PRINCIPLES OF POSTURE IN PRAYER 8: the Danger of Hoarding

Understanding the danger of hoarding anything in life - we have come to a point in this series where deep understanding of the dangers of claiming the things God has made available to us is important. By now, if you have followed this blog page and this series, you understand that God owns everything on this earth, we were created by Him, to live in communion with Him, and for the praise of His glory. We were also created to be conduits or channels like rivers that provide for others of what has been provided to us. That is why, if our mindset is polluted by the spirit of this world, it causes us to want to hoard everything around us for fear of losing them, which in reality is the operation of a spirit of poverty in our thinking and therefore, in our behavior. Luke 12:13-21 says,

¹³ “A person in the crowd got Jesus’ attention.

Person in the Crowd: Teacher, intervene and tell my brother to share the family inheritance with me.

Jesus: ¹⁴ Since when am I your judge or arbitrator?

¹⁵ Then He used that opportunity to speak to the crowd.

Jesus: You’d better be on your guard against any type of greed, for a person’s life is not about having a lot of possessions.

¹⁶ (then, beginning another parable) A wealthy man owned some land that produced a huge harvest. ¹⁷ He often thought to himself, ‘I have a problem here. I don’t have anywhere to store all my crops. What should I do? ¹⁸ I know! I’ll tear down my small barns and build even bigger ones, and then I’ll have plenty of storage space for my grain and all my other goods. ¹⁹ Then I’ll be able to say to myself, ‘I have it made! I can relax and take it easy for years! So I’ll just sit back, eat, drink, and have a good time!’’

²⁰ Then God interrupted the man’s conversation with himself. ‘Excuse Me, Mr. Brilliant, but your time has come. Tonight you will die. Now who will enjoy everything you’ve earned and saved?’

²¹ This is how it will be for people who accumulate huge assets for themselves but have no assets in relation to God.’” The Voice

Something caught my attention about this passage; verse 17 says that the man had this recurring problem of, though able to increase the things obtained by the power God, he still thought that everything belonged to him and that it was for him to hoard.  This tells me that God, in His mercy, gave him opportunities to change his mind set and give to others, according to His leading, of what was given to him, but the man failed to understand and accept that.

Because hoarding is contrary to the ways of the Kingdom of God, He takes by force, what the person refuses to share with others as seen in this passage. 2 Corinthians 9:8 tells us what God gives to us is for, “ And God is able to make all grace [every favor and earthly blessing] come in abundance to you, so that you may always [under all circumstances, regardless of the need] have complete sufficiency in everything [being completely self-sufficient in Him], and have an abundance for every good work and act of charity.” AMP

God sees us according to our willingness whether to be used of Him to be the answer for others or to become a stumbling block that stops the progress of His plan and purpose for His people and the circumstances for which people are crying out to Him for help. So, those who use the material things and the influence He has given them for their own selfish ambitions, find themselves losing them without being able to stop God from giving it to someone who understands what He gives them to him or her for. Ecclesiastes 2:21 tells us,

^“For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.” NKJV

But verse 26 explains why this happens, “For to the person who pleases Him God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who pleases God. This too is vanity and chasing after the wind.” AMP

Here we can see that because God sees what we allow to rule our thinking, one person ends up working hard at gathering riches or goods or other things, but another one who has not labored for them gets to enjoy them because this person understands the reason why those things were put in his or her hands, while the person who did the laboring only sees smoke out of those things because of his or her wrong mindset in thinking those things were to only be hoarded.

Now, according to dicitionary.com, the word hoarding has a few meanings. Among them: 1. To accumulate for preservation, future use, etc., in a hidden or carefully guarded place:

2. To accumulate money, food, or the like, in a hidden or carefully guarded place for preservation, future use, etc.

However, the things that people hoard are not only money or material objects. They also hoard relationships, titles, positions, knowledge, power and authority. As mentioned before, this makes a person a swamp, that after a while, acquires a stench that God despises because they see themselves in their pride and greed as their own god and that everything they have they obtained themselves and for themselves alone. But as we have seen, God has an antidote to that wrong thinking and behavior, when the person refuses to respond according to God’s command. Isaiah 45:1-4 says that God fights for those who will do the right thing with what He gives to them for the benefit of many. It shares,

¹

This is what the Lord says to His anointed, to Cyrus [king of Persia],
Whose right hand I have held
To subdue nations before him,
And I will ungird the loins of kings [disarming them];
To open doors before him so that gates will not be shut:
² 
“I will go before you and level the mountains;
I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.
³ 
“I will give you the treasures of darkness [the hoarded treasures]
And the hidden riches of secret places,
So that you may know that it is I,
The Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you (Cyrus the Great) by your name.
⁴ 
“For the sake of Jacob My servant,
And of Israel My chosen,
I have also called you by your name;
I have given you an honorable name
Though you have not known Me. AMP

What is more, God comes to cleanse His house of all unrighteousness in giving to Him only what they think will appease Him or their left overs, instead of what He commands, for it belongs to Him anyways, and He can decide how to cause it to be distributed among His people. Once He is done cleansing His house, then He goes after the hoarders who oppose the ways of righteousness and justice due to their contamination with the spirit of this world and hoard for themselves what He wants to make accessible to those who cannot defend themselves from their greed and selfish ambition. Malachi 3:1-5 says,

¹ “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will prepare and clear the way before Me. And the Lord [the Messiah], whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. ² But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderer’s soap [which removes impurities and uncleanness]. ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi [the priests], and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord [grain] offerings in righteousness. ⁴ Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in ancient years.

⁵ ‘Then I will come near you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, and against those who oppress the laborer in his wages and widows and the fatherless, and against those who turn away the alien [from his right], and those who do not fear Me [with awe-filled reverence],’ says the Lord of hosts.” AMP 

1 Timothy 6: 17-19 says,

^{17 "}Give this command to those who are rich with the things of this world. Tell them not to be proud. Tell them to hope in God, not their money. Money cannot be trusted, but God takes care of us richly. He gives us everything to enjoy. ¹⁸ Tell those who are rich to do good—to be rich in good works. And tell them they should be happy to give and ready to share. ¹⁹ By doing this, they will be saving up a treasure for themselves. And that treasure will be a strong foundation on which their future life will be built. They will be able to have the life that is true life." ERV

That is why James 5:1-6 shows how severe God deals with hoarding. It is something that is abominable in His sight and something He is but eager to remove from the path of righteousness He leads His people to, in order to give them everything necessary to fulfill His plan and purpose for their lives for they are well aware of what is expected of them when they reach their destiny in Him. For this, they partner with God in prayer and warring to see justice done in the earth and for His Kingdom to advance to stop the unrighteous powerful from exploiting them. The Scripture says,

1”Come [quickly] now, you rich [who lack true faith and hoard and misuse your resources], weep and howl over the miseries [the woes, the judgments] that are coming upon you. ² Your wealth has rotted and is ruined and your [fine] clothes have become moth-eaten. ³ Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. You have stored up your treasure in the last days [when it will do you no good]. ⁴ Look! The wages that you have [fraudulently] withheld from the laborers who have mowed your fields are crying out [against you for vengeance]; and the cries of the harvesters have come to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. ⁵ On the earth you have lived luxuriously and abandoned yourselves to soft living and led a life of wanton pleasure [self-indulgence, self-gratification]; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned and have put to death the righteous man; he offers you no resistance.” AMP

This passage shows the devastation that many have been subjected to because of the hoarding ways of many people, but it also shows how God is willing to fight on their behalf so they receive what is rightfully theirs from God. This is not eschatology, we have not even made it to the book of Revelation in explaining how God will war against unjust hoarding that keeps His people from entering the Kingdom in the way He designed for them. The Book of James is also in the New Testament for those who think that those “barbarian” ways of warrying for what is right and putting an ultimate end to the abuse and misuse of what belongs to God was only seen in the Old Testament days.

God is not asking us to abstain from enjoying life with the things He has given to us. But He is asking us to use it to help people get to know Him and that He loves them, and also that He hears the cries of those who look to Him for help and deliverance. For this reason, Isaiah 58: 6-7 reveals what the things we are given on this earth should accomplish through us, God’s conduits of everything He supplies,

⁶ 
“’[Rather] is this not the fast which I choose,
To undo the bonds of wickedness,
To tear to pieces the ropes of the yoke,
To let the oppressed go free
And break apart every [enslaving] yoke?
⁷ 
“Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not to hide yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?” AMP

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and He will not stop fighting against the spirit that opposes Him and everything that comes from Him for His people to be manifested in the earth. And for this, those who operate under its influence and bring unrighteousness and injustice to the earth, will taste of the wrath that He sends against that spirit from generation to generation if they do not repent (Exodus 17:14, John 16:8). To Him alone be all the glory. ■

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