James 5:1-6 (NLT)
1 Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. 2 Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags. 3 Your gold and silver have become worthless. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This treasure you have accumulated will stand as evidence against you on the day of judgment. 4 For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. The wages you held back cry out against you. The cries of those who harvest your fields have reached the ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
5 You have spent your years on earth in luxury, satisfying your every desire. You have fattened yourselves for the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and killed innocent people, who do not resist you.
I found it interesting that the verbs referring to the “things” of the rich in this passage are all present tense, when the rest of the verse has verbs indicating a time to come. “Your wealth is rotting…”, “… fine clothes are moth-eaten…”, “… gold and silver have become …”.
It just got me thinking of the here and now. All of it, the cars, the houses, the jobs, the status, the ______________ (fill in the blank of whatever floats your boat), is all crap to him.
Isaiah 64:6 “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…”
My best is like a filthy rag. If you’ve never heard what that word “filthy rag” really means, it means a bloody tampon. That’s what I have to offer him. My best acts, all the “greatness” I acquire on earth is nothing more than a bloody tampon to Him.
A little further in Isaiah the Lord says this:
“I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.
I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’
to a nation that did not call on my name.
All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people.
But they follow their own evil paths
and their own crooked schemes. ” (Is 65:1-2)
God is in the now of things. Jimmy Evans preached a great sermon on “The God of Now” that I really like. I’ll tell you this, I don’t want to be the one not asking for His help, when He’s ready to respond. I don’t want to be the one not looking, when He’s wanting to be found. I don’t want to be following my own evil path or crooked scheme when Papa is crying out “I’m here! I’m here!”
Where is my focus today? Where is my focus in this moment? Right Now! That’s all that really matters.
Good word Bryan. Thanks for digging in to this.
God help me to properly prioritize those things that will stand before those things that will fade away and are presently rotting.
It is so hard to break out of the snare of “stuff”. It would be nice if Daddy gave us an “easy” buttton.
Thats good. Made me laugh a bit. I have a hard time with the understanding that none of this matters and I can still ask for it because God wants to bless me with it. Obviously its a heart deal, but what is the action behind this line of thinking?
You’re absolutely right. It’s a heart thing. The stuff – if God decides to bless us with it – is just that… a blessing for the here and now. To me, it’s an mental exercise in recognizing where it came from. It had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with Him.
Either way, I choose to focus on the task set before me, to come alongside of that which God is already doing (Eph 2:10, The Message) “He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing” – (See Post)