October 15, 2008
Economic Crisis
It’s apparent that no one fully understands the economic crisis we are now experiencing. Most of us are thinking in terms of businesses and individuals losing money, however many of our churches too have been active in the investment arena. It’s entirely possible that the leaders of wealthy churches are sweating bullets over losses in their unsecured funds. I can’t say I have much sympathy. Scripture is very plain about storing up treasures on earth. It should come as no surprise if God decides to tear down the storehouses of wealthy churches through this economic crisis.
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5 comments:
Gail;
-----It is sad that almost every church is an organization. Organizations have financial affairs, balance sheets, p&l’s, assets, agendas, legal matters and the likes requiring somebody to control it all. They become tied to stuff. Then the preachers go into the midst of all this stuff and try to convince people not to get caught up in the stuff of their lives. God did not order this. He ordained a living body of believers whose affairs were the character traits of a new spiritual life. The kindness, consideration, forgiveness, self-control, forbearance, acceptance, charity, gentleness, goodness, and the likes are the affairs He ordained for the holy temple He intended the church to be. But our need to organize and control has overlaid these real affairs with the heavy burdens of worldly assets. Now as this world stands at a sharp corner to turn, the church’s assets must turn that corner as well, because they are physically tied to the world. Though it will seem that the church will turn this corner with its assets, the holy temple His people are being built into will not. Its affairs are unaffected by the world, because they are the spiritual assets of the new life.
Love,
Steve Corey
Hey Steve,
Glad to hear from you. I was beginning to wonder if you’d run out of things to say!
Gail
Gail;
-----These last few weeks have been maybe the hardest I have gone through. I committed to installing a wood stove at home. This required the building of an 8’x10’ addition to the house. I chose to do it partially in natural stone. That takes a lot of time. At the same time, five weeks ago my copy machine at work goes bad. My October 15 deadline work gets badly slowed as I use my HP all in one to do the copy chores for two weeks while waiting for the parts and repair. My copy machine was brought back into service late on a Friday afternoon. My required work pace had been raised to an average of 3.5 tax returns per day to meet the deadline: not impossible, but difficult. The following Monday morning my computer was dead. I salvaged Monday as a work day by doing all the pencil work I had at that time, but lost Tuesday and Wednesday entirely to scratching together a replacement. Eleven PM Wednesday night, after laying stone for three hours on my addition project (which has to go forward because of the coming cold - can’t lay stone in a freeze) I began downloading the bare-bones data files I needed. Finished that Four AM, off to bed a couple hours, then to the office to load up software and data. Early Thursday afternoon I am finished and ready to work! Except I needed one more piece of software I could not find stored anywhere. So I downloaded it off the internet. By five PM I realized my computer was down again. By noon Friday I learned my downloaded software brought with it sixteen viruses which spread into 90 Windows files. The rest of Friday was spent wiping clean the hard drive, reloading Windows, all my software again, and all my data. Monday I was back in operation needing to do 5 tax returns a day to meet the Oct 15 deadline. Everyday from then to yesterday started at three AM or earlier, and included the three hours of required rock work in the evening at home to keep that project on track. Thank God, that became a kept schedule for two weeks until yesterday!
I thank God for every minute of that nightmare. I have shared with you before my struggle with foul language, how it has been an ingrained habit in my life since I was four years old. When I found my computer dead that Monday morning, I did not swear once. I just sighed and told myself I must deal with this. Until Friday evening I did not pass one profanity. I addressed God with my thoughts, I prayed a lot. I dropped two moderate stink words when chuckling with my wife that Friday evening, and have been clean since. It seems that the tremors of this disaster shook so deep into my soul the Lord and I were able to get some kind of switch flipped there that has left my feelings a bit more humble and my mouth a lot more clean. Right now the meaning of “Praise Him” permeates my heart, not because I met my October 15 deadline quite well, but because the years of crying out to escape the bad habit of vulgar language and thought have been answered. I pray now to simply practice this new fresh air, and carry it forward.
Love,
Steve Corey
Wow Steve, I feel your pain. I was just now working on a blog about suffering and this is the Scripture I was playing with, “So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.”(1Peter 4:19 NIV)
Thank you
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