How Deep Are Your Pockets?

Do You Have Deep Pockets?

"Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.  You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence.  You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.  You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous person.  He does not resist you."

James 5:4-6

The book of James is not an easy book to journal, for several reasons.  

1.  To many verses hit too close to home.

2.  It is not a book that can be peppered with humor for the most part, so it's not easy to read and enjoy it after I write.

3.  There are some passages that I look at and think, "This doesn't apply to me!"

But then God shows me my heart.

This is one such passage.  When I first began a cursory reading of it, I wondered how in the world to apply it to my life.  I am a homemaker, a wife and mom and grandmom.  I don't have laborers or run any kind of business.  How can this possibly apply to me?

Everything we do in life generally points to one of two things--how we relate to our God and how we relate to our fellow man. I am reminded of a passage in Malachi chapter 3.  God has been asking the Israelites a series of questions (and giving them the answers.)  He says in verses 8-10:  “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.  But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings.You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."

Jesus said in Luke 6:38, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” 

We have a missionary from Ivory Coast coming to speak to the grandchildren--girls and boys!--at a tea party on Monday.  She is leaving on Tuesday, and I have challenged the children; we are giving a donation to Lesley at the tea party.  I told them to pray about what God would like for them to give.  They can either use money that they already have or work to earn some money.  Even with children, I think the adage stands that how a person spends his money is a determiner in his relationship with God. I'm excited to see what God does in the lives of these precious children as they share what they have with Miss Lesley.

A theologian might pick this apart, but this is the message I received for myself in this.  I do not want to rob God or my fellow man, and the depth of my pockets is one of the determiners of my devotion to both.

How deep are your pockets?

Gloria