Dear Pastor,
When preaching about the biblical principle of sowing and reaping and relating it to financial prosperity, please balance it with the principles of labor, hard work, diligence and creativity else you are raising a bunch of lazy Christians always expecting manna from heaven.
There are many of them on Facebook writing and shouting ‘I catch it, I receive it’ expecting ‘miracle money’ from heaven to flow into their bank accounts without doing any work.
The Bible does not say that God gives free money but that He gives us the power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18). The power to get wealth includes life, health, time, knowledge, intellect, thinking and reasoning faculties, ideas and connections and it is our responsibility to utilize these powers to create wealth for ourselves.
Are God and His Word liars?
When God created man, the first man Adam was given work to do before he was given a companion. God commands man to multiply and be fruitful on earth (Genesis 1:28) but multiplication and fruitfulness comes from productivity and does not come out of nothing. Whatever our hands find to do, we should do it will all our strength (Ecclesiastes 9:10). God commands man to work and blesses the work of his hands. He will not bless a lazy hand that does no work and is writing and shouting ‘I catch it, I receive it.’
Exodus 20:9 says ‘six days thou shall labor and do all thy work.’’
Deuteronomy 28:8 says ‘the Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou set thine hand unto…’’ meaning that a man’s hand must first be gainfully employed to be blessed.
Deuteronomy 28:12 says ‘the Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heaven to give thee rain unto thy land in its season, and to bless the work of thy hands…’’ meaning that a man must be engaged in a productive enterprise which God will bless.
Psalm 1:3 says ‘…whatever he does shall prosper’ meaning that man must be doing something which God will bless and prosper.
Psalm 128:2 says ‘thou shall eat the labor of thy hands: happy thou shall be, and it shall be well with thee’’
Proverbs 6:9 says: ‘How long shall thou sleep, O sluggard? When will thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little while and a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that travels and thy want as an armed man.’’
Proverbs 12:11 says ‘he that tills the ground shall be satisfied with bread but he that follows vain persons (and vain teachings) is void of understanding.’’
Proverbs 13:4 says ‘the soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.’’
Proverbs 14:23 says ‘in all thy labor, there is profit but the talk of the lips tend to penury.’’
1 Corinthians 4:12 says ‘and labor, working with our hands.’’
Ephesians 4:28 says ‘let him that stole steal no more but rather let him labor, working with his own hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that has need.’’
The Bible makes it clear that anyone who will not work should not eat. Pastor, teach the brethren the exact truths in the Word of God and desist from vain teachings that earns you vainglory, cheap praise and popular acclaim before men but brings condemnation from God.
Lazy hands writing and shouting ‘I catch it, I receive it’ will end up catching poverty, lack and want.
Ayodele Adegbulugbe.
www.xtianrace.blogspot.com.ng
Lagos, Nigeria
No comments:
Post a Comment