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.