"Now listen, you rich people, (YES THAT IS YOU!!!), weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. (THIS IS THE LAST DAYS, BY THE WAY). Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields (OR MADE YOUR CLOTHES) are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who are not opposing you." James 5:1-6
I've been avoiding it, I can't even type it now. But I know I live in sin. James also says, "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."
I know the Lord loves me, and He still speaks to me. But I know His voice is a little softer, and more distant because I keep ignoring His cries for His children over seas; who work in factories that make the fashion I keep buying. Even though I don't know what to do, I have to let it out. I have to acknowledge the fact that this is true of me. I guess it's my way of confessing my sin.
In the book: The Irresistible Revolution; Shane Claiborne writes, "I listened as a child from Indonesia stood to share and pointed to the giant scar on his face. 'I got this scar when my master lashed me for not working hard enough. When it began to bleed, he did not want me to stop working or to ruin the cloth in front of me, so he took a lighter and burned it shut. I got this making stuff for YOU.'"
He said that now the statistics had a face, and that poverty became personal. I want friends like the boy in Indonesia. I don't want to necessarily have a rally and picket in front of department stores. More than that, I want to be consumed by Jesus, so much so that I wouldn't even have time or desire to buy anything from murdered or exploited children or that I would be able to hear the "cries of the harvesters" when I walk into a place that sells that stuff.
I struggle to write this because now I have to be accountable to my convictions. I might be judged, I might hear the accusation of the enemy in my head. But I know my Shepard, I am His. I hear His voice. Let me hear it all the more as I see my poverty in front of You! I know I am "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked!" revelation 3:17. Purify my heart!
"Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent....To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. HE WHO HAS AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT IS SAYING TO THE CHURCHES!" ~ Revelation 3:19, 21-22
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