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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Like a partridge that hatches eggs
it did not lay are those who gain riches by unjust means. When their lives are
half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be
fools.”
Jeremiah 17:11
This ends today’s reading from God's holy
word. Thanks be to God.
It seems our society is obsessed with doing whatever it can
to get rich quick.
We have lotteries that people can spend money on to try and
hot the right numbers or scratch off the right spots to make it big. We have
casinos and horse tracks where people can go to make bets and hope those bets
pay off for them handsomely. We have fantasy sports leagues now that promise
people can make millions if they participate.
There is always some appeal to a person’s desire for prosperity
and affluence.
The unfortunate byproduct of this seemingly unquenchable
thirst for wealth is that people have allowed their obsession with obtaining
riches to lead them to gaining it by illicit means. And in today’s scripture
verse from Jeremiah 17, we find the Lord sending the following message:
Any gain from illegal means is really a loss.
Look again at these words of God:
“Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay are those who gain
riches by unjust means. When their lives are half gone, their riches will
desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools.” Jeremiah
17:11
As we often see in the Bible, illustrations are often used
to make key points. In this instance, God uses a belief that the Israelites
carried, that partridge birds would steal eggs from other birds, to make His
point to them. The partridges were thought to gather eggs from other birds and
then lay on them until they hatched to make their brood appear larger than it
really was. But as soon as the birds who were not partridges would hatch, them
would leave the mother partridge and strike out on their own. Thus, there was
really no gain for the partridge from their actions but rather loss.
God compared the partridge to people in Jeremiah’s day (and
today as well) who gained riches by unjust means. Like the non-partridge birds
who hatched and left, so too would the gains acquired through illegal
practices. And with their riches departing them, they would be left to only
look foolish in the end.
Certainly, there are plenty of modern day examples of this
illustration coming to be because there are more than a few people in prisons
around our country and the world at large who are incarcerated because of their
unlawful dealings with money, those who allowed their fixation with wealth lead
them down the road of wickedness. In the end, chasing after gains sinfully wasn’t
worth it because when all was said and done, they were left without anything
and thrown in jail because of their foolish infatuation with getting rich.
Friends, are we like the partridge in the way we are
living? Are we willing to cross the line and commit transgressions just to
become wealthy?
Or are we ready to see that we have the greatest riches
possible through our relationship with the Lord and the treasures of heaven we
accumulate through our faithful service to Him and others?
The first way is foolish. God said it was.
The second is wise and will always ensure that a gain is a
gain as we experience the fullest measure of the Lord’s blessings in our lives,
a wonderful reward for faithfulness and submission to His will and way.
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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