All of us like to think that we are good church members, but sometimes we aren’t as good as we think we are. A sobering question is what would happen if you left your church? Would you be missed because of the attitude that you had and the quality of work that you did? This is a real question and should be taken seriously. Maybe we should ask ourselves what kind of church members we are. Let me share some things with you that fifty three years of working with churches as pastor and as a Director of Missions has told me about good church members. Space does not allow me to list all of the qualities of a good church member, but what I mention should suffice.
I think that a good church member is faithful in attendance. Understand this, attendance is not the be all and end all of church membership, but it is important. It is amazing to me that a church today is doing well if it has 200 members if 100 people are in attendance on a given Sunday. I know that there are times that even a good church member can’t attend, but he or she will be normally be faithful in attendance. I do not mean that a good church member is just a warm body at church, but is one that uses his or her spiritual gifts to serve in the church. A good church member is not just faithful in attendance, but faithful in service as well. A good church member will seek to win others to Christ and get them into the church. I think that a good church member has a good attitude about his or her fellow church members. The New Testament teaches us that Christians are to be loving people, and we should certainly love our fellow church members. There might be people in church that are hard to love, but that does not excuse us from loving them. The Savior who built His church built it on love for people. The Bible tells us to bear with one another. This does not mean that we are to grit our teeth and say, “at least I’m not going to kill him or her.” It means that we should swallow our pride and love all of the people with whom we serve. I think that love is a missing ingredient in a lot of churches, and it is difficult for a church to prosper when love is missing. Lack of love is a great cause of divisions and splits in churches. A loving person is not a divisive person. A good church member will certainly love and support his or her pastor, and will seek to make his service at their church happy service. Any criticism of the pastor should be good for him and for the church, not destructive and mean-spirited. I think that a good church member can be depended on to be a good steward of what God has given him or her. I’m not going to preach a tithing sermon here, but I do believe that a good church member can be depended to maintain the finances of a church. The Bible is not afraid to tell us that we are to be givers. We are to first give ourselves to the Lord, and we are to give ourselves in service in the Lord’s church. When we learn to give of ourselves, we will have no problem giving to enable the church to do the job that it was called to do. We will be cheerful givers and Paul told us that “God loves a cheerful giver.” This means that God loves it when people give cheerfully. It does not mean that He does not love non-givers, but he blesses cheerful givers. There are many other things that I could write about good church members, but in my experience what I have written here is important. Based on these points, are you a good church member? Bro. Joe
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“…And Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.”
As I write this, I am in the process of reading about Jacob and his brother Esau and their exploits in Genesis. When he was born Jacob was holding onto the heels of his fraternal twin Esau and never stopped doing it. If you remember, he cheated Esau out of his birthright as the older son with some pottage, or red stew. Then he and his mother Rebekah cheated Esau out of the blessing that normally went to the older son. (You can read all about it in Genesis 25 and the ensuing chapters) When Rebekah heard that Esau was planning on killing Jacob because of his deception she sent Jacob to her brother Laban, who lived in Padan-Aram. Laban was as wily as Jacob. We read of all kinds of deceptions between Laban and Jacob. I might add here that Jacob, the deceiver, met his match in his uncle Laban. There is much more to the story, but I have related enough of the story to make the points that I want to make in this article. Read on: Often, we feel that we are not worthy to be used of the Lord in His ongoing work in the world. We are right because no one deserves to be used of God, but Jacob teaches us that He uses us anyway. When you feel that God cannot use you, just remember Jacob, who was a deceiver, and know that if God can use Jacob, He can use you as well. Remember, however, that Jacob changed as time went on after a dramatic encounter with God at Peniel. The point here is that no matter what your past has been, God will change you and enable you to serve Him in whatever way He wants you to serve. You might think that you do not have any qualities that would enable you to do anything for God. Remember this; God will have something for you to do in your church and community if you will just release yourself to Him to be used of Him. If God can use the man whose name was "deceiver” He can certainly use you. Surrender to His Lordship and see what He will do with you. Now, what about Jacob’s twin brother Esau? He was totally different from Jacob, for the Bible tells us that Esau was what we call “a man’s man.” He loved to hunt and was at home in the fields, while Jacob was a “stay at home” kind of guy. Why did Esau get such a bad deal by having his birthright stolen, and by losing the blessing that his father, Isaac, had to give? To get a picture of what was wrong with Esau, we need to go back to the stealing of his birthright. Esau had been in the fields hunting all day, and when he came in from the field, Jacob was making a mess of porridge. Esau was real hungry and wanted some of that stew, so he gave his birthright to Jacob for a mess of porridge. By this we know that Esau was a compulsive person who lived only for the moment. For example, when he was hungry and was about to faint from his hunger, he didn’t consider the future ramifications of giving up his birthright. The lesson for us is that we need to be careful about what we do in those trying moments of our lives. Satan loves to get us backed into a corner where he figures that we will compromise our faith. Like Esau, in a moment of hunger for the things of this world, we can make decisions that will affect the rest of our lives. We need to be aware that the decisions that we make now will affect the quality of the rest of our lives. We need to learn these two lessons from these brothers: God can and will use you in spite of your past, and He wants you to be careful about obeying your own sinful impulses. Bro. Joe “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many.”
In Mark 10, James and John asked to be given the honor of sitting on the right and left hand of Jesus in His kingdom. Jesus used the Occasion to teach His disciples about the true measure of greatness in His kingdom. Jesus pointed out that in Gentile world, the world at large, those who were rulers lorded it over the People and the “great ones exercise authority upon them.” In verse 43, Jesus said: “But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister (servant).” Kingdom greatness is not measured by others serving us; rather, it is measured by our serving others. A truly great Christian will have a servant’s heart. According to Jesus, we should not want to be served but to serve. We should not want to be great by the world’s standards but by God’s standards. William Barclay wrote: “The basic trouble in the human situation is that men wish to do as little as possible to get as much as possible. It is only when men are filled with the desire to put into life more than they take out, that is, to serve others, that life for themselves, and for others, can be happy and prosperous.” A truly great Christian will also have serving hands. We should not just talk about service to others; we should actually serve them. Jesus demonstrated this when He washed His disciple’s feet. We should never be afraid that we are doing too much for others, but that we are doing too little. What kind of service should we render? Our Christian service can take as many forms as the needs around us. Be sure that there are plenty of needs out there that need the serving hearts and hands of Christian people. There are plenty of people out there who need your serving heart and serving hands. In verse 44, Jesus told His disciples, and us, about the measure of a real Christian leader: “And whosoever of you will be chiefest (first) shall be servant of all." Leadership in God’s kingdom is not as much sought as it is given by God. God’s choice for leadership is based on service, not the ability to lord it over others. If we are dedicated servants of Jesus, it will not matter to us who are considered to be the leaders. The main concern of every Christian should be that God’s work is done and that it is done in His will. In other words, if it is God’s will that we should be the leader then we should lead. If He raises up someone else then we should follow God’s choice of our leader. It seems to me that many of the problems in our churches, no matter the denomination, are caused by people who want their way. If we would seek to find God’s will in any matter before us, there would be no problem as to who had his or her way. According to what we have read, our aim should be to serve God and not to rule. In verse 45 Jesus gave the measure of His leadership and His greatness: “For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Jesus used Himself as an example for His disciples and for us. If Jesus came to serve, how much more should we seek to serve, for “a servant is not greater than his master?” Jesus literally gave His life as “a ransom for many.” While we cannot give our lives as a ransom as Jesus did, we can give our lives in service to Him. This is what Jesus wants of us and, frankly, expects of us. We need to look into our own hearts and determine whether we want to serve rather than be served. Bro. Joe “My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” KJV
“At daybreak, Lord you hear my voice; at daybreak I plead my case to You and watch expectantly.”HCSB There is a story that I have told many times over the years about a cotton mill in Georgia. There was a sign on the wall of the mill that read, “When your thread gets tangled, call the foreman.” There was a twenty-something young lady working in the mill. One day her thread got tangled and she proceeded to try to untangle it herself. The more she tried to untangle the thread, the worse the tangle got. That foreman watched her for a little while, then walked over to her and said, “I see that your thread is tangled.” The young lady replied,“Yes, but I’m doing the best I can to untangle it.” The foreman answered her: “Look at the sign. It says that if your thread gets tangled you are supposed to call the foreman. Young lady the best thing that you can do when your thread gets tangled is to call me, and I will untangle it for you.” I think that you already see the point that this story makes. We get all tangled up in our lives and we try to untangle the mess on our own, but to no avail. I think that God would say to us that when our lives get tangled, we should call on Him. He knows more about the situation than we do, and He knows the solution. We just need to trust Him. I think that the text printed above tells us that David understood this. Nobody’s life ever got more tangled than David’s. David is an important Biblical figure, but, like us, he could really make a mess of things. I think that David came out of it being called “a man after God’s own heart” because of what he wrote in Psalm 5:3. He had decided that he would start each day with prayer. The HCSB translation says that David prayed at daybreak. It is a good idea to start each day with prayer. Instead of saying, “Good lord, its morning,” we should say,“Good morning Lord.” It is very important to start each day with prayer. I learned this many years ago. I was pastoring my first church, and a crisis came up. I had never been driven to prayer that I could remember, like I was at that time. The crisis was probably not as dire as I thought it was at the time, but it drove me to my knees. The Lord helped me to see in that experience that I needed to spend more time in prayer in order to meet the crises of life. That is when I started praying each morning when I got up. It became a necessity to go to my “prayer closet” and pray and read my Bible every morning. Whenever I have gotten away from the schedule, if that’s the right word, I could tell a difference in my life. I guess that I’m saying that we need to pray before the “thread gets tangled.” But there will be times when even at that we will get entangled in some mess in life. That is when we need to learn to go to the Lord immediately and give the mess to Him. The more we try to untangle life’s messes on our own, the more tangled the messes will get. Jesus wants to be invited into our messes. He pleads with us to come to Him and avoid needless anxiety and suffering. It is my prayer that this article will help you to see the importance of prayer in your life, if you haven’t already discovered it. If you have already discovered it, we still need to be reminded occasionally about how important it is to pray. Whatever you are dealing with in your life right now, you do not have to handle it by yourself. Don’t be like the people who say, “When all else fails, pray.” Be the person who says,“Before all else fails, I will pray.” I remember that when John Glenn returned from his orbit around the earth, someone asked him if he had prayed about it a lot. His answer was, I didn't need to pray an emergency prayer at that moment because I stay prayed up." This is not just my advice to you, but it is the Bible’s advice. Heed it! Bro. Joe “Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loves another has fulfilled the law. 9. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 10. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
The entire Bible, especially the New Testament, reminds us that love is necessary. Philos, the Greek word for brotherly love, is certainly necessary if we are to “fulfill the law.” But the word that is used in the text is the Greek word agape (a-gah-pay), which is the word translated "love" in John 3:16. This is the kind of love that God has for us, and carries the idea of loving at all costs, and loving in spite of those who are unlovely. This is how God loves us, and how we are to love one another. Paul began this passage with the reminder that all we are to owe people is to love them. This does not mean that it is unchristian to borrow money, but the thing to see is that we are indebted to our fellow human beings to love them. The main thing that we are to learn from this is that it is not a sin to borrow money, but that it is a sin not to love one another. If we want to have a Christ like witness in this world, we have to start with loving people, and loving them in spite of the fact that they might not be especially lovable. Jesus said that we have not done anything great if we only love those who love us. Anybody can love people who love them. The real test of love is to love people who do not return our love. I know that it is a real test for me. You might as well go ahead and confess, because it is probably a test for you as well. What did Paul mean by “love is the fulfilling of the law”? All of the commandments that Paul listed in the text refer to our fellow human beings. Adultery, murder and coveting are sins against other people. If we love people, we will not do these things, and other things that are listed in the commandments. Let’s take a look at what “love is the fulfilling of the law” has to do with all of the Ten Commandments. The first four commandments pertain to our relationship with God: (1) we are to have no other god’s before Him. (2) We are not to bow down to any other god. (3) We are not to take God’s name in vain, which is not just referring to a certain curse word, but it means to take God lightly. (4)We are to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” If we love God we will live our lives in a way that we will not break the first four commandments. If we love people we will live our lives in a way that will not break the last six commandments. That’s why both Jesus and Paul stated that “love is the fulfilling of the law.” Do you see now why love is necessary? I do not mean that it is necessary to be saved, we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, but our relationship with Christ is measured by how we love God and people. Love is necessary if we are to be good witnesses of Jesus Christ. The apostle John certainly saw the importance of love as seen in 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. 9. He that loves not knows not God; for God is love.” We need to learn this lesson in our daily lives, and we need to learn it in our churches. After all, Jesus said that people will know that we are Christians by the love that we have for each other. (John 13:35) Love is, after all, necessary and we need to do better than we are doing. (Notice that I wrote “we.”) Do it! Bro. Joe “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.”
Psalm 121:5 was the scripture that I read in my devotional book this morning. It was an article by David Jeremiah about loneliness. Which brought me to the question I posed for this article: “Have You Ever Been Lonely?” I think that I already know the answer to this question. I truly doubt that any human being has escaped the feeling of loneliness. It is in the DNA of human beings to want to be around other people. I think that even those people that we call “loners” experience loneliness at some time or other. I remember a very lonely time in my life. It was my first Christmas in the Navy in 1956. I was in Hospital Corps School at the naval hospital in San Diego, California. They gave us a choice of liberty on Christmas day or New Year’s Day. I chose Christmas. This was a bad choice. My first Christmas away from home was spent on the streets of San Diego, California, where I knew no one and no one knew me. Since that Christmas, I define loneliness based on what I felt that day. Feeling alone is one of the most desolate feelings that we can have. Did you know that God does not want us to feel alone? Look at the text for this article: “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.” This means that God is ever near to us. In fact, Jesus promised to never leave or forsake us. But God created us with a need for human companionship and fellowship as well. This is why Christian fellowship is so important. Christians, we need each other, and not a one of us should feel lonely as long as there is another Christian in this world. This leads me to the main thought that I want you to take from this article. If you are lonely, reach out to a fellow Christian. This is part of what Christian fellowship is about. This is one of the reasons that we have church. It’s not the only reason, but it is one reason. If we are afraid to reach out to each other in loneliness, we have somehow misinterpreted the meaning of Christian fellowship. Which leads me to remind you that if you are lonely, it might be because you have isolated yourself. In this case, get up off of it and call a Christian friend. I have an even better suggestion: Why don’t you find some lonely person in your community and visit them? Now there is a novel idea. It might be a fellow Christian, or it might be a non-Christian. In the first case, your fellow Christian will appreciate your concern. In the second case, you just might be a witness to that person, and that person will be eternally grateful to you. You get the point don’t you? You don’t have to be lonely if you will just reach out for fellowship with and witness to other people. I want to make another suggestion: If you feel lonely today, before you reach out to other people, renew your fellowship with God. As the song tells us, “My Lord is near me all the time….” Spend some time alone with God; experience His reality and His love for awhile. Pray and seek a real, dynamic sense of His presence. The reality is that we are never really alone if we are trusting in Jesus. That’s why I feel sorry for atheists and all other unbelievers. When they are lonely, they are really lonely. But if you have a relationship with God, He is near you all of the time. An old hymn entitled “Never Alone” comes to my mind.“No, never alone, no, never alone, He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.” Pay attention to Jesus when He tells you, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” If we really believe that, when we feel lonely we will reach out for fellowship with Jesus, and He will lead us to fellowship with others. You will feel alone at times, but you do not have to live in that condition. Believe it! Bro. Joe "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
“I owed a debt I could not pay, and Jesus paid a debt He did not owe.” I have heard and read this many times but came across it again today and it inspired me once again. Of course the debt that I, and all humanity, owe is the sin debt. The Bible clearly states that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. ”When the Bible says “all” that is what it means. You might know someone that you think is so good that they could not possibly be sinners. Let me put it this way, he or she might not be a “lowdown” sinner, and might be a good neighbor, a good friend at all times and would not harm a flea. That’s good. I wish that all of us knew more people like this. But if this person does not believe in Jesus Christ and submit to Him by faith, he or she will die in his or her sins. Jesus was not joking when He said: “I am the way the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me.” This is not to say negative things about nice people, it is to say good things about what Jesus did for us. We all sin and we all have a sin debt, and it is always wondrously true that Jesus paid that debt that He did not owe for all of us. The good news that this reveals to us is that Jesus really and truly loves us. The kind of love that Jesus has for us is impossible to explain or describe. The words from Romans 5:6-9 tell us what we need to know about this love: “For when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” The old hymn says, “In my hand no price I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.” If Jesus hadn’t loved us and died on the cross, we would still be subject to God’s wrath. The fact that He did should compel people everywhere to gladly receive Him into their lives. Such love should compel us to accept, worship and serve Him. This kind of love demands love in return. Another good thing that this reveals to us is that Jesus’ ministry did not end with the cross, the resurrection or the ascension. His ministry of love on the cross continues until this very day. Hebrews 7:25 tells us about Jesus: “Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them.” Do you see the significance of this for your life? Jesus is making intercession for you. This means that He stands in for you before the Father and prays for you. John dealt with this in 1John 2:1-2: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not, and if a man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2. He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Do you know what an advocate is? An advocate is a lawyer. Jesus is our lawyer, pleading our case. He pled our case eloquently on the cross, but the wonderful thing is that this ministry of His continues in eternity and makes a difference in our lives today. His invitation to “come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest,” still stands today. We can go to Him at any time and receive His great ministry in our lives. He is pleading for us, praying for us and making our lives better. After all Jesus is the One who "paid the debt that He did not owe, for all of us who “had a debt that we could not pay.” We owe Jesus our lives, but He will not make us come to Him. He wants us to come to Him by faith and live every day by our faith in Him. It’s a great life when we do. I sincerely hope that you know what I mean. Remember: You owed a (sin) debt that you could not pay, and Jesus paid a debt for your sins and mine that He did not owe." Rejoice! Bro. Joe “I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo I have not refrained my lips, Lord thou knowest. 10. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.”
If you ask a lot of people about their religious beliefs, they will tell you that they are not going to talk about that because it is personal. There is an idea today that what one believes is his business and no one else’s. This might be true of some religions but it is certainly not true of the Christian faith. We are not supposed to hide the light that Christ has put within us and allows to shine out of us. The whole world needs to know. David certainly did not hide his faith in the Father. He wrote that he had “preached righteousness to the great congregation.” He declared that he would not “refrain (his) lips.” In other words, he was willing to talk about what God was doing in his life. He did not hide God righteousness in his heart. I think that David did this by the way he lived. I remember what David did with Bathsheba. He did not say “I am a perfect man.” He was willing to share God’s righteousness. David was willing to declare the faithfulness of God. We can certainly do that, because we know of God’s faithfulness to send His Son to die for our sins. David did not conceal God’s lovingkindness. Why would he and why would we? We should gladly proclaim that our God is a loving God who will always love us. David also did not conceal God’s truth from the “great congregation.” We certainly should not be ashamed of God’s truth as revealed through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” Why would we conceal this great truth from the world? Throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament, we are told to go and tell other people about what Jesus has done for us. This does not mean that we are to push our religious beliefs down people’s throats. We can’t do that anyway. It means that we are to unashamedly live for Jesus and speak to others about Him, and we are to do it lovingly. Why would we hide our faith from other people? First, I think we might hide our faith because we are afraid of being called “doofusses.” (My computer tells me that doofus is not a word, but we know better, don’t we?) This is how the world looks at Christian people today. Another word that comes to mind is that we are afraid of being called “ignoramuses.” By a large part of the population, we are viewed as a bunch of ignorant, uneducated people who have no idea about what life is all about. C.S. Lewis, a brilliant British professor, would have taken issue with that. Hey, I’m not without education myself. (If I act like an ignoramus from time to time that is not because of my faith. Lol) Second, I think that we might hide our faith because we are ashamed. This was not unheard of in the Bible. When Paul was considering going to the sophisticated, urbane, pagan city of Rome, he made it clear that he was not ashamed of the gospel and told them why in Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” It is still the “power of God unto salvation,” that is intended for all who will believe in Jesus Christ. We should not be ashamed that we have given our lives to One who makes our lives deeper and better. We should not be ashamed that we love the One who first loved us. We don’t need to wear our faith on our sleeves and be defensive about it, but we should unashamedly live it before others, and when God leads us to speak out for Him we should. So, what are you hiding? Bro. Joe “…Who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the things formed
say to Him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” The Christian faith is not built on “why,” for that is a word that usually asks a question. It is built on “that,” for that states a fact. The Bible does not often tell us why certain things are true, but it does tell us that certain things are true. God does not feel the need to explain Himself to us, for He wants us to live by faith instead of by sight. I want to look at a few examples of “why” and “that.” We are not told why God created us as He did but that He created us as He did. God created us in His image. This does not mean that we look like God but that He created us in His spiritual image. We are more than skin, bones, tissue and organs. We are more than warm bodies. We do not know why we are created in God’s image, but we know that we are created in His image. God created us to have fellowship with Him. Someone wrote, I think it was Martin Buber, that there is a God-shaped vacuum in every person. Saint Augustine wrote: “ Oh Lord, you have created us for yourself and we are restless until we find our rest in you.” The fact is that God created us to need Him. God created us to want to know Him and long for His presence. God created us to need to converse with Him, i.e., to pray. It has been said there are no atheists in foxholes. This is because most people instinctively reach out to God. We do not know why this is mostly true, but we do know that it is true. We are not told why God loves us but that He loves us. This is stated in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." No explanation is given for this love, and if one was given we would probably not understand it. The fact is that God loves us and that it is our responsibility to believe it. We are to believe that God loved us enough to give His Son in order for us to have eternal life. We are told of this love again in Romans 5:8: “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It is a fact that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” It is also true that when we look at our sinfulness; we cannot explain why He did that. This is a good example of God’s grace, which is also beyond explanation. . We are not told why God wants to use us in His service, but that he does use us. it seems odd that an omnipotent God would need us. We know that God put Adam in the Garden to “dress and keep it.” He sent Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God could have done it, but He chose to use both Adam and Moses. It is not clear why God uses us, but it is certainly true that He does. In Acts 10 when Cornelius and his family and staff needed to be witnessed to, God sent Peter to do it. When God needed someone to witness and minister to Gentiles, He sent Paul to do it. The Bible is full of such examples. God doesn’t need us, but we need Him and we need to be used by Him. We don’t know why He does, but we know that He does. It is not our lot to know “why”, but it is our responsibility to know “that.” Stop questioning and obey. Bro. Joe “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He might exalt you in due time.”
My Grandma Cooper used to say to me when I was very young, “Get off yo high horse.” (I want to take away some grammatical questions. First I know that “yo” is not a word, because my computer informs me that it is not. You couldn’t have told my Grandma Cooper that. Second I don’t know if “high horse” should be one or two words. There, that takes care of that.) When she told me that, it was because I had sassed her or had done something that was less than humble. (She pronounced sass as Saiss, which sounded a whole lot worse than sass. {O.k. computer I know that saiss is not a word, but you couldn’t have told my Grandma Cooper that.}) I think that my maternal grandma was on to something. A lot of our troubles in our world today are caused by people being on their “high horses.” We are so toucheous today. (I know that “toucheous” is not a word, but you can’t tell me that.) It seems that everyone has an “ax to grind,” and that many, many people take offense at the least little thing. We have become so self-important that we can’t take it when we think that we have been slighted in any way. A good symptom of this is when a teacher disciplines someone’s precious baby; parents will go for that teacher’s jugular real quick. My Grandma Cooper would have said that they were on a “high horse,” and she would have said something equivalent to “get over it.” When I was disciplined at school I got the same thing when I got home. It didn’t seem fair then, but it makes sense now, seeing the behavior of some children now. God help me when mama found out, and when my grandma found out as well. This is just one example of our national “high horse” today. Which brings me to today’s scripture. We are not only on our “high horse” sociologically; we are on our “high horse” theologically as well. Peter admonished us to, “Humble (ourselves) under the mighty hand of God.” We hear things like “it’s my life and I can live it like I want.” Or “it’s my body and I can do with it what I want.” We don’t seem to take into consideration that God/Jesus might have something to say about that. The farther we get away from God, the sooner we straddle the“high horse.” We don’t just see that outside of the church, we see it in the church as well. As Christians we should learn what Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church: “…You are not your own, for you are bought with a price…” (1Corinthians 6:19b-20a) He is referring to Jesus, who “humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” If Jesus could humble Himself, knowing what we know about Him, surely it is not beneath us to “get off of our ‘high horses’” and humble ourselves under His mighty hand. Jesus further illustrated humility when, in John 13, He washed His disciple's feet. Jesus was teaching a lesson far beyond washing feet. He wanted us to see that if the creator of the universe, and the One who holds everything together, can stoop and wash feet, we can stoop and serve God, and, yes, our fellow human beings. We were not saved to rule, at least not yet; rather we were saved to serve. In Mark 10:44-45, Jesus told His disciples, who were on their “high horses:” “And whosoever of you will be chiefest, shall be servant of all: 45. For the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” I can think of no greater catalyst to humble ourselves “under the mighty hand of God” than the example set by Jesus. Which leads me to say to you: “Get off yo high horse.” Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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