Friday 8 March 2013

MONEY MATTERS



MONEY MATTERS
Introduction
Money matters, of course. It matters to you, and it matters to God. That's why the Bible has so much to say about it. There's nothing wrong with money. We all find it pretty useful. But it's the craving some people have for more and more of it, the things they do to get it, and how they then use it that can be evil.
In the world the man with money is usually respected as a man of influence, while the poor person is often despised. Though it's not like that in the kingdom of God, your attitude toward money and how you handle it is seen as a test of your character. When Christ bought you for Himself, He bought you outright, your possessions and all. You cannot therefore give yourself wholly to Him without giving your money and your possessions. This means that you no longer own anything, you just manage it for God. One day He is going to summon all His "managers," you and me included, and ask us to give an account of how we handled what He entrusted to us. This lesson is to help you to become a good manager, so that you won't blush when you have to give your answer.
Read 1 Timothy 6:3-10
Money can be dangerous!
The Bible speaks of money as being both an instrument for the kingdom of God (Luke 16:9) and "a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). That proves it isn't the money itself but our attitude toward it and how we use it that makes the difference. Here are some important safeguards:
1. Don't love it or get infected by the "get rich quick" fever of the world. See what 1 Timothy 6:6-10 says are the tragic spiritual results of wanting to be rich. Note the remedy for this wrong attitude: learning to be content with what God provides.
2. Don't make a god of it. "You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matt. 6:24). Whatever you put in the place of God is an idol. Don't be an idolater. Many Christians have drifted far from God because they put money and prosperity in that first place that rightly belonged to God.
3. Don t hoard it up. Men "lay up treasure on earth" for security, but your treasures can be corrupted and your money taken from you (Matt. 6:19). Instead of hoarding up what is "so uncertain" (1 Tim. 6:17), we should invest what we do not need in the kingdom of God. That's laying up treasure in heaven. That will not prevent us from making adequate provision for our families (1 Tim. 5:8).
4. Don't run into debt. Christians who are always running into debt are poor managers and bad advertisements for the kingdom of God. The only ongoing debt we are allowed is "to love one another" (Rom. 13:8). House mortgages are not debts, but watch those credit cards. Don't let them tempt you to buy what you can't afford.

Your money is God's
As a Christian you and all that you have belong to God. Your money is like the "talents" (Matt. 25:14 ff) your Master entrusts you with and gives you freedom to use, but it is really His. He is testing you to see whether you will be "faithful" (1 Cor. 4:2) as His manager, or "wasteful" (Luke 16:1). One day we shall have to give an account.  
Learning to give
God is the greatest giver (John 3:16), and you are called to be like Him. You don't do God a favor by your giving. You are simply recognizing that it's all His anyway. Some have a special gift of giving (Rom. 12:8), not necessarily because they are wealthy but because they have faith for this. Offering hospitality is an additional and valuable means of giving (1 Pet. 4:9). How should we give?
1. Freely and cheerfully (2 Cor. 9:7). It's not meant to be like having a tooth pulled out!
2. According to what you receive (1 Cor. 16:2). Heaven estimates our giving by comparing what we give with what we keep (Mark 12:41-44).
3. Systematically and prayerfully. This is not rummaging around in your pocket or purse at the last moment (1 Cor. 16:2).
4. Secretly. We're not to make a big show of how generous we are (Matt. 6:1-4).

Sowing and reaping
This is how Scripture likens giving (2 Cor. 9:6-11): for every grain you sow, you may expect to reap many more. Generous reaping depends on generous sowing (v. 6), and you reap spiritual blessing, not just financial (v. 10). See what a generous return God promises you (Luke 6:38).
Tithes and offerings
Tithing is giving a tenth of what you receive back to God. Offerings were additional gifts-how much and how often is a matter of free will, hence "free will offerings." In the Old Testament, tithes were for the support of priests and Levites. Similarly in the church, tithes are for the support of people (full-time shepherds or those who are in need) and offerings are generally for church expenses, special projects, or for the work of God outside your own congregation that you may want to support. When the people failed to bring their tithes and offerings into God's house to support His servants, God said they were robbing Him (Mal. 3:8-10).






Excerpts:
From Living God’s Way
By: Arthur Wallis

MONEY MATTERS



MONEY MATTERS
Introduction
Money matters, of course. It matters to you, and it matters to God. That's why the Bible has so much to say about it. There's nothing wrong with money. We all find it pretty useful. But it's the craving some people have for more and more of it, the things they do to get it, and how they then use it that can be evil.
In the world the man with money is usually respected as a man of influence, while the poor person is often despised. Though it's not like that in the kingdom of God, your attitude toward money and how you handle it is seen as a test of your character. When Christ bought you for Himself, He bought you outright, your possessions and all. You cannot therefore give yourself wholly to Him without giving your money and your possessions. This means that you no longer own anything, you just manage it for God. One day He is going to summon all His "managers," you and me included, and ask us to give an account of how we handled what He entrusted to us. This lesson is to help you to become a good manager, so that you won't blush when you have to give your answer.
Read 1 Timothy 6:3-10
Money can be dangerous!
The Bible speaks of money as being both an instrument for the kingdom of God (Luke 16:9) and "a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). That proves it isn't the money itself but our attitude toward it and how we use it that makes the difference. Here are some important safeguards:
1. Don't love it or get infected by the "get rich quick" fever of the world. See what 1 Timothy 6:6-10 says are the tragic spiritual results of wanting to be rich. Note the remedy for this wrong attitude: learning to be content with what God provides.
2. Don't make a god of it. "You cannot serve both God and Money" (Matt. 6:24). Whatever you put in the place of God is an idol. Don't be an idolater. Many Christians have drifted far from God because they put money and prosperity in that first place that rightly belonged to God.
3. Don t hoard it up. Men "lay up treasure on earth" for security, but your treasures can be corrupted and your money taken from you (Matt. 6:19). Instead of hoarding up what is "so uncertain" (1 Tim. 6:17), we should invest what we do not need in the kingdom of God. That's laying up treasure in heaven. That will not prevent us from making adequate provision for our families (1 Tim. 5:8).
4. Don't run into debt. Christians who are always running into debt are poor managers and bad advertisements for the kingdom of God. The only ongoing debt we are allowed is "to love one another" (Rom. 13:8). House mortgages are not debts, but watch those credit cards. Don't let them tempt you to buy what you can't afford.

Your money is God's
As a Christian you and all that you have belong to God. Your money is like the "talents" (Matt. 25:14 ff) your Master entrusts you with and gives you freedom to use, but it is really His. He is testing you to see whether you will be "faithful" (1 Cor. 4:2) as His manager, or "wasteful" (Luke 16:1). One day we shall have to give an account. Page 33
Learning to give
God is the greatest giver (John 3:16), and you are called to be like Him. You don't do God a favor by your giving. You are simply recognizing that it's all His anyway. Some have a special gift of giving (Rom. 12:8), not necessarily because they are wealthy but because they have faith for this. Offering hospitality is an additional and valuable means of giving (1 Pet. 4:9). How should we give?
1. Freely and cheerfully (2 Cor. 9:7). It's not meant to be like having a tooth pulled out!
2. According to what you receive (1 Cor. 16:2). Heaven estimates our giving by comparing what we give with what we keep (Mark 12:41-44).
3. Systematically and prayerfully. This is not rummaging around in your pocket or purse at the last moment (1 Cor. 16:2).
4. Secretly. We're not to make a big show of how generous we are (Matt. 6:1-4).

Sowing and reaping
This is how Scripture likens giving (2 Cor. 9:6-11): for every grain you sow, you may expect to reap many more. Generous reaping depends on generous sowing (v. 6), and you reap spiritual blessing, not just financial (v. 10). See what a generous return God promises you (Luke 6:38).
Tithes and offerings
Tithing is giving a tenth of what you receive back to God. Offerings were additional gifts-how much and how often is a matter of free will, hence "free will offerings." In the Old Testament, tithes were for the support of priests and Levites. Similarly in the church, tithes are for the support of people (full-time shepherds or those who are in need) and offerings are generally for church expenses, special projects, or for the work of God outside your own congregation that you may want to support. When the people failed to bring their tithes and offerings into God's house to support His servants, God said they were robbing Him (Mal. 3:8-10).



Excerpts:
From Living God’s Way
By: Arthur Wallis

Why Do We Suffer As Christians?



SUFFERING FOR CHRIST

Key Scriptures

Philippians 1:29           Hebrews 2:10
1 Peter 2:21                 Colossians 1:24
1 Peter 4:1-2, 12-19
“For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.”
– Phil. 1:29
“ For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.”
 – 1Peter 2:21
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
– Hebrews 2:10
“I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.”
– Colossians 1:24
Why Do We Suffer?
Suffering is a fact of life. To those outside of Christ it is an enigma, to those who are in Christ it is a necessity! There can be no whole view of discipleship which does not take suffering into its perspective. We are surrounded by it on every hand and we experience it daily in our walk with God.
Suffering is not the same for the believer as for the unbeliever. To the person who has not experienced the love of Christ for himself, the fact of all the suffering in the world may be the very thing that prevents him from finding God. Whilst we need to sympathise totally with men and women in their distress, we must remember the awful fact of man's own responsibility for much of the mess in which he finds himself. Man was created as a responsible agent by God and given the government of every created thing. Man's failure to carry out that responsibility is reflected in the distortion and tragedy we see all around us. Sin corrupts and distorts, it destroys and opposes anything intrinsically good. Sin is at the root of all the suffering in our world today, because it is a world that no longer manifests the harmony, balance and beauty in which God created it. The world lies under the control of Satan. He has become the 'god of this age' (2 Corinthians 4:4) ever since man relinquished his stewardship of creation. Man's sin gave Satan the opportunity he had been waiting for to take over and pervert the goodness of God's own creation.
God is not indifferent to suffering. God took suffering into His very heart when He let His innocent Son die on the cross on our behalf (Isaiah 53:4). The cross was the reversal of the power of Satan and sin. Christ is now King and His Kingdom rules over all and we are part of it as disciples of Jesus.





Courtesy:
Understanding the Dept of Discipleship
{The Foundations of Christian Living}
By: Bob Gordon with David Fardouly.

Wednesday 6 March 2013

HOW TO HANDLE TEMPTATION GOD'S WAY!



BEATING TEMPTATION
Introduction
Temptation, as you will know, is not "a little surprise" that Satan reserves for committed Christians. Everybody faces it. Perhaps it has troubled you to find that temptations have not eased off since you became a Christian. If anything, they have probably increased. Perhaps you have thought, "If I'm still tempted like this, can I be a real Christian? Has anything really happened?"
In the first place, temptation is not sin. It only becomes sin when you yield to it. In the second place, an increase in temptation is an encouraging sign that something has indeed happened. Your commitment to Christ has made you a threat to the kingdom of evil. Satan, the ruler of that kingdom, has had to redouble his efforts to drag you down.
But if God is all-powerful, why doesn't He see Satan off for good? Or why doesn't He rob temptation of all its power? One day He will destroy Satan for good. But He has not done so yet, because He has a very important purpose in allowing us to be tempted. In this study we shall learn where temptation comes from, and that the grace of God that we studied in the first lesson is there to enable us to beat temptation. Learning to face it and conquer it puts something into us.
Read James 1:1-14
God and temptation
Verse 13 of the reading teaches that God cannot be tempted, and He does not tempt anyone. He may lead us into temptation (Matt. 4:1), but He is always there, controlling and limiting it, and helping us to master it (1 Cor. 10:13).
The rebel ruler
Since becoming a Christian you have become aware that you are in a spiritual battle. Before your conversion you were part of a rebel kingdom, serving Satan. Once he was one of God's angelic rulers, but he rebelled and was cast out of heaven (Luke 10:17-18). Satan's great aim, with his army of spirit beings (Eph. 6:12), is to entice people away from God and get them to serve him. He is called "the temper" (Matt. 4:3). He does this by appealing to "the cravings of our sinful nature" (Eph. 2:1-3).
Satan's landing strip
The "sinful nature" (called "the flesh" in older versions) is that within you that does not and cannot respond to the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:17). It is like an enemy landing strip within you that gives Satan an avenue to tempt you. Read again James 1:14. How do you deprive him of that landing strip? That old nature of yours cannot be reformed or changed, it can only be crucified through the cross of Jesus (Gal. 5:24). When Jesus died on the cross that sinful part of you died with Him. "If it's dead," you may say, "it won't lie down!" Believe what God says, and you will find that it is indeed dead. It was only as you believed that you came in to salvation. It wasn't automatic. Just so with this: "count yourselves dead to sin" (Rom. 6:11).
From within and without
Temptations are of various kinds. There is the temptation to do what you know to be wrong and the temptation not to do what you know to be good and right (James 4:17). Satan uses various
methods. As well as appealing directly to our appetites and selfish desires, he may use other people, as Potiphar's wife tempted Joseph (Gen. 39:7), or as Peter tempted our Lord (Matt. 16:21-23). Someone says something unkind, and you are tempted to give back in equal measure. He uses your success to tempt you to be proud, or someone else's success to tempt you to be jealous. He may use sickness, failure, disappointment, opposition, things going wrong to tempt you to discouragement, to accuse God of failing you. Like Peter when he denied Jesus, he may use your fears to prevent you from being true to Christ.

HOW TO HANDLE TEMPTATION
Here are six methods of handling temptation-and of making sure you come out on top:
1.     Develop a right attitude.
Recognize that temptation, though it comes from Satan, is one of the "all things" that God works for our good (Rom. 8:28). "Consider it pure joy" (James 1:2). Phillips renders this verse: "When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don't resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends!" It is "a time of need" that makes us call on God for His grace (Heb. 4:16). There's nothing like temptation to teach us how weak we are and how strong God is.
2.     Always be alert.
The devil is a great deceiver and knows all the tricks of the trade. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation" (Matt. 26:41). To be proud, careless, or cocksure of ourselves is to be heading for a fall (1 Cor. 10:12).
3.     Keep your nose out of what God says is forbidden territory, that is, where Satan rules.
To get involved in things of the occult such as spiritism, witchcraft, fortune-telling, horoscopes, and Ouija-boards is to wander into enemy territory and risk being taken prisoner. You don't have to learn Satan's "deep secrets" (Rev. 2:24), just as you don't need to roll in the mud to know it's dirty!
4.     Don’t play with fire.
Some Christians play with temptation as children play with fire. Don't walk into temptation. Mother caught Joe sneaking in with a wet swim suit after being forbidden to swim in a dangerous pool. When asked why he had disobeyed he replied, "Satan tempted me."

"But why did you take your swim suit?" Mother asked.
"It took it-er-in case I was tempted!"
Romans 13:14b says "Do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." Pornographic movies and magazines, video nasties, certain records, and anything that you know STIRS EVIL THOUGHTS AND DESIRES will mean walking into the devil's trap. Jesus said that you must cut off anything in your life that makes you stumble and fall into sin (Matt. 5:27-30). Gouging out an eye or amputating a hand means taking drastic action to stop looking at or doing something that causes you to sin.
5.     Stand up and fight.
This is how you deal with most temptations, that is, "Resist the devil" and he will do the fleeing (James 4:7). But first you have to "Submit... to God"-place yourself afresh under God's control. That puts you on God's side, and then He will fight for you. Resisting the devil is not done with human strength or determination, but with faith in God's power. The fight is one of faith (1 Tim. 6:12). By faith you stand your ground, and by faith you "extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (Eph. 6:13,16). When under fierce attack always call on the name of the Lord, and He will intervene to save and deliver (Rom. 10:12).

6.     Flee for your life.
This is the way to handle some temptations. Don’t stop and argue with the devil when he tempts you with sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:18); see how Joseph reacted (Gen. 39:11-12). Or with "idolatry" (1 Cor. 10:14). An idol is any person or thing that takes the place in your life that is rightfully God's. Or with "love of money" (1 Tim. 6:10-11). Or with "the evil desires of youth" (2 Tim. 2:22), such as are mentioned in Romans 13:13.


Memorize:
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it (1 Cor. 10:13).






Excerpts:
From Living God’s Way
By: Arthur Wallis