Clever Lies

In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.

-- 2 Peter 2:3 (NLT)

If you are reading this from the Internet, then you no doubt have seen or received countless emailings offering you great sums of money from someone you've never heard of, and all you have to do is accept and hold an even greater sum for a little while. Or perhaps you have an item for sell and someone offers to pay far more than you are asking, but they need you to give them the excess back. Or you have won a lottery in a foreign country worth millions of dollars and all you have to do is pay $319.42 for processing the payout and local taxes. Or... The variety is great, but the goal is the same: to separate you from your money. Con artists, swindlers, frauds and cheats, they tell clever lies in their attempts to take some portion of your hard earned income or savings, and the more they can get the better. In a very true sense, they try to take advantage of our own greediness, offering a lot for a little. Of course, they have no intention on delivering anything, let alone a fortune.

If we are too greedy and fall for their trap, we lose. We lose what we have toiled long for, we lose some portion of our self-respect, we may even suffer some loss of respect from our loved ones. But Peter makes it clear that those who make up and spread these clever little lies in their desire to defraud you have already been condemned by God, and their destruction is assured and imminent.

Greed serves no one but Satan.

Father, thank You for promising swift judgment on those who seek no greater goal than to rob their neighbors. Please blind our eyes and deafen our ears to their appeals, their clever lies. Please remove all traces of greed from our own hearts, that we might use our blessings to better serve You and our brothers and sisters in this world. Amen.