It occurred to me this morning that if Jesus had never performed a miracle before, then why would Mary even think to consult Him about the need for wine?Was there something in his past (I know there are supposed gospels of the childhood of Jesus) that made her assured that He could do this?I know that it speaks of this being the beginning of miracles, but could that mean the miracles that accompanied His public ministry?
I must say, the church has woefully missmanaged money. I’ve seen it overall for many, many years…… from small churches all the way up to headquarters in Cleveland. I won’t even begin to try to tell the areas where money has been so missmanged. I think it is beginning to become very obvious to the people.
I get the feeling that you don’t believe in laying up treasures in Heaven and that you want to keep the money to buy things for yourself; to build bigger barns here on earth.
1st, We have to understand this #1 principle, we must not be divided but rather united as The Body not “Bodies”.
2nd, 1 Timothy 5:18 says that the laborer is worthy of his wages. I believe ministers should be taken care very good care off in their Labor for our churches. Yet this doesn’t mean fatten them financially.
3rd, stewardship is in the Bible meaning, it was meant for ALL believers, no way around that if your a true believer. Why? Because God knows that it does take money and carnal things to reach a lost and dying world. So we have to budget and spend wisely through the council and leading of the Holy Spirit, meaning our methods may change and even look different at times the importance is that we are doing these things under the direction of the spirit.
4th, I’m all for volunteers in the church and there has been, there is and there will be great people who volunteer. But we have to realize the society we are in at this moment, “Volunteers” are hard to find due to the lessons taught in the homes (“what’s in it for me”). So there are ministers who over see the church 7 days a week and are at the call of members to go where they are and to be honest, unless your already wealthy and/or drawing money that you truly don’t need you can not perform these task due to the expense of the ministry so this has to come from some where and it becomes the churches responsibility. Otherwise ministers would have to charge/ask for offering at every hospital visit, funeral, home visit, etc in order to pay for the expense of getting to these place of needs, and we all would be uncomfortable with this especially those who are laying in a hospital bed wondering how they are going to pay for it and now the only way to get prayer is give more money.
So yes minister should be taken care of and even Volunteers should be shown gratitude and appreciation through gifts at times. We for get that if we “freely give, we freely receive” but we like to make excuses more for why we don’t give rather than listen to the spirit and give even when it hurts to find God always gives back more. We say this and hear it but how often do I do this, not near enough. But I’m striving to get there. Remember it’s not our place to decide if the money God ask us to give is used correctly (although yes it should be) it’s our place to be obedient to God’s command to give and let him be responsible for the blessing or curse of how the recipient spends the money. Giving means letting it go which means you know longer have control. Jesus said “It is more blessed to give than receive”. Let’s work on following the statement and stop making excuses why we don’t give.
Great comments. Sadly it still holds that 20% of church members give 80% of the money, because they have caught the vision and have received the blessing of being a faithful giver .Now it’s up to the 80% to prove God and see if He will reward them as promised in scripture. Here at Christmas time is a good time to start. When my children were young we explained to them that they may not get all the gifts that their friends got because we wanted to give through the church and help provide for those that were out of work etc.
Let us be careful that we don’t make money our God.
I have always had the blessing of not being overly good looking so never encountered this problem!
Me neither even if I’m very good looking