BBD 03.25.21 Place Your Bets (Classic)

#1 · March 25, 2021, 10:45 am

Quote from Forum Archives on March 25, 2021, 10:45 am
Posted by: theburningbushdevotional <theburningbushdevotional@...>

Classic from 2002

The Burning Bush Devotional

25 March 2021

(This
devotional is a little dated, but in 19 years the problem with gambling has
only grown worse. There are still only two states without gambling: Utah and
Hawaii. In Oklahoma Indian casinos are everywhere and I am sure that more are
planned. In 2016, Americans lost, they lost! $116.9 billion dollars! Since 2002
we’ve had the subprime mortgage crisis aka the great recession 2008 and the disastrous
pandemic business shutdowns.)

Place Your Bets

And He
said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not
consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.’ - Luke 12:15.

In a
German newspaper, tennis star Martina Navratilova said that money is the only
thing that matters in the United States. She may be right. In a survey of teen
girls, it was found that for 93%, shopping was their favorite thing to do. We
also see the importance placed on money with the tremendous increase in
gambling venues. 48 states have some form of legalized gambling including
lotteries, video lottery machines, para-mutual betting, riverboat casinos, and
Indian casinos. In 1998, Americans spent $50 billion on gambling.

We are
currently in a crisis in the business world with Enron, and WorldCom crashing
and burning. But this is apparently just the tip of the iceberg, with rumors of
many more companies with accounting problems. Often, when people speak of
buying stock, they talk about it being a good bet or a bad bet. The stock
market has been used as just another gambling venue in the 1990s, and into the
21st Century. We have seen that in the name of making money anything is
permissible if you succeed; and when you are caught, as seen with some CEOs in
the hotseat, there is little contrition. Our whole economy has been warped and
perverted into the ideal of the gambler hitting the jackpot with little regard
for those who are hurt in the process.

Janet
Folger who is the national director of the Center for Reclaiming America,
author, and radio/TV commentator says that the costs associated with legalized
gambling far outweigh the benefits. Folger also says, "Each
compulsive gambler disrupts the lives of between ten and seventeen other
people. So we’re costing marriages. We’re disrupting the lives of up to
seventeen other people. We’re costing gamblers themselves their own lives; and
yet, we’re pouring more and more money into promoting gambling from our taxpayers.” Folger goes on to share, "In Atlantic City, once casinos were legalized, the
crime rate more than tripled. Based on a federally funded study, 86% of
compulsive gamblers commit felony crimes to further their addiction. This is
serious stuff. It’s costing people their lives. It’s costing the taxpayers
money.”

In May
of 2002, more than 200 religious leaders sent an open letter to President Bush
and Congress, urging them to address the devastating effects of legalized
gambling that they describe as a "moral
and cultural cancer.”

Our
lives, as Jesus points out, does not consist of how many material possessions
or how much money we have. Surely life is about more than that! If
money is the only thing that matters to a person, what a little life they have.
The more we focus in on money, and the gaining of more possessions, the more
life is taken from us. The more we focus in on the eternal things, the more
life we have.

Let us
seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33); and then, everything
else will fall into the proper perspective for us. When our focus is on God, we
see that in the eternal perspective money is really not all that important. We
may very well gain the whole world, but what good is the world if we
lose our souls in the process?

Copyright © 2002 - 2021. Ed
Wrather. The Burning Bush website has been online since January 31, 1998. On
June 8, 1998 the email version of the Burning Bush Devotional was first sent.
Ed Wrather began writing devotionals in the early 1990s. The distribution of
those first devotionals was primarily through the Burning Bush Newsletter sent
to prison facilities throughout the United States and Canada.

Visit the
Burning Bush website:

www.theburningbush.net

The Burning Bush websites are
celebrating 23 years online since January 31, 1998. Since June 8, 1998 the
Burning Bush Devotional has been spreading the truth of God's Word to subscribers
across the world. At one time there were 18,000 subscribers in more than 70
countries to the devotional but that has now shrunk to around 9,000.

You can leave comments/feedback
about the devotionals at www.theburningbush.net.

There is a translation tool on
theburningbush.net website in the top right-hand corner of all of the pages.

Check out the Scripture Index being constructed for the Devotionals at
the Burning Bush website. The Links are in about the middle of the home page.
Topics for each devotional are now being added to the Index.

Please pray for God to touch and
bring about His will in these lives: Caleb Freeman, Buck & Barbara Wright,
Gwen P., James Perkins and his wife, Vonnie, Evi Porter, Addison, JoJo, Bailey
and Nicky; Ralph and De Chapman; Hilary; Cody Stahlman; Patsy M.; Zoe Marx; Brandy
and Jadyn’s Dad; Patricia Rohman and Lisa Butler who has had a stroke; Clayton
T. and Sarah.

Please pray for the coronavirus
COVID19 pandemic to come to an end. Pray for treatments and a cure for the
virus to be rapidly found and deployed. Pray for all those afflicted to be
healed and for our leaders to have supernatural wisdom and ability to lead us
through this pandemic.

Please pray for an end to the
rioting, looting, wanton destruction, and the racial hatred in the USA and that
it will be replaced with peace and love. May God help the USA! Many prayer
needs are posted at the Burning Bush website on the Prayer Request page. You
can also post your prayer requests there (Of
course, I am always in need of prayer - please pray for me. 03.18.18 I accepted the call to be the pastor of Fairview Baptist
Church in Elk City, Oklahoma. Please pray for me and for this church.).

You can contact Ed Wrather at
theburningbushdevotional@gmail.com

If you enjoy the devotional please
recommend it to your friends. They may subscribe by sending a blank email to burningbushdevo-join@welovegod.org

There is a complete devotional
archive at the old Burning Bush website. Here is the URL: http://www.theburningbush.org/DevotionalArchive.html.

Devotion vs Devotional: We do our
devotions, we read devotionals.

You can unsubscribe to the burningbushdevo devotional group by
sending a blank email to burningbushdevo-leave@welovegod.org and then respond
to the confirmation email.

You may subscribe to the html text group (Because of time constraints
the devotional is only being sent now in html format) by sending a blank email
to burningbushhtml-join@welovegod.org and you may unsubscribe by sending a
blank email to burningbushhtml-leave@welovegod.org and then respond to the
confirmation email. If the link does not work, copy and paste the link.

--

To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: burningbushdevo-leave@welovegod.org

Posted by: theburningbushdevotional <theburningbushdevotional@...>

Classic from 2002

The Burning Bush Devotional

25 March 2021

(This
devotional is a little dated, but in 19 years the problem with gambling has
only grown worse. There are still only two states without gambling: Utah and
Hawaii. In Oklahoma Indian casinos are everywhere and I am sure that more are
planned. In 2016, Americans lost, they lost! $116.9 billion dollars! Since 2002
we’ve had the subprime mortgage crisis aka the great recession 2008 and the disastrous
pandemic business shutdowns.)

Place Your Bets

And He
said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not
consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.’ - Luke 12:15.

In a
German newspaper, tennis star Martina Navratilova said that money is the only
thing that matters in the United States. She may be right. In a survey of teen
girls, it was found that for 93%, shopping was their favorite thing to do. We
also see the importance placed on money with the tremendous increase in
gambling venues. 48 states have some form of legalized gambling including
lotteries, video lottery machines, para-mutual betting, riverboat casinos, and
Indian casinos. In 1998, Americans spent $50 billion on gambling.

We are
currently in a crisis in the business world with Enron, and WorldCom crashing
and burning. But this is apparently just the tip of the iceberg, with rumors of
many more companies with accounting problems. Often, when people speak of
buying stock, they talk about it being a good bet or a bad bet. The stock
market has been used as just another gambling venue in the 1990s, and into the
21st Century. We have seen that in the name of making money anything is
permissible if you succeed; and when you are caught, as seen with some CEOs in
the hotseat, there is little contrition. Our whole economy has been warped and
perverted into the ideal of the gambler hitting the jackpot with little regard
for those who are hurt in the process.

Janet
Folger who is the national director of the Center for Reclaiming America,
author, and radio/TV commentator says that the costs associated with legalized
gambling far outweigh the benefits. Folger also says, "Each
compulsive gambler disrupts the lives of between ten and seventeen other
people. So we’re costing marriages. We’re disrupting the lives of up to
seventeen other people. We’re costing gamblers themselves their own lives; and
yet, we’re pouring more and more money into promoting gambling from our taxpayers.” Folger goes on to share, "In Atlantic City, once casinos were legalized, the
crime rate more than tripled. Based on a federally funded study, 86% of
compulsive gamblers commit felony crimes to further their addiction. This is
serious stuff. It’s costing people their lives. It’s costing the taxpayers
money.”

In May
of 2002, more than 200 religious leaders sent an open letter to President Bush
and Congress, urging them to address the devastating effects of legalized
gambling that they describe as a "moral
and cultural cancer.”

Our
lives, as Jesus points out, does not consist of how many material possessions
or how much money we have. Surely life is about more than that! If
money is the only thing that matters to a person, what a little life they have.
The more we focus in on money, and the gaining of more possessions, the more
life is taken from us. The more we focus in on the eternal things, the more
life we have.

Let us
seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33); and then, everything
else will fall into the proper perspective for us. When our focus is on God, we
see that in the eternal perspective money is really not all that important. We
may very well gain the whole world, but what good is the world if we
lose our souls in the process?

Copyright © 2002 - 2021. Ed
Wrather. The Burning Bush website has been online since January 31, 1998. On
June 8, 1998 the email version of the Burning Bush Devotional was first sent.
Ed Wrather began writing devotionals in the early 1990s. The distribution of
those first devotionals was primarily through the Burning Bush Newsletter sent
to prison facilities throughout the United States and Canada.

Visit the
Burning Bush website:

http://www.theburningbush.net

The Burning Bush websites are
celebrating 23 years online since January 31, 1998. Since June 8, 1998 the
Burning Bush Devotional has been spreading the truth of God's Word to subscribers
across the world. At one time there were 18,000 subscribers in more than 70
countries to the devotional but that has now shrunk to around 9,000.

You can leave comments/feedback
about the devotionals at http://www.theburningbush.net.

There is a translation tool on
theburningbush.net website in the top right-hand corner of all of the pages.

Check out the Scripture Index being constructed for the Devotionals at
the Burning Bush website. The Links are in about the middle of the home page.
Topics for each devotional are now being added to the Index.

Please pray for God to touch and
bring about His will in these lives: Caleb Freeman, Buck & Barbara Wright,
Gwen P., James Perkins and his wife, Vonnie, Evi Porter, Addison, JoJo, Bailey
and Nicky; Ralph and De Chapman; Hilary; Cody Stahlman; Patsy M.; Zoe Marx; Brandy
and Jadyn’s Dad; Patricia Rohman and Lisa Butler who has had a stroke; Clayton
T. and Sarah.

Please pray for the coronavirus
COVID19 pandemic to come to an end. Pray for treatments and a cure for the
virus to be rapidly found and deployed. Pray for all those afflicted to be
healed and for our leaders to have supernatural wisdom and ability to lead us
through this pandemic.

Please pray for an end to the
rioting, looting, wanton destruction, and the racial hatred in the USA and that
it will be replaced with peace and love. May God help the USA! Many prayer
needs are posted at the Burning Bush website on the Prayer Request page. You
can also post your prayer requests there (Of
course, I am always in need of prayer - please pray for me. 03.18.18 I accepted the call to be the pastor of Fairview Baptist
Church in Elk City, Oklahoma. Please pray for me and for this church.).

You can contact Ed Wrather at
theburningbushdevotional@gmail.com

If you enjoy the devotional please
recommend it to your friends. They may subscribe by sending a blank email to burningbushdevo-join@welovegod.org

There is a complete devotional
archive at the old Burning Bush website. Here is the URL: http://www.theburningbush.org/DevotionalArchive.html.

Devotion vs Devotional: We do our
devotions, we read devotionals.

You can unsubscribe to the burningbushdevo devotional group by
sending a blank email to burningbushdevo-leave@welovegod.org and then respond
to the confirmation email.

You may subscribe to the html text group (Because of time constraints
the devotional is only being sent now in html format) by sending a blank email
to burningbushhtml-join@welovegod.org and you may unsubscribe by sending a
blank email to burningbushhtml-leave@welovegod.org and then respond to the
confirmation email. If the link does not work, copy and paste the link.

To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: burningbushdevo-leave@welovegod.org