Bishop David Oyedepo told the story of a pastor who took church offering with him after service and bought bread from it on his way home right in his presence. He said the man did not last in ministry. He warned ministers against treating the Lord's offering with contempt.
In the days of MMM, some ministers used church money for MMM hoping to get returns from it. It is no news that some preachers use church collections to fund their immoral lifestyle with their mistresses. They put the budget on church.
If they had used same money to help the poor and widows, no one will raise an eye brow but using God's money for sexual immorality is the highest order of treating God's offering with contempt.
The sons of Eli treated God's offering with contempt. Whenever anyone offered a sacrifice, Eli’s sons would send over a servant with a three-pronged fork while the meat of the sacrificed animal was still boiling.
Sometimes the servant would come even before the animal’s fat had been burned on the altar. He would demand raw meat before it had been boiled so that it could be used for roasting. That's sacrilege. They took what belonged to the Lord and ate it.
Though God gave them certain portions to eat according to the Levitical laws, they over stepped their bounds and did not honour God even with the portion of offering that belonged to them. It is no news that Levites ate portions of the offerings but Hophni&Phineas dishonoured God in the way they went about theirs.
Verse 29 of chapter 2 says, "...and they have become fat from the best offerings of my people Israel!". Isn't the same happening today? People take what belongs to the Lord, mismanage it, and even defraud church to build their empires. Some use their privileged positions in church to divert church funds to themselves through phantom or inflated contracts.
I sat beside some men years ago, we were watching one of the programs of a mega church in Nigeria. When they saw the crowd, one of them began to talk about what the offering could be looking at the population. His focus was plainly wrong. If money is all you see when you see a crowd, you have a problem.
Years back during one of our crusades in a neighbouring African country, one of the ministers asked If we should take an offering to pay some pressing bills. I declined. That crusade had over 7 000 in attendance. The Mayor of that city visited as well. The move of the Spirit was evident as well.
If we had taken an offering, we would make plenty money and have left over considering the crowd whose emotions were high already having seen miracles but had we done that, we could have missed God. Power ministers, raising offering after a display of God's power is not the way to go. You puncture the atmosphere If you do that. That's why anointing lift.
Some think ministry is a get-rich-quick scheme. They entered ministry with their eyes on tithes and offerings. Pastors of such churches do not allow others count or monitor church collections. It goes to them directly. Any time they see God's people, they see a people to milk dry instead of a flock to feed.
This is what the word of the Lord says concerning such ministers: "As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord,..And though you were my shepherds, you didn’t search for my sheep when they were lost. YOU TOOK CARE OF YOURSELVES AND LEFT THE SHEEP TO STARVE. [9] Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord...I NOW CONSIDER THESE SHEPHERDS MY ENEMIES, and I will hold them responsible for what has happened to my flock. I will take away their right to feed the flock, and I will stop them from feeding themselves. I WILL RESCUE MY FLOCK FROM THEIR MOUTHS; THE SHEEP WILL NO LONGER BE THEIR PREY"( Ezekiel 34:8-10 NLT).
