{"id":621,"date":"2007-03-30T18:51:15","date_gmt":"2007-03-30T18:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=54"},"modified":"2007-03-30T18:51:15","modified_gmt":"2007-03-30T18:51:15","slug":"32307","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=621","title":{"rendered":"3\/23\/07"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our family went to a “Thirsting in the Desert” Lenten prayer service at the Catholic Worker House in Cleveland. \u00a0 One of the readings was about Jesus fasting in the desert and then being exposed to a series of temptations by Satan. \u00a0 At one point, Satan takes Jesus to \u00a0the top of a mountain where, in \u00a0“an instant,” they look out at at all the kingdoms of the world. \u00a0 Then Satan says: \u00a0 “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want.” \u00a0 During \u00a0a discussion that followed \u00a0in the prayer service, I said that while you don’t hear this much from the pulpit, doesn’t the passage indicate Satan can “bless” people (“…and I can give it to anyone I want.”)? \u00a0 So often you hear American Christians these days say that God has “blessed” them with the big house, or the nice car, or… \u00a0 But has He? \u00a0 Or rather, has God “blessed” someone with, say, a good income? \u00a0 And then this person takes most of the money and \u00a0is enticed (by Satan, through modern advertising, etc.) to spend it on the big house, or the nice car for: themselves<\/em>. \u00a0 Just like Satan tried to entice Jesus. \u00a0 Meanwhile, 24,000 people currently starve to death every day in the world and scores of little children sleep on inner city streets. \u00a0 What Satan has done with many an American Christian is: He has taken them to the top of a mountain and has \u00a0shown them a \u00a0glamorized version of: “the American Dream.” \u00a0 An Economics Professor at St. Mary’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, \u00a0recently said to me: \u00a0 “Satan will give us anything we need — to go to Hell.” \u00a0 But if you really think about all this spiritually, it’s not our<\/em> money in the first place, it’s God’s<\/em> money — that is on loan to us. \u00a0 So, in line with the \u00a0God’s gospel message, \u00a0we can live very simply<\/em> and \u00a0invest a good portion of the money into God’s kingdom by trying to end hunger, poverty, and the like. \u00a0 Or, more in line with Satan’s ‘gospel,’ we can \u00a0invest \u00a0most of the money \u00a0in the big house, nice car (nice furniture, expensive entertainment, nice clothes…), for ourselves. \u00a0 And oh yeah, if there’s any left over– \u00a0give a little bit (percentage-wise) to the poor. \u00a0 \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 There’s another Bible story about three servants who are given money by their master before he goes away for awhile. \u00a0 Upon his return, he finds two of the servants have invested his money, and both show good returns. \u00a0 (Year 2007 corrolary: \u00a0 These servants \u00a0have invested in programs to financially adopt Third World children. \u00a0 They have \u00a0invested to \u00a0subsidize mentoring programs for inner city youth. \u00a0 They have invested in outreach programs to impact rural poverty in Mississippi… \u00a0 And the “return” has been an end to some of this abject poverty — and, ultimatley, \u00a0more souls for God. \u00a0 Then there’s the “worthless servant” who has “buried” the money he was given in a big house, nice car, IRA account… It doesn’t bode well for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our family went to a “Thirsting in the Desert” Lenten prayer service at the Catholic Worker House in Cleveland. \u00a0 One of the readings was about Jesus fasting in the desert and then being exposed to a series of temptations …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}