Market - Process by which things of value are exchanged for money
People also can be considered things of value – Very subtle the enemy “like an angel of light” has crept into many churches and he is doing it in a loving way.
All too often, in the church we find calendar events created and money collected (for many different occasions all year long) the table is placed near the door of the church where the exchange of money changes from the hands of the sheep to be given to those in leadership (in the house of God).
This reminds me of what Jesus was angry about when He went to the temple and saw the tables of the money changers sitting and turned tables over calling it merchandising.
Jesus said My Fathers house should be a house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves or house of merchandising. John 2:14
Nothing wrong with people giving to leadership when the Spirit of the Lord leads (by all means do so) but when demands are continually placed on the people of God to bring money (besides tithes and offering) created by calendar events that celebrate leadership’s value and their personal annual accomplishments for the works of their own hands (Jeremiah 1:16)
This is not what Jesus die for and God is not pleased!
Do we feel like God owes us something? Haven’t we all been saved by grace and not our good works?
Shouldn't it be a privilege and honor just to be chosen by God to serve His people?
If you love Me feed My sheep is what Jesus said; not have the sheep celebrate men over and over every year month after month for the things
they have done. Collecting money for calendar events ( a marketing technique used by Hallmark to a make up different days as occasions to celebrate and sell cards to make more money)
Jesus said I will bring My reward with Me. He said to leadership feed My sheep! God is not unrighteous to forget your labor of love, what happened to the labor of love?
These are the times Apostle Paul warned Timothy of “in the last days perilous times would come men would be lovers of self, lovers of money… having a form of godliness”( 2Timothy 3:1-4)
This is a deceptive spirit that has entered the church it’s been operating for years, now it’s become tradition and taken root, and when it’s talked about is causes offenses.
This reminds me when Jesus spoke to His
disciples about the religious leaders of His day in Matthew 15:13 they asked him
(Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?"
He said in reply, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be
UPROOTED.
Let them alone; they are blind guides (of the blind). If a blind person leads a blind person, both will fall into a pit)
It's time to wake up and speak up, God told Jeremiah (1:16-19) tell My people what I am telling you do not be afraid of their faces they will not like it but tell them anyway.
It’s not people God is angry with, but that "spirit of deception" (we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and spiritual wickedness) Jesus said I came to EXPOSE the works of the devil".
It’s very frightening to think there are people serving God looking to hear well done and in the end only to discover they may have gained a world of souls but lost their own.
Jesus say many will say “
Didn’t I prophesy in your name, cast out devils in your name do many wonders in your name”? And He will say depart from Me I never knew you.
“Those with ears to hear let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches”
