The testimony that you will read in the next lines denounces the prosperity gospel which emphasizes the search for blessingsof God in contempt of the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We are truly prosperous in making the will of God the priority of our quests. The goods are given to us in addition. Worry about material possessions is a pagan attitude. The self-respecting Christian knows that his God awaits him in an attitude of contentment and peace vis-à-vis tomorrow. This is not a testament to conversion, but rather the experience that Clay, a God-pleasing Christian in his finances, lived by putting into practice all the principles of prosperity that had been taught to him. When faced with the Word of God, these principles cannot stand. We hope you enjoy reading it. God bless you.
Many years ago the Holy Spirit said to me, "Give up the system of rewards according to the world, and learn to receive according to the Kingdom." If you walk in accordance with the system of this world, you will become dependent on its rewards. After receiving this word, it took me years to understand the deeper meaning of these two systems, and the incompatibility that exists between them. First of all, I conclude that these two systems are in permanent conflict. Both are looking for individuals through whom they will implement their principles. Knowingly or not, every day we participate in either one or the other of these systems. That of the world is led by Satan, the god of this century, and it conveys the traditions of this world. But our Lord Jesus Christ leads in the ways of the Kingdom.
- First, both are underpinned by spiritual forces involving angelic beings.
- Second, whether we engage in one or the other, we will reap a harvest.
- Finally, both have many members, all walking in "the ways" of the system to which they are attached. These “ways” become ways of life, and ways of life become traditions. In our daily existence, the choices we constantly have to make will link us to either one or the other of these systems.
I will now examine the differences between these two systems in the area of finance and material blessings. It should be noted that the system of this world has largely invaded many aspects of the life of the Church, and this, not only in the financial field. The typical traits of this world can be found in the selfish ambitions of many church leaders: they want larger buildings, larger ministries; they want cars, planes, bigger houses; they want more media coverage and a bigger budget. At the root of this spiritual problem that pervades the very house of God is pride, focused on SELF.
From the mid-1980s until the early 1990s, I experienced serious financial difficulties. I had two young sons who I was raising on my own, and had to manage nearly $ 5,000,000 in debt due to catastrophic business transactions. In short, my situation was not brilliant.
For many years, we waited on God, literally without being able to say in advance where the next meal would come from, or how to get the most basic items. The Holy Spirit kept me from declaring myself bankrupt: Throughout these difficult years, we have learned how faithful God is. We have always had the basics and we have never regretted having trusted God. The spiritual gains of those years would be of great help to me later, because soon after, I found myself facing the same problems.
Around the beginning of 1991, I began to listen to the message of prosperity and put it into practice. According to this message, when you gave, you received blessings in return. I felt stimulated, challenged. I threw myself on this teaching and its principles and began to put them into practice. One day I was taken to a $ 5 bill that I didn't know existed; I donated it, according to what the Lord, it seemed to me, put to my heart. In a relatively short period of time, that is, within three years, I was supernaturally enabled to pay off my $ 5 million debt, and to achieve a net gain of it as well. to $ 5 million. So I got $ 10 million in 36 months. After all these lean years,
To everyone's dismay, and especially mine, by the end of 1997 I had once again lost all of my net gain, and was once again in debt of $ 5 million. In these times of trouble, we gave everything in the house outside of the kitchen sink - what an effort to try to move the arm of God! During those years, we "sowed" nearly $ 750,000, donating it mostly to "large" departments. Leaving aside the poor, the orphans, the missions, and the real needs of the Body of Christ, we have made these giants rich. I only mention this effort to show the enormity of the explanation provided by the giants in question: in their opinion, this second failure was because we had not given them enough.
One final point about these closely following financial fluctuations: I must explain that at the beginning we were diligent in prayer to know the mind of the Lord and to give only as He directed. At that time, we did not tithe.
Some of the greatest financial miracles we have ever seen have happened in this context. But our hearts began to go astray: eventually we made giving a law, often giving without praying, and we began to make tithing a rigid principle. We no longer gave by faith; it was more of a mathematical calculation - we took ten percent - a bit like paying the electricity bill. In addition to the tithe we gave huge offerings. Many years later, I realized that anything that does not come from faith is sin. I did not write my tithe check in faith, I was only obeying the new law that I had been taught. Listen to what I discovered after searching for God's will for almost four years: One hundred percent of our income belongs to the Lord, and not ten percent, not twenty percent, or any other percentage. Today when I receive money, I seek the will of God for the total amount.
But at that time, I continued to put into practice the teaching on "prosperity" that had been instilled in me at the beginning; I kept walking by my faith, giving my money. I didn't understand why, but it didn't work anymore.
Having recently had a wife and a newborn child, I have had to face various trials on the natural level. For the first time in many years, I felt the need to receive the true message of prosperity from God. The method that had worked so well at the beginning no longer had the slightest effect on my financial situation. I had been taught that the laws of prosperity worked for all who applied them: it was enough, I was told, to give large sums, and God would make them multiply. It had worked for a while, not just for me, but also for others. Remarkably, we have all encountered the same problems.
So I was once again in the throes of financial distress, again in need of such basic things as food, clothing, payments to pay for the house, water and electricity, for example. Again I cried out to God to hear me, asking Him, "Why?"
In response, I heard: "Because of my mercy!" I was about to learn a key lesson essential for my life and for my financial future. What I am about to say applies to all those who have financial needs, or who feel challenged by the message of “prosperity” that we hear preaching today.
The great change to which God called me so radically contradicts the teaching I was receiving then that I had to learn to think in a whole new way, throwing aside many elements that had become a tradition for me. This change came after I had spent a lot of time in the presence of the Lord, and prayed in the Spirit for long hours. Once I heard the Lord say to me, "Spiritual ignorance often takes the form of tradition." He started by telling me to stop worrying about money; I had to trust Him more, and be content with what I had. He also showed me that I should trust in God, and not in my own faith or in my giving.
I must admit that without money, without food, and sometimes without medicine for my child, it was difficult for me to learn contentment. But at a time when I was in dire need, I received an important revelation. In the midst of this storm, God kept telling me to be content. I was trying well, but the worries and worry kept coming back. One Sunday afternoon in May 1998, you could have said that humanly speaking, my situation had never been worse. I found myself deprived of a house, a car, electricity, water, and virtually all of my material possessions. Only when I humbled myself and cried out to the Lord, the grace of God granted me contentment despite these dire circumstances. God acted supernaturally, and soon, inexplicably,
Incredibly, God had given me this contentment that I asked of Him. For a while, I stood there, marveling at this state my heart had miraculously plunged into.
It was then that I heard honking in front of the house. He was a former employee whom I had not seen for two years. He didn't live in Hinesville, and we hadn't seen each other since he quit his job two years ago. While he was stopped at a red light, the Lord had made it his heart to come and visit me.
He was completely ignorant of my plight. After a brief exchange of greetings, he said, "Clay, it bothers me a lot to ask you this question, but do you have any financial need?" Without even giving me time to respond, he added, "I feel God wants me to bless you financially." Of course, his donation to me did not solve all of our problems, but it allowed us to meet many pressing needs. While I was destitute, he rescued me; but God has given me the grace to grasp this spiritual principle: "Godliness with contentment is indeed a great source of gain" (1 Timothy 6: 6).
Divine contentment releases the anointing of God in us, and then our needs are met not only spiritually, but also materially. Since that event, the first of its kind, this revelation has borne fruit time and time again in our lives.
Money has no power over me, because God provides my needs, and I trust in Him. Now, when it comes to financial matters, I feel a peace that is beyond comprehension, and which does not depend on the amount of my bank account.
By first seeking the will of God, I freed the hand of the Lord; He now takes care of all my needs. What a contrast between this contentment and the so-called “prosperity” message! He tells us, “If you are not happy with your current financial situation, you can do better. So offer gifts to God that really cost you (preferably through our ministry) and God will be obligated to bless you in return.
This movement learns to be dissatisfied, just as one is in this world. The emphasis is on you, and what you can do, to the detriment of total trust in God. The system of this world is based exclusively on what we can do for ourselves. In the Kingdom of God, we trust in the goodness of God for our needs, whatever they may be.
A mystery is a hidden truth that comes to light. I believe the following is a message from God: If you want to enter into the blessing of God, you absolutely must learn to be content.
Be satisfied with what you have, and God will give you to drink water from wells that you have not dug, and to live in houses that you have not built. Stop digging and building apart from Him. A Christian who desires to be rich will surely fall, just as surely as one who believes himself strong enough to defy the laws of gravity. Flee from selfish ambitions (Philippians 2: 3) and love of money (1Timothy 6:10). Recognize that these symptoms come from the old carnal nature. Flee them like the plague: dissatisfaction prevents the blessings of God from manifesting freely.
If you are at rest and contentment, trials will not bring you down. Contentment destroys worry, doubt, fear, and ungodly ambitions.
To run after money is to get caught up in the system of the world, "... for all these things are the heathen of the world looking for" (Luke 12:30). What is required of us is quite simply to seek first the Kingdom of God, to pray, to seek the mind of the Lord, and to obey. Then God will make sure that “all these things” (whatever we need materially and financially) get to us.
What God made me understand completely upset my religious views : chasing after the blessing blocks the flow of divine blessing. To seek the blessing instead of seeking God is to flee from a blessing that would like to reach us. When we are completely focused on God (and not on money or blessing) not only will we receive what we need, but also we will experience the goodness and abundance of God.
Then the gentle voice of the Lord communicated another revelation to me: a poor person can covet earthly goods just as much as a rich person, or even more. Those of us who have had to face serious financial dilemmas have certainly sinned by coveting material goods; I know I am. The “message of prosperity” is enchanting to the ear of the financially challenged Christian, but in a very subtle way it centers us on the search for the blessing for itself.
The minds of many preachers today are focused more on blessings than on God; they shower us with formulas and methods to “obtain the blessing”. How ironic, these formulas very often consist in making offerings for their ministry, for themselves, and for their programs! To a large extent this explains the critical state of the present Church. Our eyes are fixed in the wrong direction, we seek the blessing of God and not God Himself. May the Lord forgive us!
For those of us who watch television, hardly a day goes by without a program urging us to "sow in the good soil" of this or that ministry.. This kind of call comes at the end of a particularly moving message, telling us that a certain "servant of God" is embarking on the construction of buildings, that he needs a new jet plane, or that he needs a new jet. he undertakes such a masterful work for God. Some of these exhortations may come from God, but often they are not. It is good to give to certain ministries, but these do not run the streets. God cries out to His people, “Whenever you give, be led by my Spirit working within you. Don't be fooled by messages that tickle your ears, by all the hype, by the entertainment, by those messages that manipulate your emotions. Recognize that all of this is from this world, and leave this world system that has invaded My house.
That's right, I don't want to throw out the baby along with the soiled diaper. But I am convinced of it, it is essential that the Church becomes aware of it: this “message” is largely false. Please judge for yourselves. Yes, I believe God wants to bless His people. I'm sure God wants His people to give and to be blessed by giving. But there is a limit that should never be crossed: one must not give without being led by the Spirit of God, and one must not give in order to receive. Our gifts, if made in the Spirit, are part of our precious worship to Heavenly Father.
The Word of Faith movement has long taught that divine laws will work for all who enforce them. In other words, it would be enough to put into practice the letter of the law, and God would be "bound by his written Word", obligated to act in your existence. Likewise, this same movement produced the “message of prosperity” which reads, “If you give, God is obligated to bless you.” But that is simply not true. As I said above, this is one of the essential reasons the Body of Christ experiences financial struggles, for "the letter kills, and the Spirit quickens." Eve succeeded in persuading Adam that he could have the blessings of God without God, hence the terrible fall of man. Satan was cast out of heaven for a very similar reason.
Yes, God blesses our offerings when we give joyfully, to honor Him, to obey His Spirit. But if our motive is “to get something from Him,” and this is essentially the “message of prosperity,” our motives are defiled, they are the expression of our own righteousness. And all this only leads to religiosity, pride, and selfishness.
Clay Sikes
Source: blogdei.com
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