THE WORK OF GOD HAS NO STICKER PRICE

By Akin Ojumu

At the root of all the mess in the Christian Church today is the blinding love of money. Undergirding all the deception, enchantment, manipulation, immorality, self-glorification, empire building, pride, pomposity, and the rest that have come to define the Body of Christ is the fervent worship of mammon. The mayhem and chaos are all because men and women have chosen to yield their souls to be possessed by the demons of materialism and their hearts given over to the spirits of covetousness. It is the insatiable craving for stuff that have no eternal value that's responsible for the deafening cacophony of money, money, money, that rings from the parapets of the places of worship.

Today, a vast majority of those we find in the ministry of saving souls are not actually motivated by a deep concern for the salvation of lost souls. They may say, and even act as though, they do, but don’t be fooled by their words and pretense. Deep down in the recesses of their soul, these people see ministry as nothing more than a means of livelihood and a means to an end. To them, being a minister of the Gospel is just what they do for a living, a job that pays the bills. The prestige that comes from being called and recognized as a "man of god," is also an alluring and intoxicating incentive for many to put on the garb of a minister.

With this mindset, such folks often put a price tag on everything in the house of God. Like inventories in a grocery store, every ministration, every prophetic utterance, every prayer, every laying of hand, every counsel has a sticker price stamped on it. The focus of such a ministry is prosperity, and the theme of their message is success. Emblazoned on the banner of their denomination is deliverance and success. Wealth and health, name it and claim it, are the pillars that hold it all together.

Since mammon is their god, these folks judge everything by their size and stature. They are wont to look at the outward appearance without much thought for what’s inside the heart. In their eyes, the success and failure of any endeavor are directly proportional to the size of the outcomes. To them, a big church with a large audience bringing in fat offerings always translates into the presence of big anointing. Whereas a tiny church with a handful of people and a token in offering probably means no anointing at all. Fruitfulness is judged by human standards and the metrics they use to judge success in ministry, i.e., church growth index aka performance index, is something borrowed from the secular world. 

Being a transactional deity that he is, the deeds and the works of mammon their god are only reserved for those with the means and wherewithal to buy the goods. In order to release the grace of god, they say, you must give the man of god a sizable amount of money. To get this god to heal your body, you must sow into the life of his prophets. The only thing that unlocks the window of the vault of this god, is the offering you give and the tithes you bring. If you fail to do any of these things, your life will be tight and the devourer will come visit your life.

 

Yet, the truth of God stands sure. The blessings of Jehovah God cannot be purchased with money and the grace of Elohim cannot be bought. It is a perversion of the Word of God for a man who claims to be a minister of God to set a price on anything they do as a servant of God. To place a sticker price on the work of God, is to price oneself right out of the blessing of God. Whenever a man charged with spiritual responsibility gets concerned about how much money he is getting, he bargains himself right out of eternal blessing.

God does not and cannot bless the work of a man who is concerned about money. Show me a man in ministry who is preoccupied with money, and I’ll show you a ministry with Ichabod stamped boldly across it. You cannot serve God and mammon. On the day we stand before the Bema Seat (i.e., the Judgement Throne) of God, those who put a price tag on the work of God will find their names omitted from the Book of Life, and those who engage in merchandizing the grace of God will hear the stinging voice of God say, “I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”