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FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD...


...THAT He gave His only begotten Son, an example by deed that’s too tough an act to follow, but some nations like China—admittedly the world’s mightiest in both economic and military power—had trouble adopting a similar one-child policy.

As the Scriptures would have it, the same Son was quoted as saying in rebuke to a Judas Iscariot who was feigning concern for the have-nots but was actually dipping his hands into their funds: “You have the poor with you always, but you will not always have me.”

There down pat-- the in-your-face reality of dearth on earth, the human condition.

But in pre-election campaigns, Judas Iscariot copycats are wont to ply out sugar-coated sound bites in feigned appeal to vote-rich hordes of the impoverished gullible enough to believe. By such fruits we shall know who these liars are in our politically afflicted times.

The barefaced liar that Judas Iscariot was went on to betray the Son of Man, consequently saw the error of his ways and made attempt at atonement, an act of contrition via suicide. Unrepentant politicians are not similarly inclined to hang at the gallows—and no lynch mob has turned up in this neck of the woods to oblige them.

“It’s no shame to be poor. It’s no great honor either.” So laments a jolly spirit Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” as he went through the back-breaking tasks of keeping body and soul together, bringing food to the family table, and honoring time-worn traditions of serving the community in an entrepreneurial activity. He kept his faith despite body-and-soul wracking times.

The faithful are reminded by the Son of Man: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”

That kingdom is within—not without.

The bounty flows within the human spirit, not from the empty babble of callous politicos and Judas Iscariots purportedly out to bring an end to poverty.

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