Skip to main content

Fortified City

             The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it a wall too high to scale. (Proverbs 18:11)

 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

I’ve harped a bit about poverty not meaning only financial poverty, so now it’s time to turn the tables and discuss wealth. If poverty is the lack of something, wealth is the abundance. It is also in what we place our confidence. It’s our strength. It is the spring from which our conceit flows. We see it as our best means of defense. Somehow, even if the wealth is of a negative form (poverty, illness, bad luck, broken relationships, addictions, special identities, etc.) it not only gives us something to hold onto, and that will hold us up in one way even if it tears us down in another, but it seems to grant us privileges. We are better or more deserving than the others because of our abundance, no matter what we have in that abundance. This is especially true if we can find others who share our abundance. Then we, as a group not only have our own fortified cities, but there’s a whole string of them drawn together in an alliance that supports and justifies our claim of wealth, no matter what kind.

Being good Christians, we’re likely to claim that our wealth is in God. To the extent that it’s true, it’s true. But how often is our claim a forgery, like Simon the Magician, seeking and claiming “God” that we may spend what we get on our pleasures? How often do we seek God's hand, not His face? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more