Word of God: Speak!
April 29, 2008Early this morning, as I enjoyed a hot cup of Joe at the Panara Bread Company, I ran across a Scripture that frightened me: Proverbs 29:7. It says, “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”
Huh? Although I want to be righteous, I must confess that I’m not spending a whole lot of brain-power, heart-power, soul-power, or body-power on “justice for the poor.” In fact, when I see such verses I cannot help but think of all the people whose poor choices, lack of motivation, and weak work ethic spawned their poverty in the first place.
The righeous care about the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.
Don’t hear me wrong: I give to the poor, I help the poor find beneficial resources, and I hope our church will become a safe-harbor for the poor–but I do those things because I’m supposed to, not necessarily because I care to. I think.
Yet the sage Proverb says, “The righteous care about justice for the poor but the wicked have no such concern.”
I wonder: Is it possible to go to church, worship with passion, study God’s word, abstain from the common forms of wickedness, call on the name of the Lord for eternal salvation, and yet be wicked in the eyes of God because of my lack of of concern for the poor?
Is this possible? Perhaps true repentance…
May I submit that “justice for the poor” does not mean “redistribution of the wealth” -America though far from perfect is the most just place on the planet…I would further submit that today’s poor in America have a higher standard of living than most of the worlds middle class…
It has also been detirmined (by way smarter guys than me) that the two biggest indicators to avoiding finacial success in this country are out of wedlock children born onto broken homes and high school drop out rates… – i can balme much of this on liberalism and I do but at the end of the equation it still comes down to choices that people make.