Proverbs 12:1
To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate it.
Deuteronomy 7:12-18
For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have increased and forget the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ Remember the LORD your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath.
How fickle is the human heart, how prone to forget answers to prayer and become proud and ungrateful.
God knows this very well and warned about the dangers of prosperity.
When we're in need or in trouble our hearts are full of prayers.
Yet when we're "out of the woods" so to speak, the urgency of our relationship with the Lord declines and we are in danger of becoming "CINOs" - Christians in name only.
Jesus warned the church Laodicea about this:
Revelation 3:17-19 AMPC
For you say, I am rich; I have prospered and grown wealthy, and I am in need of nothing; and you do not realize and understand that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore I counsel you to purchase from Me gold refined and tested by fire, that you may be truly wealthy, and white clothes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nudity from being seen, and salve to put on your eyes, that you may see. Those whom I dearly and tenderly love, I tell their faults and convict and convince and reprove and chasten I discipline and instruct them. So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent changing your mind and attitude.
Has my heart grown cold and stuffed up with materialistic things?
It's the devil's snare - if he can't cower you with condemnation, he'll damn you with praise in your own goodness and success.
Never ever forget that even all my good bits are tainted. It's like presenting a used tampon (my present day translation) to the Lord and expecting Him to be impressed with it!
Isaiah 64:6
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
In short there is NOTHING I can boast in - except the cross of Jesus.
As the old hymn says:
Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to your cross I cling
Foul I to the fountain fly
Wash me Saviour or I die
Comments