Where your treasure is, is where your heart is

My main focus in this post is on the issue of wealth, health, and prosperity. To explain my point with adequate depth, however, I will start with a very brief discussion of the metaphysical history of our faith. Let us start from the Pentecostal. When the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples of Jesus in the time of Pentecostal, they already did have 3 plus years of intensive training from the lord himself. The land was made fertile for the plantation of the spirit of truth and comfort, the Holy Spirit, by Jesus himself. That is why the quality of the original churches was not perfect, but still was the highest quality.

Then slowly the law and custom of Rome did replace the law of God and the grace of God to put children of the faith under slavery of Roman law and Roman custom. So, God has to plan and execute the escape plan of his children from the slavery of Rome to freedom of obedience through grace, which is attained by faith only. This resulted in the protestant reformation. The problem is that as the children of Jacob straight out of Egypt were the wrong kind of children, the protestant followers were the wrong kind of children except for their knowledge of the right faith.

 

So, the lord took a slow process of moving them from one stage to the next stage by making sure that their heart, spirit, and mind could carry the full message of God. Many servants of the Lord made major contributions in this process. The unfortunate fact, however, is that they all do have limitations and doctrinal adulteration too. Some people escape through the river basin and they reflect the river basin culture on their spiritual escape from slavery. Some escape through the mountains, and they follow the mountain culture in their redefinition of the faith. They did not start from the truth himself, Jesus Christ, but from their local lies and limitations in their journey to the true faith of the lord. This is why the protestant reformation took different paths because out of imperfect beings, perfection cannot be created just like that. This is because on one side the heart, mind, and spirit of the followers cannot handle the truth in its pure form, and on the other side it is because they don’t have adequate knowledge to live by the pure truth.

 

Then the Holy Spirit’s revival also has to be planted in such unfertile soil. People were learning everything from scratch and this is why you will not only find major works but also major mistakes. Pick any major servant of the lord, you will find major problems in his/her teaching, and behavior somewhere in his/her history. Even some did end up having a very shameful ending, like King Saul. This is similar to the time of Judges in Israel's history. The people have no leader and their faith is not built on solid ground. In this time there was a judge, anointed by God, who thought scarifying a human being, even his only daughter, is what is a blessing in sight of the lord, though the law says otherwise. They don’t know the law well while trying to lead people by the law. They are imperfect, however, that does not mean they were not anointed by God. Similar is the reality of the Pentecostal moment in general and the charismatic moment in particular.

 

To explain my point, let me pick one of the servants of the Lord in the 20th century, Billy Graham. Anyone who knows Jesus can see this man is a man of God, his composition is right and his effort is admirable. Yet, he rejected the charismatic moment, as it was not acceptable to him. Surely, all things in a charismatic moment are not right, as all things in Billy Graham’s ways are not right. Billy Graham even thought that the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox religious groups were more faithful than the charismatic moments. It seems like a Pharisee doubting Jesus and the family of the lord doubting the sanity of the lord; the child of the slave girl doubting the authenticity of the child of promise.

 

Yet what we see is as the influence of Billy Graham dies out the influence of charismatic moment took over. Does this mean Billy Graham is evil? No, he did what is good for God, to the best of his knowledge. He is one of the great faithful people of the last century but still was very wrong in a major part of the true faith. What is interesting is that even God does not try to remind him that he is wrong. What the lord did is simply forgive him and tell him that. He cannot understand the charismatic moment. In simple words, he was a man of God who was deadly wrong in an important line of truth. He is not Jesus after all. He cannot perceive the work of the Holy Spirit with a charismatic moment. That is why, I think, lord told him all your sins were washed before his death.

 

Is the Charismatic moment all good? No there is a lot of evil mixed with the work of God. Even in the history of one man of God, you can see the good mixed with evil in the Charismatic moment. Yet you have to see to the fruit, not to the mistakes and confusion inside it, to know it. "Do people become more faithful in the lord's image or more evil?" is the test of the truthfulness of any faith. As it is written, we will know them by their fruit. Yet they are far from perfect, see it is slow progress toward the full truth.

 

This is where I want to remind the Charismatic moment you are a work in progress. The question is where do you end up? What is the goal of this progress? I know most of you will draw your ugly face on the wall and will proclaim “ecce homo”, to mean here is the perfect human being; yet I want to draw Jesus Christ on the wall and I will remind you he is the perfect one. So grow to ward Jesus Christ and be imitators of the lord. I know sometimes some man of God, like Paul, John, Peter, or Billy Graham, may be closer to God than you in everything. So you may need to imitate those men of God as intermediate or operational targets before you can see your way toward the lord. Yet at some point, you have to see they are no Jesus and you have to leave them behind and you need to march toward Jesus. When you stand at their shoulder, you have more chance to get much closer to the lord.

 

We don’t belong to Apollo or Paul or Peter but only to Jesus Christ. He is our destination and our spiritual growth ends when we imitate Jesus himself because it is the will of the lord that everyone should have the image of his son. Now let me ask: what is the way of Jesus? How does Jesus live his life on this earth? Did Jesus invest in earthly treasure or heavenly treasure? Did Jesus run after wealth, health, and prosperity? This is an earthly treasure and only those whose hearts are in earth run after it. The Pharisees were very rich religious leaders and they loved wealth, health, and prosperity. Yet God did not call them for service, God called John the Baptist as the one who has to prepare the road of the Lord for our salvation.

 

Let me focus more on human beings like us, John the Baptist. By selection, nobody who is born of women is higher than John. Abraham, David, Our good Mother, and all the disciples were not equal to John the Baptist by selection. He is the top human creation of God but what does God give him? He was sent to live in the desert while eating wild honey and grasshoppers. What `wealth, what prosperity, and what health are given to him by the lord? He is the best among us, by selection, and is given the hardest service for that. On earth, his benefit is to have the lead of the Holy Spirit starting from his mother’s womb. Yet the rest of his treasure is kept in heaven, as his heart was supposed to be in heaven.

 

Jesus Christ, our Lord, is God but did not have his own personal family, land, house, wealth, or prosperity. The treasure of the lord was in heaven and his heart was in serving the purpose of heaven. The same is the story of the disciples of Jesus. All of them have their treasure kept in heaven while they suffer in poverty, in prison, in torture, and in starvation for the kingdom of God. The message is not poverty, suffering, sickness, or pain as holiness, the message is that the kingdom of God is like the most valuable precious stone in the market. A smart man will sell everything s/he has and will buy it. Paul did, John did, Peter did and many unnamed servants of the lord did.

 

I am not speaking about the crazy life of a monastery by Buddhists or Catholics, but the way of Paul, the way of Peter, the way of John, and the perfect way of Jesus Christ. Those are the best among us. Yet, we are not smart. All of our treasure is not in heaven but also on earth. We are not the best there is, we are counted as faithful by grace. That is why we should not idealize our stupidity, but let us idealize Jesus, Peter, Paul, and John. Let us draw Jesus or at least Paul, Peter, and John as perfect human beings that we need to imitate, not us. This is the problem of the Charismatic moment of our age, the perfect man on the wall that everyone should imitate is not Jesus but some man or woman of God. Why a man whose breath is in his nostril counted as important at all is not clear to me. 

 

Because we are not Paul, Peter, Jacob, or John, however, does not mean we cannot serve the lord. Some of us need a decent life, some of us need a wealthy life, some of us want to earn our daily bread rather than living by faith, and soon. I think there is nothing wrong with that. Have a good life if you wish. But don’t draw yourself on the wall and ask people to imitate you. See when you have a big house, your brother is sleeping hungry. That is a sin. The one who is loved the most by the lord is the one who sells his house to feed the poor. His treasure is not on earth but in heaven. Yet we are also loved by the lord, by the grace of the lord. There is also work that can be done by people like us in the kingdom of God.

 

I know large numbers of you are in the business of cleaning the legs of insects while swallowing a camel, as your forefather, the Pharisees, used to do. My best advice to you is that “from whatever you believe is the right starting point, focus on creating the image of Jesus in the life of the faithful”. The point is that let us disagree from where we start but let us agree on the destination. Teach the people how they can imitate Jesus in everything through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Let them grow into the life and ways of Jesus.

 

The point I am trying to make is not that health, wealth, or prosperity is bad. I am just trying to differentiate the best among us from the inferior that we are. The best among us are those who kept their treasure in heaven and who wander in the world in poverty, suffering, prosecution, and sickness to teach the good news of the Lord and to save the souls from the hell fire. It is not that they suffer is more important but they are willing to suffer for the service of the lord and they do suffer for it. When people are sent to the jungle to teach the gospel, they don’t expect manna from heaven, they expect to suffer in the way. The point is not they are hungry, the point is they are willing to work where there is hunger, sickness, danger, and even death. Those are the best among us, not us. So let us stop fooling ourselves and trying to justify our way as the perfect way of God.

 

Do I take myself among the best? Not even in distance. Yet, I can put this post for service of the lord, and still, I don’t have to ask for help, get hungry, be in danger, or be sick. I am not the best among us, however, does not mean I have no place in the kingdom of God. After all, I don’t have to be Angel Michal to be a messenger of the lord, and I don’t have to be those giants of the lord to be the Lord's own. I can still work for the lord as earthly as I am because I am saved by the grace of the lord. Some of you also demand more of this world. If it is the will of the heavenly father to give you more wealth, health, and prosperity, good for you. But I advise you to work for the lord because the lord is paying your expenses. Make every faithful under you in the image of Jesus Christ, not in your own image.

 

If you build your church, your house, your followers, and your wealth while destroying the temple of the lord, I can assure you that the lord will destroy you. The temple of the lord is not the church, God does not live in the church. God lives inside every faithful and those temples have to be clean, full of the word of God, and with Godly manners. Those temples of the lord have to be holy because holy is the one who does holy through the guidance of the Holy Spirit which is received through faith in the lord. Build the temple right, whatever treasure you demand on this earth. Make every faithful in the image of Jesus, and let them grow to the ways of Jesus through a spiritual growth process.

 

Whatever you do, don’t do it to please people; as church is not a social gathering only. Whatever you do, don’t do it to have strong support; as the church is not a political institution. Whatever you do, do it knowing the lord is watching, the lord is listening, and the lord is judging; so do everything to please the lord. Do everything hoping that Jesus one day will say “I am pleased by you”. If you are with the lord, they may come united to oppose you but they will run in seven ways from you in shame. If you are against God, you may attack united but you will retreat in seven ways in disarray. So, if you are wise try to understand the will of the heavenly father and try to attain it.