Psalm 73:4a English Standard Version (ESV) For they have no pangs until death;

Continuing on from yesterday let us examine the issue of conscience.

The wicked in their success will not demonstrate a conscience about what they have done to win. When lie, cheat and steal are all part of a game with no rules, they have done nothing wrong.

Grace and mercy, honor and righteousness are how we live this life in Christ. Our conscience guides us to act rightly. No one who gains wealth will look at our efforts as winning. Love of money is everything to them.

When we aim to win Christ we play by a different set of rules. This is not a game, it is life. The wicked will only recognize that fact when they are confronted with death, and then it is too late.

1 Corinthians 9:21 English Standard Version (ESV) To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law.

We are under the law of love. The demands of love are much more stringent than any law spoken of in the commandments or in the laws of mankind. Love our neighbors no matter their condition or how they treat us. Pray for those who spitefully abuse us. Forgive others even if they do not seek it.

We will not find those rules in the playbook of the wicked. Win at all cost is their motto.

It will cost them their souls but they do not value their own souls. They might not even believe they have a soul. They do not live by our definitions, nor do we live by theirs.

The standard of living for the wicked is what they can take.

The standard of living in Christ is in what we can give.

Psalm 73:3-12 English Standard Version

³ For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴ For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.
⁵ They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
⁷ Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
⁸ They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
⁹ They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.
¹¹ And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
¹² Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.

We are all subject to emotions for better or for worse. Searching for biblical examples is a daunting task as the history of mankind is fraught with extremes of emotions. If we are to control our emotions rather than becoming victims of them, we must choose wisely the examples set before us.

Here in the Psalm of Asaph we find a confession of condition that might allow us to look at both sides of emotions, controlled and lack of control.

Beginning with prosperity, it is the wicked heart that suborns arrogance in the face of success. The confession of Asaph of envy is aimed at arrogance and not on prosperity. Most of us have not tasted prosperity to the point of being in danger of arrogance. We can however relate to envy at the success of others.

What if that success we envy is in the area of spiritual gifts? Surely it cannot be wrong to desire to be successful in service gifts?

What if those gifts are neither natural nor born of the spirit in us? Is it right to be envious of gifts that we do not possess?