Chevron profited $4.35 Billion in quarter.

I hardly ever follow financial news, so these numbers shock me. Chevron profited $4.35 billion in second quarter earnings, as reported on USAToday.com, which it turns out was actually a let down on Wall Street.

"Chevron (CVX) said Friday its second-quarter earnings soared to a new high, but that wasn't enough to satisfy investors whose expectations have been raised by the oil industry's recent run of eye-popping profit. The company's shares tumbled 3.5%. "

"The company said it earned $4.35 billion, or $1.97 a share, for the three months ended in June. That compared with net income of $3.68 billion, or $1.76 a share, at the same time last year. "

"It marks the company's largest three-month profit in its 127-year history, eclipsing earnings of $4.14 billion registered in last year's final quarter after energy prices spiked in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "

I guess I just don't see it. That seems like an absurd amount of money to stick in the coffers at the expense of consumers. Good for the investors maybe, but I still just don't see it. We are talking BILLIONS not MILLIONS. The goal is to make money, but my goodness, this seems like an unreasonable amount to make in three months. I still think consumers are being raped at the gas pump, and I have hard time seeing it any other way.

Are we being raped?

USAToday Financial News Headline 28th July 2006:

ExxonMobil quarterly profit at $10.4B

Yesterday I traveled from the St. Louis area to Chicago's O'Hare Airport area. I haven't complained a whole lot about the rising cost of fuel, but I have joked a bit about thinking we were being raped at the pumps. But after seeing the today's headline in USAToday, I have this to say: America, we are being raped at the fuel pumps!

"Surging oil prices may be emptying the wallets of drivers topping off their gas tanks, but they're filling the coffers at ExxonMobil, which Thursday reported the second largest quarterly profit for a U.S. company."

$10.4 billion in profit???

That is a tremendous amount of money to make at the expense of America, who has been found guilty of hiring arsonists to burn their fuel consuming SUV's, so they could buy other fuel conserving vehicles.

I still hear the laughter that continues to echo off the hills in America as they made the trip from the pumps to the bank to deposit the money. Don't you hear it too? Wait what's that other sound? Might it be the outcry of America being raped at the pump?

Reading in Habbakkuk (How do you say that?!)

Last Sunday in Sunday School class we studied humility. One approach to studying humility was to examine its antonym, or the opposite of humility. In this case, pride would be the subject matter considered. Pride of life, or human pride, is anything that exalts itself above God and what He has done for us. It is self-exaltation. It portrays "Look what I have done." And we all know stories in the Bible where pride was the undoing of many a person -even death.

Well, this past week, I became aware of a scripture in Habbakkuk chapter two that I thought was interesting. In The Amplified Bible, verse four, we read:

"Look at the proud; his soul is not straight or right within him, but the [rigidly] just and the [uncompromisingly] righteous man shall live by his faith and in his faithfulness."

The King James version reads this way:

"Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith."

So we aren't guilty of taking things out of context we will acknowledge that the prophet was refering to those who were not heeding the warning of impending disaster at the hand of Israel's enemies, the Chaldeans. Instead they thought they could save themselves by their own methods -apart from God and His deliverance. It is a sickly soul, a soul without a right spirit, not fully submitted to God, an unrenewed mind, that thinks man can save himself. Hence, pride.

So leaving the context of the scripture we examined:

Apart from Christ, man cannot save themselves. Salvation and reconciliation only comes through one, and that is Jesus Christ. Christ is Salvation. Man can never be saved by being good enough, by being religious enough, or by knowing it all. It is a proud man that thinks anything other than his faith in Christ will get him anywhere in any area of his life. It is a proud man who does not acknowledge God in every aspect of his life. We are, we do, we have -because Christ has enabled us to.

It is a humble man who acknowledges God's hand in every aspect of his life. It is humble man who gives thanks and praise to God in everything. It is a humble man who doesn't do anything apart from God's direction, strength, wisdom, and power. It is a humble man who knows it is by faith in Jesus Christ through grace we are saved. It is a humble man who is faithful in all things to God. A humble man will have an upright soul in him. The psalmist said in Psalms chapter fifty-one verse ten (KJV), "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." A spirit free from the pride of life.