"But you should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me? 29. Be you afraid of the sword: for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, the you may know there is judgment."
As I make my way through Job, I am picking up all sorts of ideas. Today's thought comes from Job's statement to his critical friends: "Be you afraid of the sword." What he was basically telling them was, "Clean up around you own backdoor." We have all heard that statement at some time or other. Jesus stated it differently in Matthew 7:1: "Judge not, that you be not judged." It means the same thing: "Clean up around your own back door." Does this mean, then, that we can never offer constructive criticisms to erring friends? No. It means that before we start criticizing others, we should take a look at our own lives, and make sure that we have cleaned that up in our own lives. Job's friends are a perfect example. They just kept on heaping criticism on poor Job. He tried to defend himself, but they just kept on, and they were wrong about everything they said. Some of their assumptions were true, but not pertaining to Job. The point is that if we are going to be able to minister to people, and help erring friends see the error of their ways, we are going to have to make sure that we are not being hypocritical. Being a preacher, I have been keenly aware of this. Many times over the years, as I have been preaching, I have said to myself, "Who are you to talk?" In other words, we need to be keenly aware of our own faults as we attempt to minister to the world, and not approach people in a self-righteous manner. Let me put it this way, self critcism is not our "long-suit." It is much easier to see the faults of others than it is to see our own. But, be assured of this, we have faults as well. That's why as we minister to this world, we need to make sure that we have "cleaned up around our own backdoor." Bro. Joe
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1 John 4:19 "We love Him, because He first loved us." 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." What does it mean to be Christlike? I know that it does not mean to carry a big black Bible around, or to talk in stilted "stained glass" tones. Yesterday, when I thought of Christlikeness, two words came to mind - love and forgiveness. I know that it means a whole lot more than those two beautiful words, but they came first to my mind. I know that in my life, the love and forgiveness of Christ have been precious to me. I look at my life, particularly my younger days, and I wonder how the perfect Christ could love me - but He does. He loved us enough to surrender to the cross and to take all of our sins upon Himself. He loved humankind enough to take every sin of everyone who ever lived upon Himself. I think of the burden of just my sins and that seems more than anyone could bear. Not the God/Man Jesus. His love was and is all-inclusive. There is no one that He does not love. I am also amazed that He is willing to forgive all of our sins. His first words from the cross were, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Do you realize that this was blanket forgiveness for all humankind? (This is not to suggest that His forgiveness is automatically given to all. 1 John 1:9 tells us what we need to do to claim His forgiveness.) All of our sins put Jesus on the cross, not just the sins of the people who were at His crucifixion. With this in mind, let us consider what Christlikeness means in our lives. It means that we strive to love people, in spite of their likeability. In John 13:35, Jesus said: "By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one to another." Jesus doesn't suggest that we love each other; He commands it: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another." (1 John 13:34) In the Lord's Prayer Jesus told us to pray: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:32: "And be ye kind to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Of course, being Christlike includes living a high moral life, but a life without love and forgiveness would not be a high moral life. Bro. Joe "Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down." (NIV)
Occasionally, one verse of scripture expresses truth so eloquently that it grabs your attention instantly. Proverbs 26:20 is one of those verses. (Of course, Proverbs is full of these kinds of verses.) The truth is that gossip is like wood that is added to a fire; as the wood is added the fire grows bigger. I guess all of us have seen this illustrated in about every area of life. You've probably seen gossip blow up "nothing things" at work. One person decides to add a bit of gossip to an issue that has arisen and it goes all through the company until it is all out of proportion. This is certainly true in the political arena. I don't know why in the world anyone would want to run for high office, because people with armloads of "wood" are out there just waiting to pile it on. I can't figure why anybody with anything negative in his or her past would run for public office. "Wood haulers," another term for gossips, are also alive and well in the church. I have seen things that have no significance at all become large issues in the church. For example, the pastor might say something to one of the church members in a private conversation. The person to whom the pastor spoke tells someone else what the pastor said. That person tells it and changes it a little bit. By the time it gets around the community via telephone it is nothing like what the pastor said. You've probably played the game of "Gossip." People sit in a circle and whisper whatever was said by the first person to speak; thus it goes around the circle. Invariably, what was first said has been blown all out of proportion. This is the way gossip is. Truth has nothing to do with it as people add their own embellishments to whatever is being gossiped about. This is why we Christians need to be careful what we say about each other. As gossip makes its rounds, truth goes out of the window. Surely, we would not want to be a party to a lie ruining someone's reputation. We need to get out of the "wood hauling" business. Don't you agree? Bro. Joe "And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left."
The Red Sea is a metaphor for all of the obstacles that we face. I do not mean that it is only a metaphor, for I believe that it happened. But the event can help us meet the challenges of daily life. What do I mean? Well, when the Israelites got to the Red Sea, they were caught between the sea and the Egyptian army. What could they do? There was absolutely nothing that they could do, because they did not, as yet, have a strong enough army to defeat Pharaoh's army. Therefore, they could not turn back and, because of the Red Sea, they could not go forward. They were in a position that they had to totally depend on God, for only He could get them out of this dilemma. The stated reason why they took the route to the Red Sea was that the other route would lead them through the land of the Philistines and God said that they might want to turn back to Egypt if they had to fight with the Philistines. Of course, God could have handled the Philistines, if that had been the case. At any rate, they were at the Red Sea. What did God do? He divided the Red Sea so that the Israelites could go through on dry ground. Only God could do that! What does this mean to us? When we come to the Red Sea's of our lives, those moments when we have nowhere else to turn, we have to totally depend upon God to do something to get us out of it. This is how God helps us to exercise our faith. If we didn't have these moments, our faith would get flabby and weak. We need to see what God can do, and we won't see what He can do if He does not allow us to get into these sticky "Red Sea" moments in our lives. I have been through these moments, and so have you. As hard it is, we need to welcome these moments, for they help us to see what God and, God alone, can do. Bro. Joe "The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and He adds no trouble to it." (NIV)
Several years ago, I read a story about a high school history teacher who was retiring. She taught about all of the countries in Europe, and now that she was retiring, she planned to visit England and France. She had saved her money for many years to take that trip. She knew that she had enough money to purchase her ticket, but she surmised that she could not afford the expensive meals on the ship. (This was in the years before air travel was predominant.) Her solution was to store up cheese and crackers to eat on the journey there and back. Every day at mealtime, she went to her cabin and ate her cheese and crackers. On the last day of the cruise, as they returned home, she decided that she had enough money to buy one meal. When she went to pay for the meal, the waiter said, "Let me see your ticket." She handed him her ticket, and he said to her, "Ma'am all of your meals were covered in the price of the ticket." Think of it, she spent all of those days on the ship eating cheese and crackers when all of her meals had been paid for. Let's not be too hard on this good lady. The Lord has made us wealthy with all of the blessings that He has to give, yet we spend days on end eating "cheese and crackers" when God has prepared a great table for us. We don't realize what we have in the Lord. Why? Because we think that real blessings are material things, when He offers much more. John 3:16 tells that He has given us His Son to be our savior. He has given us the Holy Spirit as a gift to work in our lives and to reveal God's truth to us. He has given us His word, the Bible, to inform us, encourage us and to bless us. He has given us each other to enjoy the fellowship that only Christians can have - we call it "the church." I could go on and on about the riches that the Lord brings into our lives. Why in the world would we live on the "cheese and crackers" of material things when our "ticket" includes all of the riches of God? Bro. Joe "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men (people). 19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."
One of the main problems that we have at work, at home, at play and at church is "other people." When we get a mix of personalities, we are bound to have some problems. Paul understood this and told us how to handle it. He put the responsibility on us to make an effort to keep the peace. "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you" leaves the idea that some people are difficult to get along with, but as far as you are concerned, you are at peace with them. I don't think he means by this that if you try and try and can't get along with them and fail, that you can give up on them and hate them. I will admit that it can be a struggle, particularly when people go out of the way to cause trouble. But we are without excuse, no matter how difficult the other person is. The Bible, particularly the New Testament, doesn't give us any choice but to love people. If we love people we will, on our part, be at peace with them. If we aren't at peace with them in our hearts, we might be tempted to take out vengeance on them. Paul gives a warning here as well: "It is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord." That's why we need to turn the person that we are having difficulty with over to the Lord. We would not pray for God to punish them, rather we would ask Him to help us love that person and be at peace with them. We have to do with our relationships what we do with everything else, turn them over to the Lord, and depend on Him to help us be at peace. I don't have to question whether or not you have some "others" who are difficult to get along with. I would suggest that all of pay to Paul's admonition in Romans 12:18-19. Bro. Joe |
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