Greed vs.
Spiritual Godliness
I am going to cover a subject that many bible
teachers do not teach. Greed is a result
of the five senses that are out of control and there are many different ways
that greed can manifest itself. Envy
results in greed and so does covetousness – to a great degree. Lust is another major factor which
contributes to greed. Lust is simply
over desire and the world will tempt you with all of these factors. Let’s not forget the love of money. There is nothing wrong with money, but it is
the love of money that is the problem.
The love of money is the root system of all evil in the world
today. So in its least common
denominator greed is the result of the love of money. The following is similar to a simple flowchart
as to how greed operates.
Covetousness is a desire for what others
have. Covetousness is a result of lust
and lust is over desire. These two are
almost synonyms. Lust and covetousness
can be the result of envy which is an evil desire to have what someone else
has. Envy resulted in the first murder
that occurred in the Bible. This is when
Cain slew Abel. So envy can be an
extremely dangerous and deadly emotion.
Now we are beginning to see where all of these factors tie in and work
together towards one goal. Now let’s
take a look at all of these factors and see what is the least
common denominator that is causing a person to think this way with their five
senses. Now we can conclude that
this is the love of money. Are you able
to see it? Now greed is a result of the
five senses and that is a result of the carnal mind which is what the world
teaches and propounds. We know by now
that this present evil world is run and controlled by the devil himself. So all of these negative factors originates
from him. Going to an opposite aspect,
greed is the exact opposite of spiritual godliness. Spiritual godliness is your true and vital
spiritual relationship with God Almighty.
You can only have this relationship if you know God and God is His
Word. Spiritual godliness in a person’s
life can yield only positive things pertaining to a person’s lifestyle. The world’s way, which we have gone over in
detail, can only lead to destruction sometimes in the short run and sometimes
in the long run. If it’s in the long
run, this is how the devil tricks people into living a lifestyle that appears
to be profitable. What a man gives out
he always gets back. This is one of the
true God’s mighty principles. I always
said that if every man lived by this principle, the world would be a perfect
place in which to live. No one would do
anything wrong because they know that it’s going to come back to them. Well, we will have to wait until Jesus Christ
returns and places us in the third heaven and earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness. You can bet your
life as I have done mine that this day is coming. Take a look at the situation of the world
today. Most people are full of
greed. All they want is more and more
and more and get they never get to know the
realization of a simple life. I make
sure my life does not get too complicated because I just can’t enjoy it. If you don’t have enough time to enjoy life,
then what’s the point?
I wanted to make a short introduction but it is
difficult to do when you are trying to get the Word of God across to people to
the point where they act on it. In the
process of doing research for this type of teaching, I ran across nine
Scriptures in I Timothy. They seem to
cover every aspect that I wanted to go over.
When this happens to me, which doesn’t seem too often, I feel that God
is giving me a break. It is not
necessary for me to do a ton of research to put certain teachings together
because God already put it together for me.
We are going to go over these nine Scriptures and they are going to
cover everything we need to know pertaining to greed versus spiritual
godliness.
Before we begin with verse 3 of I Timothy Chapter
6, you should absolutely read verses 1 and 2 of this chapter. You will see that the context is talking
about the correct doctrine of the Word of God and the fact that it should not
be blasphemed. It mentions that the
teachers of God’s Word should not be despised but rather we should do service
unto them because they are faithful and beloved. These are the things that we should teach and
exhort. Then the chapter goes on to
explain people who do the opposite of what they should be doing. Let us let the Word speak. Even though I went over these first two
verses, you should also read them and make sure you understand that they set
the context [the overall subject matter] of the chapter.
I Timothy 6: 3-11:
You should be able to see that this verse takes up
where verse 2 ended. Verse 2 ends by
saying that we should be listening to teachers who are faithful to God’s
Word. So verse 3 goes on to mention
about the people who teach otherwise and do not consent to the words of the
true God. They consent to words which
are not wholesome. They do not consent
to the words of Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to
godliness. There is genuine or spiritual
godliness. The teachers who do not
adhere to the true Word of God do not teach true spiritual godliness, but a
counterfeit type. This emanates from the
world and the devil is the present god of this world. I noticed that God sums up what I just said
in the next verse. Let’s go over that
verse since we learn by repetition.
However along with the explanation that I just gave God goes on to
explain in detail the consequences of what happens to these people in verse 4
as we will see.
3)
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;
Again, if a man teach anything besides the
wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is
according to godliness…… We explained
godliness before and I will again. It is
our true and vital spiritual relationship with God. It is based only upon knowing and acting on
the Word of God. If any man does not
practice true spiritual godliness, the following is what will take place. I want you to take notice that there is one
word in the following verse that we have gone over previously and that word
tends to lead a person to greed.
4)
He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of
words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,
God says that these people who blaspheme the Word
of God and who do not practice true spiritual godliness will suffer the following
consequences. God says that this person
is proud. This is pride. Pride is a devil spirit where a person
becomes heady and high-minded. The
second thing God points out is that these people know nothing – they are just
plain stupid. They also bicker back and
forth about questions and strifes of words.
They talk about nothing and if you listen closely to a person like this,
you will see that they make no sense and that their words accomplish nothing. And as a result of this type of action by a
person’s own free will, there then comes envy, strife, railings, and evil surmisings.
Let’s take a part the last part of this verse and
go over each word so that we totally understand what God is trying to tell
us. This is how you do research. I am simply using a Critical Lexicon and
Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament. You can do the same.
ENVY -- this word is always used in
a bad sense. It is jealousy of another’s
success and depreciation of his worth. It
is envy of another person’s excellence.
This can be referred to as heart burning jealousy. This is the stepping stone for greed and is
the opposite of spiritual godliness which is giving cheerfully to help others
based on the Word of God. All of this
takes place as a result of a person’s free will. That is why we must work very hard to renew
the mind to God’s principles. The
renewed mind is a difficult process and happens very slowly, but as I said once
before, every day gets a little bit better.
Let’s take a look at the next word in this verse.
STRIFE -- this is defined as rivalry,
contention, a quarrel. I have done a
teaching called Ambitious Rivalry. You
should read that teaching. Can you not
see where strife can result in greed of some type? Just the term rivalry points towards a person
who wants what another person wants or wants to exceed what they have
accomplished by any means possible. They
will take from a righteous person what does not belong to them and this is
clearly a type of greed. Remember that
all of these things take place as a result of a person who does not teach the
wholesome words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and of God Almighty. It will eventually catch up to a person
sometimes quickly and sometimes in the long run. The enemy has no mercy. He will bring it upon you at the worst
possible time in your life. Just keep
God first and he cannot touch you.
RAILINGS -- now remember that all of
these negative things will come upon a person who does not practice spiritual
godliness, but runs their life by the five senses. God is explaining the personality
consequences of this type of ungodly person.
Now let’s get to the definition.
Railings are abuse and are the very worst kind of slander. It is mainly blasphemy which attacks sacred
things. We should stop there. Many people who claim to be teachers of God’s
Word are actually working for the god of this world. Why do I say this? It is because they do not rightly divide
God’s Word. They do not study and work
it like we are doing here. Most of the
time they guess at it and then they pass the basket.
EVIL SURMISINGS -- this
is a type of evil which causes sorrow or pain.
It denotes the more active form of evil.
It is the result of the evil one who is the devil. This is how totally messed up a person can
become by not teaching and not acting upon the rightly divided Word of God.
We have simply taken the end of one verse of
Scripture and we researched it. It
wasn’t very hard. If you had the Lexicon
that I have in front of me, you would see how easy it is. It simply takes time and God will always
reward you for the time that you spend for Him.
You always have all the time that you need to do other things when you
keep God first and foremost in your life.
Don’t try to figure it out. I
wanted to show you what it’s like to research just part of one Scripture. We can easily do a complete teaching on I
Timothy 6: 4. For the sake of the
subject matter of this teaching, we are going to move on to verse five.
5)
Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth,
supposing that gain is godliness: from
such withdraw thyself.
Among those that corrupt the teachings of the true
Word of God, their minds have become corrupt and their conversation results in
useless incessant quarrelings. Can you
imagine being such a man? And why are
their minds so corrupt? The Scripture
clearly states that it is because they are destitute of the truth and that
truth being the rightly divided Word of God.
If you are practicing spiritual godliness, God will tell you by word of
knowledge and word of wisdom to withdraw yourself and to get away from those
people. They will only cause you
confusion and it will take away your peace.
This is one of the greatest things that I have learned in recent
years. You cannot reason with the devil
and you surely cannot make friends with him.
Although he will lure your mind to think so, this is one of the ways
that he seduces a man or a woman. I have
learned the hard way to get away from those people and to ignore them. But first, I have learned to give them a
chance – to give them an opportunity to be friendly and to walk with the love
of God in the renewed mind in manifestation.
Once a person has had a few opportunities to walk in a godly manner, and
still turn their back on God, then you must turn your back on them or they will
drag you into the pit in which they live.
This principle is so important it cannot be stressed enough. It seemed to take me forever to learn this
and it was another believer who shared it with me. I’m giving you all of this knowledge – over
40 years of it – for free. You don’t
have to pay for classes or you don’t even have to buy any books – it’s all
here. God gets the glory. He wants it done this way. And I am blessed to do it for God. I only ask you that you get serious and you
study and work the Word until it becomes a part of your everyday life and
living.
Now in verse 5, the last part of the verse is what
I really want to stress. It is my teaching
in a nutshell. And what I am referring
to is the phrase “supposing that gain is godliness”. These are the people who you must withdraw
yourself from. What does that phrase
mean? These ungodly people who do not
practice true godliness think in their corrupt minds that gain is
godliness. Can you imagine that? And I see people every day who will purchase
more and more items that they don’t even need because they think that gain or
excess is similar to godliness. The
opposite is true. Jesus Christ told us
to travel light. And you see people
buying all these fancy things and brand-new trucks and all types of cell phones
and they don’t really need any of them.
But they think, because their minds are corrupted, that the more that
they buy and the more that they gain, the closer they become to God. How sick is that? I find it true in my own life that sometimes
when I have just enough to get by, this is when I feel most peaceful. Material things will drag you down and will
actually own you. We can only try to
have compassion on these people since many of them refuse to learn the
principles of godliness. And one great
principle is to travel light.
I have to make room for this story because I have
one neighbor that is pathetic pertaining to this principle. At times there was a contractor at her home
twice a week. Sometimes they are there
for one week or two weeks. Because she
makes a lot of money and has nothing to do with God’s ways, she keeps buying
and replacing everything in her home for no rational reason whatsoever. She believes that gain is godliness. So what is my job? I keep away.
The term “gain is godliness” illustrates the concept of greed to its
utmost.
6)
But godliness with contentment is great gain.
Now look at the difference in this verse 6. It is one of the promises of God and there
are almost 1000 of them in the Word. God
says that a spiritual relationship with Him referred to simply as godliness,
with contentment is great gain. If you
are happy with God and you learn to walk and talk with Him, you will experience
great gain in all the areas of your life that you have ever dreamed of. We probably renew about 10 or 20% of our
mind. But still, we are able to have
contentment because we practice godliness and in turn we have great gain. How simple can that be?
7)
For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
I always seemed to almost chuckle (I said almost)
when I would read this verse. It is so
down to earth, no pun intended. God is
saying to us and asking us why we would like to have all of this gain. He is trying to show us that when we live
according to our needs and not our greeds, that we will be content and of
course we will have great gain. Because
He says it so clearly, and anyone can understand this, we brought nothing into
this world, and surely we can carry nothing out. So why should we place such importance on so
many material things and material gain?
God is trying to show us that the simple life will offer you godliness
which comes with peace and all the positive aspects of life. The problem is that we think this is too good
to be true and that’s what defeats us.
We need to get over that type of thinking. We have all things that we need to live a
life of spiritual godliness where there is great gain.
8)
And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
God surely gets down to the basics with this
Scripture. He is trying to show us that if
we only have clothes and food, we should be content with our lives. But in this day and time, doesn’t God give us
so much more? How many people do you
know that only have food and clothes?
Not very many, I’m sure. God is
taking matters to what I would like to call a godly positive, extreme to get
His point across. Even in my own life, I
have many material things that I can do without. Lately, I have thought of selling many things
because God has proved to me that the simple life is the best way to live. The more material things you have, the more
things have to be maintained. This can
take away much of your time. A simple
example of this in my own life would be if something I had needed to be
fixed. If I were to go swimming that
night, but instead had to repair some type of machine that I own, this would be
to my detriment. So the term came about
somewhere that material things can own you instead of the other way
around. I think God makes His point very
clearly and we should not forget it. Many
people in biblical times had only these two things – food and clothes and they
were happy. It is something for us to
remember the next time we are tempted to buy that material thing just because
everyone else owns one. I will tell you
something about my life and it pertains to cell phones. I do not own a cell phone. It will only complicate my life and cause me
to make phone calls to people that are totally unnecessary. It is my opinion that a cell phone is a
device of the god of this world. I will
honestly say that there are a few situations where this type of phone will come
in handy. Many times, I walk on some
rough mountain roads and if I hurt my ankle and I cannot move, then a cell
phone would be a great benefit. But to
counter this reasoning, I rely upon God not to get hurt in situations like the
one I just described. Everyone has free
will and I am not saying that a cell phone cannot be beneficial at certain
times. But to me those times are very
few.
9)
But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which
drown men in destruction and perdition.
You’ve got to see the great wisdom in the words of
God. This verse gets right to the heart
of our subject. We know that spiritual
godliness will bring us great gain and great peace in our life. You may notice in this teaching, up to this
point, that the subject of greed is stressed much more than spiritual
godliness. That is because the latter is
so much simpler than the former. Greed
is complicated and brings about negative results in a person’s life. Let’s go to the verse and see what are some
of those negative results.
Verse nine says that those who will be rich fall
into temptation and a snare. First of
all, the true God never tempts anybody.
The second point that you should understand is the meaning of the word
‘snare’. A snare is a trap. Any and every time that you are tempted, it
is wrong. Temptation comes from the god
of this world. Many times, a person who
is rich has gotten there through greed.
Something at some time has tempted them to do things that are ungodly
and because they did these things, they fell into a trap. Now it is not only a trap but it is one that
results in many foolish and hurtful lusts.
Remember that lusts are over desires.
Now because they are so rich and have become greedy, they suffer because
they realize that they were tempted and fell into a trap that brought upon them
over desires that are nothing but harmful and hurtful. The end result is that these people drown or
are consumed in matters which result in destruction, loss, and ruin. Perdition can be defined as the loss of all
that a person ever had. It can be defined
as the destruction of a person in their body, soul, and spirit. It is utter and final ruin which will not be
reversed. We seem to only hear about
this happening to celebrities, but it happens to many other people. We do not hear about them.
You have to admit that God’s Word really lays it
on here and He holds back nothing. Have
you ever met some rich people? Most of
the time they are miserable and we are going to talk about the reason that they
brought this situation upon themselves.
And it has to do with money. I
would like to say that money brings power and power brings corruption. Only a believer who walks with the true God
via the spirit will be able to handle great riches as some of the records in
the Old Testament will attest to. People
who do not know and rightly divide God’s Word simply cannot handle too much
money. You need God’s guidance to know
what to do. Is there anything wrong with
money? I said this before and I will say
it one more time. It is the love of
money that is the problem.
10)
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have
erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
There it is spelled out for you and so many people
missed that one word. It is the ’LOVE’
of money that is the root system of all evil in this world today. It is the least common denominator as far as
evil is concerned. All evil emanates
from the love of money. God says that
these people who covet after money have erred from the faith which is the truth
of the Word of God. The end result is
that they pierced themselves through with many sorrows. They become unhappy and miserable no matter
how much money they have because their money has become an idol in their
life. They worship money and God wants
no Gods to be put before Him. I would
like to move away from I Timothy just for a moment to show you a Scripture that
is so simple and is so dynamic that pertains to idolatry.
Little children, keep yourselves
from idols. Amen. – II
John 5: 21
Now I want to give you a literal translation according
to usage of this verse:
“My little children, you are not to
seek any help, guidance, or instruction from any other source than your
heavenly Father.”
Now you must understand that the first place or
person that you go to for help or guidance is God Almighty. If you go anywhere else first, you are
practicing idolatry which is putting anything else first before the true
God. This agitates God to no end. That’s why God states in the Gospels that we
are to ask and then we receive. So many
of us fail to ask God for His help. We
must act first and then we see. When I
first learned the true meaning of this short verse, I felt a great sense of
deliverance. Now I know where to go when
I have a problem. There was no more
guesswork in my life and I would like to believe there will be no more
guesswork in your life when it comes to the subject of going to God first. Now we will get back to Timothy.
We should all understand verse 10 and we should
never forget it because it gives us a warning and tells us where all evil comes
from. Isn’t this a great revelation from
God Almighty? To me it answer so many
questions in this life.
11)
But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
Now
God is referring back to the love of money mentioned in verse 10 and He gives
us some advice that we should adhere to.
He says that if you are a man of God you should run away and flee those
things that result in the love of money.
The love of money results in a massive amount of negative situations and
emotions in a person’s life. But God
doesn’t leave us up in the air – He never does.
He tells us what we are to seek out or to follow and we are going to go
over His advice in detail. He says that
we should seek out or follow righteousness.
Let’s go back to our previous method of teaching and learning and go
over each word in the latter part of verse 11.
Righteousness -- this is the doing or being what is just and right; The character and acts of a man
commanded by and approved of God, in virtue of which the man corresponds with
Him and His Will as His ideal and His standard.
I
believe that is a tremendous definition of how a man of God should act in his
life pertaining to the God that he loves.
It has been said that we are as righteous as God Almighty. We are to follow after and to pursue
righteousness in our lives.
Godliness -- as I mentioned before, this relates to our real, true, vital, and
spiritual relationship with God; Every one of us has a different type
of relationship with God. What I am
trying to say is that God works individually with each one of us
differently. You are to pursue this type
of relationship with God and you will find out it is a most precious thing that
only you and God possess.
Faith -- faith here is referring to believing; What we believe is what we
receive. Faith is a firm persuasion and
a firmly relying confidence in what we hear from God in His Word. We are not to argue with God but to believe
what He says and to act upon it. If God
created life, surely He knows how to live it.
You really have to be a fool to argue with God.
Love -- this is referring to the love of God in the renewed mind in
manifestation; You
need to absolutely turn to and study I Corinthians chapter 13 which speaks only
about the love of God. I will tell you a
few things about this type of love. It
never fails and it never thinks evil. It
is referred to as agape love which is the love of God in contrast to fileo love
which is the love of the world. The
point that God makes in Corinthians is that if you do anything without the love
of God, you are nothing. This means that
you accomplish nothing unless you carry on your life manifesting the love of
God. The love of God is a major subject
in the Bible and I have done separate teachings pertaining to the love of
God. I can only cover a few details of
this topic at this point. Remember that
I Corinthians chapter 13 will give you all the information you can ever need to
understand and apply the love of God in the renewed mind in manifestation.
Patience – endurance or holding out, a remaining under; It can be said that we need patience
to wait for the return of Jesus Christ.
To stand for God in this day and age, many times we need to have
patience and wait on God. We must endure
what this present world throws at us knowing that if we have patience, God will
eventually come to our aid. Most of us
know what patience means and it can be said that it is a virtue. I myself, have problems in this area many
times. I dislike the god of this world
so much that I want to see him brought down to his knees as quickly as
possible. But God does everything at the
exact right moment in time and this you must not forget. So being impatient is simply not going to
help matters. I am going to move away
shortly again from Timothy to show you a Scripture that addresses patience in a
more simpler and straightforward manner.
Be careful [anxious or distracted] for nothing; but in
every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known unto God. –
Philippians 4: 6
This
is the Scripture that I have learned by heart when it comes to anxiety. Anxiety is a result of a lack of
patience. God says that we are not to be
anxious or distracted for anything at all, but we are to have patience and to
wait on God with prayer. There are many
other Scriptures especially in the Old Testament that talk about patience. Patience is also referred to in Galatians 5:
22 as longsuffering. Patience is not an
easy quality to obtain, so we must work on it and not get anxious and not get
distracted no matter what the world throws at us. Remember that greater is He that is in you
than he that is in the world.
You
see that there is a lot of information here and that is why we must study God’s
Word every day. If we learn just a
little bit of it every day, we have made progress and God honors that
commitment and He will bless you in time.
We need to have patience when it comes to God. Many times God will make us wait until the
very last moment to receive something from Him because He knows that this is
the only way that we will appreciate what we have received.
Meekness -- one of the first definitions that I would like to stress about this
word is that it means to be teachable; other definitions stressed the words
mildness, gentle, and most importantly, enduring all things with even
temper. Meekness in a person results in
tenderness and someone who is free from haughty self-sufficiency. This means that these people don’t walk
around thinking they’re a big deal, but they keep to themselves and are usually
quiet. They are tender when it comes to
bearing with others.
I
must point out that this word in its meaning in old English has been misinterpreted
for many years. The word meekness has
been taught to mean someone who has a weak and shy personality. This is totally untrue and only the above
definitions of this word apply at the time they were written.
I
have to say that most of this teaching seemed to stress the negative side which
was greed. But at the end, God put
together a group of verses which shows you the personality characteristics that
you should have when you are experiencing spiritual godliness. I am glad that the teaching could end on such
a positive note. You can stress the
characteristics of greed so that you learn to avoid them. Then you can stress even more so the
characteristics of your true and vital spiritual relationship with God.
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