For example..@ Salvation,St_Thomas_Aquinas and others.
“Pick up your cross and follow me.” were his instructions. That sounds like poor and suffering to me.
Do YOU live in poverty? Perhaps you do. I have and am close to it now but comfortable and happy. BUT I have Faith. I ask God to show me the way to prosperity. However I submit to His plan.
@laweeks
Oprah would love that....and,... Nothing like a 10.5 million dollar home to feel good in.
What does Oprah have to do with this discussion? As to living in a nice, expensive home...
Class envy? My family and I have been happy to live in a hovel. Heated with wood and kerosene. No electric, gas or at times water. I asked God for a better place and he answered.
Don't get me wrong. As a family we worked to make things better. We prayed and asked God for his Guidance and Blessing. He answered.
We COULD go back to the old place though. Would that make you happy and me more of a Christian?
@Romulus
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Kinda sounds like prosperity to me.
We are all Blessed. We are Thankful for that and all of His Grace.
I am at work but I will leave you with one of my personal observations that may or may not be pertinent.
The Measure of a Man.
The measure of a Man isn't how he looks, or speaks, or his wealth or standing in his community.
The Measure of a Man is how he applies his God given Strengths to:
Provide for his family
Help his neighbors
And take care of himself.
When he does these things to the best of his ability he is a Man in God's eyes.
I grew up on a farm living in a two bedroom house which along the way got added onto. Outside plumbing at first too.
During the depression I remember eating lots of eggs potatoes and chicken. We were all very happy and all pitched in to help in the garden, the fields, etc.
I am not poor now. My condo is paid for and just got remodeled — thanks to a lot of elbow grease from my five children.
However, I live on a lot less than most people, and to me it doesn’t matter.
While living on the farm we would drive eight miles to church through snow and other kinds of weather. I now volunteer at my church every day of the week. God is good.
As to health — I was injured as a baby in an auto accident and suffered through a childhood having seizures from the head trauma in that accident. My seizures were controlled after the births of three children, and I had two more children.
My husband died 30 years ago from lung cancer. That was probably the hardest time of my life. For in the next 10 years I also had four other family members die, one (my father in law) whom I had to ID since he committed suicide.
I thank God for all my troubles — crosses — and my life today, even though it is difficult at times.
May God bless you. Truly I understand that picking up one’s cross to follow Jesus and experiencing suffering is a gift from Christ himself.
BTW — My children are all grown now, a real estate agent, a nurse, a teacher, an electrician and an attorney.
God has no obligation to make us rich. We are allowed to, sometimes. Sometimes we are not. Our job is to follow God where He leads, and let the rest stay in His hands:
"19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." - Jesus Christ
We are not promised riches, and we are told not to seek them. As Jesus said just a moment earlier:
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread,
12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Notice where Jesus tells us to pray for wealth? Me neither...
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."