(Please note that this article is DEFINITELY NOT for everybody!)
Believers that TRULY follow Jesus Christ in this end-time will see some BOLD, RADICAL CHANGES in the way that God will relate with us in practical terms as we live out the Gospel of Christ daily.
More noticeably, God will lead us back to the ANCIENT FOUNDATION that previous generations of believers have misunderstood, ignored, or simply explained away. In leading us back to this foundation, God will NOT compromise AN INCH on any of these issues. In response, it is either we follow God joyfully, or He’ll move on with ONLY the willing few. And the willing few will indeed be VERY FEW in this end-time.
Here is one of the RADICAL CHANGES that will become MORE manifest in the days ahead. If God will use you mightily in ministry in this end-time, chances are VERY HIGH that He’ll ‘damage’ your finances! In manifestation, this could mean that you may face inexplicable and intractable financial challenges.
God is not doing this to hurt you; but to teach you, in practical terms, that He ALONE is your Provider. This is because of the truism that ‘he that controls your economy, controls your life, controls your destiny’.
In this regard, the control of a man’s destiny could be from either of two sources – God or Mammon – as Jesus made clear in Matthew 6: 24. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will HATE the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and DESPISE the other….” So, there are only TWO MASTERS in the universe.
This is why God will DAMAGE the hold of mammon over your life. In the deadly days and the deadly battle ahead, God will not harbour servants that HATE and DESPISE Him because of the influence of mammon in their lives. Here is the concluding part of the verse 24 quoted above: “… Ye CANNOT serve God and mammon.” Do you understand what Jesus is saying here? If so, do you believe it? Do you believe it is an IMPOSSIBILITY to serve both God AND mammon? Do you believe that ANY believer that is serving mammon (even unknowingly) is NOT serving God, but is a SERVANT OF MAMMON?
In His days on earth, Jesus taught His disciples the importance of this subject. He taught them to experience God as The Provider for ALL His servants. When He sent out the 12 disciples, He gave them this specific instruction: “Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves….” (Matt 10:9-10).
Interestingly, Jesus repeated this strategy when he was sending out the 70 disciples (Luke 10:1-12). They were to take nothing as He sent them out two-by-two to the towns and cities He’ll later visit. “… the labourer is worthy of his wages….”, He told them. And who pays those wages? God Himself! The Employer of the labourer. This is one of the ways that God taught the disciples that He ALONE is their Provider, taking their eyes away from the power and influence of mammon.
Earlier in the ministry of Jesus, Apostle Peter had been taught this same lesson at a personal level. In Luke 5:1-11, Peter experienced God as The Great Provider when he landed a great catch of fish that nearly caused his boat to sink! Please note Peter’s response. He was in awe of God (verse 9), and his response was to FORSAKE ALL to follow Jesus (verse 11). That was the outcome of that encounter.
Brethren, in a similar vein, until our generation, in one way or the other, encounters God as The Provider, we will DEFINITELY NOT be able to meet a lot of the DEMANDS that will be placed upon us by the imperatives of the Gospel of Christ in this end-time. Those DEMANDS are coming! And these are the days of preparation. Only the believers that undergo this deliverance from the influence of mammon will be able to TRULY serve God in obedience in our days.
Here’s a practical example of this. Until Christian families TRULY know God as The Provider, our women will NOT be able to respond with all their hearts to God’s will that they should PRIORITISE HOME-BUILDING over mammon-chasing. (For in building their respective homes, women are actually building A HUB for the advancement of the Kingdom of God on earth). But mammon-chasing has pulled a lot of Christian women away from this PRIMARY Kingdom duty! And the interest of the Kingdom of God ‘suffers’ massively today because of this mammon worship.
There are many more examples of such mammon-worship among believers today – as the will of God is sacrificed DAILY on the altar of the expediency of paying our bills. There is a lot more to say on this, but that is not the focus of this article. Just to add this point. When God has broken the POWER OF THE WALLET of a believer, He may choose to give the wallet back to him in one form or the other. Or, He may never do so. Even if He gives the wallet back, such a believer will NEVER be able to trust the power of the wallet again! For he would have TRULY KNOWN God as the Provider.
This is the direction in which God will lead TRUE believers in the days ahead.
There is a second reason that God will ‘damage’ the finances of His servants. He uses this process to DAMAGE our SELF life. For when a man is SELF-sufficient in his finances, he derives a degree of SELF-esteem from that achievement. Whichever way we look at it, this SELF-esteem is a subtle manifestation of the life of SELF in a man. SELF – the greatest hindrance to a believer’s followership of Christ (Luke 9:23).
In this end-time, Satan will maximise this vulnerability, as he seeks to exploit ALL the areas of weaknesses in a believer’s armour (Eph 6:13). This is one of the reasons God is dealing with our ignorance/carelessness in this area. So that, we do not give ANY PLACE to the devil – as exhorted in Eph 4:27.
All TRUE men will be able to relate to this next point. Nothing shakes the pride and SELF-confidence of a man like having to DEPEND on the kindness and generosity of other people! Yet, this is the situation that Jesus put both the 12 and the 70 disciples that He sent out, as we saw earlier. He told them, “… whatsoever house ye enter … in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things AS THEY GIVE….” (Luke 10:5-7). The disciples were, somehow, DEPENDENT on the generosity of others!
This is the rigorous training that Jesus put His disciples through. No wonder mammon NEVER had a hold over any of them (except Judas that had a secret romance with mammon, as he stole the money in his care). The other disciples lived above the corrupting influence of mammon, with Apostle Peter being able to tell Simon the Sorcerer, “… your money perishes with you…….” (Acts 8:20). This is very important to God.
And it will also be very important for those of us living in this end-time, when the evil power of EVERYTHING that belongs to Satan – including mammon – will come to the FULLNESS of its glory, power, and dominion over mankind.
This is the end-time trend that Apostle Paul saw when he prophesied that in the last days, men will be LOVERS OF SELF and LOVERS OF MONEY (2 Tim 3:1-2). Of course, both elements belong to Satan! Here are the words of Paul in that passage, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be LOVERS OF SELF, LOVERS OF MONEY…” (2 Tim 3:1-2 ESV).
This is the evil, spiritual cloud that is over mankind today. Therefore, any believer that will today walk closely with the coming King of Glory would have to be COMPLETELY PURGED of these satanic elements. Again, please note that God will not hold back on ‘inflicting’ this harsh lesson on ALL His important soldiers in this end-time battle.
In practice, this lesson will unfold in two ways. First, for some believers, God will touch their finances in such a way that it might inexplicably crumble! And they’ll struggle in vain to revive the finances and put it back in the original shape.
For others, God will open their understanding to the words of Jesus that say a believer MUST FORSAKE ALL that he has – in order to follow Him (Luke 14:33). Such believers, under the flood of this understanding, may be challenged by God to get rid of A LOT of their possessions and assets – as Jesus said in Luke 12:33.
Some of them will be like the believers in the early church. Believers that sold their lands and houses so that the needs of their poorer brethren in Christ may be met. Here is that testimony in Acts 4:34-35, “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and IT WAS DISTRIBUTED to each as any had need.
”This is a manifestation of the PRACTICAL LOVE of Christ that will characterise the GENUINE church of God in this end-time – just as it was in the early church.
Of course, MOST believers will neither recognise nor cooperate with this end-time move of God! They will find carnal justification to cling to their mammon. For, in truth, mammon is actually their TRUE god! Jesus is only a name on their lips and an ideology at the periphery of their hearts.God knows all about their hypocrisy. In judgment, He will EXPOSE and PUNISH this hypocrisy when the Antichrist appears and makes it impossible for them to buy or sell – unless they receive the mark of the beast (Rev 13:15-17). On that day, ALL the money that these believers treasure will become COMPLETELY USELESS. For God cannot be mocked!This will be one of God’s MANY judgments against the hypocrisy that abounds in Christianity today.
So, child of God, please understand all these things. And be observant on how God is moving in your life at this end-time, pruning and shaping your life. Please, do not attempt to swim against the tide of the work of the cross – as God uses this blunt, crude instrument to destroy EVERY tendency of the SELF-life that is lurking beneath the radar of your spiritual awareness.
God will do all these as He prepares the TRUE Bride for the return of the IMMACULATE KING, whose Bride must be attired without spots, wrinkles, or any such things (Eph 5:27).
To get the Bride to this state of readiness, “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” (Isa 40:3-5)
Are you ready for this move of God in your life, especially on your finances? There’s nothing new or strange about all these things. They are the FOUNDATIONAL TRUTHS that Jesus taught His followers. It’s just that the rebellious church of the end-time has DEPARTED from this foundation, or simply explained them away with man’s wisdom. May the strong, secret, and silent stronghold of mammon be destroyed in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
And, may our eyes be GENUINELY open to the truth that God is the ONLY Provider for His people – as He marches them through the wilderness to the Promised Land of incomparable glory. Amen.“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)
Thanks for reading, God bless you.(PLS NOTE: To understand some of the practical aspects of this article, please have a look at the FREE e-book titled, ‘TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR TOMORROW: What Did Jesus Mean?’. It is available on this link – https://www.facebook.com/…/a.1857007728…/188249022567116 . Thanks)
Source: Church Watch in Nigeria
