Topic: Church
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? (Malachi 3:8 KJV)
Even though this portion of the passage of the Scripture is related to tithing, I’d like to discuss on how we can build our relationship again. This message is important to us today as we see many churches are downsizing the congregations.
I recently heard that one of local Baptist churches in my area has decreased the activity program for singles, because some of them decided to leave the church. Also, I just read that our nation will increase the Muslim population by doubling it by 2030 (Muslim Population to Double in U.S. by 2030, Report Projects). It is sad to hear that we have president and some Christian evangelists are advocating for Islam and deny the true God, who created the universe.
Many today’s Christian leaders have compromised the Words of God to make everyone would feel “good.” Joe Osteen, Kenneth Copland, TD Jakes and many other Christian media preachers have thousands of congregations, because they preached the wrong messages of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For example, if you’d watch Joe Osteen, there is no message that contains about sin, God’s wrath, justice, and hell. Yet, he is making about $1 million per week for the 30 minutes TV show.
People are heading to wrong direction to seek the counseling. Others may decide to leave the churches because their preachers may change their hearts. There are some preachers today, who have fallen down from the foundation biblical teaching to more contemporary sermons, such as Max Lucado and Andy Stanley. Even some church services may have more contemporary praise and worship time and 15-20 minutes for the sermon (spiritual meat).
We need to reunite with God rather than robbing Him. In Malachi’s time, there were some people, who cheated on God. Instead giving some financial supports to the temple, they were robbing things from God. We see exact same events that are happening in today’s churches as the days of the Old Testament.
Jesus didn’t said, “I have come to destroy you.” Instead, He said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10b.) So, why some Christians are walking away from God? Can we have satisfied lives without God? We need to evaluate ourselves to which god we want to serve. If we don’t serve God, we would be automatically serving Satan, the Devil.
