A Life Enhancing, Enriching, Ennobling, Enabling and Enduring Combination

UV 1349/10,000 A Life Enhancing, Enriching, Ennobling, Enabling and Enduring Combination
By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.
Proverbs 22 v 4
Riches are not in itself bad. The doctrine of renunciation of wealth in order to be godly is a man-made doctrine. It is in fact stated in scripture that it is the Lord who gives a person the ability to make riches. True riches begin,accrue and accumulate deep within a human being. An animal cannot be part of such an enriching or ennobling process. A man cannot be any richer than who he is. True riches are holistic- it is not spiritual alone or material alone. It is a combination of emotional, intellectual, practical, familial, social and spiritual riches. Honour is also considered a desirable thing. A successful , abundant and eternal life is also a blessing from the Lord. The best things in life are not achieved but bestowed by the grace of the Lord. His favour rests on those who humble themselves to believe in the Lord. The day or moment we realize we are collectively and individually next to nothing, that God is everything, we can become something in partnership with Him. Humility is not modesty among men but a submission to God, an acknowledgement and dependence on God’s grace in every aspect of our lives.
Humility and the fear of the Lord are a life-giving, life enhancing, enriching, enabling and enduring combination. The fear of the Lord implies that we will love His name and His Word for these are the two things from the eternal world that is given to us for sure, everything else came from human tradition, custom or man-made doctrine, religion or rules. When we love His name, He manifests Himself as saviour, guide, protector, provider, teacher, healer, advocate, friend, king, master, fortress and rock of salvation. He will animate the inanimate for us. He will breathe life into the dead or decaying parts of our lives. When we set our love upon His name, He will give us abundant life here and now and after that eternal life as promised in the Psalms. When we love His Word, we will grow in wisdom, stature or the esteem of God and the favour of God and man.
When we trust God, love His promises and fear to disobey His commands, we become heirs to all the blessings in the first fourteen verses in Deuteronomy Chapter 28 and we are protected from all the curses in the remaining 54 verses of the same chapter. Normally, riches, honour and a good life unaccompanied by humility and the fear of the Lord are sufficient to make human beings feel superior, proud, arrogant, selfish, covetous, lustful, boastful, merciless, deceitful and unfaithful. The Giver is replaced with the given. But the Lord wants to equip us with character so that we can handle these blessings with the proper and consistent attitudes. Humility will enable us to realize that none of these blessings came to us on account of our merits or abilities. The fear of the Lord will enable us to realize that any or all of these blessings can be taken away in a moment at the time of the Lord’s choosing.

Prateep V Philip