Diligence brings wealth

Proverbs 10:4 says it plainly:

Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.

Hard to argue with the Bible.

Notice it doesn't say "hard-working" but instead says "diligent". It's not the hare that won the race, but the tortoise. The hare worked hard... off and on. But the tortoise kept at it and kept at it and kept at it. It took him a long time. But finally he saw the fruits of his labor.

Work hard; be diligent. Then find yourself with the wealth of accomplishment, knowledge, friends, and yes, even financial wealth.

A different perspective on the greatest commandments

Here's a passage similar to one that I've covered before in Matthew - Mark 5:28-34:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

It's something I think so many people miss: that the Bible boils down to these two commands. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of Jesus as spelled out in Matthew 22:40: "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

But here it states it differently. Here He says: "There is no commandment greater than these." Similar idea, but covering a different thought.

But as much as I love the passage and the simplicity of knowing that everything I need to know is here and the rest of the Bible is just for the sake of clarity, it's the first part of that last verse that stuck out to me: "When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.'"

How many people do you know that try to live by all the rules and yet seem so far from God? How many Christians do you know that do everything they're supposed to do and yet seem miserable and void? This man here, Jesus acknowledged, was seeing clearly. This man saw the truth in the simplicity. This man got it.

Is your relationship with God and your Christian life void, burdened with rules, or simply ineffectual? Do you need a computer and a spreadsheet to figure out whether you've been naughty or nice? Or can you simply see the truth: that the Bible is to be viewed through the looking glass of this passage. If it doesn't fit here, it doesn't fit.

Pharisee follow up

It was just last week that I pointed out how Jesus hardly had a critical thing to say except when it was about the Pharisees and then he went all out. Well, Mark 7:1-14 had a bit more:

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed.(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"

He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
" 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."

And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.

It's bad enough when people put on rules they hold as sacred that were never in the Bible to begin with, but to cast aside God's commands for the laws of man, that's big.

And it's not like the Pharisees really saw it as wrong, otherwise why would all of them go along with it. That is the trap of viewing rules more highly than the law.

Be careful to put the commands of God above the religious rules of men.

When money is a curse

I'm currently reading a book entitled The Magic Lamp: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals. On page 19 there is a quote in it that mirrors what I have said about what life has to offer:

You don't get what you want from life; you get what you are.

I've stated before that I don't want to win the lottery because life is more what you make of it than what it gives you.

Booker T. Washington said something similar :

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

But there's more. It's not only that it's better to get what you are out of life than have it handed to you. It's also that having handed it to you can lead to ruin. On almost the same day I read the passage from The Magic Lamp, I read Proverbs 10:16:

The wages of the righteous bring them life, but the income of the wicked brings them punishment.

Have you ever seen people who actually are worse off the more money they get - people who know they are getting a bonus so they get stuff they don't need on credit two months ahead of time? Their blessings become curses because their focus is on material things.

Don't let circumstances dictate who you will be; don't let the fruits of your labor be a punishment. Be the force in this world that changes you.

When Jesus rebukes

Ever notice how there are few times in the Bible Jesus rebukes people? Ever notice how almost everything out of His mouth is encouragement?

But He did rebuke. He rebuked Peter for wrong motives. He also rebuked the Canaanite woman who wanted her daughter healed from demon-possession. (This rebuke I personally believe was simply so she could show her faith).

But these rebukes were rare. Until it came to the pious leaders of the day. He often had a few choice words for these "blind guides". His anger was evident. Here were the "gatekeepers" to heaven: the ones who people looked to for spiritual leadership and the ones who made it unnecessarily hard to get close to God and, more importantly, were more concerned with themselves than with bringing people close to God.

Matthew 23:13-32 is one place where Jesus let them have it:

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [Some manuscripts: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Therefore you will be punished more severely.]

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

"Woe to you, blind guides! You say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is bound by his oath.' You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God's throne and by the one who sits on it.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers!

They had all the power to lead, yet they chose to just look to the rules day by day until the rules became more important the the law and the reason for the law. To really know Jesus means to know that His rebuke was few and far between. To garner this much rebuke, and to be almost the only group that received this rebuke, showed how out of touch the religious leaders were from God.

Always remember: make sure the rules of man you follow are accomplishing the wishes of God. Don't fall into the trap of routine until the routine becomes your salvation. Jesus is the only way.

The sheep and the goats

I love this passage and the rendition by Keith Green. It's been in my playlist for as long as I can recall.

It's a powerful part of the Bible that pulls no punches. Jesus made it very clear here what is expected of us. It follows along with the principle of loving others as we love ourselves.

It seems most people want to either love others more than themselves or less than themselves, but the hardest of all is loving people as ourselves. As is says in the King James: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Here is the entirety from Matthew 25:31-46 in the NIV:

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Vision, faith, and hope

When I was young, I always struggled with Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Actually it was worse because the Bible I was using was King James (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I would roll that over in my mind and could never piece it together. Today, I finally get it, but I see even further. I believe faith is connected to two other traits: vision and hope. This is how I see it.

Vision is what keeps you motivated. It is the image of the spring when you are in the desert. It is the picture of justice when you are fighting injustice. It is the near tangible thought of victory when you are feeling defeated.

Faith is the belief that your vision will be a reality. It is eyes with which you see the vision, as 2 Corinthians 5:7 says:

We live by faith, not by sight.

It is the voice that tells you that the spring in the desert is real and the water is potable. It is the encouragement that says that you will win because your fight is just. It is the mental blinders that shields you from the negative only to see the victory straight ahead.

Hope is the gasoline that powers faith. You have to have hope that the spring with be real or you cannot have the faith to proceed. You have to have hope in justice in order to have the faith to fight for it. You have to have hope in victory in order to have the faith to achieve it.

Vision sees the goal, faith is enables the goal, hope pushes us toward the goal.