Poverty

The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. Mark14:7NIV

There is a massive drive in the UK to wipe out the need for food banks, and poverty itself, but is this realistic? The government have announced their intention to appoint a ‘Minister of Poverty’, but can this work? This short verse contains three important points, but leaves the most important to the last in an effort to drive home the message.

“The poor you will always have with you” goes against the government’s action in appointing a minister to eliminate poverty because we are told whether we like it or not, there will always be poor folks among us.

“You can help them any time you want” is a clear reminder of the need and importance as believers to do all we can to reduce the effects of poverty, while acknowledging the clear fact that we will never eradicate it.

“You will not always have me” is the stark truth which rises above the desire to help the poor, and addresses a more fundamental need. There are two levels to this phrase. Jesus was telling His disciples that there would shortly come a time when He would not be with them, but without saying how it would happen. However today this phrase applies to those who, through their own free will, reject Him and His gift of salvation. Some (literally) very poor people will lose out twice. No food and no future, and it doesn’t have to be like that.

Based on this, I suggest we are not doing the whole job if all we do is supply food for the body. Food is very important, but Jesus tells us clearly that it is only half the work needed. It is more important that we give the message of the more nourishing heavenly manna for their soul to supplement the food for the body. Then, and only then, we will have completed the full commandment.

Famine and Hunger

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. Amos 8:11

Living in our prosperous country, it is difficult to imagine hunger, and even worse, a famine. We see the images of starving and dying children in war torn third world countries, but we still can’t relate, because we have never been hungry ourselves. Oh we say the words, “I’m starving” so easily and flippantly, but this does not treat the subject with the importance it needs and deserves.

Amos is considered to be one of the ‘minor prophets’, and we tend to skip past the small book in the Old Testament, and possibly even ignore his warnings. I think we do this at our peril. We often talk and discuss the fact that our churches are slowly becoming empty, merging, and even closing down altogether. According to Amos, the minor prophet, this is not the source of the problem.

In the same way that some poor countries are suffering a famine of food, we in our prosperous western ‘bubble’ are suffering a famine of hearing the words of the Lord as Amos said. How is this possible, I hear you ask? Our undisputed legacy that we call the Bible, is the word of God. Let me say that again. “The Bible is the Word of God”. Do we treat it as that? Do we see it as so important? How else do we hear from God?

How often do we read the Bible? How MUCH of it do we read at a time? I don’t know about you, but sometimes it is enough for me to read a nice cosy little verse which makes me feel good, and then I go into my day, or end it. We are living in the prophetic days of Amos where there is a famine of hearing the words of the Lord, and that is because we don’t care enough about the author. At the root of this symptom, is the reason our churches are dropping in attendance and membership. A point to finish. The verse says that it is God Himself who sends the famine of hearing the Word of the Lord. Israel had been given every chance to listen and feed on the Word, and they had satisfied their hunger elsewhere. This famine involved both leadership and people alike, and so it is today. Since God obviously takes our spiritual condition seriously, should we not do the same?

What Are You?

What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them. Matthew 15:11 NIV

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. Proverbs 23:7 NKJV

The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV

Customers in the UK have been eating horse meat, labelled on some processed food packaging as ‘beef’, and they didn’t know. I’m not sure about you, but I like to know what I am eating. I am quite adventurous, and have eaten some strange foods, but I always believed what it was supposed to be. For me, it doesn’t really matter that it was horse meat, it was more the lie in the labelling. I’ll say it again, I like to know what is going into my digestive system, and I am not alone with that. I like the idea that it is (or should be) what it says on the tin.

The old saying, “You are what you eat” comes to mind and to a certain extent this is true. Take a look round at the sizes of some of your friends. So we take a lot of notice and care about what goes IN! But do we take any notice of what comes OUT of our mouths? In fact do we really care? The kind of heart you have determines what comes out of your mouth, and as far as God is concerned, He is more worried that our inside is right, and less concerned about what we eat!

So, why don’t we take at least as much interest in the condition of our heart, and not the road from our mouth to our stomach. That way, we can be assured that our tongue will not be foul, or lying, or deceiving, and that would be a real improvement to the environment.