In this life, there are very few things which are always. Unless we’re speaking about strict identities, like man, woman, up, down, etc, most everything else can change it seems.

i realize we’ve spoken of the words “always” and “never” before, but it seems the Lord wants us to know more about the “always” things which are alive in scripture.

In Romans 1:9, Paul writes, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers.” And Luke18:1, Jesus said that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

Always, meaning every which way, waking and sleeping, in a way which says, “you are always on my mind”. i used to wonder how anyone could pray without ceasing. Can you hear it? i can. In the back of my head, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is entirely possible there is a song and prayer continuously going on. Listen, it is there. Does a lack of prayer in the heart and soul of a believer imply somehow there is also a loss of heart?

Jesus said in Matthew 26:11 the poor are always with us. Now that word “poor” means more than simply without monetary means, God means something larger, as in poor in spirit, poor in common sense, beggarly allegiances, poverty stricken in self-control, peace, and rightness of character to name a few. Let us also note that the reason the poor are always with us is that oppressors, the unjust, and manipulative to gain a personal agenda are also always with us.

John 8:29, “…for I always do those things that please him.” Jesus is speaking of the will of the Father. The preferences and standards of the Father are the preferences and standards of Jesus. Let us also adopt an attitude of heart which is determined to own Gods standards and preferences for ourselves, always doing the things which please the Lord.

In John 11:41-42, Jesus made a statement which we need, NEED to believe and know as He knew. He said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me…” He made this statement so those around Him would believe also that God hears us when we pray, Always. He knows it, it isn’t a suspicion which would indicate unsureness lurking around in His head. He said, always, meaning without a doubt, at all times; on all occasions, without fail. We n-e-e-d to know this one in particular.

2 Corinthians 2:14, “But thanks be to God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ...” Those in Christ will not triumph mostly, not pretty much, but are ALWAYS caused to triumph, singing the honor of His great name. Believe it! Gods always means exactly what He said, always. When we are sure we are water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again, we need to know there is nothing SO dead, God cannot grow life out of it. He ALWAYS causes us to triumph.

2 Corinthians 5:5-6, “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage.” God has prepared us, we are equipped, going forward with His guarantee, therefore we always are of good courage. Gods guarantee means “always”, without a doubt, by which the result is brought about that we are no longer slaves of fear. We bank on Gods guarantee that Jesus has overcome the world, going forward in the power of the Spirit. Be of good courage to stand up in His name.

David describes a heart posture that is necessary for us when he wrote in Psalm16:8 that he has “set the Lord always before him, therefore he will not be shaken.” To set the Lord always before us, means to purposely, put God first, always, surrendering to Him the pre-eminence in all things… before my ambition, before my self-advancement, before my objective for building a church… before everything, i have set the Lord before me. To “set God before us”, means we make Him the standard. As a result, when i am cornered and chaos surrounds my house, the shalom of God encapsulates me and i will not be moved. All my days are before the Lord.

Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 9:8 that God is able to make all grace abound towards us, that we would always have all sufficiency in all things in order to super-abound in excess in every good work. It is always good to be zealously affected for a good purpose, bound and driven to thank God always, without fail, continuously with joy.

By the power and guarantee of God we can set ourselves in a continual position for our speech to always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that we can know how we ought to answer each person. 1 Thessalonians 5:15, “always, always, always follow after that which is good, that is Gods version of what is good, looking to do good to one another and to everyone.”

Friends, let us always labor, in all things, for the glory of God, rejoicing always as it says in Philipians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.”

And the creme-dela-creme, the cream of the cream, Jesus said He will never leave us, and is always with us, and i’ll say it over and over until i get it down in my head, God means what He says, and always means always, and there’s never a time He meant something other than always. As a result, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Christ, since he always lives to make intercession for us.

What do you think? There are actually more than 18, how many can you find?

Never. Just as there are several important things for us to know of the Lord which are always, there are several important things which are “never”, meaning at no time in the past or future; on no occasion; not ever. “Never”, as God uses the word is an absolute negative.

One of the first things that is never is that God is never man, and inversely, man is never God. Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” We may work to reduce the Lord to being on equal footing with us imagining the Lord to struggle with things like we do, but that is only what we may wish except in no wise is it true, ever. He is always God and there is never a time He is not, i am never God and there’s never a time i am.

The Lord God does not sin, and if there is no sin, there is no transgression, nor is there iniquity. 1John3:5, “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” Jesus did not miss the mark, fall short in any fashion, nor was there or will be a place for death and dying to find a foothold in Him.

God is never late, and as long as we live it is never too late. In Luke 11 there is a story of Jesus showing up right on time. A mother’s son had died and was being carried out to be buried. The young son had obviously been dead for a least long enough to be prepared for the burial, so it wasn’t like in the last minute or two he stopped breathing. No, the boy was dead, real dead. What did Jesus do? He encouraged the mother to not worry, and told the boy to get up from his death bed. Jesus was not late, but right on time. God is not the God of the last minute, he’s always on time, perfectly, and never late.

Love never fails, and God never fails! 1John4:8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love”, and 1 Corinthians13 tells us that Love never fails. In addition, God never is envious or a braggart, never arrogant or rude, He is never irritable, resentful, and never, ever, ever is glad anyone does the wrong thing.

The Lord will never betray us. Psalm89:33, the Lord says, “….but I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness.” This is important because we often want the Lord to be guilty of the things we are guilty of, but He is not. God should not descend to join us in our iniquity so we don’t have to be guilty, but we should ascend to join Him in His righteousness instead. Even though Jesus became flesh and took our sin to Himself, He had no sin, never did He sin or transgress, nor did any of our sin stick to Him that He would be defiled.

God is never tired, He never grows weary and never needs a nap. Isa40:28, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.” Oh, and that last part, his understanding is unsearchable, that means the wisdom of God is never ending, He understands all things so perfectly, there is no end to His insight. The Lord never gets tricked, never is manipulated, and never is out maneuvered. Never.

The Lord will never leave you. We who are believers tell each other He will never leave us, forsaken like orphans, but once again, the details of our lives tell another story. God never lies, so it is true, He will never leave you, so let’s cut out this “woe is me” attitude saying one thing but then, when we do something wrong or act out inappropriately, stop acting like, “The Lord has left the room. You know, God can’t be where sin is, so he’s not with me.” Gosh, what another lie, an absolute colossal lie at that. If God can’t be where sin is, then how could He be where you were when you got saved? Forgive me for using such a forceful word, but it’s the truth, that’s just stupid and self-validates our attitude of, “If i were God i wouldn’t like me either.” Well, Hey! It’s your lucky day, how fortunate for you, you aren’t God, because that’s not how He thinks or feels.

God never wastes, not one little piece, of all that we go through. Remember Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”? That’s no fooling around, the Lord never speaks glibly, saying stuff He doesn’t really mean.

Lastly, God will never die, or fade away. He is everlasting, unending. Psalm90:2 says the Lord is “from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” He came from eternity and He stretches into eternity. God never made application to some ethics board or to some gov’t agency for Him to be God and operate as He does. He never asks their permission to be the Lord, they should ask His permission to be an agency or a government.

Set these things in stone in your heart and mind, bank on them, and re-think how you see the Lord. We truly must address our twisted ideas of the Lord.

What do you think? There are actually more than 18, how many can you find?

In another room in the house is a blue metal box with a small lockable latch, though the key is long gone. i’ve had it for years now. In it are things from when i was a boy, memento’s, little things which remind me of someone, or some place i went a long time ago. Like the baseball cards.

There’s only 2 in the box now. There used to be a whole stack, but i suppose i’ve given most away and probably lost a few in moving here and there. When i put my hands on the two which are left i remember how my brother and i used to go to a little package store down the road from our house, and for a nickel or a dime we could buy a pack of Topps bubble gum that came with 3 baseball cards. It was the worst bubble gum there ever was, but the real prize was the cards. One of the two cards i’ve still got is a nearly worn out 1963 Pete Rose rookie card, with Pedro Gonzalez. Over the years, from time to time, i used to stare at the faces on those cards and dream of being on a big league field…all that green on a cool summer evening. Funny how i’ve still got it, and when i touch it all those memories come back. Another thing in my little blue metal box are the ownership papers when i paid off my tractor. That was the day it was mine, and it was so significant. i’ve also got my first magnifying glass that i used to study bugs with. As a kid with an extra nickel burning a hole in his pocket, i won it out of a drop-n-grab machine where you drop the claw and pickup one of many items in plastic, snap together bubbles. That little magnifying glass was the forerunner to a microscope. In that blue box is my first pocket knife my dad bought me when i was 5, and i’ve been carrying a pocket knife every day of my life ever since.

i know another guy who keeps some things. He doesn’t have a box, but it’s a drawer in the night stand, and in it is his great grandfather’s hammer, his grandfather’s hammer, his dad’s hammer, and his first framing and trim hammer… i suppose he just likes hammers. Like myself, he keeps a couple knives, one was his dads, the other was his grandfathers. He hopes to pass them down to his son one day.

These sorts of things are small to others maybe, but to us who keep such a box or drawer of “moments to be remembered”, they’re things which are significant in the process which made us who we are today.

i reckon we all tend to keep things which you wouldn’t think were important really. i’ve got a friend who has the first marbles he ever won. It’s only a handful, but they are precious, not precious like money, but precious as in what they represent. He won those marbles fair and square, but then he ended up having to fight to keep them. The bigger boy decided even though he lost them, he was gonna get them back. My friend went home with a busted nose and skinned knuckles, and a pocket with about 3 hard won marbles too. He won them, and then he won them again…. something important happened inside him that day, and to this day when he looks at those 3 little old marbles, he still feels the pride and courage it took to win them.

Some people think keeping things like marbles, baseball cards, or hammers is just dumb. i’ve been told that sometimes i hold on to the past so hard, maybe for no other reason than it happened to me, it has started to take up way too much space in my head, and maybe i don’t have room to adventure out to something new. i disagree in that those things are important. If we don’t remember our history, which is part of our identity, we lose sight of our own reflection. It’s one of the purposes of an inheritance and being an heir. Purpose, as in the “conclusion of a dilemma that we take action over”. Those little things we keep add to our purpose, describing us as named and designated by God, holding His preferences and standards in front of us to accomplish with all our breathing, thinking, all our feeling, and strength. We are made in the image and reflection of God Almighty, and there are reflections of Him in all parts of our lives, even the smallest things are important. Those small things in my box of valuables are things which describe me, and you too if you’ve got a box or drawer of similar stuff. There is nothing in our lives which “doesn’t matter”. It all matters, it’s all important. Every little rise and fall is relative to our composition, the way in which a whole story is compiled and told again. We are like a work of music, literature, or art, and we are poetry in the eyes of the Lord.

Isn’t that yet another fabulous facet of the Lord to ponder?

What do you think?

During a pressing need to sound spiritual among other spiritually knowledgeable people, i’ve used the word “purpose”, as in praying out loud, “Lord, help us that we would be more involved with your purposes.” But, here lately, the Lord has been addressing my little ideas of what i think He means, and what He really means, thereby giving me clarity on how my perception of Him needs a course change. Sometimes, it’s only a course change in small amounts, and other times it requires i shift my weight all together.

Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” That’s according to God’s will, which includes His preferences and standards. And YES, we can know His will. In fact, there are several places where scripture says, “and this is the will of God…”

What was Paul referring to there in Romans 8:28 when he uses the phrase “the called” and then uses the word “purpose”? From God’s perspective, what does He mean?

Those who hold Jesus as Lord and Savior are “the called”. Matt22:14 says many are called, but there is a difference between “many” who are called, as those who have received an invitation and those who are labeled “the called”. Many are called but few are designated and named. Being believers makes us not only Christians but also in the sense of someone who stands in an office, invited and designated. i think of it as…. the day i accepted Christ was naming day, like the time Adam named all the animals. It was naming day, a day they were designated. To accept the call of God is also to be named, and it means we set another purpose other than our own before ourselves. The very word “purpose” literally means to set something before our heart and eyes, like the show bread was set before the tabernacle. Prothesis is the Greek for our word “purpose”, and stems from the Greek root word wherewith we get our word for “thesis”, and a thesis is a statement put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved. i believe i often think of purpose as something resolved, but in this case the word comes as not only something resolved but calls for the addition of an action verb. So not only is a purpose drawn from God’s preferences and standards, but is a conclusion to a matter for us to take-action to accomplish. Did you hear that? A “conclusion and resolution of a dilemma that we take action over.”

We are “the called” because we have a new purpose after we have received the invitation of God to join Him in His works, gladly stepping into our place in the Kingdom. We are named and designated by God and we hold His preferences and standards in front of us to accomplish with all our breathing, and thinking, all our feeling, and strength. All, not just 10% as a minimal tithe, but all. We bide our time, patiently, with full expectation, trusting and knowing the Lord will do all He says. The word “wait” in vs 25 is a “now” word as a statement of fact. Now, now, now, now and never becomes then until the end of all things, which exclusively conclude at His feet. All my days are before the Lord, and all my days will conclude at His feet, regardless of if i like it or not.

Seeing as how we are the ones named and designated by God, the called, who hold His preferences and standards in front of us to govern all we think and do, His purposes, and seeing as how we know all things conclude at His feet no matter how we cut the pie, knowing these things, how will we walk our days out, knowing every moment and every split second of our lives will rest before the great high King of Heaven? Can we really, truly, actually actually, continue to ignore the call of God? Oh sure, most of us have responded, but what of the rest of the call which is a call to action? What will we do with the rest of His calling? Just because we forget to remember the Lord, and just because we ignore until we no longer hear God calling to us doesn’t mean His calling has ceased. How arrogant of me to think just because “i” can’t hear God must mean He isn’t speaking, or just because “i” don’t believe must mean it isn’t true anymore. God did not cease to invite us, we are the ones who simply can’t hear and don’t respond. It’s like the people who say God doesn’t speak anymore. Ha! That’s such narcissistic, arrogant foolishness.

Here’s what we’re going to do. Because the Spirit makes intercession, we will stand in our designated place at the call of God and make intercession. In vs 27, the words “make intercession” is a “now” verb, and it means now, now, now, now, it does not stop being “now”. It is a word which isn’t episodic or an event, it is an action with an on-and-on motion. Because God hears the faintest cry for help, we will not only hear but will respond. Because the Lord opens His mouth and does justice and stands for right morality, we will stand in our designated place, holding His preferences and standards as the governor for all we breath and do, and we will open our mouths for justice, doggedly standing up for right morality. We will stand with Him, proud of our blood bought heritage. As the called of God, STAND! And after you’ve stood all you can stand, stand therefore.

Hey now. i want to talk to you for a minute. We men seem to often have a really tangled idea in our heads about our wives. As if you couldn’t have guessed, this is mostly directed to men, but if anyone else is listening, please continue. If you are married or have a girlfriend, this program is directed at you, and myself, of course.

Instead of seeing yourself as the king, as the “head of your house”, as if you are someone to be served because you are, “the man”, we really need to start seeing ourselves as God sees us, as the husbands we are. Ephesians 5:25, Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”.  The Lord is our example, and i feel certain His desire is that we would act as He does. God never shoves or deceives us like some bully, and your wife is no one to push around and manipulate either. Think of yourself as a frame and she’s the picture. The job of a frame is to give definition to the boundaries of the picture, and i don’t mean boundaries in the sense of the ones you set for her, so much so that she can’t even put pictures of your kids on FB, or else you will relentlessly emotionally hold her in contempt. Who do you think you are to think you can control someone like that? In secret, you don’t control yourself like that, yet you’re OK with making the effort to control her like that. And i realize she does this and she does that, but this isn’t about her, it’s about you. Regardless of where she is, the question is, where are you?

Your wife is someone to guard closely and retain a watch over, someone to hedge around, protect and attend, attend meaning to nurture, like someone growing a garden, not hang her out to dry when you are displeased. Again, she is like a garden. We should cause her to prosper, prune, get the bugs off, and fertilize, causing her to be fruitful. Not “fence in and prevent”, but “cause to prosper and be fruitful.” Oh, i get it. Some of us men think her job is to please us and she should fear us if we are displeased. It’s not all about you. Jesus died for your sins and designated you to be the head of your household for teaching, defining by your right actions, with kind honesty, and tender transparency. Honest, accountable, transparent, and emotionally available. Adam, regardless of any unknown reasons, when God came around calling for them in the garden, what did Adam do? He said, “It was the woman you gave me.” He threw Eve under the bus as the reason for his own actions. “It was Eve’s fault” huh? That’s victim thinking. And i believe many are still throwing Eve under the bus too! We men make rules for them we, ourselves, aren’t willing to keep. That’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?

Sure, i realize some women are difficult, just like some men, they’re all just people. But, what if she feels isolated and alone because you don’t talk to her, and because you control and even tell her where she can go and who she can talk to? You KNOW she thrives on communications and dreams of right authority. She’s the one who came to the table with dreams of “the one”, and most men seem to have a dream of “this one” and “that one”. You restrict so much of what’s going on with her, and act more like a jailer than a husband who cultivates a garden. Well, let me ask you, what is it about her that scares you so much? Are you afraid she’ll have an idea before you do, and then you won’t appear as the head of the household? That’s monotoned and thin-thinking. It’s not her fault you’re uncomfortable in your own skin. God said we ARE the head of our house, not should be but are. So in light of that, we’ve got to become better leaders if we’re going to lead.  Why are you so threatened by her? Is it her emotional momentum that throws you off? It’s not her fault you are pressured by her emotions, it’s you who aren’t secure in yourself, and rather than you step up, you demand she step down. Is it possible she isn’t out of control, but you’re the one upset about things when you feel challenged in your masculinity? C’mon my friend, you’re the husband of one wife, a father, or at least a potential father, of children, and a soldier in the army of the Living God who is listening to hear Him breathe. i believe in you. God believes in you. But being a soldier and father shouldn’t oppose each other, in fact, one should help the other be a better leader. Stop using her as an excuse for your behavior.

And from another angle, years ago i was reminded by religious higher-ups in their quoting Ephesians 5:25-26,  “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” That’s the truth for sure, it is part of the husbands responsibility to give his life for his wife as Christ gave His for the church, but the unspoken part is that it’s her job to not take advantage of him, manipulating while he is laying down his life. Yet, again, this isn’t about her, it’s about you. YOU give up YOUR life, you are responsible.

Authority and influence are like man and wife. A verb needs an object to act on, making the noun the beautiful bride of the verb. The noun can stand alone but is always more beautiful and complete when the verb describes it, like a frame borders and supports a picture. Marriage of a man and a woman are like the marriage of authority and influence. The man is the authority and the woman is the influence. He has a verb in his middle and she has a noun in her middle, the man “cleaves”, “cleave” being a action verb in Genesis 2:24, and the woman “desires”, which, in this case, is a noun, Genesis 3:16.

Authority frames the beauty of righteous influence. Don’t you know she desires and literally runs after right authority, craves authority, loves to be under right authority, and is most comfortable when fully yielded and exposed to right authority. When a man and woman waltz, the man is like a frame, framing the picture, the woman. The woman is like a picture, made beautiful by her frame, the man. Rather than put your hands around her neck to control her, why don’t you be the one to stand up and be counted as honest and transparent, and grow her and your family like a man working to prosper them, not control them? Isn’t that fabulous idea?

There comes a time in the lifespan of any believer when there seems to be no wind, no inspiration, no motivation, we don’t know what to pray, and maybe even all purpose for praying is a vacuum of sorts. Oh bother, what to do what to do?

When i was young, more than once i was told i was too much of a dreamer. Even then i can remember thinking, “i’m supposed to not be a dreamer, but how does the future happen without a dream?” Yea, more conflicting words in my head. There was a civil war in my head between dreaming and how to live with conflicting words, like “what will people think of you?”, and, “If things aren’t moving in your life, you must be on the outs with God.” Those words were like ropes binding my feet, and i got stuck at the intersection of condemnation and freedom. It feels like having God open the prison doors but then not being able to move beyond the same open door because of all the negative leaning “what if’s”.

Everything in life nowadays seem so instant, and when we have to wait, into our heads comes the words of some well-meaning person saying, “Something is wrong. It shouldn’t take God this long to reply. Something is wrong!” Oh, and don’t you know it’s easy to glibly tell someone that the Lord will reply “in the fullness of time.” But before you get all wound up, think. How long did Abraham and Sarah wait for the arrival of their promised heir, Isaac? God first revealed to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations when he called him to leave his country and go to the land God would show him. Abraham was 75 years old. Fifteen years later, when Abraham was 90, God renewed his promise. Ten years later, at age 100, Abraham and Sarah finally had their son. That’s a total of twenty-five years before “the fullness of time.” 25years! Usually, if we have to wait 25 minutes, we start having anxiety about why “nothing” is happening. So, let me ask you my friend, Is nothing actually happening? How do you know what God is doing where you can’t see? In the book The Shack, there’s a scene where Papa is laying in a lawn chair in the sun. Mack comes by and makes a smart remark, something like, “Oh, i see even God has time to lay in the sun,” wherewith Papa squints up at him with one eye and says, “You have no idea what i’m doing.”

When i’ve gone to the Post Office and there’s a long line, it is not unusual to hear someone remark that the clerks are oh, so, slow. The anxiety of waiting triggers people to look around for someone to blame for being inconvenienced because they are having to wait. Occasionally, i have chimed in saying, “I’m in this Post Office every day, enough so, that i’ve done time studies concerning the average time each person spends at the window. i can assure anyone that it’s not the clerk who is slow, but more us who aren’t prepared.” Silence typically follows that. We seem to need to blame someone when we are inconvenienced because it doesn’t appear anything is moving along.

At the end of the book of John, Peter and the guys decided to go fishing, maybe because they couldn’t think of what else to do, so they just went back to work. After all, it appeared nothing was happening.

In Acts, how long did they wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit? Remember, Jesus had said to them, “I send the promise of my Father on you, but stay in Jerusalem until you have been clothed with power from on high.” How long did they wait for this mystery to occur? Fifty long days. Don’t you think there was a lot of debating and questioning, like, “Why do we have to wait like this?” i’d bet they thought all sorts of things. “Did we miss God?” “Did we misunderstand Jesus?” “Maybe that wasn’t really Jesus.” “i’ve got stuff to do, why am i sitting around here, waiting on the wind to blow?” In Acts 1:4 the Lord said, “Do not depart”, in other words, “Don’t depart your mission. Be still.” He knew they could easily get their shorts in knot, lose sight of their mission, and wander off like sheep which see no reason to keep standing around, reasoning within themselves that Jesus went to the Father, and it appeared nothing was happening. “I guess it’s over. Oh well. Might as well go home.”

While we’re waiting on “the fullness of time”, metaphorically feeling like we’re in the middle of the ocean with no tides, and no wind, consider to yourself: In our impatience and need for things to move in order to feel like God is doing stuff, we don’t notice the small things if we’re always in motion. Although we are often unwilling to wait on the Lord, He is wisely giving us time to take care of the “back office stuff” which often goes unresolved because we’re so occupied. We easily miss the beauty of the day, or the little endearing words of our children, a spouse or friend. In our anxiety of waiting, those types of things are SO easily missed. Maybe we should take advantage of God’s opportunities which include waiting, rather than resenting our having to be still. A few minutes, hours, or even days will not make much difference in God’s economy and deliberately slowing down allows us to get into step for what the Lord is doing next.

What do you think?

Jesus said, “The poor will always be with us.” My idea of poor and God’s idea of poor don’t line up well many times. Somehow, i’ve gotten it in my head that to say someone is poor, immediately into my mind springs the vision of someone who lives day to day, has no property or possessions, with their only collateral being the clothes on their back.

Poverty is more than simply not having stuff. God’s use of the word varies, but much of the time it can mean thin and deprived of righteousness, afflicted in our thinking, defenseless against unprofitable decision making, destitute of good ethics, morals, and principles. To say someone is poor also includes being absent of spiritual prosperity, vanished strength, missing courage, and so absent of spiritual gifts that we cry out to God, which is poor, as in not fruitful. And the greatest poverty is “without Christ”. Poor, in the sense of not being near to the Lord. With God is prosperous, without God is poverty. Poverty is definitely having to do with social and economic conditions, but i believe the Lord is additionally speaking to something much more broad than simply not having stuff.

In order to understand prosperity, we also have to look at poverty and i believe the Lord has laid out what His idea of prosperity is in order that we would also understand what it does NOT look like. There is a difference between being humble with few possessions, and being afflicted and deprived, socially defenseless and subject to oppression, victims of infringements. To complicate the issue as to the difference between humble and poor, Jesus said in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. In English, one idea of poor is to have no possessions, but yet, He said, “blessed are the poor in spirit.” What in the world is He talking about?

In this case it means “to bow down timidly, as in someone who is beggarly and understands they are so destitute, God alone is their only hope and help. That could be someone who has nothing or someone who has everything, both ends of the spectrum can be poor. It’s a picture of being humble in our spirits, so if we put the word “humble” in place of the word “poor,” the meaning becomes clearer. In other words, when we come to God, we must realize our fallen state, along with our spiritual emptiness and poverty. We must not be self-satisfied or proud in our hearts, thinking we don’t really need God. If we do, it certainly restricts any prosperity He would extend us. Can you imagine trying to give someone a gift, but they are busy saying they don’t need it because they can make do with all they have? The Bible says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”. The Lord holds up a cautionary flag about being empty and impoverished in our souls and urges us to pursue spiritual wealth instead.

Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” When we feel cold and uninspired, when we can’t seem to find our heart, i say go find your treasure, because i guarantee, your heart is laying around there somewhere. Look at what you value and you can get a good idea about what is most important to you.

Another common view of “the poor” is someone who is paralyzed by feeling useless, worthless, and unworthy.

“i’m just a poor old sinner man, just pumping out sin all day long, even in my sleep. i sin when i’m awake, sin when i don’t mean to, and sin when i’m asleep. It’s just hopeless, what’s the point?”

i feel quite strongly that to rise above that is not about building up our self-esteem, recognizing our own excellence. That’s not what God says. The Lord didn’t say to stop putting yourself down because the truth is you’re so well spoken, He said, “Stop looking at your own corruptness and look at me.” If you’re always looking down, all you can see is the ground. The Lord made our mouth and He promises to help us find the words which make a difference. Look at Jesus and live. The answer to thinking too little of ourselves isn’t in thinking too much of ourselves. Being poverty stricken is every bit as poor as lounging in elevated self-esteem, they are both poor.

Consider: There are two types of poverty here: there is the poverty which settles upon someone who won’t work, and the kind which is upon someone like an orphan who has no recourse but to beg. In Mark 12:42, the widow gave one sad little copper coin, which was a beggar’s tithe, possibly being seen by others as pitiful and poor. But from God’s vantage point, the one who judges according to the heart, she was richer than all the rest put together. She was a picture of prosperity from God’s view of things.

In John 12 a woman poured very expensive ointment on the head of Jesus, and rather than appreciate the value of the gift from her heart, Judas Iscariot scolded her, suggesting she “could have” done this, and “should have” done that. He was basically saying her gift was a waste and she was just stupid. God saw differently though. He knew her humility and understood that she did what she did in worship and praise of God from whom all blessings flow. The critic of her actions was actually the one who was poor, and he was also the one who held the money. That’s pretty arrogant for the guy with the most money to complain about someone’s gift to God only because it deprived them of adding to their own money bags.

The poor will always be with us, not just the ones who don’t own anything, but also those who are far from God without right principles, good morals, or excellent ethics.

What do you think?