Ecclesiastes is the writings of a king who had it all and then lost it. Proverbs is the sayings of a young king whose relationship with Yahweh was growing in obedience. Proverbs is filled with great wisdom of the Kingdom of God. Ecclesiastes is filled with confused observations of a heart that had wondered from Yahweh and the struggles of trying to make sense of things without the context of Creator. Yet, in this dark place we find little nuggets of insight, such as Yahweh has designed things to be simple.
The Kingdom of God is founded on the attributes of our King and include the foundational materials of love, respect and honour. We can even see this in the Law of the old covenant. If you examine the purpose of this Law you soon discover that it created a culture of honour, based on love and respect. This was all designed to create an atmosphere of prosperity. The rich would look after the poor so everyone would have plenty. Even the immigrants, the widows and the orphans would finf a culture that honoured them.
It works in simplicity. If I am occupied with you instead of myself, and you are occupied with me instead of yourself, then we move forward together. We move forward because we aren't tripping over the rotten stuff that comes with self-centeredness such as jealousy , envy, pride. We find this same Kingdom culture in the new covenant with greater clarity.
Under the new covenant we are told to honour everyone. We are told that the Kingdom is about considering other people more important than ourselves and, when we consider our own needs to also consider the needs of others. We are told that we celebrate the successes and triumphs of other people because in such an atmosphere it means everyone will also celebrate ours. The seeds of envy, jealousy and pride are never given the opportunity to take root.
Such an atmosphere allows for the attitude of success and prosperity. Instead of running after my self-interest I am occupied with yours. I will do everything I can to make sure you succeed. I can do this safely because I belong to a Kingdom where people are occupied with my success too. I don't have to watch my back while I work for your success because other Kingdom citizens are occupied with watching my back.
This is a simple system of love, respect and honour. But the reason simple is not easy for us is because we find it hard to say no to ourselves. Jesus said to walk in his Kingdom the first step is to say no to ourselves. It is not about trusting other people as much as it is about trusting our King and Father's design. So it is simple and easy for me to honour you because you honour me. Jesus said that this was a given and would not cause treasure to be laid up in heaven because our reward for that is here and now; the treasure of loving relationships.
The complication comes when I honour you but you don't honour me. Now I am forced to watch my own back which puts us on the defensive and does not allow us to progress forward together. But this does not let me off the hook; I still have to honour you. Jesus says this is when treasure is being laid up in heaven, when we love those who don't love us back. In the well working Kingdom system we get to enjoy reward here but in a broken relationship there is reward but it is a delayed reward. Considering the condition of the world and the Church, many of us should be laying up a great deal of delayed reward.
Father has designed things well and simple. It is for us to discover this simplicity and value it enough to choose it for ourselves. It is the Kingdom system, the Kingdom currency and what allows us to move from a poverty mindset to one of prosperity. But we cannot fully operate in it until we learn to start saying no to ourselves because honour cannot happen until we can put the needs of others ahead of our own.
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