Hey friend: our jobs, our norms, our financial wealth, even our passions may be our comfort zones.
But here, I am focusing on the idea of the measure of our monetary accumulation as wealth or poverty, and inviting us to focus on true fulfillment which is the nucleus of all forms of success.
Monetary poverty has been falsely defined as inferiority on the social model of hierarchy. THIS is why Jesus spoke about money so often. He was dethroning it from its position as god or the indicator of God’s favour.
In all of the MANY places that He talked about money, Jesus did everything that He could possibly do to help us to recognize that while money is a powerful tool it is not the definer of success. Nor is surplus of money what makes us God-honouring.
To be fulfilled – poor in spirit – equal to all – anti-supremacist – we must engage in life with love, and all its parts: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
None of these qualities is dependent on academic education, monetary wealth, or intellectual abilities. These things: academic education, monetary wealth and intellectual abilities are tools of life that are utilized as a part of the building of a healthy symbiotic society.
But love: and all its parts: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) is the state of being in which we can healthily exist and co-exist, and this state is where we develop the skills to use our tools most effectively and efficiently to move our symbiotic society forward together.
Take Jesus’ conversation about money in Mark chapter 12 verses 38-44.
Let’s especially look at punishment in verse 40. Jesus’ whole life on Earth shows us that God never punishes. Not once. No matter what anyone did punishment was never imposed by Jesus.
So what is punishment?
The burdens that we are asked to cast on God is the natural burdensome shame which is the product of choosing to engage with evil. That burden is punishment. The longer we accrue it and refuse to surrender it the heavier it becomes. THIS is what Beelzebub was experiencing in Paradise Lost. It was not remorse.
I cried for him as I read this work by Milton in Jennifer Doede’s English class. I literally asked God if there was no way that He could forgive Lucifer turned Beelzebub.
God took that blame and doubt from me for yearrrrsss, until about eighteen months or so ago when I finally understood that HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN FORGIVEN.
The full weight of the burden of Beelzebub’s stubborn prideful choice to stay rebellious is entirely his doing. His choice.
The consuming fire produced by the absolute ultimate rejection of love is created by him, and humans are invited and WARNED not to be lulled into the conflagration which he has made.
We are invited to choose the healing freeing path of love, as he also has the opportunity STILL to do. If only he would choose it then he would finally have the glory that he craves, and that glory would have him ascending higher than he could ever ask, dream, or imagine, and he would enjoy it infinitely more – because it would be in harmony, in unity with everyone and everything in connection with the Source of all.
Seeing this finally freed me enough to feel real anger. This moved me towards seeking accountability from myself and from others, because FREEDOM MATTERS.
I am inviting us to release that guilt which we unconsciously carry when we refuse to repair our relational ruptures and acknowledge the pain that we have caused.
The fire of rebellion burns bright in the cosmos, but the light of love shines quietly in the temple courts of our hearts where God wants to gather with all people with equal honour.
While Beelzebub clings to power and pride,
the widow releases all she has—not in despair, but in sacred defiance of the lie that money defines worth.
She is the sermon.
She is the answer to “what is wealth?”
Yeshua M’shikha highlighted the widow as wealthy. Because she gave her all from her heart. She was God-honouring. She had done the hard work of getting to love through forgiving those who deliberately devoured her earthly possessions.
That is the value of love. That is wealth. That is fulfillment. That is the joy of being ourselves as a part of the whole.
Yeshua is not praising poverty.
He is praising the release of false wealth, the surrender of the ego, the dwell-in-Love kind of giving –
the dwell-in-Love kind of living.
The kind that is not about giving things away, but about giving oneself over—to the One who frames us in joy, truth, and belonging.
This is freedom.
Nurturing Kindred 