So what we learn from Jesus regarding possessions is that "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)
What we treasure is what is in our hearts, it is what we value, and how we live reflects what we treasure.
So, our billionaire President-elect has shown us what he treasures - himself. His narcissism has served him well in business as he has produced clothing overseas, bought Chinese steel for his buildings, gone bankrupt rather than pay his creditors (numerous times) and refused to pay his taxes. Now, after promising to have the backs of the working class, who he provoked with hatred, scapegoating others in our nation, he is showing all signs of showing what he treasures in his governance...
Wall Street de-regulation will allow the wealthy class like him to benefit at the expense of the rest of us. As we have already seen, it will mean the destruction of lives and futures financially for the public, but great profit for the few.
He will ship jobs overseas, encourage lay-offs and buy from foreign companies.
He will kill the rest of the 24 states' unions so that workers have no rights, no security, no recourse if they are mistreated or fired, worse salaries and now no healthcare benefits because their sub-par wages won't allow the exorbitant premiums for healthcare that we return to after Affordable Care is abandoned and 22 million people are kicked off of it. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will be no more, so that the insurance industry can flourish. The Department of Labor and Health and Human Services folk are being considered at this moment so that their buddies in medicine, pharmaceuticals and insurance can make a killing - literally - for profit.
The "for profit" schools will only be available to those who can pay, but the children will be able to work in the factories and on farms because labor laws will be relaxed, and the "for profit" prisons and debtors' prisons will be bursting at the seams, providing cheap labor to the local farms and factories - the new slavery. The government officials being considered for Education and Criminal Justice will see to it.
The environment will be a non-concern, so fracking, burning coal, spilling oil and polluting our water, air and land while wasting resources and destroying the planet will be commonplace - all for the profit of the few. Already government heads are being considered for the Department of the Interior, Natural Resources, Energy and others from among corporate heads in oil, lumber and other industries.
We will send our young people off to fight and die in war for the profit of the Military Industrial Complex. This is not new. Ask Dick Cheney how his Halliburton stocks have been going for the last 10 years!
The housing bubble, bank defaults, fraud, companies stealing pensions and other unchecked practices because of de-regulation that put us into the Great Recession that we were FINALLY digging ourselves out of (in spite of Republican obstructionists in Congress), will have a very happy rebound as the new Securities and Exchange Commissioner and appointees do as they are told.
Government will be auctioned off to the highest bidders - corporate sponsors - so that the Oligarchy can continue in unchecked plutocratic splendor, while the serfs in the street work until they die, not for a better life or the better life of their children, but just to survive the day. Citizens United and the killing of Dodd/Frank are just the tip of the iceberg here, folks.
I guess the good, "Christian" folk who supported this President overlooked the pesky passages regarding Greed in the Gospels, especially Jesus' very clear statement, "You cannot serve God and wealth." (Matthew 6:24), when they picked this guy as their candidate of choice.
Jesus also said, "You will know them by their fruits", regarding false prophets. (Matthew 7:16) He was referring to folk who appear to be sheep-like, but are wolves underneath - false prophets. This refers to pastors, to be sure, who say they love Jesus but bear fruits of greed, lust for power and prestige, rather than the fruit of the Spirit. It also refers to politicians who appear to be reasonable and seem to care for the poor, privileged and entitled majority (in culture) who have not gotten their way for a while, and who are afraid no one will anymore recognize their "superiority" or "supremacy" in the nation, and who have stirred up their hatred out of their fear in order to dupe them into giving them power. The predictable outcome is always that folk get hurt -
Millions of sojourners in the land who God loves (Deuteronomy 10:17-19; Matthew 25:31-46) will be deported, many on Trumped-up charges.
Muslims will be victimized by the white supremacist vigilantes (some of them good, muriKKKan "Christians"), profiled and deported, refugees whose lives are in danger refused entrance.
Women will lose their right to choose, regardless of circumstances or danger to themselves in this land of liberty, due to the misogynistic American Taliban.
Our LGBT sisters and brothers will lose not only their rights, but the protections of anti-LGBT discrimination laws, so that good "Christians" (muriKKKan Taliban) can have the liberty to discriminate, while white supremacist thugs brutalize folk.
Anyone not evangelical and fundamentalist "Christian" will be marginalized at the very least.
Voter suppression will not only continue, but be expanded and be normalized in the law again, the trend having started even before this election, and Gerrymandering will assure the Reprobate control over many states and federal government for decades to come...
The intellectuals, especially scientists, will be discredited and silenced.
The news media will be reduced to propaganda machines like Faux News.
When folk said they wanted this candidate to do as he said and "drain the swamp", they had no idea what cold-blooded reptilian practices he would institute instead, filling the swamp with the ruthlessly carnivorous power mongers that he has already shown he will appoint.
They will bear fruit off the backs of the exploited - the masses - at our expense. And the false prophets who backed them, the ones who stayed silent and the ones who did not care will hear Jesus say, "I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers", (Matthew 7:21-24) even though they prophesied in his name, cast out demons and did many works of power, because they have born BAD FRUIT.
"By their fruits you will know them." Jesus
I hope that you who claim to be "Christian" learn to live what Jesus taught, commanded and modeled, for THAT is faithfulness to God's Will - Kingdom Values. What we have seen in this election, and what we are seeing after it and what we will see from this administration has NOTHING to do with Christ Jesus. Though I will suffer along with most, especially with many I love who do not look like me, I will do so with a clear conscience knowing that I supported the most Christ-like platform in this election, until the primary was rigged. As you who voted in this administration suffer along with us, I pray that your conscience will be eased at some point, if you have one and do not try to blame everyone but yourselves for this. Repent (change your thinking so that your words and actions will change), and we will talk.
Pastor Jamie
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