Tithe – cursing
Your pastor’s list of best friends is the same as his list of tithers. That is, their friendship is mammon-bound.
“Let not our friendship be money – bound”.
P/S:
Mammon = Syriac God of money = money (literally).
Why?
It’s simple (literally):
Your pastor pronounces ‘blessings’ upon the ‘tither’ (a tithe payer) for his faithful giving of tithes which accounts to further monetary gains on the side of the tither (the real reason why our tithe payer is friends with the pastor in the first place)
In return, the tither (tithe payer) returns the ‘favour’ of blessing to the pastor directly (by giving a love offering to the pastor) or indirectly (by supporting the pastor’s church or the so-called ministries run by him)
This is how mammon rules them.
How to do it then?
Simple, look at Christ.
How did He do ‘ministry’?
Freely & by Free-will giving.
Clarification:
You may begin by collecting money for an orphanage by doing it in the name of that ‘orphan’ (humanity), and not God. For it is not God Who is eating off your money (literally). Don’t use His name in vain.
Secondly, let your collections in your church be 100% free-will giving. Don’t make fake rules like tithing to get a minimum sustenance for your survival and also don’t talk about money at all especially from the pulpit in church.
Thirdly, don’t make it a habit to pronounce ‘blessings’ upon those who give you ‘money’ (literally). You don’t even know how that money was made by your beloved ‘giver’. You may not know how many people he cheated or squeezed the blood from to obtain those riches (thieves).
Fourthly, bless everyone (but not publically). Do it in your prayer in ‘secret’. You see, don’t just pronounce ‘blessings’ (monetary or otherwise) upon those who bless you (monetary or otherwise), as our Lord instructed to bless even those who ‘curse us’ (be it to eternal hell itself).
Fifthly, don’t pronounce ‘woes’ upon others especially on the mislead sheep of God (you have no such authority). The ‘key’ to identify whether a so called ‘man of God’ has authority in Him or not is based on his understanding of His Word. Look at the Bible: All men of God (true) knew His Word in and out.
Sixthly, I repeat, stop cursing His Sheep. Indeed, you find those pastors (fake men of God) scaring the sheep into obedience of money (mammon) by simply extorting them in the name of ‘God’ by making claims such as:
1. “If you don’t give, neither will God give you anything” (no such verse found in the Bible, literally. The converse verse is found, namely, “give and it will be given unto you” but remember the point made about being careful with ‘converses’ as it may not be true? – in my previous post – with regards to ‘umbrella’ and ‘raining’?)
2. “If you don’t give willingly or tithe properly, God is going to take your job away from you. And then they will point to an unrelated example such as ‘me’ and say, ‘look at him. He left church, went against the pastors, stopped giving money & tithes to church and thus God made him poor, jobless, penniless etc’.”
As usual, you decide for yourselves which is ‘truth’.
A clue: Truth is not determined by monetary success.
A fact to support that statement from the New Testament: All the apostles were close to being beggars. In fact, between the rich man and the ‘beggar’, Lazarus, it was Lazarus who made it to ‘Abraham’s bosom’ first (literally).
A verse (to prove those most loyal apostles of Christ were like ‘beggars’ in terms of money, literally speaking – The verses below literally prove the ‘sign of an apostle’):
“8Now you are full, now you are rich, you have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God you did reign, that we also might reign with you.
9For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last, as appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
10We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honorable, but we are despised.
11Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place;
12And labor, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure it:
13Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the trash of all things unto this day.”
(1 Corinthians 4:8 – 13)
P/S 2:
This why I’m ‘not’ an apostle and never claimed to be one.
P/S 3:
Take the Bible “literally” (best context) and you will see the ‘Truth’.