From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
The Blessing, What is it ?
By Pastor Allen
Feb 17, 2010 - 12:14:23 PM
Prov.10: 22. The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.
How
many times have you heard a member of a congregation or a religious
leader gets up a testifies about the blessing of God upon their lives,
as they’ve recently became the recipient of a new car, a new home or a
sum of money; and uses the above passage of scripture to validate their
claim?
Then six months to a year later, a number of sorrows
evolves within what they’ve once called God’s blessings, i.e. (1)
Financially unable to properly service and maintain the car, (2) The
bank repossesses the car, (3) The bank forecloses on the new home, and
(4) Start avoiding / ducking people and sorely complaining of folks
coming to borrow money or ask for financial assistance. How quickly
have these persons forgotten the “and he added no sorrow with it” part
of their testimony?
The
misappropriating of God’s word has a great deal to do with the level of
ignorance that exist among the religious community. This is the
breeding ground for undisciplined, itching ears, gullible Christians
that have and will continue to become victims to various forms of
unbalanced, and in some cases false teachings about prosperity and the
blessing that are coming forth today in Jesus’ name.
Understandably
so, Yeshuwa Messiah (a.k.a. Jesus the Christ) never called His
followers Christians, but rather He always called them disciples /
discipline ones. As it is a proven fact that religious Christians are
good at reading and quoting a few scripture verses; whereas the Apostle
Paul in writing to his disciple and spiritual son namely Timothy didn’t
just say to him “read” but here’s what he said in: 2Timothy.2:15.
Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to
be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
This
word study in the Greek is: spoudazo, spoo-dad'-zo; which has several
meanings as follows (1) to make effort, (2) to be prompt or earnest,
(3) to give diligence, or be diligent, (4) to endeavour, and (5) to
labour.
Watch this! And don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that
all religious leaders are of a twisted mind-set when it comes to
rightly teaching about the blessing; it’s just that many of them are
teaching out of ignorance based upon that which they’ve heard another
religious leader / hireling taught and preached.
Listen!
It’s by accident that the scripture says “Rightly dividing the word of
truth” for this also means that the word of truth / word of God can be
wrongly divided. And I make absolutely no apology in saying that if
there is ever a time that God’s word is being wrongly divided for
selfish monetary gain, that time is now.
For the
thousands of fragmented, powerless churches today are all competing
against each other for its portion of the undisciplined religious
Christians (prey) community; that gives little to no attention in truly
studying God’s word. But rather relies solely upon the teachings of
some religious leaders. Thereby, today we’ve got thousands of
Christians, who as a result of the incomplete teachings are of the
mind-set that (a car, a house, a job, etc;) is the blessing; and
nothing could be further from the truth. For the blessing is not a
thing such as (a car, a house or a job, etc;) but rather the blessing
is God’s empowerment upon one‘s life.
This erroneous teaching has two main negative affects that has absolutely nothing to do with the kingdom of God:
(1)
It helps in fueling the myth that “Because God is blessing Apostle,
Bishop, Pastor or Doctor; with fine cars and houses and if I want to be
blessed also, I’ve got to continue sowing financially into my religious
leader’s life, even if I have to go without”
(2) It puts a
yoke and a burden upon the necks of the poor in spirit, thereby causing
many to feel unworthy as they’re not driving or living as their
leaders. Which in most cases leads to the sin of idolatry, whereby
these persons begins to render a form of worship to their religious
leaders. It also serves as a blockage to those on the outside, who
would want to join / be apart of a local congregation; but are wise
enough to see through this erroneous teaching.
Let’s quickly trace the origin of the blessing, to actually see what it is and the purpose of the blessing.
Gen.12:12:1.
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show
thee:
: 2. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
Please
note: (1) That the blessing is not a house; for Father Yahweh told
Abram to leave his father‘s (Terah) house, (2) The blessing is God’s
emopwerment “And I will make of thee” and (3) The purpose, “And thou
shalt be a blessing.
This word blessing in the Hebrew is: Berakah, ber-aw-kaw'; which means a benediction, an act of approval.
The
cars, houses and other material possessions that man craves in some
cases are the byproducts of the blessing. There is so much more to
share in order to bring some form of clarity and balance back into the
church. Stay tune next week for part 2.
For questions or comments contact us via pastormallen@yahoo.com or kmfci@live.com or Ph.1-242-441-2021
Pastors Matthew & Brendalee Allen
Kingdom Minded Fellowship Center Int’l
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