One of the most unsuccessful years of my life financially was 2006. By not returning to Australia, and instead trying to set up business deals through certain people in Dubai, I lost many hundreds of thousands of dollars I would have had otherwise. I should have kept my investment properties in Australia and worked in Australia instead of wasting lots of time in Dubai. But I didn't know at the time. I thought I could move on to bigger and better things.
Ultimately no one is to blame for this more than me. I should have sought the Lord more, I should have listened more to my wife, but the main lesson I learned is that I should not trust Christian people who "talk faith" and ultimately deliver absolutely nothing to you except broken promises.
I thought it would be good for the benefit of others, without going into any specific details, to tell you what to watch out for. We Christians are particularly vulnerable to deception from our brothers in Christ. And they are good deceivers, because the first thing they have done in many cases is to deceive themselves.
Based on passages like Mark 11:24 and others like where God "calls things that be not as though they were" (Romans 4), some Christians will invite you to risk your time and money on things which they supposedly "have" in business. But often, they only "have" them by faith. So you end up holding the bag if you trust them, while they move on to bigger and better things.
I saw this happen AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN in Dubai (and other places) with Indian Christians some of whom definitely deserve to be locked up for fraud. They did not cheat me that badly, but nothing they promised ever came to pass. They are the kind of people who write bad cheques, do not pay their employees, break their contracts, break their promises and try to sell things that they do not own, or have not paid for.
Now recently a case has come up, and been reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, of a property developer from Hillsong church who ripped off many people in that church for a total of some millions of dollars.
The judge said concerning the case:
"Orehek felt that he was invincible and other people in the church though they were invincible," Judge Bennett said.
"With the power of God they were able to trust each other implicitly."
This is exactly t
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If our heart is REALLY for others then God may bless us greatly
Solomon asked for the ability to rule over God's people properly when God told him to ask for what he wanted. The fact that he truly desired something for the benefit of others pleased God, and he got a lot more beside.
You really have to have the heart to love the poor and do justice, otherwise, the desire to "be rich" just stinks in the nostrils of God.
Be on guard
A close friend of mine runs a small business which I help him out with from time to time. He has made contacts through our church and has had checks bounce & clients go declare bankrupcy several times. He has even had problems with the church concerning unethical business practices. It has caused him to withdrawl from the church and distrust Christians more than anyone else. What does this say about Christ's Church.
I know there are a lot of people out there pretending to be Christians just to rip off people. I've seen my share of them, but a lot of these rip off artist believe that they are good Christians. They have taken hold of this me, me, me religon being preached on television and throughout my country. As Christians it is in our nature to trust other Christians, just don't do it in business. Its sad, but when it comes to money a lot of so called Christians will sell you down the river, after all their pastor is telling them that God wants them to be rich, rich, rich.
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