Priorities...

So,brothers, my dear wife and I went to church this morning, full of joy and expectation because the Lord has been moving in a fresh way recently.
The worship music was great and we seemed to enter into a place where the Lord could really speak to us prophetically and where Jesus Christ and His gospel could be proclaimed with power. I myself was filled with the Holy Spirit and had that inward urge to joyfully utter His pre- eminence and proclaim repentance from dead works and faith in Jesus Christ.
We went through the announcements and offering as per usual and were advised that our pastor, who is getting on in years and has been very involved in meetings with other Christian leaders and politicians regarding the way forward in our country, was taking a break this morning and we had a visiting speaker who would stand in for him. Made sense, our pastor probably needs the rest.
Still my levels of expectation were high, thinking that maybe we would receive an anointed proclamation of the Word.
So this teacher steps up, very " humbly" redirects the applause of the crowd from himself to Jesus...well done! I am thinking..
He then says that this is all very last minute, had another sermon prepared but felt " led " by the Lord to teach on something else which, he believed, someone needed to hear.
You have guessed it, brothers and sisters, he felt " led" to speak a word on First Things, a fancy way of introducing the main subject: Tithing!
Yes, brothers, after great worship, great expectancy etc, I had to sit through nearly an hour of teaching on why tithing is still for today and God's way to bless His people etc, the same teaching I heard more than 20 years ago in my charismatic word- faith church at the time.
Oh, the disappointment! The frustration! The anger even! That a preacher could pass up such an opportunity to proclaim the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ and make His Name known among the people...for his favorite and oh so important message for Christ's church...on tithing. He and I must be hearing from different spirits!
Still amazes me that these " teachers" all know better than the foundation laying apostles who just weren't as enlightened as they are, to see the great importance of the message of tithing!( sarcasm intended)
To add to the great grievance of it all, we squeezed in communion at the end of the service! How smoothly this guy moved from preaching tithing ( obeying a law to earn/ ensure God's blessing) to the cross of Christ ( God' s grace giving us what we could never earn)
Conclusion: So God gave us all things freely in Christ...but financial blessing has to be earned through tithing?
Christ became a curse for us so we can inherit Abraham's blessing...but if you don't tithe you are under a curse? Oh, the contradiction of it all!

Brothers, should we not stand up against these modern day manipulators who desire to bring the people of God into bondage?

Thanks for allowing me to vent, precious brethren!

God bless

Hi William

Great post, I have come from the same thing and see the tithing principles abused even when western preachers go to poor countries. I have met some Godly Pastors and teachers that never mention tithing and yet their ministry thrives. I see it as lack of trust in the Lord that he will meet their needs. I have seen good men of God that sit before the lord and lay their needs before him and the holy spirit sources these needs through his children. There are times when they became deep in debt and couldn't feed their families but God came through and blessed them greater then they could imagine.

I on a few occasions have been asked by the holy spirit to give money to people and even my bible, they never asked for anything but God new their needs and I had what they needed. I found it to be such a blessing when the Lord asks me to give as it comes from my heart where as when people ask for money it can come from fleshly guilt perspective.

In the times to come all Christians will need to rely on the Holy spirit to search amongst his peoples to help each other out. Without doing this the people will have to compromise their faith to live.

My pastor never asked for tithing and as he was on a retirement pension he paid for all the church rent and needs for years. God really shaped him during this time and he was so blessed his spiritual walk is one of the strongest I have witnessed.

I think it is a pattern to have guest preachers teach on tithing. My church does it and we visited my daughters church and they did it. I think that is extremely wimpy, as well as unbiblical.

The show must go on...!

Maybe you ought not be going to the theater each Sunday!

Thanks brothers,

I just had to share my frustration with someone. I had got my hopes up because we hadn't had this kind of teaching in a while and although our pastor mentions tithes and offerings during " offering" time he never gets long winded about it.

Blessings,

Brother Mark,

I am not that clever on Facebook but I checked and didn't see any new messages?

I hope the other William Marran will appreciate the message :):)

You can e-mail me or try again? On Facebook I am just William Marran who resides in Roodepoort, Gauteng, South Africa

Blessings,