Doing The Work of God Deceitfully? (Is That Even Possible?)

Saturday's Devotion (4-26-08)

"Cursed [be] he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully, and cursed [be] he that keepeth back his sword from blood." Jeremiah 48:10 (KJV)

I want to focus on the first half of this verse, "Cursed [be] he that doeth the work of the LORD deceitfully…" Some of us didn't even think it possible to do the work of the Lord deceitfully, and the reason we didn't think it possible is… Because there's nothing deceitful about the work of the Lord! But saying that someone is doing the Lord's work deceitfully isn't saying that the Lord's work is deceitful, it's saying that the person doing the Lord's work isn't doing it for the Lord. They're doing it for something else, for their own gain. They don't really care about the Lord's work, they just want the appearance that they care. We see many ministries on television, and even churches in our own hometowns that are deceitfully doing the Lord's work. They're doing it because they want the donations, not because they want to serve the Lord. I'm not saying all of these ministries, but some of them!

Now, some will say, "If people are scamming for money, why would they use a false ministry to do it?" The answer is simple, because there are still a lot of people who will say: "That guy is a minister, he wouldn't scam me!" Ignorance is truly bliss for these scammers because they can scam the ignorant all day long. There ARE ministers that are false, there ARE ministers that will lie to you… And most importantly there ARE ministers who are not ministers at all! I'm using the word "Ministers," but really this applies to even just "servants of God." There are false servants of God that appear to be serving God, but in reality they are trying to serve themselves.

Today's message is to warn these false ministers/servants. You might appear to be righteous before man, but God knows your heart… He knows the true reason that you do His work and if it isn't pure, if it's for your own personal gain… You will not get away with it! Oh, you'll get your little donations, you'll get the money you want and other things as well, but you'll also reap the judgment of God! Repent! Change your ways now while you still can. We can all appear to be serving the Lord, but it's a matter of our heart. Does our heart want to serve the Lord or do we do it for some other reason? If there is another reason then we need to be in prayer, we need to seek a change of heart.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins as we forgive all those who've sinned against us. Help us not to be doing your work deceitfully, make us righteous in your own eyes. Draw us closer to you and don't ever let us go. In Jesus name. A-men!

God bless!