Dear Friend,
How are you doing? hope all is well with you and your family? I hope this mail meets you in a perfect condition. I am using this opportunity to thank you for your great effort to our unfinished transfer of fund into your account due to one reason or the other best known to you.But I want to inform you that I have successfully transferred the fund out of my bank to someone else account who was capable of assisting me in this great venture through the help of the diplomat i told you about.Due to your effort, sincerity,courage and trustworthiness’ you showed at the course of the transaction I want to compensate you and show my gratitude to you with the sum of $750,000USD.
I have authorized my new lawyer who is now also my legal adviser to issue you international certified bank Cheque cash able at your bank.My dear friend I will like you to contact the lawyer for the collection of this international certified bank cheque.
The name and contact address of the lawyer is as follows.
HONORABLE LAW CHAMBERS
CONTACT PERSON ; BARRISTER USMAN BELLO
PHONE: +234-1-203-0155-9
Email: barristerusmanbello7@gmail.comAt the moment, I’m very busy here because of the investment projects which I and my new partner are having at hand in Paris France.
Finally,remember that I have forwarded instruction to the Lawyer on your behalf to send the bank cheque to you as soon as you contact him without delay,Please I will like you to accept this token with good faith as this is from the bottom of my heart.Thanks and God bless you and your family.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Your brother
Mr Peter Willis
Email: peterwillis_1@yahoo.ca
WOW! It must be my lucky day! In spite of the fact that I really fell down on the job and didn’t help Mr. Willis transfer those funds into my account – as he delicately puts it, for reasons best known to me – he’s still going to drop three quarters of a mil into my unworthy, incapable hands. How cool is that!? This guy really must be my “dear friend” even though this is the first time I’ve ever heard from him. Maybe he’s working with that guy in Nigeria who keeps asking to give me money. Well, if he comes through with the cash, he’ll definitely make my Christmas card list. AND he hopes that God will bless me and my family. What a great guy!
How can anyone fall for this stuff? It’s remarkable. The truth is that while some people fall for this nonsense, few do. More people fall for things like “The Secret” and other prosperity schemes that have nothing to do with what the bible says. I know several Christians who think that “The Secret” is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Does this mean those negative-thinking idiots in Darfur are bringing it on themselves? Was the Holocaust the fault of the Jews after all? Was my grandmother’s cancer self-inflicted? Here “the universe” is dropping money into my lap in the form of the email above, and I’m such a bozo I keep rejecting it. My negative, identity-theft, bank-account-draining worries are holding me back from my destiny as a wealthy, satisfied person. Yep, that must be it.
As it turns out, my Father owns all the cattle on all the hills (Psalm 50:10), so I really don’t need to worry about money. And as for Christians who fall for the self-help gospels – Galations 1:6-9 says it all:
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
There are numerous warnings in 1 Timothy against false teachers, warning that some will depart from the faith. James 4 and 5 warn us against worldliness and advise us to have patience in suffering. Nowhere does the bible tell us to expect a life free from strife. On the contrary, Jesus said, “In this world you WILL have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” THAT is the “secret” to a happy and satisfied life.
You’ll get your money at the same time as I get that refund from the IRS I was promised in e-mail today.
That, along with $4.50, will get us a latte, right?
I have a very similar reaction to you when it comes to “The Secret.” I haven’t looked into it all that much, but to me it just seems like prayer for non-religious people. It sort of bothers me. Maybe I need to find out more about it so that I can be a bit more educated in my opposition to it.
This is my first visit here, and I like what I see!
Over at my blog, I’m hosting a series based on Desiderata during the month of October. If you’d like to claim a spot, I have about six left. I’d be honored to have you.
Have a blessed day!
Even if they can pull a passage here and there, the whole tenor of the New Testament is to focus on the Permanent Things and not transitory things, including earthly wealth and power. Let’s face it, most people want to reconcile Christianity with our nation’s enormous wealth and its culture of materialism and ambition. OF course, since Jesus is the King of the Jews and supplanted the Old Covenant and now made a new one for all mankind, I find all this pro-Israel nonsense in some Churches kind of ridiculous too.
My belief is that we as christians should not be afriad of money, in fact my ministry is to take the wealth of the wicked and return it to the kingdom of GOD. If more Christians would follow the plan of work hard, pray hard, and step out on faith to reach their dreams, we would be much better off. Lets face the fact that churches have to think like a business to stay open. Tithing is how churches generate funds to stay open and help others and the more we make the more we tithe. As long as we make it within the concepts of christian morals and values, so what. The Secret thrives because too many pastors condemn money, then ask for tithes.