Poverty

I was talking to some friends this evening about the book "Radical" by David Platt, what it represents and other books like "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper. Here we sit in America with our nice, pretty, clean, safe houses and cars with our computers, televisions, refrigerators full of food, soft beds, soft couches and all the comforts of life... At what point did we go wrong? When did we go too far? Are we really doing what Jesus said to do... "It is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

I'm finding myself needing to re-evaluate my own thought, motivations and patterns and wonder how much of them are cultural, and how much of them are actually scriptural.

Later, as I was putting Levi to bed and began to think of a song by Jason Upton:

Poverty
There's a power in poverty that breaks principalities
brings the authorities down to their knees
There's a brewing frustration and an ageless temptation
to fight for control by some manipulation
but the God of the kingdom and the God of the nations
the God of creation sends this revelation
the homeless and penniless Jesus the Son
the poor will inherit the kingdom to come
where will we turn when our world falls apart
and all the treasures we've stored in our barns
can't buy the kingdom of God
and who will we praise when we praised all our lives
men who build kingdoms and men who build fame
but Heaven does not know their names
What will we fear when all that remains
is God on the throne with a child in His arms
and love in his eyes
the sound of his heart cry