CONFRONTING THE AGENTS OF DEVALUATION III

2. The Stony heart.
There are so many people in the Church with stony heart; one hundred years in the Church, no change because they are not ready to receive the word. They get promotions in their various Churches but they are not qualified to teach in the children’s department. Some children have more knowledge of God than they do. Some climb the ecclesiastical ladder and rise to the position of bishops, cardinals, pastors. You cannot give what you don’t have. Agents of devaluation are all over the place. They manufacture their own theology to suit the whims and caprices of the people who are like them. A lot of ministries are born out of wrong motives; chief among this is the motive to make money. What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and loses his soul in hell? (Mark 8:36) Have you ever asked yourself the question – how much do I really need to be comfortable? You must ensure that you are not weak because it is the weak that are always attacked. As a woman, if you marry a husband with a stony heart, you are in serious trouble. If you have a child with a stony heart, you have a lot of work to do. They are stubborn and tend to make up their minds concerning issues. However, God can remove a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. Only God can do it. He is the only one that can perform the surgery; he will remove that stone and replace it with a heart that trembles at his word. They are dangerous. If they set their heart to do something, you cannot bend it. It is a done deal.

3. A Thorny heart.
A lot of people in the Church today belong to this category. Jesus explained it; they know the importance of the word but the cares of this world will not allow them to pay attention. Their reception of the word is shallow because of the cares. They elevate the pursuit of money above the pursuit of God. This is very common. They believe that they can make money anyhow and then pay their tithe later. God is not interested in such tithes. This is error taken too far. God does not need money. Jesus made it categorically clear that you cannot worship God and mammon (Matt. 6:24). It is wrong to think that you can be living in sin and then use your money to buy your way through or buy your miracle through. Any miracle you buy with money cannot be genuine; it is fake because God said freely you receive, freely give (Matt. 10:8). There are so many fake miracles all over this place. This is part of the devaluation in the system. True miracle is done by divine intervention. God does not endorse nonsense. God cannot celebrate what he repudiates in his world. If it is not consistent with the word of God, it is not in the will of God. Anything that is not consistent with the word of God is not the will of God. The Church is full of people with this kind of character because of wrong theologies – the theology of “give me your gold and I will make you a god” (Exo. 32:1-4). Even the office of a pastor has been so devalued that some pastors prefer to be called brother. The Bible says he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers (Eph. 4:11). Today, everyone is a pastor. I am not in ministry for what to get but to fulfill His purpose to the glory of His name.

TO BE CONTINUED.