May | 12 | Of Assets & Albatross’s

Dream Word – CHANGE

2 Corinthians 11:1-4 Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly — and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted — you may well put up with it! NKJV.

Of Assets & Albatross’s

The Albatross is the bird with the biggest wingspan known to man now still in existence and some say are able to fly over 2.4 thousand miles from their nesting site, before returning to the exact same spot.

It was the English poet Coleridge who in his longest of lyric ballads, ‘The Rime of The Mariner,’ presents us with a man doomed to roam the earth forever, finding no relief from his guilt, from his fear or from his pain. For this was the man who brought a cursing death on both his ship and his shipmates, for the unnecessarily slaying of an Albatross, a kind bird which had led them from the icy Antarctic into much safer and warmer climes.

For the vast majority of people on the planet, our personal wealth is the sum of our assets, minus our liabilities. As long as the value of our saleable assets exceed those of our liabilities, then we can keep the ever circling, bank, mortgage and credit card companies at bay. Woe betide us however, if the value of our assets dips way below our liabilities and our cash flow, doesn’t provide us with a sharp enough stick to poke in the advancing alligator’s eyes. Yes, in that day, our assets will have turned into the infamous Albatross of old and hang smelly about our bowed and sorry necks,. Yes, if we see our saleable assets as the source of our stature, the source of our safety and our blessing, then we are a fools. For many a financial quake occurring in another part of the globe, and the consequent tsunami tidal wave which will wash away the value of billions of shares, has turned far too many of our cherished assets, into the all too heavy, greasy and stinky Albatrosses of liability.

In the same but opposite way, I have met not a few people, whose asset list has grown fat and rooted itself, tentacle-like, securely across a wide and varying portfolio, with so much success that they have become possessed with the assurance of the third richest person in history, old Czar Nicholas II himself, and are now believing that they can never fall. Unnoticed by them, the fatness and the fullness of their assets have also materialized as an Albatross around their neck, for in truth, they think have no need of God. For Nicholas, his infamous self-service and fantastic self-protection, became a stinky old Albatross of liability hung around the necks of both himself and all his family. In the trunami of the Russian revolution, they all were murdered, despite their vast fortune.

Since the birth of this new body the church, those unsatisfied with the Sola Scriptura and seeking satisfaction in signs and wonders, have built a spiritual asset list of healings, of supernatural supernova, of stories astonishing and superstars extraordinaire and in turn, have often quite unbeknown to themselves, transferred the value of all their spirituality into some other man’s fantastic ministry of fire, thus selling their own souls and future prosperity down some imaginary river. When the Gantry crashes, as it always does in the end, the simplicity of the cross which once hung around their now very own spiritual asset-siphoned necks, becomes to them, not the singing dove on fragrant distant oaks, but rather, the not so white and heavy Albatross, with the accursed smell of stoats. For we all know, how the smaller weasels of the spiritual snake oil sect, have their spraying glands located around their anus. Do not let false prophets become your bank of faith. Get into the Word of God and get that Word of God into You tonight. As the famous frog sang out, "Read it, read it, read it."

Christian! Take a look and take a sniff. Where are you placing your spiritual assets? What’s that hanging around your neck? A Cross or an Albatross?

Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.

Listen: - For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 NKJV.

Pray:- Deliver us O Lord, from all the laughing lover boys who play with people’s hearts, making them ache with the lost high stakes of a false asset-sucking love, sometimes spoken of in seven languages, all bejewelled with light box rubies, held high in God’s good sky and plastered along the sides of their own sinful 'street cars named desire'. Oh, heaven help us please, when we fall for these diamond lives, blue-eyed, cool-hearted lover boys, these not so smooth operators. Help us both love and know Your word, in Jesus name, I pray, amen.