A WORD TO THE WISE. Proverbs 28: 25

Proverbs 28: 25     He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife,
but he who trusts in the Lord will be prospered.

Proverbs 28: 25. Some translations refer to a proud or arrogant man.  Others refer to the greedy or covetous man.  So, the principle is that pride and greed are interchangeable & synonymous vices.   

If I think that I’m all that, then I want all that there is as the due reward for allowing you peons to benefit from my existence.  If I want what you have because you have it, it means that I think myself so above you (and you so far beneath me) that it is inherently unfair for you to have something good unless I have something much better.

And that, boys and girls, is where drama comes from.

That’s why thieves get genuinely mad when the people they’re robbing try to stop them.  That’s why community-destroying criminals speak self-righteously about the sin of snitching.  That’s why multi-billion dollar companies that trim their expenses by dumping poison into not-so-rich people’s water supplies and robbing workers of their legal wages, feel justified in complaining about the intrusion of government agencies.  And why instead of grabbing onto opportunities to work, to learn to manage money,  and to build a life and family the way God tells us to; some people choose instead to become professional beggars. (By the way, today’s professional beggars are much more sophisticated than those of ancient days.  Today, they have to be able to fill out forms, make phone calls, and present an appropriately sympathetic backstory.)

All this drama flows from the fountain of pride, arrogance, greed, and covetousness.

If your money is consistently the product of your drama, then Ding! Ding! Ding!  All of the above applies to you.

If your regular way of getting what you want/need includes playing members of a family, a church, a community, or an office against each other, then you are the person described in the first half of Proverbs 28: 25.  Drama doesn’t follow you. You bring drama.

But if you  want to call yourself a Christian, then you have to change because the last half of the verse is a stated promise and an implied warning from God.

The stated promise is that if you will put trust in God instead of trusting in your hustle, then God will provide for your needs----and do so abundantly.  The stated promise is that if you will follow God’s methods instead of the techniques of the thief, the exploiter, the corrupter, and/or the professional beggar---- then you will see that God’s way pays off better.

The implied warning is that if you don’t change, if you don’t drop the hustle, if you don’t stop the doggone drama------then you will never have anything worthwhile.  You will not have a better life.  And even if you already get some money, you will not have peace or stability in your relationships, including your relationship with Jesus.

---Anderson T. Graves II

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church

Call/ fax: 334-288-0577
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