Be Spiritually Minded
Scripture: James 1:8Devotional Series: Money: Not the Root of All Evil
Teaching: Money: Not The Root Of All Evil pt. 1 (WED 2024-09-25) by Pastor Star R Scott
So many of us are busy about building our earthly kingdoms and then doing a lot of stuff we think God would like us to do. The question is, are we doing what God wants us to do and using our spare time for the things that we would like to achieve? What is our joy and our crown? But the body of Christ, those that can be redeemed. And so, we’ve been looking at those different aspects, and we were talking about to be successful in this pursuit, the need then to separate ourselves from the world, to come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord. This was Paul’s constant admonition to us. Listen, he’s telling us in this second epistle to Timothy, as he’s finishing this course, he says. “You’ve seen what manner of man I was. You’ve watched my life. Follow me”; amen?
In our deacons’ meeting last night, we were talking about a young person here that was faced with some decisions to be made. And, as the different aspects of it came up, we thought, “What kind of good counsel can we give them?” And this person happened to be a single person who was asking, “Should I get involved in this and these opportunities are ahead of me?” What kind of wise counsel can we give them? The wise counsel we can give them is the council Paul gave us through the Holy Ghost. Since you’re single, use your time for God, not expanding your earthly horizons. How many of you think that’s good counsel? “Yes, but I could make more money over here. It’s easy money.” What are we doing in the kingdom? How earthly minded are we? How spiritually minded are we? Have we been vexed? We might take a look at this in just a moment.
But let me remind us, Lot’s righteous soul was vexed, day by day. Every time you get up and go out to that cesspool called the world, its activities, its ambitions, its gods; we’re being vexed. We’d better come home and get cleaned up with the washing of the water of the Word. We’d better go back and survey our day and say, “What decisions did I make? Were they made from the wisdom of this book? Did I make the right choices today? Did anything today reveal the true treasures of my heart?” Amen? I think many of us think a little more highly than we ought to think sometimes. Everything in the light and the understanding.
Let me tell you what it is that you go to on a daily basis. As we run to and fro, trying to get little nuggets and prizes from the world so that we can prosper and go ahead and have respect and have position and have fulfillment and have money. How much of that pleases God? Is that where His heart is for you? When we see the world as anything less than hostile, dangerous, or an idol, we’re in jeopardy. Whenever you think you can befriend it, you’ve already been deceived. Because “a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). No grey. “Yes, but this and these people and this”—there’s no grey; amen?
To be friends with the world, to adopt their methods, to adopt their idols, to adopt their ideologies, puts you at enmity with God. And I want to tell you something, “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). You want to finish? We have to step back from this naiveness of thinking that the world is neutral. It is not neutral. It is hostile to God. There is no neutrality.
In our deacons’ meeting last night, we were talking about a young person here that was faced with some decisions to be made. And, as the different aspects of it came up, we thought, “What kind of good counsel can we give them?” And this person happened to be a single person who was asking, “Should I get involved in this and these opportunities are ahead of me?” What kind of wise counsel can we give them? The wise counsel we can give them is the council Paul gave us through the Holy Ghost. Since you’re single, use your time for God, not expanding your earthly horizons. How many of you think that’s good counsel? “Yes, but I could make more money over here. It’s easy money.” What are we doing in the kingdom? How earthly minded are we? How spiritually minded are we? Have we been vexed? We might take a look at this in just a moment.
But let me remind us, Lot’s righteous soul was vexed, day by day. Every time you get up and go out to that cesspool called the world, its activities, its ambitions, its gods; we’re being vexed. We’d better come home and get cleaned up with the washing of the water of the Word. We’d better go back and survey our day and say, “What decisions did I make? Were they made from the wisdom of this book? Did I make the right choices today? Did anything today reveal the true treasures of my heart?” Amen? I think many of us think a little more highly than we ought to think sometimes. Everything in the light and the understanding.
Let me tell you what it is that you go to on a daily basis. As we run to and fro, trying to get little nuggets and prizes from the world so that we can prosper and go ahead and have respect and have position and have fulfillment and have money. How much of that pleases God? Is that where His heart is for you? When we see the world as anything less than hostile, dangerous, or an idol, we’re in jeopardy. Whenever you think you can befriend it, you’ve already been deceived. Because “a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). No grey. “Yes, but this and these people and this”—there’s no grey; amen?
To be friends with the world, to adopt their methods, to adopt their idols, to adopt their ideologies, puts you at enmity with God. And I want to tell you something, “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). You want to finish? We have to step back from this naiveness of thinking that the world is neutral. It is not neutral. It is hostile to God. There is no neutrality.