Cain and Abel

And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.

Genesis 4:2

Sometime later, another little bundle of life came along, and Adam and Eve named him Abel. We aren’t told how old Cain was when his brother was born, but we can probably assume he had a mixed reaction to the arrival of the new attraction, as most older brothers do.

Here was some competition—a little upstart who needed to be kept in his place, a rival who needed to know who was boss. After all, Cain was the firstborn.

Sure enough, Cain grew up to be a great success. He was what we would call a high achiever. He took up agriculture, and became the world’s first farmer, and he was good at it. God blessed him, and Cain’s farm produced marvellous crops. But just because a person has material success, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he or she has favour with God.

Many people today believe that material blessings are the clearest evidence of God’s pleasure with a person. However, we see many counter-examples of this in the Bible. Even Jesus Himself said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Mat. 8:20; Luke 9:58). We will surely be surprised when we get to heaven, both by who is there, and by who is not.

On a scale of 1 (never) to 10 (always), how likely are you to equate a person’s success with God’s blessing and/or pleasure with him or her?