Reflective Beauty: Giving to Caesar

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Giving to Caesar

I'm glad that understanding and filing your taxes perfectly is not a condition to get to heaven or we should be in desperate straits! I did them as accurately and thoughtfully as I could. But the instructions had me rather bewildered and bewuthered last night.

I do not believe that, by necessity, any amount of taxes the government decides to make up is right. Authorities can overstep their God-given boundaries! When they do, it is the duty of good citizens to speak up. But I think a look at history calls us to wisdom in how we do so. Remember the caution of our Nation's founders. They took every possible pain to get justice without bloodshed. I pray our tax system can be reformed, but it will never happen in the angry way of the French Revolutionists.

And Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And they were amazed at Him. Mark 12:17

They were amazed because Jesus not only answered the question, but went after their hearts of hypocrisy. Taxes are important in that we are to obey the authorities God has placed over us, but of greater importance is our duty to the Highest Authority.

What is God's tax? All I have I owe to him, and yet His grace is a free gift! My place in heaven is secure forever because of Christ. Now, He invites me to give all I have to Him for my greater joy!

Today, am I giving God what is His?

1 comment:

Mrs. E10:46 AM
What a lovely blog!
Thank you for stopping by
Blessed Femina!!! It is a JOY
to meet a dear sister in the Lord.

Many Blessings~ Miss Jen
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To the One I want to reflect...

You are the sun
shining down on everyone,
light of the world
giving light to everything I see
beauty so brilliant
I can hardly take it in
and everywhere You are
is warmth and light

And I am the moon
with no light of my own
still You have made me
to shine
and as I glow
in this cold dark night
I know I can't be a light
unless I turn my face to You

Shine on me with Your light
Without You I'm a cold dark stone
Shine on me
I have no light of my own
You are the sun,
You are the sun,
You are the sun
And I am the moon

~Sara Groves~

Quotes on Happiness

We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
~C. S. Lewis~

God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.
~Jeremy Taylor~

God is the one Being in all the universe for whom seeking His own praise is the ultimately loving act. For Him, self-exaltation is the highest virtue. When He does all things "for the praise of His glory," He preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world that can satisfy our longings. God is for us! And the foundation of this love is that God has been, is now, and always will be for Himself.
~John Piper~

"At the end of things, The Blessed will say, “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven.” And the lost will say, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly."
~ C.S. Lewis ~

"Who is my neighbor?"

"I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know. God may call any one of us to respond to some far away problem or support those who have been so called. But we are finite and he will not call us everywhere or to support every worthy cause. And real needs are not far from us."
~ C. S. Lewis ~

Beauty vs. Attractiveness

Christians reading these reports must remember that beauty and attractiveness are not the same thing. Beauty, according to the Christian worldview, is established by God himself, and is inseparable from truth and goodness. Attractiveness is the mere delight of the eyes. In a sinful world, our eyes delight in many wrong things, and many of the most beautiful realities are, to the mere eyes, unattractive.

After all, we follow our Savior who “had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” [Isaiah 53:2]. The cross is not pretty, but it is beautiful. This is the ironic foundation of a Christian understanding of beauty. We cannot merely trust our eyes, for our eyes will lie to us, and we are to find beauty in truth.

Albert Mohler