Friday, October 12, 2012

Strange Idols

James warns us that showing partiality or favoritism toward the wealthy makes us transgressors of the law of liberty (James 2:8-9). Making your decision on how to treat someone based on their income is self focused, rather than God and people focused. We are to treat other people the way we would like to be treated, "love your neighbor as yourself". This clearly places both the poor and rich as our neighbor. If we honor the wealthy, we must honor the poor.

Our provision comes from our Father (Mt 6:11, 25). To be envious or to covet what someone else has is to despise God's decision for us (Ephesians 5:5). James calls it breaking God's law and Paul calls it idolatry.