Love GOD and Money?

OK, before I go into which Master you serve I gotta tell ya that last week at The Refuge was been one of the significant weeks in our History, in my opinion. We had our first service on our new property on Kannapolis hwy. Pastor Jay invited Pastor Robert Morris from Gateway Church in Dallas, TX and Author of "The Blessed Life" to come and speak with us at this first service about Living Stones. This was such a historic night as Pastor Jay cast a clear vision of where we are going and Pastor Robert shared about what God wants to do through us as we obey his voice, especially in the area of giving and stewardship. God spoke to me personally, then to Elizabeth, and confirmed it through several scriptures that same night, for us to give God something BIG and trust him in a way like we never have before. And we are doing that now. In that obedience, he is already began to develop us. I see it like buying a song on iTunes, you pay for the song and immediately it begins downloading into your iTunes account. I feel like the download just began, and it feels so good. When that happens you don't even care about how much you spent or gave your just excited about the download! Thats how we feel right now. Pastor Jay invited Phillip Cameron to speak this weekend at The Refuge and Phillip spoke and painted such a great picture of what obedience produces, so cool hearing all the stories of how God has used The Refuge around the world and how God is raising up Living Stones in and through The Refuge. The greatest thing about all of this to me is not the fact that God needs something from us but He really wants to do and give something to us/through us. And to do that, we have to surrender everything to Him, including our stuff. God gave Elizabeth this scripture in Luke 16 Wednesday night. She didn't know what Luke 16 was she just felt like God was leading her there, so she looked it up. And it applys to us right now in a serious way. I think it will for you too;) CHECK THIS OUT:

Luke 16:10-14

10 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?

13 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

14 The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. 15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.



ALOT can be taken from this passage I will just list some things below and then talk about it:

v10,11,12 - Trust and Stewardship: If you steward a little you will steward a lot. The problem with people who don't have much and stay in that place is bad stewardship. Thats what its talking about. Every good and perfect gift comes from God. His resources are available to those who are trust worthy. Most people who don't have much, have tons of excuses and reasons and live there forever. That is NOT what God intends for them.

v13- This is one of the most ignored scriptures in The Bible. People love talking about it but talk is nothing. Faith without works is what? DEAD. Ok, so.. We have two Masters here and only one can be served. 1.God and 2.Money

People say they Worship/Serve/Love God but:

Trust, need, LOVE, want, stress over, are controlled by, live by/for, more, more, more MONEY.

Talk is cheap...God knows our hearts. If God is our master then we:

Trust, need, LOVE, want, have PEACE in, are submitted to, live by/for, more, more, more GOD.

v14 - Who are you trying to impress God or People? Do you pumped yourself up with pride or are you a submitted vessel PUMPED by the Holy Spirit?

WHO is your Master....If its not GOD. MAKE HIM your Master!

I AM A LIVING STONE!