Lessons serving God and Mammon

I asked the question of God recently about how to gain more of the power of God to make more of a real difference in this world. Listening to testimonies of great men who had the experience of great power of God that changed them into who they had become made me hungry for more. I wanted this experience because I have had the feeling for years that there is more than this in the promises of Christ Jesus. My answer to this prayer however has left me pondering seeing a vision in fact of a hammer pounding a coin.
My interpretation of this vision is to pound down the effect of mammon (money, riches, wealth) from having any power over me which rightly belongs to God. I have just been through some battles in the financial area in which I was desperate on selling an item to square my accounts. When it wasn't selling and I was anxious I heard the voice of the Spirit say, "You don't need to sell the (item)." As it turned out some money loaned out was returned, someone wanted our other car and I did not get six jobs I applied for so it seemed to fit into the category of a lesson or in Jesus terms a pruning.

Jesus said "You can not serve both God and mammon." Jesus cautioned not to be anxious about this and that for God knows your needs and peace was the path we should take. So how then do we walk this path between the ogre of mammon and our service to God? I know only too well how the need to pay the bills can push us into service and difficulties in the marketplace. Father Abraham of course had a flock of sheep providing all he needed and a team of servants helping to keep the sheep fed and watered but things are somewhat different for most of us today.

In discussing this with a friend we came to the conclusion that money, though we need it in our culture, cannot be allowed to determine our mood, our plans and our decisions. Our course of action is rather to turn to the voice of our Lord God, (I say voice because the word has other meanings to us today such as scripture, Bible etc), who is the source of all wisdom, knowledge, understanding and prudence for dealing with everyday life. This is the lesson I'm learning in this season of pruning.

I see there are some people who regularly read these blogs - please do make yourselves known.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inner Strength (Isaiah 64:1-9)

I have been reading Bear Grylls autobiography. Its powerful stuff about what it is to be a man able to go beyond his limitations; about a man who God helped reach where eagles dare.  Some of you don’t have a clue who I’m talking about but he has climbed Everest, he is seen on Television each week surviving some of the world’s harshest places, he’s been made the Chief Scout as role model for hundreds of thousands of children, he eats marrow from old bones, crunches live grubs and drinks from camels stomachs. Bear Grylls is SAS trained tough on Prime TV’s Man vs Wild and comes from a line of commandos; his granddad and dad.  Bear, as his much older sister called him, had to find his own individual place in the grueling world of the British SAS and at the young age of 20 years old. He’s a man who has done the impossible and he attributes his success to a simple faith in Jesus Christ and fronts the Alpha advertisements nowadays. Bear Grylls says that in the endurance section of SAS selec
Read more

Lamps Aflame (Matt 25:1-13)

As I look out on this congregation I see only lamps rather than people this morning.  I am looking at us as God might look upon us in the Gospel parable.  We are to be children of light, of which the Gospel is that light.  We are to be as attendants of Christ Jesus  professing not only to believe and look for but  to love and long for the appearing of Christ,  not only enlightened by it ourselves but must shine as lights. I am looking this morning through the eyes of Jesus’ parable of the Ten Virgins.  I am seeing two different characters, with proof and evidence of it.  I see lamps with oil for that is what God has told me He has done. B ut do I see lamps with fire; that is the question today.  Do I see extra virgin oil in reserve for the late coming Bridegroom.  There is no doubt the Bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ.  There is no doubt we live in a darkened world awaiting His return.  We need to figure out exactly what we are waiting for in Jesus return. When he saw the Pharis
Read more

A Tree of Life (Jer 17:5-10)

Wisdom seems to be the theme given us for this season in the church. God is looking for fruit from us. A farmer produces fruit as crops, like barley and wheat, meat and wool. But God is looking for spiritual fruit from us. The fruit that He desires is of the Spirit of God in us rather than that of other spirits. God is looking for the sweet easily plucked fruit rather than sour and prickly fruits hard to consume such as love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5). This reading is helping us with a choice we must make of how we can achieve the best outcome for ourselves by using the parable of a suitably positioned planting of fruiting tree. Jesus similarly referred to himself in John 15:1-7 as the vine desirable to be grafted onto, a vine in origin from the rootstock of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The two locations mentioned in the reading relate to surviving testing times through the availability of water to nourish the roots of the
Read more