“You, Lord, have abandoned your people, the descendants of Jacob. They are full of superstitions from the East; they practice divination like the Philistines and embrace pagan customs. Their land is full of silver and gold; there is no end to their treasures. Their land is full of horses; there is no end to their chariots. Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made. So people will be brought low and everyone humbled—do not forgive them. Go into the rocks, hide in the ground from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty! The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled and human pride brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.” Isaiah 2:6-11
I will admit this is a bit of a strange passage as it may clash with a lot of assumptions people have about God. For example, many people associate being in God’s will with getting very good things, and yet in this passage regarding those forsaken by God (because they have forsaken the Lord and God respects free will) you will notice that nothing they have in terms of external circumstance or material possessions seem to be bad. In fact, they actually seem to be very well off. No end to their treasures, tons of chariots or in today’s terms we could say they have multiple luxury cars and stuff. Life seems very good for them and yet God is not with them. Now with that in mind, some may be tempted to think well what is the point of God? And it is very important to be honest with yourself about what you think you are worshiping God for.
When you make a “God” out of material things it is very easy to mistake doing well financially with doing well morally. But although it is rather common in today’s culture to equate having wealth with earning wealth by the means of a good character and that is not always the case. I will add the inverse is also true, as many assume if someone doesn’t have a lot of material things that it means they must not have discipline working or are otherwise lacking in character. But doing the right thing doesn’t always result in material benefits, sometimes a strong character means making a sacrifice and results in less access to the possessions society values.
Misguided assumptions of what it looks like to be blessed by God are morally dangerous. We should want to be Godly because we are inspired by God’s goodness of character and see modeling love as our ultimate standard of success. If we are just focused on material things it is easy to forget about our commitment to follow God and look down on others while judging people’s goodness by a standard that God doesn’t even use. But arrogance is not righteousness and we need to be careful that we are measuring success by character like how loving we are rather than how much stuff we have.
