Luke 6:24-26
Jan and I when we were much,
much younger dreamed of being in the quarter horse business, we began with a
mare named Trophy and her colt. We knew
nothing about horses and should have done a little more research before investing
in them. Did I tell you they are
beautiful animals, but unlike a cow that gets in barbwire and waits till
someone cuts them loose, a horse will tear its leg open or almost off before
letting you help. If it has not been
trained and Trophy had not, it will not always go well when a city boy tells it
to stop, and she did not answer to woe either.
I came to understand that
without training, Trophy was going to do just about what she wanted to do, and
this thought came into my mind you and I are not that different from a untrained
horse, without training we have a tendency to do as we please.
In these verses there are
four “woes” but it is not so much the woes, but who is saying the “woes” that
is of upmost importance. Jesus has
pronounced four blessings in the verses above and now these woes, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have
received your consolation. “Woe to you who are full now,
for you shall be hungry. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. “Woe to you, when all people
speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” If you
were paying attention, the contrast is between blessed versus woe; poor versus
rich; hungry versus full; and people hate you versus when all people speak well
of you. It is clear in the earlier
verses Jesus was talking about blessing for the poor and now woes to the rich,
blessing for the one who is hungry and woe to those who are full, and blessing
to the poorer who are hated for the name of Christ, and woe to those who
everyone says good about.
The rich is
anyone who has more dependence on self and maybe power and wealth than on God,
where those who are poor in spirit and hungry for righteousness are the ones
God blesses. Folks, it has little to do
with education or economies, it has to do with heart attitude. Do you recall Jesus’ encounter with
the rich young ruler, who rejected Jesus’ offer to follower Him, because he had
many possessions. These were the words
to His disciples; found
in Matthew 19:23, “And
Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a
rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.”
If we only believed Jesus tells the truth, all of us would
grasp these words of Jesus; “For what does it
profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his
soul?” (Mark 8:36-37)
Greg
Hood who led CBMC (Christian Business Men’s Committee) in Corpus Christi
visited a young man with me who had come to a luncheon and ask for more
information about being a follower of Christ.
He had graduated from Harvard and yet was not doing well in the business
world, and when ask if he by faith would receive Jesus into his life, Ben ask a
question no one had ever ask before praying the prayer of faith. Ben asked, “If I follow Jesus will I be
rich,” and Greg said, yes, spiritually and Ben said, no I mean can I be a
follower of Christ and be wealthy? Greg
asked if wealth was more important than a relationship with Jesus, and his
answer was I’ve always wanted to be wealthy.
I always ask how Ben is doing and the answer is not good; he did not
follow Jesus and he has not been successful in anything he has tried. Now, that report brings sorrow to my heart.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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