The Deceitfulness of Riches
Mark 4.19 tells us that one of the things that will choke the Word of God out of you and that will stop it producing results in your life is the deceitfulness of riches. Today we will look at the deceitfulness of riches and find out what it is and how to stop it choking your prosperity and success in every area of your life.
Firstly, it is vital to understand that it not riches that will choke the Word. The Word working in your life and producing a harvest has nothing to do with how much money you have. A rich person can have the Word of God produce in their life and so can a poor person. A famous quote that isn’t even in the Bible is: “Money is the root of all evil”. The correct reference is “The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6.10). Even a poor person can love money. Money is a great slave, but a lousy master.
It is vital to understand this because a lie infiltrated Christianity that says that money is evil. It lead to many horrible situations and caused many dreadful things to happen. It has many faces that I simply cannot go into due to time constraints. Some Christians have even taken vows of poverty. This is ridiculous – God is a good God and a giving God. Poverty is a curse, it is a horrible thing to be in. But praise God, Christ redeemed us and set us free from poverty.
The problem is not having money, but listening to it. Even the world is bright enough to know that “money talks”, but what the world has failed to tell us is that money lies. You can have as much money as you like – prosperity is part of your inheritance in Christ – but just don’t listen to it.
Wealth is deceitful. You could say it this way: money lies. The main lie that money will tell you is that it is all you need. Money will lie to you. It will tell you that it will make you happy and that without it you will fail in life. It is a lie.
You might be in a situation where your boss wants you to tell a lie, and money will tell you to do it because otherwise you will lose your job and lose your money, so you break the Word of God because you listened to money. You ignored God to listen to money.
Money will tell you to accept a promotion several hundred miles from home when you know there is not a strong Word-teaching, love God love people church anywhere near there and you are part of a great church. You ignored God to listen to money.
Money will tell you not to spend time in prayer, in intimacy with the Father, but rather worry about how your bills will be paid or how you will feed the children. You ignored God and listened to money, and worried rather than meditated on the Word.
A young preacher is struggling to survive so at offering time he makes a long drawn out offering, highlighting Scriptures on giving and the benefits of giving.
The Scriptural truths might be true, but using them to manipulate people to give when the Lord loves people who are cheerful givers, not those who walk out the church feeling they just had a wallet extraction, is plain wrong. Money talked, and the preacher listened. And this goes on all across Christianity, even in major ministries. Here is a rule of thumb I have: I never give to a ministry that preaches faith for finances unless they appear to actually have faith for their own finances! And if they are begging for bread, they do not have faith for finances, simple as.
This is how the deceitfulness of riches works: it lies to you and makes you make wrong choices. Choices based on mis-information.
The solution is threefold:
1. to spend time in the Word of God. If you can hear the voice of the Lord clearly and know His Word, you will not be deceived by the lies of money. Learn the Scriptural truth about money. Find out what Jesus said about money, and study it out.
2. to cultivate a generous spirit. If you are continually giving money away, it cannot speak to you. Ensure you are generous to your local church and to Christians who are lacking or going through difficult times.
3. Speak back to money. If it says “if you give that in the offering you will go broke”, tell it to shut up. Tell it that if you give it will be given to you, pressed down, shaken together and in good measure (Luke 6.38). If the bill comes in and you cannot pay it, say out loud “God will provide the money.” You may think it is strange to speak to money, but I think it is a lot stranger to listen to it, and many Christians do.
Deal with this issue and you will allow the Word of God to multiply in your life and produce results. A life of victory and peace is on its way – so get excited.
Blessings,
Ben
Tree of Life Blog 