Don't Be A Fool With God's Money

1st Corinthians 16:1-2, “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.”

The subject of money is one of much debate, hostility and mixed emotions. Preachers in particular get upset quickly when it comes to money, because they desire to have it so much. Did you know dear reader that there is nothing in the New Testament about tithing 10% to the church. For that matter, neither is there anything in the Old Testament which requires Gentiles to tithe 10% to God. Preachers, particularly pastors, are the only ones I know who require their congregations to pay 10% tithes. As if that weren't bad enough, lying to their church congregations that God demands for them to tithe 10%, then those pastors teach that you are also supposed to give offerings above and beyond your tithes.

I wrote this blog because I know a Christian lady who is so brainwashed by every pastor she has ever had, that she suffers from religious scrupulosity (religious guilt) if she doesn't give at least 15% of all her gross income to God. I have heard umpteen pastors teach that you must tithe on your gross income, not your take home income from work. Could today's shameful pastors be any more greedy? It sickens me.

Where do pastors get this unbiblical idea that the Bible demands for Christians to cough up 10% plus of their hard earned money? Malachi 3:8, “Will a man rob God?  Yet ye have robbed me.  But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?  In tithes and offerings.” Please note that this Scripture passage applies to Old Testament Israel, to the Twelve Tribes of Jews. This Scripture cannot apply to New Testament saints, because God has not commanded us to give anything! Take a look at our text passage again:

1st Corinthians 16:1-2, “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.”

As we just read, the Bible says to give AS GOD HATH PROSPERED YOU! That means if you are surviving on social security, medical disability, public aid, or just don't make hardly any money working, God does NOT expect for you to tithe much. The poor widow in the Bible put her last two mites into the collection box at the local synagogue. Jesus said she gave all she had! She gave 100%. But she did it because she wanted to, not because some Pharisee coerced her by browbeating and threatening her with God's judgment if she didn't.

Giving in church is a matter of choice, and not because a church pastor who is being irresponsible needs lots of extra money to fund his ministry projects. Essentially, you are paying for his visions and dreams of growing his church! But this type of exuberant reckless spending has destroyed many churches, when people start flocking to leave because of the unbearable financial burdens placed upon them by an irresponsible pastor. I have seen it many times in my lifetime, pastors who sinfully abuse their people, milking them for every dollar they can! Meanwhile those same pastors take their enjoyable annual vacations (under the pretense of a “missionary trip”) to the Holy Land, the Philippines, Japan, Europe, et cetera. Very few church laymen could afford to take those lucrative trips abroad. As a general rule, if your pastor is enjoying a better standard of living than your family does, don't give that church a dime!

The Christian lady that I mentioned earlier, constantly begs her family for money for her personal needs. That is wrong, when she is tithing 10% and then giving a 5% offering on top of that. She suffers from religious scrupulosity (religious guilt) if she doesn't give tithes and offerings. She thinks that she is doing the right thing, pleasing God by faithfully giving tithes and offerings. What if that widow in the Bible was so poor that she needed to go beg her family, friends and neighbours for some money, so she could feel good about herself by putting that borrowed money into the synagogue collection box? Would that be proper and right? I think not. What honor is there is giving money to any cause, if you had to do so with other people's money? It is morally wrong to go around begging people for money, so you can tithe 10% and give an extra 5% offering. In fact, it is absurd!

People are gullible, strange, easily deceived and controlled by the cults. Religion will mess up a person's mind faster than anything! Look at the Mormons cult as an example. Thousands of naïve women and girls are brainwashed from the earliest age, to think they are pleasing God by surrendering their spirit, soul and body to some old dirty pervert who has 50 wives! Mormonism is a deadly false religion spawned by the Devil, so that a small group of sex perverts can have their way with the gullible females within the cult group.

Religion is the opiate (drug) of the people. IT SURE IS!!! Religion is a powerful tool for cult leaders to compel their followers to do anything—whether it be to take their clothes off to engage in an orgy, sign over all their worldly assets and home in a will to the cult, or drink the tainted poisonous Kool-Aid. Cults are easy to identify! Simply look to see if the inspired Word of God is their only authority; or see if it is the leaders of the cult who are the authority?

Sadly, Pensacola Christian College (PCC) is a religious cult, because ungodly men are in charge of the institution instead of God's Word. That is why Pastor Jeff Redlin banned me in writing on August 2nd, 2022 from attending PCC's Campus Church anymore. Only a cult forbids people from attending church!!! They're upset that I criticized them on social media in 2021, even though they deserved it for wickedly bidding Godspeed to the Calvinist Bob Jones University camp (2nd John 1:11). I apologized three times in 2022 to PCC leaders and the pastors of Campus Church, offering to do whatever they require to reconcile, but they are wicked cult leaders who refuse to forgive. At PCC the cult system always comes first, but individual people do not matter. All the PCC camp cares about is making more money!!!

I have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to the way that pastors pressure people for money. God loves a cheerful giver, and I love to give, but not to a church like PCC's Campus Church who pay Pastor Jeff Redlin over $100,000 per year, but then he charged church members $10 in July of 2021 to learn how to more effectively share the Gospel. That is disgusting! Campus Church took in $3,500,000 in 2020, finishing the year with $1,200,000 still in the bank. Yet they charge people $10 to learn how to share the Gospel? 

Dear reader, if you are so broke financially that you need to ask other people for money, to help you make ends meet each month, then you are a darn fool if you tithe at church! Not everyone can or should tithe. If you owe money on your credit card, you ought not tithe until your bills are paid down. I guarantee that in most cases your pastor doesn't owe anybody any money. This is especially true if the church that he pastors is a large church. I hate money. I hate what money does to ruin good people. I hate how money destroys and separates families and friends. I hate the love of money. I avoid people who are always thinking about money, and conniving of ways to make more money, and those who squabble over small amounts of money. Their mind is spiritually broken!

Please do not misunderstand my blog article. I believing in giving to the work of God. I definitely think that God wants His children to give sacrificially to fund the local church, within reason. But when I see churches and Bible colleges blowing tens of thousands of dollars in fireworks shows, they don't have a right to come back the next month begging for people to give until it hurts to support foreign missions.

I'll never forget when I attended the shameful Harvest Baptist Church on Guam for a year in 2013 to 2014. One Sunday a guest missionary from the Philippines spoke at the church. He said 1,900 churches in the Philippines were about to close their doors due to lack of money. As he bloviated about the desperate need for money, and browbeat the audience to give sacrificially until it hurts; I look down to my right side and picked up a church bulletin. In the bulletin it announced an upcoming trip to the Holy Land, for wealthy church members who could afford it. What hypocrisy!!! If 1,900 churches are about to close down permanently, shouldn't the wealthy members of harvest Baptist Church on Guam cancel their extravagant vacation trip and give that money to the churches in the Philippines?

The point I am trying to make is that pastors are hypocritical liars and connivers when it comes to money. They beg like dogs for every penny they can get from you, in the name of dire ministry needs, but then they turn around and live a spoiled life (high on the hog) with your money. They say one thing, but then do another thing.

I think some people could and should give much more to the Lord. Hey, if you are a millionaire, then I think you should donate more money to God's work, but use the brain that God gave you to think. Don't just give money mindlessly to some pastor who says all the right words. You need to go examine his work, his home, his car that he drives, his lifestyle, before you give that church a dime. False prophet, Pastor Steven Furtick in Charlotte, North Carolina a few years ago build a personal mansion for $1,600,000. I wouldn't give that con man a single dime!!! Steven Furtick is a child of the Devil, a parasite who preys upon worldly churchgoers for their money. This is the apostate church of the New World Order! Pastor Furtick jams on his electric guitar in church services to the tune: “I Love Rock & Roll” by Joan Jett. People bring their pets (dogs, cats, birds) to church with them. The free grace Gospel is not preached.

If you want to help the poor, give help to them directly. But them some food, don't give them money in most cases. Please don't give any money to these big charities in the United States who pay their executives ridiculous 6-digit salaries. The top dog who runs the soul-barren Salvation Army gets paid a shocking $300,000 per year (and that's not even including his total compensation package with expenses for housing, car, travel, insurance, et cetera)! 

Hypocritically, the Salvation Army deceitfully advertises its organization as a picture of Santa Claus accepting pennies and nickels at Christmas time with a bucket. What a fraud! Did I mention that the Salvation Army owns lucrative vacation properties in Hawaii for its executives and officers? Although the Salvation Army does a lot of good to help the less fortunate, I cannot in good conscience give a single dime to any organization that can justify paying its top executive TEN TIMES what the average U.S. citizen earns per year! Charity? Ha Ha Ha!

Remember, the day that you got saved, everything you own became Christ's. We are bought with a price the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 6:20, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” When we give God anything, we are simply letting go of what is already His. Every penny that you and I spend, if you are a child of God like I am, we are spending God's money.

How do you spend the Lord's provisions for you? Do you give it to con artists like Jim Bakker and company of The PTL Club on TV? Those lying thieves make me sick! They are exploiting the name of Jesus for filthy lucre, victimizing sincere people by putting on a tremendous entertainment show for people to watch from home. It is wickedness!!! Just like Pat Robertson and his, The 700 Club circus, they all pull on people's heart strings by showing viewers poor children, babies killed by abortion, suffering animals or less fortunate people). Those money-hungry religious frauds exploit the poor, dying, crippled and suffering among humanity to get the viewer's money (and they sure do, billions of dollars worth each year).

I hope this information has been helpful. If you do choose to give, please make sure it is going for a good cause, and not helping to pay for someone's Rolls Royce and mansion in Beverly Hills, California; or on the island of Maui in Hawaii; or in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Charity starts at home! I am a firm believer in that rule. One of the constants in this earthly life is that everybody will always need and beg for your hard-earned money. For that very reason, money is the LAST thing that I am willing to give anyone who asks for it! Remember, the greatest things in life are not things. Winning a lost sinner to Jesus Christ is priceless! You cannot put a price on something like that. I spend my time laying up treasures in Heaven. I think that is a good investment, and so did Jesus Matthew 6:19-20). Thank you for reading.