The Pleasures of Sharing Information

A young man who was attending my Coffee Bar Bible studies tossed a $20 bill on the table between us. He said something like “I haven’t been sowing anywhere lately” and added that he felt my eMail ministry was as valid as any. Something to that effect.

A few years back, my own son handed me some crumpled bills and told me he had grown convicted about regularly supporting my ministry. He’s seen the fruit of his dad’s labor and wants to “link up” with me. I cannot deny him the blessings of such action.

Ah, the power of partnership!

These two situations remind me of the importance of addressing the subject of God’s Kingdom and our Finances. There’s such a blessing in store for those who comprehend this matter. Just last week, two people asked me if anyone supported my ministry and another individual promised to do so. In all honesty, I do NOT want to be lumped in with anyone’s concept of money-grubbing ministers. I don’t “need” anybody’s money to do the things I do for Jesus. Good thing because, frankly, very little Kingdom Cash tends to find its way in this direction. Perhaps making donations to an on-line ministry is still too weird for most people.

Frankly, that’s too bad. The soil of this ministry is VERY fertile and I can’t help but feel that anyone would be very blessed to jump on board and sow their seeds in this direction. I realize the sensitive nature of this subject. Any time I even so much as hinted at this in any of my previous broadcasts, I’ve received more than a few accusations pertaining to greed, scams, etc., and I’ve lost a few subscribers.

This is a chance I’m willing to take because, fact is, God’s people MUST know the truth about giving. So, despite the potential negative outcome, here it is.

GOD WANTS YOU!

For starters, God doesn’t want our money. He wants US! And since our hearts are so inextricably tied to our wallets, we must learn the Kingdom principles regarding finances.

The giving of finances is about the closest any of us will ever come to a human sacrifice. Think about it. We give our blood, sweat and tears to earn every dime. It is society’s way of measuring what we’re worth. Ever wonder why it’s so hard to give to a ministry? You can’t tell ME there’s no devil! And he’ll do everything within his power to keep our money steadily slipping away like water from our cupped hands, going every direction except toward God’s work. His deceptions and dsitractions are the reason it’s so hard for us to sow our finances as we should.

A young man selling magazines door to door came to my house one day. He said he was trying to win a trip. I didn’t buy any but I couldn’t help but notice on his order form that my neighbor had just purchased $26 worth. How easy it is to part with our hard-earned cash on an excursion through a shopping center or to impress another person with our generosity or our “stuff,” but when it comes to sowing into the Kingdom, well … that’s quite another matter.

It’s tough to contribute to an invisible cause the likes of God’s Kingdom! To many of us, being a good steward of what God has provided us with is best defined as finding a good deal on something we really didn’t need anyway. I know a lady who told her husband she had saved them $200 one day. “How?” he asked. “I bought this pretty $400 comforter for half off,” she responded with pride.

Yes, we give willingly, cheerfully, to the “causes” of drive-thru restaurants and to check-out counter gadgets and magazines. In America, the average kid spends about $40 per trip to the mall. Their parents, about $80. And our closets and attics are filled with old and broken junk. In contrast, Jesus said, “Lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy…,” Matthew 6:19, 20. A baby will play with a stack of shiney, jingling pennies and ignore a crumpled old $100 bill.

The BLING stikes again.

THE TRUTH ABOUT TITHING

God doesn’t need our money any more than He needed the fruit on the tree in the Garden of Eden. The issue is this: it’s called recognized rights. Five-hundred years before the Mosaic Law, Abraham was tithing; Jacob, 250 years before the Law. Once the tithe was implemented, God’s people were bound under the Law. Now, under the New Covenant, we should willingly give all we can to build God’s Kingdom as His co-laborers. After all, we’re citizens in this Kingdom, too, y’know. To build it is only to build into what is now ours anyway! We must become intimately joined to the Kingdom enough for that to ring true to each of us.

To those who teach a mandatory 10% AFTER the cross, sorry, but there’s no Scriptural evidence that the “storehouse” is an expensive, usually-empty building, property, equipment, musical instruments, or salaries (64% of western church workers are administrative and janitorial - NOT ministerial). No, the storehouse is the Kingdom of God. But there’s so little teaching on the Kingdom. The Word of Faith movement of the late 70’s and 80’s was the cause of many a shipwrecked faith as people developed a “give-to-get” mentality. Name-it-and-claim-it theology certainly had elements of truth within it, but too few ever asked the ‘why’ questions … like, why wasn’t the preacher in the $400 suit and the fancy Italian shoes teaching this stuff in 3rd world nations?

Jesus didn’t do it, folks. Neither did Paul. Think of how stress-less ministry would be without all that “stuff” anyway … and how much more effective we’d be in Kingdom work if we weren’t so consumed with running these “spiritual corporations.”

BETTER TO GIVE!

Ephesians 4:28 tells us: “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to give to those in need.”

Something to give? The thief must work SO THAT he will be able to give? YES! And if that’s expected of the thief, it must certainly apply to the rest of us, eh? That’s the Kingdom principle of giving: work so you’ll have MORE TO GIVE! Work so you’ll have something to sow because, in sowing, you advance the Kingdom.

The “making-a-living” mindset is a perversion of truth. It’s based upon “self” and encourages humanistic, “all-about-me” thinking. If all we’re waking up for each morning is to get back to the grindstone so we can make money so we can buy more stuff so we can impress people we don’t know or don’t like, getting ourselves into debt requiring that we work even more, even harder… folks, this is a merry-go-round we need to get off of right away!

God is our Provider. He wants us to trust Him to be so. Satan wants to “bless” you with all kinds of worldly stuff, too, just as he attempted to “bless” Jesus, so we MUST be careful not to fall into his traps. He knows that giving is a spiritual principle of God’s Kingdom and he desires to make it more and more difficult, even unreasonable, to give.

“For God so loved the world that He GAVE…,” John 3:16. God’s a giver and so should His children be.

STORING UP TREASURES

Christians, make a note: we can NOT satisfy a spiritual need by using natural means. We cannot SPEND ourselves into feeling joyful. There is nothing more than temporal satisfaction in that. All the supposed “needs” that we have to accumulate more of this world’s treasures, all of which “moth and rust destroy,” are a perversion of the Scriptural truth that we should store our treasures in Heaven. We can’t take it with us, but we CAN send some treasures on ahead. Think of it, folks … the streets of Heaven are paved with gold!

Resist busy-ness. In our frenzied fervor to earn more, we’re spending less and less of today’s gift of God on that which matters; it’s called The Present. And where others are concerned, “love” is spelled T-I-M-E.

Where time is concerned, let’s spend a little more of ours in prayer and in God’s Word, shall we? Talk about gifts, time is a gift and the enemy makes sure ours is wasted away.

Nothing to give anyone else? Search the cushions of your couch. Remember the widow’s mites? In my poorest moment, penniless as I could have ever imagined being, I found I was not above cleaning a church parking lot under a blazing sun and helping an old church janitor move chairs for a few bucks. Mowing lawns, mending fences, pulling weeds… I’ve learned that it just doesn’t matter, as long as it gets me around people so that I might have an opportunity to advance the Kingdom. When I’ve taken people out on weekend “discipleship” missions, no longer do we pass out tracts or ask people if they’d go to Heaven if they died tonight. Not that these are bad things. No, instead, we work. Mow lawns, move furniture, take out trash, rake leaves. These acts of kindness, performed by people working together who don’t even attend the same church, disarm people and inevitably lead to opportunities to pray and minister in other ways.

We live a seed-time-to-harvest existence. Are you sowing? Remember, as you go about “making a giving” each day, Jesus said, “Give and it will be given unto you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap,” (Luke 6:38). Thankfully, I’m married to a woman who joins me in this “giver” mentality. We are actively looking for fertile kingdom fields in which to cast our seed. My personal goal is to one day give away 90% of my income. Don’t laugh! I know of people who are doing so. Why not me? Why not YOU?

How will the blessings come? You may be allowed to keep your job. You may be awarded an inheritance. You may get more hours at work. You may get a pay raise. You may never get sick or have a fender-bender. Be content with your wages, Jesus taught. Trust in God for He knows your needs well in advance.

Give to others in every way you can. You can’t out-give God (but you can sure out-SPEND Him). Practice self-control (for example, wait 24-hrs before making any purchase on an item over a pre-determined amount), and make your bread-winning efforts a means of making a GIVING, not merely a living.

READ ‘EM & REAP

Prov 4:20-22
John 8:31-32
1 Cor 9:13-19
2 Cor 9:6-15

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pastor Michael is founder of t.e.a.m. ministries (team1min@aol.com). His eMail broadcasts, known as “Your Town for Jesus” (SEARCH it!) are reaching tens of thousands WEEKLY. Log on at http://www.PlanetaryMinistry.org

Michael’s mission is to bring Discipleship and Encouragement to the Body of Christ. Michael is the author of numerous booklets on a subjects that will interest the thinking Christian. Since 1999, he has written and broadcast nearly 500 inspirational articles and a dozen booklets, al designed to accelerate the process of spiritual development in God’s people.

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The existence of God can be proved in two ways - by practical demonstration and by deduction. These two methods are employed because they are acceptable to science. In science, fact can be established by practical demonstration and knowledge can be arrived at by deduction.

Let us begin with the method of practical demonstration.

We are told that the earth has a magnetic field. We cannot see, hear or touch this magnetic field. However, science is able to show proof of its existence in this way. When a bar magnet is suspended so that it can swing freely on a horizontal plane, it will always come to rest with its north pole pointing approximately towards the geographic north. So, although we cannot see, hear or touch the earth’s magnetic field, science is able to prove its existence by demonstrating its effect on a freely suspended bar magnet. This, therefore, means that a thing that is not observable does in actual fact exist if it produces observable effects on some other thing.

God is not observable. We cannot see, hear or touch Him. However, God produces observable effects in the lives of human beings. When we put our faith in Him, we experience the effect of His power.

Countless cases and instances abound of people who, when they were in difficulty, put their faith in God and experienced the positive effect of His power. Below is one of the many testimonies and incidents recounted in the book, The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale (World’s Work Ltd, Publishers). (To keep this article from being lengthy, I have chosen this rather brief testimony which can be found on pages 195 and 196).

Another efficient woman physician wrote me of her own development in combining the therapy of medicine and faith.

“I became interested in your straight forward religious philosophy. I had been working at top speed and getting tense, irritable, and at times beset with old fears and guilts, in fact in need of a release from morbid tension. At a low moment early one morning I picked up your book and began to read it. This was the prescription that I needed. Here was God, the great Physician, with faith in Him as an antibiotic to kill the germs of fear and render useless the virus of guilt.

“I began to practice the good Christian principles outlined in your book. Gradually there came a release of tension and I felt relaxed and happier and I slept well. I quit taking vitamin and pep pills. Then, she adds, and this is what I want to emphasize, “I began to feel that I wanted to share this new experience with my patients, those who came to me with neuroses. I was surprised to find how many had read your book and others. The patient and I seemed to have a common ground to work on. It has been an enriching experience. To talk about a faith in God has become a natural and easy thing to do.

“As a doctor”, she adds, “I have seen a number of miraculous recoveries due to Divine aid being given. In the past few weeks I have had an additional experience. My sister had to undergo a serious operation about three weeks ago. Following the operation she developed intestinal obstruction. On her fifth day she was very critically ill, and as I left the hospital at noon I realized that she must take a turn for the better very soon or her hope of recovery would be slim. I was very worried, so I drove slowly around for about twenty minutes praying for a relief of this obstruction. (Everything that could be done medically was being taken care of). I had not been home more than ten minutes when the phone rang, and her nurse told me that the obstruction has relieved itself and that she had taken a definite turn for the better, and since that time she has recovered completely. Could I feel otherwise than that God’s intervention had saved her life?”

So runs the letter of a successful practicing physician.

If you will like many more testimonies of people’s experiences of the effect of the power of God in their lives then I recommend that you read this book.

On innumerable occasions in my own affairs, I have had to put my faith in God when I came to the limit of my abilities or resources. On every single one of those occasions I achieved the goal I desired or attained the objective I sought. On all those occasions I experienced the effect of the power of God.

The fact that God produces observable effects in the lives of human beings is incontrovertible proof that God exists.

Let us now employ deduction to again prove that God really exists.

For law and order to exist, an authority must be present to establish and maintain it. In the absence of authority, anarchy usually reigns. Recent events in Bagdad, capital of Iraq, will help illustrate my point.

When the government of Saddam Hussein collapsed under the onslaught of American and coalition forces, all hell broke loose. Looters spearheaded the chaos that ensued. Violence and disorderly conduct took center stage. Woman dared not step out onto the streets without the company of their men folk. Life and property were clearly insecure and you could see it glaringly demonstrated - no authority, no law and order.

Now, it is a scientific fact that natural laws exist. These are laws that apply at all times and in all places and which may be regarded as universal laws. Some examples of such laws are: the law of Gravity, Newton’s Laws of Motion and the Law of Demand and Supply.

We also know from observation and experience that there is order in the universe. The sequence of the seasons never changes. We always go to bed at night rest assured that day will unfailingly follow night. And when it is dawn, we arise knowing that the sun will invariably rise in the east and later set in the west at dusk.

Every living thing reproduces its own kind. A corn plant will sprout from a corn seed. A dog will give birth to puppies and a pregnant human will deliver a baby human. Even then, if the white spouse of a white gentleman gives birth to a dark skinned baby, she will most certainly face accusations of unfaithfulness. White parents produce white babies and black parents produce black babies. That is the natural and unchangeable order of things. It is the order which exists in the universe that enables scientists to calculate precisely when and where the next eclipse will occur.

The fact that universal law and order exist means that a universal authority exists. God - or whatever name you choose to call this Almighty Power - is the universal authority responsible for the establishment and maintenance of universal law and order. To accept universal law and order and reject universal authority simply does not make sense. The former cannot be present without the later.

I think it is time we all face up to the fact that God, the Universal Authority, exists. It is time to acknowledge His authority over us and to make doing His will our first priority. This is the only way to go if we are to experience the full and joyous life that the Almighty intended for us.

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The statement has been made that the Bible is so full of conflicting assertions and contradictions that it is impossible to comprehend. The Bible was written by average people like you and me but they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guided them in what to write and say. The Holy Sprit is from God. John 14:26; 16:13. So since God is perfect and all knowing He can’t be the one to cause all of our modern day confusion.

Society is confused because there are so many different doctrines you don’t know which one to believe. So if we are saying there are no contradictions in the bible then how do you figure out who is right and who is wrong? To begin with you have to know when it was written, the audience, who it was written for and to as well as knowing under what conditions it was written. Just like any story if you can use the what, when, where, why and how that you learned in school it makes it easier to understand. The Bible being a puzzling book to some degree each chapter is in complete harmony with one another. To know who is right or wrong the doctrine cannot disagree with the purpose of the Bible as a whole. If a person, doctrine or theory disagrees with any point then one or all could be wrong.

It’s no wonder that the world is in a constant upheaval about Christianity. There are so many denominations no one knows who or what to believe. I don’t think that God intended it to be this way. In New Testament times there weren’t all the denominations that we have in our present day. There was only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Ephesians 4:5. Today we have many faiths, churches all teaching something different, creeds and baptisms. God is not a God of confusion but of peace. I Corinthians 14:33. The 1st century Christians were instructed by the apostle Paul to agree and that there were to be no divisions among them but yet there are so many divisions today. I Corinthians 1:10. The problem is if the early Christians were told to agree is it possible today in the 21st century? The point I would like to make is if it isn’t God and the Bible, then who is the author of confusion.

The confusion is going to continue until Christians get back to the basics. Some believe a certain way because that’s the way they have been brought up or it’s the popular viewpoint. Christians need to start examining the church they attend as well as their own beliefs. They shouldn’t just accept something because that’s the way everyone believes about a subject especially concerning end times. End time type of preachers has some scared into a tizzy. When something is said you should be like the Christians of Berea as described in the book of Acts. They took the time to search the scriptures to see if what they were being told was true. Acts 17:11. The apostle John also said to test the spirits to see if they were from God. He says to not believe everything you hear. I John 4:1. In other words examine what you are being told and if you cannot find it in the scriptures then it has to be rejected. In first century times they foretold the fact that Christians would fall away from the faith and find teachers who would preach what they wanted to hear rather than what the truth is. I Timothy 4:1-5; 6:3-4; II Timothy 4:1-5.

I challenge you today to start examining your beliefs as I do everyday. Having an open mind to the possibility of being wrong will be the hardest challenge. If you can overcome that then I am sorry to say it’s still uphill from there but at least the hardest test will be over. When examining scripture don’t twist it to make it agree with what you believe but rather read it to understand what to believe. Using a lot of common sense goes a long way. Lastly don’t take my word for it get your paper, pens, highlighters and examine the scriptures also everything I have said as well. Come now and let us reason together. Isaiah 1:18.

Christine Bettridge has had a love for writing since childhood. She has written plays, poetry, articles and her latest e-book has created excitement in the religious world, End Time Secrets can be found at http://endtimesecrets.com.

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Bhagavad-gita (which means “Song of God”), the holy scripture of
Hinduism is rather satanic or evil. This is the thesis this
article attempts to defend and put forward.

Bhagavad-gita, also known as Gitopanisad or simply ‘Gita’, is
the essence of Vedic knowledge and one of the most important
Upanisads in Vedic literature. ‘It is the conversation between
Krishna, who is God in human form come to guide and protect the
righteous, and Arjuna, who is the rest of us in human form,
confused about what the right course of action in life is and
sickened by the horror we see in the world around us.’ (See
Linda Johnsen, The complete idiot’s guide to Hinduism. Penguin
Group: 2002) Krishna advises Arjuna to fight in the battlefield
for he, Arjuna, is Ksatriya.

Gita is constituted of 18 chapters, each entailing multiple
verses or texts. The main satanic aspects of Gita are given
below.

1. The Cast-conscious Gita - In Ch 18 verses 41 to 48 clearly
imply that Gita (in particular, Lord Krishna) considers the cast
system (constituted of the four casts, viz Brahmanas, Ksatriyas,
Vaisyas, and Sudras) to be divine and religious. Sudras
performing the works of Brahmanas are thus irreligious,
according to the Gita (see Ch 18 verses 47 & 48).

2. The Satanic Krishna - In Ch 2 verse 31, Krishna advises
Arjuna to fight as a Ksatriya (i.e. warrior) for the sake of
religious principles. Also in Ch 4 verses 7 & 8 Krishna tells
Arjuna that to deliver the pious and to annihilate the
miscreants, and to reestablish the principles of religion, He
Himself appears, millennium after millennium. This means that
all Sudra (and untouchable) scholars (e.g. Dr B. R. Ambedkar, K.
Ramaswamy, an untouchable justice of India’s Supreme court) who
work like Brahmanas, and Brahmanas, may be because they are not
clever or educated enough, who work like Sudras are considered
as miscreants by Gita and are threatened to death. Even Gita
thinks it religious to annihilate those whose beliefs and
practices are other than Hinduism, which would include atheists,
free thinkers, other religious people like Christians, Muslims,
Jews, etc.

3. The Violent Gita - The message of Gita is violent. In Ch 2
verses 31 to 38, Ch 4 verse 42, Ch 11 verses 33 & 34, Arjuna is
advised to fight the irreligious people (his enemy) with violent
means. If Krishna Himself is God and thus almighty, He must be
able to convince the irreligious people that their actions are
immoral or irreligious. Rather than doing so He wishes
bloodshed. Also, if compared to Christianity this is far more
satanic. If Christ were in place of Krishna He would have
attempted to win the hearts and minds of the irreligious people
and the generations to come by sacrificing his own life, by
displaying an ideal of suffering love rather than violent fight.

(For more information on Bhagavad-gita see ‘Bhagavad-gita as it
is’ by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. The Bhaktivedatna
Book Trust: 2003.)

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