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Happy To Welcome You To The Hallelujah Chorus

I will exalt you my God, the King, I will praise your name forever and ever. Every day I will praise you and exalt your name forever and ever. Psalm 145:1-2

Monday, March 15, 2010

"POWER AND MONEY"

Disagree if you wish, but in my view God always has the final say about all life on earth and throughout the universe. He allows life to run its natural course because only in the ups and downs can we come to a place of faith and trust. I appreciate what the great prophet Isaiah said about this at Isaiah 50:10, "Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of His servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God." My interpretation is that fear of God means two things: TRUST in His name and RELIANCE on Him.
For many folks life is always about two things, power and money. Some are so spiritually dull they refuse or fail to see how puny and pointless their power and money ultimately are. Both are temporary social situations that will finally have no meaning to them if they have allowed their life to be the pursuit of that mirage. People who use their assets to overpower or dominate others set themselves up as the enemies of God. They will lose.
David wrote: "God will break you down forever, He will snatch and tear you from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living." Psalm 52:5 ESV
I have been blessed to know a few truly spiritual folks who have successfully integrated trust in God and reliance on Him with the power and money their talents have achieved. There is nothing inherently wrong with a servant of God having those assets, however in my observation, both power and money tend to corrupt most people because they also acquire a hunger for more. Reaching a place in life where I mostly trust in me and rely on my business smarts to get what I want can be a lonely prison to live in. I have known more than a few men and women who live a tortured life because they bought into the lie presented by power and money. Humility before God isn't usually a prominent character trait in the quest for the "good life".
Life isn't about power and money. What impresses God, David learned, are "a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart" (Ps 51:17), both of which any of us can acquire if we follow the track laid out previously by Isaiah. You may not impress the power brokers and the money hungry and you may never succeed in politics or even in church ministry, but the day is coming when Jesus will call your name and you will live in His mansion forever.
David didn't stop with condemnation of the enemies of God. He continued at Ps 52:8-9 "But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. I will thank you forever because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly." Sounds like Isaiah doesn't it! If your life is truly about trust in God's name and reliance on God's grace and power, you can say it now - HALLELUJAH!

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