Just as Paul gives recognition to people and churches, mentioning their names and roles and providing commendations, God does the same. Do you understand?

The book of Revelation brings into focus the perspective of the ascended Jesus regarding His church. He recognizes the different caliber of people, the influences they are wielding and the influences they are subjected to, as well as the kind of teaching He wants and those He wants to eliminate (Revelation 2-3).

In another place, we read that God does not forget our labor of love for His name (Hebrews 6:10), which comes from pure devotion to Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).

This is where we should be careful about coming to God with a transactional mindset, as if because we are devoted to Him, we therefore deserve A, B, or C.

Jesus said that after we have served Him, we should not do it for the reward.

Luke 17:10: “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’“

Peter wrote that we are supposed to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt us at the proper time (1 Peter 5:6).

Serving God should not translate into pride of life (1 John 2:15-16), which I call a pharisaic feeling of superiority (Luke 18:11-12), where you tell God to do something for you because you have done something for Him.

That is corrupted motivation; that is patterning yourself according to the earthly/worldly mindset, which says nothing goes for nothing.

The people in Philippi sent supplies to Paul, not with the motivation of getting something in return, but they received something in return.

Paul said there was something accruing to their spiritual account.

Elsewhere, Paul said that the rich should be generous and that this also accrues rewards to them in the afterlife.

In all these instances, we know that God looks at the heart, while man looks at the appearance. A parallel passage is 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul went on a discourse about love.

He said that if whatever you do is not underpinned by love, it is nothing—if it is not underpinned by the desire to do good unmixed with transaction motive.

The Bible calls some people “accursed children.” I believe preachers who motivate you in a purely transactional framework—focused on what you will get—are accursed children. They raise you to be children of the devil, who programs people to think only about what they will receive.

2 Peter 2:14: “Their eyes, full of adultery, never stop sinning; they entice unstable people. They have trained their hearts for greed, these cursed children!”

I am particularly interested in the last sentence, concerning people who have trained their hearts for greed.

If you are outside the church and have a heart trained for greed, that may be expected. But if the church is not a place of training in righteousness—if it’s a place where your heart, which should be defined by your love for God, is now shaped and trained to be greedy, where your thought process even regarding the things of God is shaped by what you will get—those are cursed children.

There is nothing more antithetical to God than greed. Paul said it this way: beware of covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5).

It is particularly sad when the pulpit commands people to be greedy. God is coming with His myriad of angels to judge those people, as Jude wrote (Jude 1:14-15)—those people who have gone the way of greed.

Jude 1:11: “and because of greed have abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error”

The people being trained in greed are in dangerous territory. Jude said we should contend earnestly for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints, and that faith is not founded on greed.

Far from it! Rather, we are called to be willing to lose our lives, and then we will gain them (Matthew 16:25).

No one does this as a transaction. Rather, they look at their Savior hanging on a tree, because God loves the world (John 3:16), and that same love has been poured into their hearts (Romans 5:5).

That is the transformation the gospel brings. Any other persuasion is problematic and may mean you are not saved. These unsaved people crept in unnoticed (Jude 1:4) and then mounted positions of influence. But they will be judged.

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