Do we abhor the right to such an extent that we will hurt one another for selfish gain? What does it truly profit us if we gain wealth and status but lose truth and love? I would prefer a life of righteous conduct both to myself and to my neighbor; even if that life meant absolute poverty. But, poverty is a relative concept, for if I lived in a place that was void of every luxury but found in that place brotherly love than I would be the richest man in existence.
To believe that joy is proportionate to the amount of wealth one has is a great deception. Yet, it is wealth that men seek. For the attainment of wealth men and women sacrifice their children. To live in luxury they live godlessly. To have riches they abstain from righteous conduct. Wealth is their god and to this god they pay homage. To him they give all that is truly important in life so that he will bestow upon them his blessing. But, they do not perceive that the blessings of this god are really curse’s in disguise. Wealth is a god that seeks the destruction of man, his purpose is to bring a downfall to civilization.
Nothing corrupts the heart faster and darker than wealth. It is a scourge on families and nations. The want of it has caused more strife and war than anything else. We as a race must brake free of it’s charms lest we as a race face the final result of them; which will be an end. An end to the love and joy that the deepest part of our hearts long for.
I believe that the god of wealth has great power but in comparison to the will of men his power is nothing. So than let us use the power of our will and with it serve a god that will fulfill our sincerest desire and bless us with truth. Let us serve the god of brotherly love, not in secret nor with hypocrisy; but, openly and in truth. If we follow the dictates of holiness then we can make for ourselves a world in his image. The greatest dictate of holiness is love. If we conduct our actions in the confines of love then the family of humanity would dwell together in unity and peace. Too often though we love with dissimulation. Love with self at the center is not love at all. But, when you put the well being and good of others in higher regard than your own that is what love is.
Love will solve all of the problems that we now face. It is the cure for everything that troubles us. By love there is peace and safety in love there is hope and joy. But, so long as love remains just a word that is spoken rather than a word that is lived love will accomplish nothing. It is necessary for us to follow the discipline of love with 100% of who and what we are 100% of the time, anything short of that will not do.
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This reminds me of the woman on the beast in Revelation 17 and 18, the whore with whom the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated. It's a good reminder of the dangers of wealth, and I'm glad that you ended on a positive note -that the way to overcome is utimately through love (made possible through Christ). I tend to get pretty depressed when I think about the huge economic disparity... the massive poverty on the one side and then the extreme wealth on the other, and I feel this overwhelming weight like I'm killing children in the third world. So to remember that what we're doing through our little communal experiment and through loving each other in practical ways is fighting the poverty problem (after all, poverty has a great deal to do with lack of relationships) gives me hope.
ReplyDeleteI think you both raise really important points, however, I feel it is a bit too easy to fall into a justified way of living. What I mean is that its not just about our relationships with each other, I think they are tremendously important and a good start, but fall short of the overall goal of the gospel. To truly love our neighbor as ourselves beyond all borders, I feel, is the back bone of Christ's message. Neighbor includes so many, from all walks of life, both friend and foe. The word He used encompasses all but the verbage after is tremendous: love as you love yourself. As Alex stated, love is the answer, but how we demonstrate that love is the key. Though we will never end poverty, we are mandated to make the effort to do so apparent in our daily lives, as Jesus said when telling the religious scholar about the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25 - 37), and again when talking with His disciples telling them that their love for one another is what sets us apart from the world. I think the best place in Scripture that God describes this is behavior is in Matthew 25:31-46. So staying engaged with each other is important, and staying focused on those outside of our community is just as important. The question is how do we combine both in our specific community? We have a great opportunity with the Samaritan house and I wonder if we need to step it up with that - what is everybodys thoughts and ideas about specifics in the Flathead Valley?
ReplyDeleteI miss you guys like crazy!
ReplyDeleteDitto to you, Dan
ReplyDeleteSo, I've been thinking about the practicality of love, based on our discussion last Sunday and on Alex's post and the comments thereafter. Anybody remember Gary Chapman's 5 Languages of Love? If not, the short of is that old Gary identifies 5 basic ways that humans sense love, and usually one way resonates with us the strongest. (Also, we tend to love other people with the thing that means the most to us.)
ReplyDelete* words of affirmation
* quality time
* receiving gifts
* acts of service
* physical touch
I'm not a big fan of bullet point-able principles, but this list does help when I'm imagining how I can love someone practically. The implication, of course, is that we've got to really KNOW someone to understand what they would interpret as loving.
What implications does this have for trying to love people half-way across the world?
double ditto to Dan the man and yeah good question Lori - I think its important to investigate in detail what we can on our neighbors half-way across the globe... and along with what Jason had brought up as far as slave labor fees being a decent wage in their economy. Obviously you have to have a deep connection with those people, and I guess establishing that starts with meeting them, so I say that this Sunday night we take a quick little field trip to Africa to establish some serious pen pals...ha ha, but on a serious note it seems almost impossible - but maybe its about simply doing all that we can with the geographical obstacles we have, and again, maybe that is established through investigating what the specific needs are in those areas and figuring out how we can help to meet them?
ReplyDeleteHey all- This is MANDY, just so I don't get reamed again by posting "anonymously". :) I agree with the thought that "love is the answer" and that it is embodied by loving our neighbor as ourselves, And it begins with the first and most important great commandment to love the Lord your God, and then the loving your neighbor will follow. Seeking after Him and focusing our love on Him will bring about an automatic outflow of our love for our neighbors (True Love), not the other way around. Love for our neighbors can become an idol as easily as wealth/power/wooden tiki statues. Has anybody read Kierkegaard's "Works of Love"? Awesome book on the subject... Hi everybody. :)
ReplyDeleteHooray to Mandy for commenting on the blog! This is a fantastic thought and something we should continue to caution ourselves about. I think that social justice is almost a trendy notion anymore, and we can get so excited about our "brotherly love" that we put God on the back burner and our efforts turn out to be more driven by self-love than a God-inspired self-giving love.
ReplyDeleteAnd I need to finish reading that Kierkegaard book.
But hey, I just had another thought - There are some cases, I would think, where it is through the connection we have with others that we learn to love God. Jesus told us that one of the ways he would be with us in the interim of his leaving/returning was as the poor/hungry/needy. So in that case, our love for God wouldn't have to precede our love for the neighbor, because it is the love for the neighbor that draws us near to God.
ReplyDeleteyes, but it is the love for god that teaches us how to love our neighbor.
ReplyDelete