Money, Greed or Faith

Mar 10:23  And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!
Mar 10:24  And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

If the kingdom of heaven is all around us and in us, how is it then so hard for someone of wealth to enter into the kingdom of heaven?

People of wealth always think money is the answer to everything.  They can buy their way into anyplace.  Not so says Jesus.  It is impossible to buy your way into the kingdom that is all around us and even in us.  To enter into that kingdom of God must be done by faith, and only by faith.  If you don’t believe in God, The Holy Spirit or even in Jesus or heaven, then how could you recognize that it was already there; waiting to be discovered by you?

Mar 10:27  Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for all things are possible with God.
Mar 10:28  Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.
Mar 10:29  Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospel's sake,
Mar 10:30  but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.
Mar 10:31  But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.

So do we set out to gain riches? Or do we believe Christ and follow on faith?  

Believers follow: because we want to follow; because we need to follow; because we have to follow; because we love Jesus; because we are filled with gratitude for the sacrifice He, the Son of God, made for each of us on Calvary; but most of all we follow because we can trust Him when He says, Come to me and I will give you rest for your souls.

Mar 10:35  And there come near unto him James and John, the sons of Zebedee, saying unto him, Teacher, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall ask of thee.
Mar 10:36  And he said unto them, What would ye that I should do for you?
Mar 10:37  And they said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and one on thy left hand, in thy glory.
Mar 10:38  But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
The cup that I drink ye shall drink; and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized:
Mar 10:40  but to sit on my right hand or on my left hand is not mine to give; but it is for them for whom it hath been prepared.
Ye know that they who are accounted to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great ones exercise authority over them.
Mar 10:43  But it is not so among you: but whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister;
Mar 10:44  and whosoever would be first among you, shall be servant of all.
Mar 10:45  For the Son of man also came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Here we go with the greed again.  We can’t help being greedy by nature, but we can overcome that nature if we put forth a little effort.  Just because we become disciples, apostles, prophets, teachers and ministers of the good news of Jesus Christ doesn’t give us Carte Blanch into the choicest seats at the banquet of Heaven; nor do we gain automatic entry into a seat at the dais.  We have been adopted into the Royal family, but the Monarch isn’t dead, so we can’t usurp the throne; it’s that simple.

  Our jobs are to serve and care for our human race just like Jesus served mankind while He walked the earth.   Notice we aren’t our ethnicity, sex, color or religious beliefs, but humans of this planet earth.  If it becomes necessary to die so others can live then we must be willing to do so with honor, knowing we are following our Lord and He awaits our return to Him with opened arms of welcome.  We can not spend our days living in fear and do our jobs.

Yes, there are bad people in this world!   We can’t permit those who choose to do evil cause us to become as they; we  are to be beacons of all that is right, not mirror  the bad; especially not… if we are Christ’s!

Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
Mar 10:48  And many rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried out the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.
Mar 10:49  And Jesus stood still, and said, Call ye him. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good cheer: rise, he calleth thee.
Mar 10:50  And he, casting away his garment, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Mar 10:51  And Jesus answered him, and said, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And the blind man said unto him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight.
Mar 10:52  And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.And straightway he received his sight, and followed him in the way.

What will you have Jesus do to you?  His answer is the same for ANYONE WHO BELIEVES…. Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.

Labels: Editorial Comment

posted by Jan myrz @ 7:11 PM 0 comments

Something from Albert

[Note: This list of Einstein quotes was being forwarded around the Internet in e-mail, so I decided to put it on my web page. I'm afraid I can't vouch for its authenticity, tell you where it came from, who compiled the list, who Kevin Harris is, or anything like that. Still, the quotes are interesting and enlightening.]

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

• "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
• "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
• "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
• "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
• "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
• "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
• "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
• "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
• "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
• "God is subtle but he is not malicious."
• "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
• "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
• "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
• "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
• "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
• "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
• "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
• "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
• "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
• "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
• "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
• "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
• "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
• "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
• "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
• "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
• "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
• "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
• "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
• "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
• "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
• "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
• "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
• "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
• "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
• "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
• "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
• "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."
• "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
• "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
• "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
• "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
• "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
• "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
• "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
• "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
• "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
• "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
• "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
• "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
• "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
• "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
• "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
• "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
• "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)

posted by Jan myrz @ 8:01 AM 0 comments