III Jn. ... 5 Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; 6 Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church:whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well:7 Because that for his name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles.
Abraham was offered riches by the king of Sodom ... Genesis 14 ... 22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 23 That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:
I have seen people who lust after winning the lottery ...
I would not want to do that.
I want my riches, whatever riches I would have, to be from God.
It is a position of setting your heart this way.
III Jn. 7 ...
for HIS name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles.
At the time I was born again, I owned a business in Dallas, Texas. A man was taking me (and several other dealers in American Indian Arts), to law court. God had led me to get the business out of debt and I was debt free at the time this happened. Because of the law trial, I hired a lawyer. The legal fees were eating all profits from my business.
I came across the following scripture.
God says: Isaiah 54:17 ...
17 No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper;
and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.
This lawsuit was a weapon against me. God says it will not prosper.
Therefore I decided to dismiss my lawyer and go to court without any human legal counsel.
I called the lawyer to tell him. He was shocked and responded: "Joan, you can't do this. You don't know how evil these courts are."
Then he went on to say, "We are willing to work with you on this. It will only take about $10,000 more to try this case."
"$10,000 more ..." I cried out! "Gordon ... stop ... don't do anything else."
(I probably had a total of about $2000 at the time outside of store inventory.)
A week or so after this, Gordon came into my shop and told me they had decided to try my case without any further cost to me!
What is going on here. One week they tell me it will cost about $10,000 more and the next week they legal service is going to be "free" to me?
One thing missing at the time Gordon said this about the free legal service ... Gordon didn't say anything about God in this free offer.
I turned immediately to God? "What do YOU want me to do?"
Immediately I was reminded of the story of Abram refusing to take anything from the king of Sodom.
Genesis 14 ...
23 That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:
I knew God was showing me to turn down the "free" $10,000 legal service.
Since that time, I've been wary of taking things from the Gentiles. I want my "wealth" (when there is wealth) to be from God. I want to say and know it is God who has made me "rich".