TODAY’S DEVOTION (Sunday 4th May 2025)
After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.
Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road. Luke 10:1-5 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 124th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
Today, the first day of this week, we will be looking at something that was not part of apostolic doctrine and practices. Then we glean some truths to build our faith for the days we find ourselves.
You know, we are in the days of the falling away.
This generation is sandwiched by so many devils from the other side of darkness. We need all the words of the LORD that we can find to survive the season; a season where sin and evil have become normal and living right seen as strange.
Indeed, darkness has covered the hearts of many and gross darkness the souls of men; that is the intelligence, the will, the emotions, the memory and every other faculty of the souls of men. Moral darkness has become so deeply rooted in the lives of so many.
The church and its preachers seem impotent in dealing with the darkness that has covered the earth. Many time I have invaded the social media looking for a word that rebuke sin, that helps one to check himself or herself to see if they are in tune with God, I can’t find.
There is a lot about every other thing apart from what will cure the moral darkness problem that has filled the faculties of most people alive.
The desire and crave for money, fame and other earthly things that has occupied the hearts of most ministers of the gospel has made the church too weak to deal with moral darkness in the hearts of men, especially people who certify themselves as born again who live like the unsaved.
Un biblical statements like “a service is not complete without taking an offering” are the very evidence of what really occupy the hearts of most of us in gospel ministry today. No moral life can be transformed under a minister with the money-making virus at heart. They may give you true prophecies, but you will never be established in the ways of the true God.
THAT EXPLAINS WHY THE MAJORITY OF THOSE WHO ARE ACTIVE IN CHURCH ARE FULL OF MORAL DECAY AND DARKNESS.
If you look at the word of the LORD on what Church is, and what a minister of the gospel should be, you will discover that most pastors, prophets, apostles, prophetesses and men and women in God’s garment are simply shop keepers not preachers.
They sale to you the word, miracles, miracle tools like oil, water, prayer etc. and you pay in different forms. Leaving your soul under the power of moral decay or an ungodly lifestyle that is responsible for the very problems that took you to them in the first place.
If we allow the LORD to run His church without interferences, there will be transformation of moral lives, because He said in His word, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20 NKJV)
The challenge is how to allow the LORD to run His Church the way He established it by the hands of our apostolic fathers.
Today, when people gather, they gather in the name of their carnal desires and the pastor comes in the name of the money thing that is in his heart, not the name of the LORD. That is why Christ cannot be in their midst to confront the people of their sins and destroy the power of the flesh.
What gathers with people today are devils and all kinds of unclean spirits. That is why their pastors, prophets, apostles and prophetesses talk more of devils, curses, and other things!
THE MOTIVES ARE SO WRONG HENCE THE WRONG DOCTRINES.
Understand that, the motive for gathering is usually what determines the message that will be preached, the practice you will see in the name of deliverance, and every other thing. The money bag people carry into ministry is the reason for the false doctrines, the dark practices and the commercialization of the gospel.
As we can see in our devotional text today, Jesus made sure that His disciples never carried “money bags” into ministry when He sent them out; that was to prevent the “money virus” from infecting their hearts, thereby soiling the execution of the great commission.
If you see a minister of the gospel with the money-making virus at their heart, that alone is a sign that the LORD did not send them, or they never waited for Him to purge them before rushing out into ministry.
If you sit under such ministers, the LORD cannot be your shepherd; and if the LORD is not your shepherd, you will lack a lot of what the early church had.
One of them is godly character and moral excellence. It is very unsaved to sit under a minister of the gospel of a church ministry with money bag at the center of everything.
There is no space to exhaustively tell you what the phrase “money bag” means. But a major highlight in our devotional text this morning quoted Jesus’ commission to (first) His disciples and (now to) every preacher saying, “Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road.”
A money bag in the days of the Bible was like a purse for keeping money. That alone tells us that Jesus never intended that ministry be driven by a money-making spirit.
Today a money bag is a “heart” that is full of all kinds of money-making tricks and gimmicks in ministry. Sometimes it will involve the use of sorcery in place of prophecy and divination in place of revelation to collect money from church members.
Where sorcery is involved with other tricks, you will see the preacher performing what is called prophetic similitude or using what they present as faith boosting tools like using either water, Oil, salt, sand, sticks, brooms, or any other thing to pray for the ‘victims’ and make fortune out of their misfortunes.
THE USE OF THE TRICKS OF PROPHETIC SIMILITUDES OF NUMBERS IS ANOTHER MONEY BAG PRODUCT.
For instance, people have been told to give 5417 dollars, 5417 rands, naira, Kenyan shillings and so forth (depending on the currency of the preacher’s greed), to tap into the promise in Isaiah 54:17 that says no weapon formed against you shall prosper.
Others have been told to sow seven times to enter perfection since seven is the number of perfections.
Many other Bible numbers have been used to steal from people. Maybe you have even been a victim of that.
The most effective trick is the one they tell people to raise altars of sacrifice to be free. The LORD wants you to be aware of this and make up your mind not to be a victim.
These things happens when preachers carry money bag into ministry, creating pathways for false and uncalled ministers of the gospel to function successfully. Some have been told by so called apostles to sow the highest currency of their nation of residence to receive one miracle or the other.
As we bring this to a close, let me show you the presence people experience whenever they gather in a Church or ministry of a preacher with the “money-bag heart.” This may shock you; the “throne of Satan” is what they experience.
Sometimes it will manifest with all kinds of lying wonders. Other times it will just be silent in manifestation (Sadly, most of these preachers with a money bag heart do not know this).
Friend, if there is any time to examine the true motive of a person in the ministry or a church, before responding to their invitation or attending their service, it is now. If there is any time to examine the motive of preachers before joining their Churches, it is now!
I pray that God use these words to improve your “walk” and “talk” with Him in Jesus precious name. AMEN!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY.
“If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness,
he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.
Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.” 1 Timothy 6:3-11 NKJV
