I have just applied for a job.  I have been informed that the salary is £60,000 per year (plus expenses).  I have decided that that is not a good enough package.  So, what do I do?  Being a person of reasonable intelligence, I cancel my application, and look for a job that will pay me what I consider myself to be worth!

Unless, of course, I am an Honourable Member of the Westminster Parliament!  Yesterday, I listened to the news report concerning the former Labour MP, and Minister for Europe in the B.Liar government, Mr Denis McShane, who has offered a 'Guilty' plea to the charge of having fraudulently claimed almost £13,000 in 'expenses'.  Regrettably, I didn't catch the name of the person who spoke during the report, and who seemed to be suggesting that if MPs were paid a "reasonable" salary, then there wouldn't be the temptation to fiddle their expenses!

My first thought was that £60,000 is a more than reasonable salary for the majority of the British population.  I certainly never earned that amount, or even its contemporary equivalent, at any time during my working life!  And, of course, MPs know the salary level, and other conditions, when they offer themselves for election.  The old adage has it: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!"  We might amend it slightly and inform those MPs who feel themselves to be so hard done by that "If you can't stand the heat, don't bother entering the kitchen in the first place"!

My second thought was that "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (I Cor. 10:13).  The thing to do with temptation is to resist it!  My personal Bible reading, today, was from Luke 4 - his account of the temptations of the Lord Jesus.  Jesus resisted temptations that we will never face.  None of the rest  of us is sinless - but that doesn't mean that we have to knuckle under when the enemy of souls shouts.

Perhaps if MPs were to seek the help of God the Holy Spirit in resisting any temptation to defraud their employers (that's the taxpayers, by the way!), they might discover that He would, indeed, strengthen them to do so.  Of course, if they were to seek His guidance in all matters, the UK would be a much better governed country than it presently is!