As we look at this we get a small insight into the wonderful
mind of the God who designed them all. I guess the first question that arises
in our minds is why is there such a profusion of flowers on each tree or vine?
Well there are three reasons that come to mind immediately: Firstly if we
observe the world around us we will realise that God just loves beautiful
things and we were made in “The Image and
Likeness of God” so we automatically appreciate what He appreciates and
love beautiful things too. This brings us to the second reason for His creating
so much beauty: He did it for us to enjoy! The third reason is that He is being
true to His word where He said: “If you
sow sparingly you will reap sparingly”. And this is one of His laws of life,
you will remember Jesus parable of the
sower where a sower went forth to sow and quite a lot of his seed was eaten
by birds and some plants died because of the difficult conditions, and some were
choked out by weeds. Therefore if he hadn’t sown his seed generously he would
have ended up with a very poor crop. This principle of generosity follows
through in all things as it is an integral part of the character of God as the
scripture says: “give and it shall be
given unto you; pressed down, shaken together and running over is how men shall
give unto you” and this follows on automatically as we comply with Jesus
first two commandments; “Love God, and
Love your neighbour as you love yourself”. Jesus went even further by
telling us to “love your enemies and do
good to those who persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely,
for my sake”. Therefore we must be generous with our forgiveness as well as
our love. He pointed out that even a
cheating tax collector can love his friends but we (His followers) must follow Jesus
example by hating the sin but loving the sinner, as He did when he said “Father forgive them for they know not what
they do” as He was nailed to the cross.
Unfortunately when people drift away from God they overlook
those two commandments, I just mentioned, and selfishness takes over and then
they make the love of money and possessions their God. As I write this the
banks are raising their loan rates to squeeze more money out of their
customers; the first of these banks to do this is already making a profit of 8
billion dollars and I believe their C.E.O. takes home a salary of 8 million. At
the same time they are installing more and more automatic machines to eliminate
as many tellers as they can. But this selfishness is everywhere; I even know of
a case in a nursing home where last week they reduced a resident’s daily pad
allocation by one to save $1 per day, (bad luck if that person has to sit in a
wet chair). Both of these decisions are based on the same principle: loving
money more than people.
Jesus said “you cannot
serve two masters....God and Money”. He tells us to be content if we have
food and clothing, but He means, of course, that we should have a close
relationship with Him too, because that creates true contentment and helps us
love others. The people who achieve this will go happily on to Eternal Life
whilst those who worship money and possessions or stack it away will depart
this life spiritually destitute and have Eternity to regret it.
No comments:
Post a Comment