Word for the Day  February 27  Wednesday
By:  Evang. Cascille Hammack


"No servant can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money."
Luke 16:13

   The Word equates greed and the pursuit of wealth with idolatry, which is  demonic, 1 Co. 10:19,20; Col. 3:5.  The desire for wealth and pursuit of it bring enslavement.  Col. 3:1 teaches, "Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God."  Col. 3:1  Selfish, greedy people no longer find their goals and fulfillment centered in God, but rather in themselves and what they own.  They often take advantage of the poor, James 2:5,6 says, "Listen, dear brothers:  Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love him?"
   Deliverance from suffering, oppression, injustice and poverty will be given to God's poor.  Luke 6:20, 21 declares, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh."  When God sees His people in poverty, He declares they are rich and they should never be seen as spiritually or morally inferior, Rev. 2:9,  Jesus says to the church in Smyrna who was financially destitute,  "I know your afflictions and your poverty, yet you are rich!"  The word poverty in Greek (ptocheia) means "having nothing at all".  Note the difference in what Jesus said to the church in Laodicea, which had great material wealth, yet was considered "wretched, pitiful and poor" in Jesus' eyes.  Jesus said to the church in Laodicea, "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.  But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.  I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes so you can see."  Rev. 3:17,18 
   People must guard themselves today from being like the Pharisees who held the view of many that wealth was a sign of God's favor and that to be poor was a sign of faithlessness and God's displeasure.  This thinking is soundly rejected by Jesus Christ (Luke 6:20; 16:13; 18:24-25).