“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.
Malachi 3:5 (NIV)
Worth the Wages
As of September 2021, the average Canadian salary was $65,773.18 per year for full-time employees across the country. The salary trend is positive, and the majority of Canadian workers are earning more than they did in the previous year. The average annual salary in Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador now exceeds those in Quebec, a traditionally economically strong province. The average Canadian salaries in 2021 in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, British Columbia and Ontario are all within $5,000 of each other.
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I visited a church in the middle of a rice field in Cambodia a few years back and the walls were covered with Bible verses in the beautiful Cambodian script. I asked what Bible verses had been chosen to do on the walls. I was expecting the ones that grace the walls of churches in Canada – something like Holiness unto the Lord, or Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness, or some such thing, Instead, the verses were like Malachi 3:5: “‘So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,’ says the Lord Almighty.” God cares for those who have been denied justice, who have oppressed widows and orphans. There are millions around the world who face daily persecution for their faith, or because they have a different political opinion. Christians are called to speak up on their behalf and to make sure that we treat those in our lives with dignity and justice. God expects that.
These have been words from the heart.
Bob Beasley