READ: John 3:1-17

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” –  John 3:17

One day, I attended an open-air crusade organised by a great man of God. This man of God was well known for his wonderful “financial” ministry. This man of God was obviously led by the Lord to reach out to the lost souls and to win more people to Christ. On the first day of this crusade, an invited evangelist preached the gospel and won lots of souls to the Lord. On the second, third and fourth days however, the pastor who organised the crusade took to the stage and preached the Word. To my amazement, he preached about financial prosperity for the next three days. I sat in amazement as the crowd received a secular motivational message instead of a pure “great salvation” message. This pastor obviously had many wonderful messages on financial prosperity. Somehow, he was unable to break away from those messages of financial prosperity even at an open-air soul-winning crusade.

He simply did not know how to preach about our “great salvation”. Of course, there were many people there who congratulated him for his financial message at the crusade. People may congratulate you but do not forget that it is the Lord’s approval that you really need! Teaching the Word of God in church is quite different from preaching the pure message of our “great salvation”. Many Christians understand the principles of prosperity much more than they understand the principles of salvation. Many believers are good at preaching the principles of prosperity but not so many can preach about “pure salvation”.

Jesus Christ did not die on the cross to make people rich! He came to this world to save us from our sins! “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).