Results 1 - 6 of 6
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Prosperity and Deut. 28? | Matthew | Morant61 | 14747 | ||
Greetings Kimberly! I noticed that you mentioned Deut. 28 in your post. Let me ask you a couple of questions. 1) To whom was Moses speaking in this chapter? 2) What were the conditions for prosperity? 3) Does it apply to us today? As you ponder these questions, let me make a couple of points clear. a) I firmly believe that God can and does bless. However, He is under no obligation to do so. b) There is nothing wrong with giving to ministries who are leading people to Christ. There is everything wrong with giving to "ministires" who are simply trying to build theme parks and big houses. c) Much of the Seed/Harvest and Word of Faith teaching is simply not Biblical. It takes passages out of context. With this in mind, my only concern in this post is that Deut. 28 has been taken out of context and misapplied. If you wish to respond to my questions, I would be happy to discuss my reasons for saying this with you. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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2 | Prosperity and Deut. 28? | Matthew | HeirofGod | 14767 | ||
He was talking to Israel, but when you become a child of God you become as one of the children of Israel. The conditions were to heed to the commandments that God gave and to hearken unto his voice. Yes they are for us today. You have put GOd in some kind of a box. I didn't say that he had to bless us, but he does have to honor his word or it would not be true. You are still trying your best to put the "Word of Faith" doctrine and seed-time and harvest to a test that has already been passed. I think the real problem with the Word of Faith doctrine is the messengers, not the Word. But, you fail to realize that the Word of Faith is God's doctrine and not man's. God spoke and things happened according to his own faith-he also told us that we should call those things which be not as though they were, because he did. It is also written that without faith it is impossible to please him. If you don't have the faith to believe in seed time and harvest then don't go to the grocery store to buy vegetables. They won't be there. Don't pay tithes any more because it's not building your ministry and the devourer is not being rebuked. If you don't plant a seed in good ground then you won't get a harvest. Come on Tim, you can't tell me that after all these years of pastoring you haven't come across the words seed time and harvest or where Paul talks about the importance of giving. I give to the church because I'm glad to GOd's happy with it and I'm happy with it. I also expect to be blessed by what he does. If he will curse you for not titheing and giving offerings he will bless you for being obediant. What a man sows that he shall also reap. If you sow kindness you'll get kindness, if you sow hatred you get hatred. Just like cause and effect. If you adhere to all he says to do, he'll open his good treasure unto you, and you shall lend and not borrow. The world should be coming to us for things and not us going to them. We should be able to fund the tent revival or camp meeting with tithes and offerings not with bake sales and car washes. I don't know what you believe, but It is working in my life. God is the only one who can give an increase, so I have not misapplied any of his principles in my life. Brother I would hope that trying so much to explain why God does things instead of receiving the outcome will stop. I am going to receive all he has for me, and it's not just material. You and others can call me greedy, money hungry or whatever-I know what the word says and I'm standing on it. I am the rightousness of God and if he said I was his heir and a joint heir with his son, I have everything he has. When do we get an inheritance? Usually when a person dies right. Well Jesus already died the time for us to prosper is here and I'm accepting it. I am not going to continue to be happy in my current situation. This is just like saying if you live in a steel shed be glad it's not raining on your head. If you get food stamps be glad you have something to eat. Well some of us aren't happy in the system. We depend on the system instead of God well he is my provider. I provide with my seed whatever he wants me to do with it and he said I will get a harvest. Seeds don't just continue to grow. At some point you have to gather the crop. If you don't understand why I believe ask God to show you a ministry to plant a seed into. Not just money whatever kind of seed. Then wait on your harvest, but don't stop serving. A faithful man shall abound in blessing. I believe this because I've seen it happen. I learned this scripture while someone was blessing me for being faithful. While I was thanking them for the kindness and thanking God they quoted this scripture. It's all true. Please understand that what you say or what Benny Hinn says or what Joyce Meyer or President Bush says will not change my mind. Not because I heard it on some TV show but becasue it has been revealed in my life. "No body" can tell me that I didn't experience it. | ||||||
3 | Prosperity and Deut. 28? | Matthew | Morant61 | 14773 | ||
Greetings Kimberly! Thanks for the response! There is a lot in this post, but I really just intended on focusing on Deut. 28. We must always be sure that what we believe is based on a solid understanding of Scripture. I asked three questions. You answered the first two correctly. Moses was addressing the nation of Israel and the condition for blessing or cursing was disobedience or obedience to God's covenant. Let's fill this out a little bit though. Was Moses saying in Deut. 28 that every individual person within the nation of Israel would be blessed or was he saying that the nation would be blessed? Notice the context: a) Deut. 28:1 - "If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth." b) Deut. 28:3 - "You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country." c) Deut. 28:36 - "The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone." d) Deut. 28:52 - "They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you." e) Deut. 28:62 - "You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God. 63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess." We can see from the context that these promises were addressed to a nation, not individuals. Within the nation, there would be a wide range of personal situations, some would prosper, some would not. This is why it is dangerous and incorrect to take a passage that applied to one nation and say it must therefore apply to us as well. Even if it did, the application would be to our nation, not to every single individual. **************************** Toward the end of your post you made this comment: "I am not going to continue to be happy in my current situation. This is just like saying if you live in a steel shed be glad it's not raining on your head. If you get food stamps be glad you have something to eat. Well some of us aren't happy in the system." My sister in Christ, this is exactly opposite of what Scripture commands us to do. Heb. 13:5 says, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” " You also said, "While I was thanking them for the kindness and thanking God they quoted this scripture. It's all true. Please understand that what you say or what Benny Hinn says or what Joyce Meyer or President Bush says will not change my mind. Not because I heard it on some TV show but becasue it has been revealed in my life. "No body" can tell me that I didn't experience it." So, are you basing this belief on Scripture or your experience? Which Scripture were you refering to that this person quoted for you? Thanks for your wonderful spirit! I look forward to conversing with you again. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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4 | Prosperity and Deut. 28? | Matthew | HeirofGod | 14889 | ||
Remember I wrote that she quoted the scripture "a faithful man shall abound in blessing". That's the one I meant. I base my belief on scripture and with the experience that came when I applied the scripture to my everyday life. I don't car if I ever get a million dollars. But I do care if I move up in God. Yes, for my current situation I was happy having a roof over my head, but that doesn't mean that I can't want to do better. If we are just happy being saved, no one will ever go out and get other people saved. In the King James it says "let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee". Paul was saying not to try and take what others have. The word covet means to lust for what someone else has until you will do anything to get it (paraphrase). If you love money too much, you'll steal to get it. If you admire your friends wife to much, you'll commit adultry with her. Well that's not the situation I'm in. I don't live like a saint of God. I moved there before I got saved so it was fitting for who I was. Now it is not fitting for who I am so God is changing it. I don't have a 2001 car, but I have one. I would love to have a 2001 car but that's not what I need right now. IT's a 93 with alot of problems but it gets me to work, church, and home everyday. I didn't have a car when I first got saved and carrying a 2 month old baby around in the snow was not going to get it. I went to school on the city bus for a year, then God provided what we needed after I proved faithful enough to have it. I have lived in the same place for 3 years and God is finally saying they can handle something more now. If I didn't want to move, I would not accept his blessing. If your church only had 20 people who would really praise the Lord with everything they had and 100 others who barely stood up would you be content that you had 120 members? I wouldn't. There are somethings as you said that are being used the wrong way. BY the way God showed me about Jeremiah, It was great finding out what was going on. Just as when you find out that we are not supposed to be poor. IF the world can be rich and we walk around with rags and straw hats on, what does that say about God? A sinner would never want to leave his possesions to serve a God that lets his people Go around in rags. I get tired of fighting the smoke from a joint just to make it into my front door, or the gangs of drunken people out on my front porch. I've witnessed to those people and they didn't listen. But bless God when he moved those people out of the way, one of the girls who used to be with them started coming to church with us. We have to let the blessing of God show through us. He said we overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. My house is going to be a testimony unto God, that mans laws don't stop God. I get tired of borrowing money from some bank to get things I need. If God desires to give us things we need and things we desire why is it wrong for us to recieve them. The blessings of the Old Testament are for us just like the curses if we do wrong. Seed-time and harvest is a blessing. If you sow in time you will receive a harvest. If you need a new anointing in your church and your members don't seem to want to move up, sow praises unto God and either your people will praise with you or leave. If they leave, you didn't need them in the first place. I have to go now. IT's nice to have a calm discussion without being attacked. In Christ |
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5 | Prosperity and Deut. 28? | Matthew | Morant61 | 14898 | ||
Greetings Kimberly! I pray that God will meet your needs as He promised. I have been where you are talking about. I have been through extreme poverty, and i have been through properous times as well. I have an 89 Buick that I can't get to run, but I also have a 2000 Olds that I can barely pay for. :-) I hope that I have made it clear to you that I do believe that God meets our needs. My only concern if with the false teaching that God owes it to us. This kind of teaching appeals to people who are hurting, but it appeals to their need for material things rather than their need for salvation and spiritual maturity. You are right about covetousness in Heb. 13:5, but it also says to be content with what you have. These "faith" teachers teach a faith that depends upon success. God brings maturity and faith that will see us through all circumstances. Let me give you an example. I attended a church once that taught this word of "faith" message. There was a dear old lady in the congregation who had some debilitating disorder. Her body was crippled, but her spirit was sweet. She had a tremendous testimony. God was using her. But, every week, the pastor would preach how that if we only have enough "faith" God must heal us. Every week this dear lady went to the altar and prayed. Every week, she got up in the same physical condition, believing that she just didn't have enough faith. God is sovereign. He works through our circumstances. Some will be rich. Some will be poor. Some will be healthy. Some will be sick. In each case, God sovereignly decides how He will work through each of us. Real faith says, "God use me as You see fit." I pray that God will improve your circumstances. Maybe He will lead you to a better job! I don't know. I do know this: focus on allowing Him to use you, not upon your circumstances. If you do this, God will do great things through you whether or not you ever have a dime to your name. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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6 | Prosperity and Deut. 28? | Matthew | HeirofGod | 16432 | ||
Look at "Us". Christians, we can't agree on anything except that there is a God. I just left an AOL message board about nostradomus, and there were a lot of unsaved people here. I didn't interact, I just watched. We (Christians) continue to argue about things within our body and the people outside continue to see just how weak we've become. The body of Christ. Acting like we really don't know who we serve, arguing with the people we are trying to save. That's why I didn't want to continue talking about prosperity-there's a bigger picture. Yes, I still believe in prosperity, the body of Christ is going to need it when people come to us hurting. We see it now that all these families have lost someone in New York. We are the ground breakers, we are the ones who will buy homes for homeless families, we are the ones who will give transportation to families who are new at working for God and still struggling to get to their natural jobs. We can't be lowly and poor to do this. HE became poor that we might become rich. Not just material. We argue about that but we can't agree to set denominations aside to save souls-The main objective. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. There are still some lost people out there-but we fight within the body. Satan is winning in deceiving people to believe there is no God, but he also tells them that he doesn't exist either. THey would rather believe that he exists than believe that God does. BUT WE DISAGREE ABOUT PROSPERITY!!! IT's not the time for them to see us the way we are. Understand something brother Moran, I do believe in teaching our own the oracles of God and do believe there are things that should continually be discussed within the body of Christ prosperity and faith is among them. God would not have made it the subject of so many passages if it were not true. We are against so many of our own. "Those Word of Faith preachers". These preachers have come against the spirit of religion in this world and taught people how to call those things which be not as though they were. Jesus told us to speak to the mountain and it will move. Having faith will make it move, not hoping really hard. What comes out of your mouth determines alot in your life. What you do determines how God deals with you. I thank you Tim for not attacking me throughout this discussion, but I think alot of people misunderstood my confidence in the word for greediness; for that I am sorry. I don't apologize for what I know is right, Just like we don't apologize to an atheist for believing in God. These (atheists, wiccan, satanists, etc.) are the ones we need to be seeking to save. One person wrote on one of these posts that I seemed to be trying to do a Big thing for God, when he would accept small things, or something like that. Well yes I am trying to do a big thing for God, saving souls. The biggest thing. This is the greater work that Jesus was talking about. My Global Ministry that I talk about-that's a work that God wants of me-I don't like to travel and have never been over seas, this is not something I would pick for myself. However, I will do it when God is ready for me to go. We need to get into a mode now. He is coming back and it is sooner than we think. How many people do you think we unsaved in those buildings, WTC1 and 2, Pentagon, and the planes? Whose fault do you think it is? It's ours Christians. We are to scared to witness no matter what the cost and this country was built on the same principles we teach now. Let's wake up. Love in Christ-Evangelist Kimberly Jones (I'm not afraid of this position anymore) |
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