BYM ONLINE DESK July 2018 English Emagazine | Page 2

July 2018
Integrity
In
Finances
M. Benedict, Chennai
(Sermon delivered during Blesso' 2018 held in
Trichy, Tamil Nadu)
I want to write about five reasons as why we are
NOT able to maintain integrity in finances.
1. Love of Money
1 Tim 6:9,10 “But those who desire to be rich fall
into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and
harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and
destruction. For the love of money is a root of all
kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some
have wandered away from the faith and pierced
themselves with many pangs.”
Love of money is a kind of lust. This lust
conceives and gives birth to sin which manifests
itself in different ways. It lies, steals, writes false
accounts and if need arises, it also kills. This lust for
1 Tim 6:11 “But as for you, O man of God, flee these
things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love,
steadfastness, gentleness.”
Apostle Paul commands Timothy to run away
from the love of money even before he tells him to
run away from youthful lusts. When we have excess
money in our hands, all kinds of sins come along.
We find an incident in the Old Testament with
respect to an assistant minister called Gehazi. He was
a good assistant who helped Elisha. But he fell a prey
to the love of money. Because of this reason, he and
his descendants were cursed with leprosy (2 Kings
4:13,14, 5:27).
We may be ministers of God or may hold
various responsibilities in ministry. Wherever we
are, let us be careful with regard to money.
We find a similar incident in the book of
Joshua. The army of Israel was marching past the
R
O F I N T E G
On 8th November, 2016, the Government of
India announced the demonitization of all ` 500 and
` 1000 notes. The reason put forth was to curtail the
movement of black money. Today, we find that there
is no integrity in finances. While such is the case with
the Nation, the Church in India seems no different
with many Christian believers and leaders facing
financial fraud cases against them. Misappropriation
of money is spreading across all departments and
among all strata of our society. Even in our families
we face a lot of problems, many of which can be
traced back to money related issues.
money enters into our hearts in a slow way. The first
thing that comes is the 'thought' regarding money.
The mind starts to calculate. If I am a teacher, then I
would calculate, 'If I take special tuitions for 50
students, I can charge ` 5000 per student per year,
which would be ` 2,50,000 per annum.' This is where
the problem begins. When we act on these kinds of
calculative thoughts, we lose our family, faith,
ministry, calling, anointing and ultimately
everything.
*2018*
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