Had been reading some on the faith of those who lived before us like Jesus! The Hall of Faith found in Hebrews 11. You find Enoch who lived by faith and did not die. And he lived in a time much like we are living today! Found in that hall of faith is Abraham, called to come out of from his family who were rich in idol worship. He was called out of his ethnicity to live for God in the kingdom His Son would deliver. Patriarchs, Moses, Gideon, Barack and Samuel are listed. A harlot was listed in Rahab, who did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace. Yes, Israel walked around Jericho for seven days and those walls came down and Rahab and her family survived because she believed truth given her by the men whom she hid from her neighbors and her culture!
And Jesus, whose faith was revealed in His speaking that His focus was on His Father and who would
deliver Him in a resurrection for all to see. His faith was revealed in where it was placed!
Jesus knew
who He was and where He was headed. John 13:3-5 NKJV Jesus, knowing that the
Father had given all things into his hands, and that He had come from God and
was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel
and girded Himself. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to
wash, the disciple’s feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was
girded.
Yes, that
is a relationship of loving others and doing that which is honorable!
In an hour
of destruction, when all you have done is confess the goodness of God in the
land of the living, when you have praised the Lord, proclaimed His goodness and
how His mercy endures, you turn yourself toward rest in the nighttime and close
your eyes to that which growls in the night hours! You snuggle into the peace of God and reside in the safety of His strong arms!
Our trust
is to be in the Lord and it certainly is tested when you live in an area where
many people come to enjoy hikes, wind surfing, and even fishing! We see many
people riding a variety of bikes from the ones requiring your own strength, to
those 20 speeds up to those with “a little motorization” added. We have seen
those with hover boards and blades going with the only focus of where to go
next and how fast to get there! Although we often see that on I-84 as well: how
fast can they get to where they are going! At times they leave the interstate to the two lane state highway and try to qualify for the Indy 500. Please be careful the two miles into our little village from the west for in that two mile area, you see people in a four cylinder car trying to out run an 8-cylinder vehicle coming from the opposite direction. Yeah, the 4-cylinder driver has made a state highway into a one way highway running west to the east not regarding those vehicles coming from our little village going west to the city!
You and I
can find those things we enjoy to do. And then we remember of those who have
not had an easy time through the last several months of a virus they say has killed the infirm, yet the numbers only reveal a seasonal flu. Yet are we not responsible for our own bodies. And should we not know of the serious
things affecting our immune system, so that important steps are required to eat
properly the right healthful foods, to take vitamins and minerals especially that vitamin D-3 and zinc. For certainly,
we do take those things with the diet required for good optimum health. Our
life is not to be bent toward “fear” nor are we to bring fear on others! Still
we must have truth and not some fallacy someone is trying to lay into the laps
of those people who should know their own bodies and how to proceed in
maintaining that good health through any event of virus rampaging the
countryside.
Was reading
over scripture and I began to see some things in regard to those willing to
jump and help others without a thought. Certainly there are many suffering in
this hour, those without work, those choosing not to work but receive a check
instead, and those too sick to work. But Jesus spoke that we would always have
the poor with us. And if we listen to a
man and not God, and go into that thing of giving to certain people or groups,
are we really doing it from the heart of one set for God and to give that thing
needed or is it about others seeing us do something for others?
Proverbs
31:8-9 NKJV 8 Open your mouth for the
speechless, In the cause of all who are appointed to die. 9 Open your mouth,
judge righteously, And plead the cause of the poor and needy.
Here the word God has given us to see to the disadvantaged, but God also tells us to judge righteously. We do know of some people in the world who have great amounts of money and time on their hands. So within their thought process they become what one would call advocates for the various causes that seem to appear like dandelions in your yard in the spring time. But what are the consequences if supporting something or someone in the length of time which might appear as a good thing, but causes great difficulty down the road for many people.
One such teaching I
had received recently had written on this very thing. That of which appears as
good followed to the end would appear more like living in a socialist state. It
is that place where no one is free!
Again, it
was Jesus who spoke: "The poor you
will always have with you." So that being the case, the question then
becomes, "How best can we help them?"
Certainly
the Lord checks our fruit as He inspects our hearts speaking. He regards what we
do with our life each day. Fruit appearing is a righteous person growing in the
image of the Father. So feeding others or clothing them is a good thing, but
the long term should be doing that in regard to the Cross where Jesus took our
place, and in regard to that faith that is required to live and as we do,
we should be about telling others of this faith walk in Christ Jesus. We should not become "Jesus" to them where their dependence is on us!
If we
remember that of Martha and Mary, it was Jesus who said to Martha: "Martha,
you are worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed, and
Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her. In Luke
10:38-42, Jesus’ teaching point is that when service and good works become a
distraction and a worry, crowding out the higher duties of listening to Him,
thus we enter a danger. Good works we want to do for our lives have changed for
the good. But ours is not to take over other’s lives to change them for
them. Those great fruits are wonderful but
they cannot them nor can they save us!
Ephesians
2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9
not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should
walk in them.
We can see that when we operate in the word of God that is truth, we become a poem that is of God. We are His work, to produce Him on earth. But
it is having faith in Jesus that we are saved as we see in verse 8 of Ephesians
2!
Galatians
3:22 But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in
Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
You could
look at it like this: if you hold a person in their condition by continuing to
give to their need, they might respond by not making any moves forward or
toward living with responsibility to actually live, by getting a job or doing
anything productive to change the existing position they are in bondage to at the moment. They would also include any health issues they might have currently. Inviting someone to take a walk with you but would be better than buying them a box of chocolates that only adds more weight to their overweight condition!
Certainly the two brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon lived in Boston within a nice expensive home. Filled with several members of their family, they all sought after a monthly check where they all brought in together some fourteen thousand a month to live. They did not change their mindset that was bent toward destruction as terrorists! As most, they sought how to get money without doing anything to earn it and still do their desired thing of the heart! That was to kill and destroy!
Faith
revealed is seen in what we have placed our hope. If our hope lies in Jesus
Christ, we watch for His return. We listen intently with an ear that expects a
sound, a good one, where we are taken away to be with Him forever. Faith does
not speak when I am helping another although it reveals ones heart for the
person’s need. It reveals a loving person for another. Faith must be present to
speak out in a boldness for God especially in the face of persecution, any
hostility or sickness. When assisting others, it must point back to God and not
us!
John 1:15
Jesus spoke this: John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He
of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before
me.”
In that faith revealed, it is only Christ who can save, for we can reach out with our hands, walk with our feet and touch others with our hearts in their need, that is a good deed indeed, but they need Jesus the Savior to save. We can feed them, and we can clothe them, but it is only He who can deliver from death, hell and the grave. And every man requires that “one thing”! Amen.
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