In the past few weeks, we’ve been watching a battle between a few leaders of large protestant denominations here in Brazil. The reason for this battle? Sadly, scandals involving money.

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We have seen several scandals related to churches leaders in Brazil in the past years. A week or so ago, a TV news program reported that one of these leaders allegedly bought a gigantic farm, worth several million dollars, with money from the church. They also claimed that several temples of that denomination are behind in rent and the vast majority of the members are poor, in need of financial support.

A few days later, the leader of another denomination (who himself faced several similar accusations in the past) attacked this one, then another leader jumped into the battle too.

A few years ago, when I was in vacation with my sister in Orlando, Florida, I remember listening to the song “Blessed Be Your Name” by Tree63 on the Christian radio quite a few times.

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I loved that song, and when it started playing, soon I was singing along (I love to sing along when I drive).

During that vacation, we went a few times to a church near the hotel we stayed in. In one of the services, the worship team sang this song too. I loved it, because it was the first time I was singing it in a church. It felt more special than ever.

When the pastor was about to start the sermon, he first talked about this song. And he asked us if we had ever noticed that this song was actually based on the book of Job.

Believe it or not, it wasn’t until then that I realized it. When he said that, I started playing the lyrics on my head, and yes, he was right, the verses matched Job’s story indeed!

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)

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Money is one of the most powerful tools in this world. It can be a tool for blessing, but most often it is a tool to enslave people into serving it, pursuing it, dreaming of it, and so turning away from God.

We all need money, that’s a fact. But the key issue is how we relate to it.

That brings to my mind a quote from Leigh Anne Tuohy from the book “The blind side”, by Michael Lewis (she was played by Sandra Bullock in the movie that was based on this book):

“God gives people money to see how you’re going to handle it”.

That quote showed up in the book after Mr. Lewis described a lot of things that the Tuohys have done to help their community, mainly poor african american students. They had already helped a lot of people before they had contact with Michael Oher, which is the starting point of the plot of the movie. If you only watched the movie, you don’t know about that.

Picture: The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio (Public Domain)

A couple of weeks ago, Jason Vana (who designed the logo for this blog) posted a wonderful article about obedience to God. I strongly suggest that you read it, it is very good.

He talks about Noah’s faith, how he believed in the unbelievable and built the ark. How he must have faced people mocking him about it. Then, he entered the ark and waited for rain. He waited for seven days, and Jason writes about how hard that wait would’ve been for him, and I felt the same way. In those seven days, I would’ve thought hundreds of times that maybe I didn’t get the message right.

I wouldn’t have doubted God’s power or His ability to do what He said He would, but I would certainly have questioned myself if I got it right, if I was really doing what God wanted.

I believe we all face doubts like these in our walk with God. And one of the things that I like about the Bible is its honesty in portraying our heroes of faith in their highs and also in their lows. It shows us that our heroes faced doubt, fear, failure, and we can relate to them in those moments and believe that we can also rise to the occasion.

The book of Job is a wonderful resource in the Bible and it teaches us so many things. First and foremost, about suffering. And among many other lessons, it also teaches us about friendship. It shows us how a good friend should NOT behave.

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You probably know the story. God allows the devil to take everything that Job has and even inflict him with diseases. He loses everything, and he doesn’t understand what is happening to him, and all throughout the story he tries to figure out why he is going through all that suffering.

During his ordeal, Job wasn’t alone, he had friends with him. You might think that it must have been a good thing, right? Wrong. I think that Job would have preferred to suffer alone if he had a choice. Why?

His friends were convinced that good people didn’t suffer. So if all those tragedies happened to Job, he must’ve sinned. He couldn’t be innocent. However, he was. But that idea never crossed their minds, although Job said it many times.

Throughout my career, I faced many challenges. Thanks to God (I mean it!), I succeeded more than I failed. A lot more, actually. Even when I failed, there was a lesson to learn, something good to get from the experience.

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I still remember one of the toughest challenges I faced, probably the toughest one. It was certainly the one I most prayed about.

My manager explained to me that my colleague, who worked at this customer’s project for months, had a personal commitment on the weekend they were scheduled to go live with their new site. So she needed me to cover for him during that weekend.

So far, no big deal, I was used to that kind of assignment. Then she explained they had several critical problems, mostly severe performance issues, and they weren’t able to solve all of them yet.

Back then, I was the rookie in the team and I didn’t have much experience with the products my team supported. And I had zero experience handling performance problems. Not only that, I didn’t know the customer’s environment or what they worked on during the project.

Last week I read a post about seeking God in prayer in the blog Flowing Faith. Mari-Anna, the writer at that blog, shared an idea that she got from Mark Batterson’s blog about a prayer devotional for the period of Lent, until Easter: to pray on one’s knees everyday at 7:14AM (or whatever time one chooses).

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I liked the idea so much that I decided to join in. I decided not to schedule a specific time or else I know that some days I would do it out of obligation, not out of love. I would do it in the morning, as soon as I wake up, before my devotional time (when I usually pray sitting down, before reading the Bible).

In my morning and night prayers I usually follow this sequence:

1. Praises
2. Thanks
3. Requests for other people
4. Requests for myself

When I got down on my knees on the first morning, on Ash Wednesday, I thought of a spin in that idea.

So I decided to change it a little: in the morning prayer, I wouldn’t ask for anything, just praise and thank the Lord. I would only do steps 1 and 2. I would pray for other people during other times of the day, in specific prayers. And I would try to avoid making requests for myself at all during this period.

It wouldn’t be about me, but only about Him.

Our culture is used to thinking in love as a feeling. When you think of your love towards someone you probably think of how you feel about them, right?

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However, if you look for verses that talk about love in the Bible, you will see that most authors associate love with actions that showcase that love. In other words, what is the point of a feeling if there is no external evidence of it?

One of the most known verses of the Bible is a perfect illustration that love brings an action:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16)

God loved us = He gave his only Son to die for us. By the action, you can see how amazing that love is.

Check the recommendation that the apostle Paul also gives us about love: