Without going into details, we have been used and abused by many different Pastors/Leaders and prosperity preachers over many years while we were simply trying to serve The Lord. Have gone bankrupt as a result and now we are so confused. Not even sure what to ask prayer for. I suppose we need a breakthrough in our finances initially, and then the correct heart attitude to have a personal relationship with the Lord and then proper Godly people to fellowship with. At the moment our confidence in God and people in general is shot to pieces. The only good we see in ourselves is that we are humble enough to admit that we are in a real mess in every area of our lives and need help!!!! Thank you for any help in advance.

Jesus went about teaching and proclaiming the acceptable year of the Lord, the apostles learned that the teaching of what Jesus taught was a safe haven for the believer, I would start by learning what Jesus said in the gospels and re-build from there.

_________________
D.Miller

Dear GavElle,



I hope it will be alright if I do not offer you any advice directly but I wanted to say welcome here to you and wish you love in Christ,



Chris

_________________
Christopher Joel Dandrow

Praying for you and family, Jesus is with you, He will see you through. He Loves and cares for you, He will turn what was meant to harm you, into good for you and your family. Cast all your cares on Him. He will help you in your time of need.

Love in Christ tom

_________________
Tom weighill

Matthew 11:28-30
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.


John 8:31-32
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; [32] And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:36
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.


GavElle,
Please feel free to pm me if you wish.
May the Lord keep you and yours in His love and heal your broken hearts as only He can.

In His Love
pastorfrin

Dear GavElle,

This is like a sword to the heart ...

Will hesitate the impulse to rant but this is precisely the result and fear, the ramifications of all this fallacious construct and reasoning.

I and others here came out of these very notions in various ways with a variety of struggles. My heart goes out to you in ways I cannot express.

I will never forget the day that everything hit in full force, my struggles with how to break the sad news to my wife who was very much raised up as a Christian through these people - I was brought to the Light by her in a sort of final exclamation after being hunted down by the Lord over the course of a couple of years. So I too at least early on latched on to these things until, ironically enough the same church that promoted these things also had a blurb in their handout for a Christian radio station, I think they had at one time a slot on the weekend. The point of the matter was that I began hearing other voices denouncing the very things they were promoting. It sat sideways with me at first, "how can they?" "They are doing great things for God", "But people are getting saved ..." I couldn't shake their scriptural warrant however and I also couldn't get past many of the things that I was suppressing all along anyway - Something was amiss deep down inside ...

But I stood at the door with tears running down as my wife arrived from work and said 'Babe, we have been duped'. I really expected a defense and an argument, there had been some natural suspicion as I aired out my concerns before hand. This is also that part that they are so very clever to implant in the minds; "Touch not mine anointed" so that it might ward off any investigation or consideration otherwise. But to my surprise, she heard and listened and initially agreed ...

All that being said, it took years for it to work out of the system in practical application. It had become such an intertwined assumption that a 'give to get' mindset still carried over even after moving on to a better, more normative church. After only a few days we foolishly signed on to give upwards of 10K over 3 years for their building program ... All that while being more than double that in debt, a debt I am still to this day trying to pay off.

I only wanted to share that much I guess to commiserate, it sounds far worse from your mentions.

This is a safe haven GavElle, there are some truly remarkable saints here, a lot of wonderful resources ... It is where I am convinced the Lord led after the fallout and where I also thought;

[i]At the moment our confidence in God and people in general is shot to pieces.[/i]

I was at a point of just chucking it all, but deep down I knew that I could not, everything had changed internally but the [i]why[/i] of it all, the shattered promises from these charlatans, who had promised so much ... in Gods Name ...

I pray you will find help, hope and trust here, there are a few of us veterans ...

_________________
Mike Balog

Now you have come to realize and understand how
much you need the LORD to direct and guide you
in the choices that you face and make. This is
wisdom.

_________________
Martin G. Smith

I have always known deep down in my heart from the early days that if one could be tuned into God like Jesus was, doing and saying only what he saw the Father say and do there would be no limit to what could be acheived through one such person let alone a group of believers. Yet everywhere we went this notion was frowned upon so yes have been duped as well. Being active on a forum is totally new to us, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Our eyes and ears are open and we will carefully examine everything in line with the Word as we now have a much better idea of reading scripture in full context. Making mistakes is OK as long as you learn from them. We have learnt a lot over the last 20 odd years!!! From the replies so far I can tell We are on the right path.

Dear GavElle,

Welcome here on this forum. Praise God, he has opened your eyes. I come from a similar plave where you you were. The reason I got entangled in prosperity preaching and other nonsense is because deep down in my heart, prosperity appealed to my senses. I wanted prosperity AND heaven, too. This is why Satan's bait worked in my case. Once I got rid of my idols, the Lord set me free.

You wrote