Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours without measure from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you to another week of the month of November 2022. And I pray that your heart will be rid of every form of hypocrisy in your walk with God, so that you will not end up being revealed as a counterfeit believer, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
A preacher said this in a meeting I once attended: “My father in the Lord told me there is nothing you are after in ministry that you will not find. If you are after money, you will find it. If you are after women, you will find them. If you are after fame, you will find it. And if you are after God, you will also find Him. Everything you find depends on what your heart is after.” And I believe that is true to a very great degree. What people are after in the kingdom of God is what they will most probably find.
But then, will what they find be worth the trouble, time, energy and resources they have invested into getting it? Will it bring their soul the satisfaction they are seeking? Will what they find bring them the praise of God or His condemnation?
Paul, while writing to the Philippians, says this: “It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.” (Phil 1:15NIV) So, as far back as the days of this apostle, we have been having in the church people who serve God in a spirit of envy and competition. You should not be surprised, then, if you find people in the church who are jealous of your usefulness in the church and who are doing all they can to prove to others that they are better than you or take your position. Their ancestors in the church also acted in a similar fashion.
Furthermore, Peter too, in his second epistle, speaks about some of the reasons people are in the church and are presenting themselves as servants of God. According to him, some are in the church because of greed, because they see service to God as a means to enriching themselves. And there are those in the church because of adultery. These ones see in the church great opportunities to seduce naïve women and men and mess them up in sexual immorality. (Cf. 2Peter 2)
At any rate, whatever your reasons may be for being in the church and for making yourself available to serve God, time will tell. I mean that it is only a matter of time before what you really want in the church is revealed for everyone to see. And I am not talking about what will happen on the day of judgment but what will happen right here on earth.
Remember Gehazi. Remember that it was only a matter of time before it was revealed that, all along, he had been following Elisha, the man of God, for earthly riches. And remember Judas Iscariot. Remember that even though he concealed the greed in him all those three and a half years of following Jesus up and down, a time came when his greed came out in the open for everyone to see. But did these men find the satisfaction they wanted through what they got? No! What Gehazi found was leprosy. And what Judas Iscariot found was death. (Cf. 2Kings 5; John 13)
In like manner, if your heart is not right in your service to God, if what you are after in the church is not God Himself, there is nothing you get that will satisfy you. Whatever you get, be it money, fame, position, women, men, job or healing won’t satisfy you. On the contrary, it may end up becoming your nemesis, the very thing that will destroy you. So, mind yourself and see to it that your purpose in being God’s kingdom and in serving Him is right. And may He Himself keep your heart right with Him both now and always, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a great week.