I did this during the last Powerball. I see everyone scrambling again, so here goes. Can you pray these words in good conscience?:
- Proverbs 30:8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, 9 lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
Don’t look for get-rich-quick schemes. Look to one who, though he was rich, for your sake became poor:
- 2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.
Are you already rich?
- Ephesians 1:3 ¶ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
You betcha!
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Well dang! I guess I won’t go throw my dollar to the wind then… 🙂
You can. I just hope that you don’t win!
Well double dang! you mean I missed out on my chance to be a bizzionaire because you showed the wisdom in trusting God instead! I guess I will just have to accept it!
All joking aside, I was just reading James Boice’s commentary on Psalm 120, and it showed the wisdom in not listening to the lies of the world. The lie in this case being that life will be more fulfilling with a lot of money, instead of staying on the long pilgrimage we are called to as believers. Boice has been really helpful with the Psalms for me. If you don’t have that in your library, it is worth getting.
I have Boice’s commentaries on the Minor Prophets and Daniel and have found them all very helpful. I’ll look into the Psalms commentaries.
Also, about the powerball, I had someone at work say to me, ‘Don’t you want to get a ticket?’ I responded with a simple no. Next they asked, ‘wouldn’t you like to have all that money?’ I again responded with a no. He followed up with, ‘If you had that much money you could by your own church and have 1000 people coming in a second.’ To which I responded, ‘I don’t want that either.’
I really do get the allure of the idea of getting rich quick. But I also get the repeated principle of the Bible that people who get wealth tend to forget who truly gave it to them. And that’s where the whole, ‘what do you get if you gain the whole world and lose your soul’ idea comes into play.
I’m around highly covetous people on a regular basis. I know we are concerned about abortion and homosexuality as the major sins of our culture, and they are major, but the stench of our materialism is right up there with them and no one is out there preaching about that. I’m as guilty as the next guy. It’s the air we breathe. My rant is now complete.