If our hearts are truly His, we do not serve for money. The
satisfaction of knowing we’re pleasing Him is high reward for us. We’re not in
it for prosperity’s sake. That isn’t to say that those who work don’t deserve
to be paid. They most certainly do, but such payment should not afford the
worker a lifestyle worthy of “Forbes” nor should it be obtained at the cost of
misrepresenting His word.
The simple logic of it is that if Christ, Himself, lived a
life of poverty then we, as His follows, should not think that we need to live
lives of opulence. Yet, many get caught up in just that. Some even try to
justify taking advantage of their brothers and sisters in Christ as necessary
for the work they are called to. This is not Biblical. I hear it all the time,
but it simply is not Biblical. No, that’s arrogance.
If we are to be crushing our brothers and sisters to
maintain the lifestyle we think we deserve, how are we to be discerned as
different from the lost? Peter didn’t take advantage of Paul nor Paul of
Timothy, but the Christian aristocracy often takes advantage of its fellow
laborers. Where do we see Christ demanding a second or even a third home? He
didn’t have the first one and He had to borrow a ride. So, when you crush
someone who is working in the Spirit, what you are really doing is saying that
what you desire is more important than what the Spirit desires.
Money is a tool. When it becomes more important to us to
have what money provides than to be in line with His will, we have stopped
serving the Master and started serving ourselves.
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of
one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not
addicted wine or pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious, free from the love of
money. – 1 Tim 3:2-3
For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and
some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced
themselves with many a pang. – 1 Tim
6:10
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