GOD's Next

Salvation, as Jesus taught in Matthew 19, is far deeper than a verbal confession or a superficial acceptance of His name, which is what salvation often means in church today. When the rich young ruler asked, “What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16), Jesus’ response revealed that salvation is not merely about moral compliance but radical surrender. And I mean RADICAL.  Photo above by Margo Evardson on Unsplash . First, he pointed the man to the commandments, which shows that to Jesus the commandments matter a lot in salvation, specifcally loving the Lord our God with our all, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. But when the man claimed he had kept them, Jesus exposed the heart issue: attachment to wealth. Money and giving it up is a vital issue for Jesus in salvation and if you really love God with your all and your fellow as yourself. And this is what church fails to emphasize---because it will mean the church itself and its denomination should ...

The Kingdom Wealth Principle and Philippians 4:19 There was a time---a long time---when I misunderstood the connection between giving and blesings and misapplied Philippians 4.19. I thought I could just claim the passage and get God's blessings and riches in heaven, and live happily ever after. God wants to richly bless us, not just spiritually but financially, and wants some of us to get really rich. But we often see these things in the wrongest way possible. Photo above by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash . Remember how Jesus said he would give the keys of the Kingdom to his disciples (not just to Peter), and what we bind and lose on earth will be bound and losed in heaven? It's in the plural form, keys . And one of the keys is releasing wealth. We can command money to be released, just as Jesus told Peter to get money from the mouth of the fish he'd catch. The problem is, the church and some preachers have been misusing and even abusing this key, enriching their denominat...