My apologies for the missing blog last weekend. I was snowed under with uni assignments and ran out of time to write anything.
28:15-28
These verses in The Message are titled “Doing Great Harm in Seemingly Harmless Ways”. If I read these verses with that in mind then there are great insights to be had.
In this current world there are many leaders that people consider bad leaders. Many appear more interested in self-aggrandisement, or the next election, or holding on to power no matter what the cost. There are many who consider this is okay, that we can get rid of them in the next election. But what harm can a bad leader do to those who are helpless? What harm can the bad manager to the staff employed to work under that manager? What harm can the person who steals the work of a colleague and passes it of as his own do? What harm can a pastor appointed over a helpless congregation do? In these verses we are told this person lacks judgement and is like a lion or bear tearing at its prey. This ruler is the one who will cheat his own parents and justify his action as okay.
Those who seek God, who walk away from the desire to possess what others have, who are prepared to work faithfully and not seek to follow those ‘get rich quick’ schemes or cheat others to make money are the ones God will bless. It is those who harm others who will eventually be consumed by their guilt. It is those who chase the ‘get rich quick’ scheme and cheat and bully others to make money, those who place the acquisition of wealth as of higher value than anything are the poor in spirit. That money will never buy them the contentment and security they seek. Many will seek wealth and, in the process, hurt others. And those people will justify what they are doing. They will justify all the great harm they do in what they consider, and society considers, to be harmless ways. But any gain that involves hurting or cheating another is not what God wants. Better to spend time seeking God and placing surrender to Him as of the greatest importance than to seek to follow the god of wealth.