church. Tend to that, give into that, fast into that. Let God attend to your business.

Of Masters and Servants

Ecclesiastes says that money answereth all things. However, the challenge with most Christians is that they do not know how to call it.  If money is your Lord, it doesn’t answer to you; you answer to it. That scripture is for things above money. The servant answers to the master. Money answering to all things does not mean that everybody can order it.

There are people in this world who are masters over money and there are those to whom money is a master. How do you get money to your submission? It is very simple. One of the principles in the scriptures is clear; he that has pity on the poor lendeth unto the lord.

It means that when you pity the poor, you lend to God and put him in a position of serving you financially. But the poor are not just poor financially but the poor spiritually. Preaching the gospel to those people is an amount of money spent.

The bible said of Christ, ‘he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.’ Do you think he was talking about financially poor people? He said the poor(financially), you will always have among you. He was referring to the spiritually poor. But there are people who will say they need to plan for their weekend. The gospel has far more returns than any business in this world. The blessing in giving to God is bigger than the reward you will receive in following mammon.

The Ransom of a man’s life

He says the love for money is the root of all evil and many have pierced themselves with many evils. The ransom of a man’s life are his riches.

You find a Christian suffering from chronic hyper tension. He refused to tithe and is spending on medication every week.  Tithers do not die of such diseases. The man refuses to do principles. Since the ransom of a man’s life are his riches, the devil afflicts him. Then, you find that what you were not tithing, you spend in drugs, every week. And you are happy?

Go and read about the doctor’s sign, the caduceus; it is related with the god of making profit. If you fail to profit in God, the devil makes profit out of you. You fall sick. God forbid, but either way, your money will go.

Of Tithes, First Fruit and the Seed of Faith

You claim to be under the grace and ought not to tithe. Yes you are but Jesus tells them in Luke, that you give tithes of mint and anise and cumin but you have omitted the weightier matters. He tells them, these you ought to do and not leave the rest undone. Jesus knows that the tithe is godly. It is the least for a believer.  I do not tithe, I more than tithe. 

Someone is not giving first fruit but they are whining about how their friends are being promoted and they are not. First fruit is very clear. The Hebrew testimony and the word used therein for first fruit is the place where a man places ownership on that which must promote him. That is why some of you are not growing in your work places.

If you are a worshipper, was your first CD first fruit?  Why are you whining that people do not come to your shows and they do not give for your CDs? That you are a worshipper but people do not support you? Come on, a worker is worthy of his meat. Musicians, tithe. You claim that you sing but people do not give you money. What did you do? You ate the lord’s tithe; the lord’s first fruit. For first fruit, get your salary at the beginning of every year. For the twelve months, one month should not be yours. Take it to your priest. Let him cause a blessing to settle on you.

The other blessing is the seed of faith. Whatever is not enough to do something is seed. Sometimes you have to tell God that God, this is what I am going to give. Believe him to sort all else.

Be delivered, child of God. Either serve God or serve mammon.