Tag Archives: help

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – LET’S PUT AN END TO WAR

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LET’S PUT AN END TO WAR

“‘I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never – I promise – regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives towards us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.

“‘Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticise their faults – unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don’t condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back – given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.'” Luke 6:37-38.

The world of nature has many lessons for us, if we are willing to learn them. Take the lesson of sowing and reaping, for example.

The same law that works in our gardens works in our lives. The kind of seed we put in the ground will determine the kind of fruit we reap, and not only in kind but in measure. We cannot plant one grain of wheat and expect to reap oats or a bumper crop from one seed.

It’s the same in life. We cannot sow stinginess and expect to reap generosity, or meanness and expect to reap kindness. Bottom line; we reap what we sow. But it’s about much more than reaping what we sow. It’s about what happens inside of us when we live generously and graciously. The guilt, shame and unhappiness that we feel when we are stingy and unkind gives way to peace and joy which are enough rewards without the rest of the harvest that will come to us.

That’s the way God created us to be from the beginning; in His image and one with Him in the way He thinks and acts. That’s the way Jesus lived as a man among us. Tit-for-tat living brings no joy or fulfilment; it only perpetuates and escalates evil. Does revenge ever stop with the first wrong? Never!

Judging, criticising, retaliating, all betray a deep-seated attitude that Jesus hates – the “I’m better than you” disposition, looking down on other people, either trying to show them up through judging or criticising, or trying to get even with them by retaliation and revenge.

The problem with these attitudes is that they reveal more about us than about the person we are gunning for. Not only do they expose our own hearts, but they also reap far more trouble than we expected. We only need to watch children in the playground. One child offends another; the other retaliates and before long there is war. Other children are drawn in and injuries happen, black eyes, scratches, skinned knees and possibly even worse. Where do the violence and killing that happen in schools today originate?

Jesus said that, by cutting off evil at its source, you can stop the flow. Change the seed you sow and see what happens. But He didn’t only tell us what to do; He did it Himself. He showed us what happens when we absorb evil instead of perpetuating it, loving instead of hating, having a generous attitude instead of being harsh and judgmental, making allowances for people instead of being rigid and unforgiving.

It came to an end in Him; He took it to death and then came back; He proved He could overcome and then gave us the power to conquer our own unkind dispositions so that we can live like Him.

 

Religion offers nothing but the vain hope that people can do enough to satisfy the deity. No god has ever done anything for mankind but perpetuate wickedness. There is only one God, the Creator of the universe and perfect representative of the Father, Jesus who did it all for us. He took our place, paid our debt and then gave us the righteousness He earned through His obedience in the face of suffering.

Have you received Him?

Why Does God Sit On His Hands?

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WHY DOES GOD SIT ON HIS HANDS?

The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

‘How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted (Hab. 1: 1-4).

I have chosen this short prophetic book from the Old Testament for our next meditation because it is as relevant for us today as today’s newspaper. In my country I could be reflecting on information from any of our national newspapers.

This short message was not directed at the prophet’s people or the nations round about him. This was his personal encounter with God. From his perspective, things looked pretty bad. In spite of the fact that his people were God’s people, wherever he looked he saw violence and injustice. They were in a covenant relationship with God. They were supposed to obey Him and follow His ways so that they could be a witness to the ungodly people around them that their God was the true God and that He was holy.

But they were no different from the heathen. Why? Because they had abandoned the God who delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and replaced Him with the vile idol gods of their neighbours. Wherever Habakkuk looked, he saw the effects of their idolatry. His own people were just as evil as the heathen and he could not understand why God allowed them to carry on living wicked lives. Why did He not step in and do something?

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? How often I hear the same complaint, not only from God’s people but also from those who don’t even acknowledge Him. “If God is a God of love, why did He allow this, that or the other to happen?” For His own people, the goings on around them is a cause for doubt and fear. For the unbeliever, it’s an excuse to reject His authority and ignore their accountability to Him.

First of all, this way of thinking comes from a misunderstanding of who God is and how He works. People, and even His own people, think that God is some kind of puppeteer who has people on a string and makes them move the way He wants them to move. They forget that God honours the gift He gave humankind when He made the first man – free will – and He never overrides their freedom to choose, not matter what they do.

Secondly, they forget that man chose to overthrow God’s authority over hm. Adam was deceived. He listened to the devil’s insinuation that God was unloving and unfair. The result is the mess the world is in right now. What goes on in the world is not God’s fault – it’s ours. Human wickedness created the chaos without God’s help because we chose to make our own rules, and now the world is ensnared in its own evil ways.

Thirdly, God must follow His own rules. He is perfectly just. He cannot simply step in and arbitrarily change the way people behave. He is not indifferent to their suffering. In fact He has reassured His people again and again that He is always with them. He suffers with them. He grieves over what people do to each other. This is not what He intended the world to be like.

But He can only work through people’s choices.  Does this mean that God is powerless to intervene in an apparently hopeless situation? Is He subject to human beings? What kind of a God is He? How can we have confidence in Him when it seems that man is in charge? What’s the use of praying when God does not hear us or when He sits on His hands and does nothing?

Don’t you love Habakkuk’s honesty? God did! He did not swat him out of existence for questioning Him. He is like that. We are allowed to question Him as long as it not in defiance or disrespect. God always responds to us when we come to Him in humility – remembering that He is God and we are not. Whatever we may think, and however wrong we may be, there is no excuse for losing our holy fear of God or speaking to Him disrespectfully.

Habakkuk was genuinely looking for answers. So was another of God’s righteous people, Job, but God did not answer Job in the way He answered Habbakuk. Job accused God of being unjust and God did not take his accusation lightly. In Habakkuk’s situation, he was puzzled because of God’s seeming indifference to the situation and His inactivity in spite of the prophet’s urgent pleas for help. God wanted him to understand the bigger picture because, as a prophet, he had a job to do – be a spokesman for God to the people. He had to interpret current events in the light of God’s character and ways.

God responded to Habbakuk’s questions with a surprising and disturbing answer – which we shall discuss tomorrow.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

 

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

 

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

It All Depends On Attitude

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IT ALL DEPENDS ON ATTITUDE

“As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed Him and made Him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word He said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them, ‘Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend a hand.’

“The Master said, ‘Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary had chosen it — it’s the main course and won’t be taken from her.'” Luke 10.38-42 (The Message).

How many sermons have you heard on this story!? Martha, the busy one; Mary, the “spiritual” one, or something like that!

But let’s look at it from a slightly different perspective. Martha was working hard to prepare a meal for her guests — highly commendable because they had to eat. Mary was sitting in the living room among the men, listening to Jesus — also highly commendable because she was fascinated and enthralled by this man. Which of them was in the wrong, Martha because she should also have been listening to Jesus, or Mary because she should have been helping Martha prepare the meal?

We are looking at two different people with two different perspectives, values and gifts. Martha was obviously a task-orientated person while Mary was more contemplative and less practically-minded. Did Jesus rebuke Martha for working in the kitchen instead of being with Him? Did He commend Mary for choosing to abandon her sister to sit and listen to Him? It almost sounds like it, doesn’t it? But it would be out of character with Jesus to play one person against another.

I want to suggest that there was something deeper than that. Had I been Martha, and had I thought that Jesus was putting me down for wanting to do my best for Him, I would have been upset and offended with Him. But that was not His intention.

Obviously Martha derived her pleasure from serving. It was her spiritual gift, if you like. But she was fed up with Mary for not doing with her what brought her satisfaction. She wanted Mary to be like her and to do what she did. Had Martha done her work in the kitchen with as much joy as Mary had by listening to Jesus, she would have been worshipping just as much as Mary was.

Was Jesus saying that what Martha was doing was less important than what Mary was doing? It almost seems like it but that would contradict what Scripture teaches. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV).

That’s pretty ordinary, isn’t it? What about this one? “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord and not for human masters.” Colossians 3:23 (NIV).

It was not what Martha was doing that was wrong; it was her attitude that spoiled what she was doing. We also struggle with this problem — we either become resentful of people when they don’t help us with what we are doing “for the Lord” or we want to do what we are not gifted to do because there’s more limelight and more accolades that accompany someone else’s gift.

Was Jesus saying that Mary had the right attitude and therefore she gained the most benefit by doing what she was fitted to do? You see, it’s all about relationships and preserving unity. Martha could have, with a generous heart, allowed Mary the freedom to be with Jesus without resentment and gained as much blessing in her serving as Mary did in her listening.

There are three values that we, as children of God in the family of God must make priorities if we are to represent God’s kingdom to a fallen world; we must protect love, preserve unity and promote contentment, at all costs and all the time.

It’s what Jesus did. Shouldn’t we?

(The rest of Luke’s Gospel, from chapter 11, has already been posted. I would love to know whether anyone thinks there is value in publishing these contributions in book form. Please blog in the appropriate place.  Luella)

Stop The Rot

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STOP THE ROT

“When Apollos decided to go on to the Achaia province, his Ephesian friends gave their blessing and wrote a letter of recommendation for him, urging the disciples there to welcome him with open arms. The welcome paid off: Apollos turned out to be a great help to those who had become believers through God’s immense generosity. He was particularly effective in public debate with the Jews as he brought out proof after convincing proof from the Scriptures that Jesus was in fact God’s Messiah.” Acts 18:27-28 (The Message).

What did Paul think of Apollos? It seems that they crossed paths between Ephesus and Corinth. Apollos was not a pioneer like Paul. He was a back-up to Paul’s ministry, using his profound knowledge of the Scriptures and his gift of oratory and debate to put the case to the Jews skilfully that Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophetic fingerprint of Messiah. He was also a gift to the churches, strengthening the believers in their knowledge of the Scriptures.

There are little hints that Apollos’ understanding of the gospel was not as in depth and complete as Paul’s was. It was Priscilla and Aquila who had to enlighten him regarding the meaning of John’s baptism and believer’s baptism. Apollos was an Alexandrian Jew, not in the thick of the events that had happened in Jerusalem and Judea. He would have been out of range of the teaching and influence of the apostles and the church in Jerusalem.

As a diligent student of the Scriptures, he must have greatly enhanced his understanding of Jesus as Messiah by probing the prophecies for himself but the more intimate details of Jesus’ life and teaching had not yet been recorded by the gospel writers for the benefit of the leaders of the church. Unlike Paul, he had not spent three years in the desert “Bible School” of the Holy Spirit, receiving revelation that would be taught, circulated and preserved for succeeding generations.

Some Bible scholars believe that Apollos was the anonymous author of the book of Hebrews. It bears the stamp of one who thoroughly understood the Jewish religious system, the current Jewish beliefs and the life and ministry of Jesus as the perfect fulfilment of all the types and shadows of the Old Testament. The writer also realised and warned of the danger of going back into Judaism as a way of escaping persecution from the Roman government.

If Apollos was the author of Hebrews, it shows us just how important a figure he was, although he appeared only briefly on the pages of Acts, and gives us insight into the depth of his understanding of the Jewish religion and his skill in arguing for the fulfilment of Messianic prophecy in Jesus.

Perhaps Apollos’ ministry in Ephesus helped Paul to realise that he was not alone in his care of the churches. He had appointed overseers in each local body to shepherd the believers, but he still had overall responsibility to ensure that no error crept into their teaching and no remnants of behaviour that came from their old lives marred their witness and infected their fellowship.

To have a man like Apollos resident and working in the church in Ephesus was an extension of Paul’s own work, especially since the church leaders so warmly recommended him when he decided to move on to Corinth, and must have been of great encouragement to Paul. A lesser person might have seen Apollos as a threat or a rival but not Paul. He trusted his ministry and urged his young protégée, Titus, to support him in every way he could (Titus 3:13).

How great it is when spiritual leaders recognise others as partners, not rivals! It takes one secure in one’s own calling not to be threatened by the ministry of others. It is a sad day when Christian ministers want to reign supreme, as though the church and the ministry were theirs, and not Christ’s. Nothing destroys the unity of the Body of Christ more effectively than competition, and the rot starts at the top.