Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

I am an observer of life. I often overhear people say things when I’m at local coffee shops or restaurants and some of the things they say make my ears perk up. I recently heard two women talking about how God had blessed them. The one lady’s evidence of God’s blessing was the fact that God sold their house for a profit in less than a week. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of that thinking in the past. But we’ve had mixed success with selling our house. In fact, we sold our house in Mobile in less than 24 hours when we moved to Charlotte. I felt that was God’s blessing and evidence that we were in God’s will. I don’t believe that anymore.

Matthew 5 says blessed are the poor in spirit. Jesus said the widow who gave a mite was closer to God than the Pharisee who threw in a bunch of money in Mark 12:38-44.

When we moved from Mobile to Charlotte I received a pay raise. Wow! I guess we were blessed. But to say that our time there resulted in blessing would be false. I’m making considerably less money today than I have in 12 years. By American Christian standards I’m going backwards. I must have angered God and am not receiving His blessings—right?

Wrong. How arrogant for us as believers to associate material wealth with God’s blessings. There are some people whom God uses to make money so they can bless others but I don’t think that how much is in one’s bank account tells how blessed they are. They could just work harder than others. They might be lucky. They may have inherited the money or maybe they did something dishonest. Money has nothing to do with God’s blessing in my opinion.
Before we left Atlanta to go to the Gulf Coast and then North Carolina I believe God did bless me. Not financially but in ministry. For some reason God used me to share my faith and people would accept Him. I realized it was a Spiritual Gift that God gave me. But I don’t know if it was out of disobedience or just to bring me to a dry period but we/I have experienced the driest period in my life.

I’m making less money now but feel like God has given me back my Spiritual Gift. God has given me the privilege of leading more people to Christ in the last 3-4 weeks then I did in 3 years in NC.

So am I blessed or does the fact that we are starting over financially mean I’m not blessed? Luke 9:23 says that if we want to follow Jesus we have to take up our cross and follow Him. So by Jesus standards one who is blessed is one who dies. That won’t preach well on TV will it? I think following Jesus is much harder and complex than we make it. There is no magic genie that gives us all of our desires. When you look at people who are homeless and those who live in 3rd World Countries we shouldn’t have any complaints. I think we need to come up with a better definition for what a blessing really looks like.

[Chicago Tribune]

At Lighthouse Church of All Nations in Alsip, the congregation can get more than just prayer at the Sunday worship services.

If a lucky — or “blessed and highly favored” — churchgoer is in the right seat, they can also receive a cash prize.

At each of the three Sunday services, the Rev. Dan Willis pulls a number of one seat from a bag and the worshiper in that seat wins a cash prize. Two of the churchgoers win $250 and the third gets $500. The church gives away $1,000 each Sunday, Willis said.

The cash prize is part of Willis’ recent focus on helping his congregation pay bills and begin a debt-free life, he said.

“We’ve had soooo many of our people displaced from jobs, facing foreclosure,” he said. “When people’s faith was high, their debt was down. When their faith was down, their debt was high. I realized the two are connected.”

Willis concedes the cash prize is a gimmick to fill the pews. But he’s unapologetic about the plan, because it’s working. On a typical Sunday, his church draws about 1,600 people to its three Sunday services. But since the money giveaway started, about five weeks ago, the congregation has grown to about 2,500 each week, he said. The money for the giveaway comes from the church offering. Lighthouse is a non-denominational church.

Read more here.

[From me]

Sounds like the debt reduction teaching is sound. I’m just not comfortable giving away money to get people to church. But I’m willing to change my mind if people’s lives are changed.

What do you think?

[Reuters]

Ready to give your soul for a loan in these difficult economic times? In Latvia, where the crisis has raged more than in the rest of the European Union, you can. Such a deal is being offered by the Kontora loan company, whose public face is Viktor Mirosiichenko, 34.
Clients have to sign a contract, with the words “Agreement” in bold letters at the top. The client agrees to the collateral, “that is, my immortal soul.”

Mirosiichenko said his company would not employ debt collectors to get its money back if people refused to repay, and promised no physical violence. Signatories only have to give their first name and do not show any documents.

“If they don’t give it back, what can you do? They won’t have a soul, that’s all,” he told Reuters in a basement office, with one desk, a computer and three chairs.

Read more here.

[From me]

Trusting is one thing but your soul? I would be afraid that the loan officer was the Devil himself.

What do you think?

[Miami Herald]

In tough times, churches that once focused on saving souls are now sending in money missionaries to help their flocks with saving the almighty dollar.   On a recent Saturday morning, Kevin Cross looked out at a sea of people filling the pews of a Fort Lauderdale church, and greeted the crowd of several hundred with a hearty “amen!”

But instead of delivering the gospel, Cross spent an entire day lecturing and instructing the crowd at Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale on . . . personal finances.

Cross is a ”financial missionary.” His calling: to spread the message of faith-based financial management.

“By definition, missionaries are people sent to where the need is greatest.”.

These days, the need is apparently growing in the continental United States, where a steadily increasing number of churches and religious groups are ordaining ”financial missionaries” and ‘’stewardship pastors,” whose job is not the spreading of gospel. Rather, their mission is to preach and teach money management and financial salvation in tough economic times.

”The Bible is very clear about being methodical and taking orderly steps to get our households in order,” says Cross, 42, author of Building Your Financial Fortress in 52 Days: The Lessons of Nehemiah.

Chris Lloyd was once chief financial officer for the North Broward Hospital District. He’s now chief financial officer and stewardship pastor at First Baptist Church Fort Lauderdale, where he oversees a group of 12 licensed, certified financial planners who plot out personal finance management strategies and offer one-on-one credit counseling to troubled parishioners.

Lloyd, who says few churches saw a need for such ministries 20 years ago, insists the most important component to religious-themed financial counseling is advising parishioners to not shirk their spiritual mandate to spend and save in a responsible manner.

Read more here.

[From me]

When I first saw the title I thought it was some rip off kook. I was wrong. But the Newspaper wants to sell papers so they make titles to get you to read. I think what these “missionaries” do is very important. We have no debt except a house we can’t sell.  I’m starting to wonder if/when we do sell if I want to buy another home. I’m not sure if there really is a benefit of owning a home.  When we have no debt, the economy can’t bring us down.  Maybe we should all live this way.

What do you think?

[US News & World Report]

At first glance, the town of Edwardsville, Ala., with a population of 194 people, might raise a few eyebrows with its bid to receive $375 million from the economic stimulus package being assembled by Barack Obama and lawmakers in Congress.The tiny town, located near the Georgia border and 26 miles from the nearest “big city” of Anniston (population: 24,276), added 33 proposals—about two thirds of them related to “green” energy—to the list of “ready- to- go” projects assembled by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Total sum: $375,076,200.

That comes out to nearly $2 million per Edwardsville resident, although E. D. Phillips, the town’s representative to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, says the projects would affect a wider region that comprises about 80,000 people. That number includes residents of nearby rural areas that aren’t already incorporated into towns, along with the residents of Talladega Springs (population: 124), which partnered with Edwardsville and local municipal utilities on the projects.

Read more here.

[From me]

2 million per resident!  Dude, I need to incorporate my family as a city and maybe Obama will pay off my house in NC so we can buy one here in Alabama.  I could do that for a fraction of the cost of Edwardsville! You gotta love their moxy! Mr. Obama, you can reach me through this blog and I will give you the instructions to pay off my mortgage!

What do you think?