At present I have a bunch of friends praying for my daughter, who is in hospital. And I am stuck some considerable distance away. All I can do is pray. Next weekend is a three day break (queen’s birthday) and one son is up in Auckland… and I pray by then that she will be well.

As you can see the distance is considerable — I am the one at “A”. Getting to “B” takes 30 hours if you are efficient. Now, one of the main missions for all of us in our life is protect and guide our progeny. The daughter is married, her husband is sensible… and the other in laws are a two hour flight or two day drive away.

But today’s passage is about our mission. It is not about gaining great wealth. It is about bearing witness to the word and living by his power.

1 Timothy 6:6-21

⁶ Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; ⁷ for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; ⁸ but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. ⁹ But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

¹¹ But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. ¹² Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. ¹³ In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you ¹⁴ to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵ which he will bring about at the right time – he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. ¹⁶ It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

¹⁷ As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. ¹⁸ They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, ¹⁹ thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

²⁰ Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the profane chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge; ²¹ by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith.

Grace be with you.

Now, we have to be careful here. I suggest that you go and look at the videos that Alcest has collected about how the idea of pursuing righteousness has been morphed into a cultic prosperity “gospel”

Word of Faith is a handful of teachings dominant, essential and widespread in Charismatic and Pentecostal churches and movements worldwide.

The most famous are the Health, Wealth and Prosperity Gospel. Some things I remembered from this heretical cult while growing up were “sowing seeds”, “being little gods” or “that Jesus Christ of Nazareth died spiritually”. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Interesting how the predominant critiques of the Protestant Word of Faith movement, I’ve found on YouTube were uploaded by Christian men (fathers, husbands, brothers, friends and others), who either found it weird, blasphemous or rejected it.

I’d say that Churchian feminism is more dominant and the strongest among these sects. Notice the Word of Faith movement great emphasis on language and words. That’s the destruction and twisting of language (aka evolution or progress). Notice the lopsided sex ratio in Protestant Evangelical places towards women, both in the attendance and in the leadership. That’s Churchian feminism.

Notice the New Age, modern enlightened secular liberal type of atmosphere. That’s the face of the beast.

I hope I do not need to remind you all that it is not the amount of stuff you have that makes you righteous. It is what you do, the lives you influence. Not what you have. The need to live within a budget remains… regardless of income. And you cannot “speak to your wallet” — firstly, that is witchcraft, and secondly, there is no money tree attached to it.

You earn by working.

And our mission is to pursue… righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness… and these things require discipline, habits, training one’s body (endurance) and having strength of will and body (gentleness — the ability to be gentle implies strength. There is no easy way to get these but training.

And the pursuit of these does not end.

In the meantime, the daughter says not to worry. Well, you do worry. When you are a parent, you worry continually. It does not stop when she is married. But you learn not to micromanage. And to pray.