By John Stallings
A construction worker sat down to eat his lunch and when he saw the sandwich in his lunch-box he growled “Oh no, another meatloaf sandwich.”
The men who worked with him kept silent and soon they all went back to work. The next day the man did the same thing; he opened his lunch-box, looked at his sandwich and exclaimed, “Not again! Not another meatloaf sandwich!”
After a week of the man complaining about his meatloaf sandwiches, one of the men asked, “Why don’t you ask your wife to fix you something else if you don’t like meatloaf? The man replied, “What are you talking about, I make my own lunch.”
In a real sense you and I are “making our own lunch” each and every day by our thoughts, words and attitudes. When you complain you use the incredible power of your mind to cause things to be drawn to you. You get caught in the “complaint loop” and your words become a self-fulfilling prophecy of –complaint, manifestation—complaint, manifestation—complaint manifestation, and you began attracting the very things you don’t want to you.
There’s a long list of disastrous behaviors that can be fed through complaining and grumbling-all leading to sin. There’s slander, pride, anger, resentment, bitterness, guilt, unforgiveness, a lying heart, a hard heart, jealousy, complacency, excuses, laziness, insensitivity, a seared conscience, malice, hypocrisy, envy, rage, quarreling, greed, lewdness, arrogance, folly, theft, false testimony, and lust.
A NATION OF WHINERS
The reality is that you and I are blessed with more freedom, more choices, more prosperity, more health, more opportunity, more comforts, more conveniences and more prerogatives than any other people on the face of the earth, and yet this somehow doesn’t stop us from griping our way through life. A recent global survey revealed that only the Germans complain more than Americans do.
I understand that we have our problems in this great country but could it be we’ve had it so good for so long that we’ve become more and more unrealistic in demanding that everything be perfectly to our liking? Have we become spoiled brats as a nation?
PRESIDENT OBAMA
If a CEO of a large American company were to conduct himself like President Obama has; constantly blaming his predecessor for all his problems, even if much of it were true, he’d lose his job and quickly be replaced in much less than two years.
I’m pragmatic enough to say if something works it works but it hasn’t helped the president when he kept on asserting that he had inherited a terrible situation from the Bush administration. Everyone knows he stepped into a rough situation but enough already Mr. Obama, we elected you to solve problems, not to complain about them.
A man known for his constant complaining inherited a large sum of money. However it wasn’t as much as he thought it would be. He complained for weeks about the amount he actually got. Finally one day he decided to buy a farm for him and his wife to enjoy in retirement. He asked his wife, “What do you think I should name it?” His wife replied, “Why don’t you call it “Belly-Acres?”
Someone might say, “Come on John, isn’t it unrealistic to expect folk not to complain at least a little? There may be a lot right with our situation but there is so much wrong about our world, our nation, our workplace, our neighborhoods, our homes, our aging bodies, our families and our marriages. How can folk be expected not to have some kind of negative feelings and comments when there are so many things we shouldn’t tolerate and so many things to legitimately complain about? Wouldn’t we be lowering our standards if we suddenly stopped demanding that the world and the people around us be the best they can be and at least strive for some sort of excellence?”- The answer lies in;
SHIFTING OUR TONE, STYLE, EMPHASIS AND METHODS
Listen to what Paul told the Philippians;
Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining [[against God] and [questioning and doubting …. Philippians 2:14 (Amplified Bible)
Paul is saying in essence here, Zip-It! Don’t complain because Chronic Complaining has some Catastrophic Consequences. Our lives could be much sweeter and we’d be more successful in our relationships if we’d begin to practice a change of tone in the way we do and say things.
LEARNING TO LOVE THE JOURNEY
So much of my life was spent on the road I sometimes feel as if I should have written Willy Nelson’s song, “On the road again.” My father was a traveling preacher a good portion of his life and often took his family with him. I started on the road early in life and much of my grade- schooling came through correspondence courses.
When I went to Bible College in the fall of 1957 I joined the College Choir, the Men’s Chorus, A Men’s Quartet, as well as one or two other groups whose names escape me now.
We toured for two weeks each year with the choir from Lakeland Florida to New York City. We’re talking about 35 or 40 teenage boys and girls, with several chaperons traveling together in a leased Greyhound bus all day, then singing at a church at night, and staying overnight with members of the local church.
The Men’s Chorus toured a couple of weeks a year throughout the Southern states. The Men’s Quartet I was in singing second tenor and playing guitar for accompaniment traveled often throughout the year mostly in Florida and a few southern states.
Then came the many years of travel in Evangelism after I got out of school and was married.
LIFE IS LIKE A “ROAD TRIP”
In many ways a road trip can be an apt metaphor for life. The road can bring out the absolute worst in people. Travel can turn an otherwise sane and reasonable individual into a chronic complainer so tensed up their shoulders are up around their ears ready to put the kibosh on the first person who looks at them funny.
If it’s men only, traveling by car, you have the problem of…well… body odor. Not being raised with brothers, I soon learned that some guys will only shower every other day. Needless to say that presents a problem with shall I say… B.O? A road trip can leave you seeking relief from “air pollution.” Once in a while you need to roll down the car windows to get some fresh-air. I’ve always had low tolerance to bad odors.
No matter how good or not so good the travel conditions are, after a while the road especially traveling with a group will hammer you into submission and ultimately wear you out, if not spit you out. But I find it interesting that we human beings can bond around our complaints. For this reason it’s not unusual for lifetime friendships to start on a trip with only the common thread of some hardship or a test of our patience that we experienced with another individual.
A common thread for grumbling, faultfinding, complaining, murmuring etc. begins and grows in our thoughts, a selfish ungratefulness for not having things go the way we’d like them to. Either things are too slow or too fast, too big or too small, don’t taste, smell or feel right, too hot, too cold, to wet or too dry, too expensive, planes and trains are running late, restaurants serving inedible food, beds with rock gardens in them and grumpy fellow travelers to contend with, and this is only a short list of “road hazards.”
So what’s wrong with a little grumbling and complaining?
The bible is full of people who complained to God, not the least of which are Moses, Job, Elijah, Paul, Jonah and of course maybe the champion, The Psalmist David.
From God’s perspective, when His people grumble about their circumstances, they are grumbling against the Lord’s provision – and thus treating the Sovereign Lord Himself with contempt. The “worst case scenario” of grumbling in Scripture and the trouble it led to has to be the Israelites as they left Egypt for the Promised Land. When God’s people murmured against His appointed leaders – whether Moses or Aaron – God took it personally as grumbling against Himself. He still takes it personally.
To grumble against God’s provisions or God’s leaders is to dishonor God and to treat Him with contempt, and that is as serious an offense in God’s sight as idolatry or sexual immorality. We know how offensive it is to our ears to hear people taking the Lord’s name in vain. That’s how our grumbling and complaining sounds to God.
ISRAEL HATED THEIR JOURNEY SO A TWO-WEEK TRIP TOOK FORTY YEARS.
Moses talks about the truth of God’s provision for His people in the wilderness:
Deuteronomy 2:7 - “The LORD your God has blessed everything you have done and has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the LORD your God has been with you and provided for your every need so that you lacked nothing.”’
Exodus 16:8 Moses also said, “You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD.”
Numbers 11:1 Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.
Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:6 - 11
-Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry. We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the Fulfillment of the ages has come.—NIV
CHOOSING NOT TO GRUMBLE WILL LEAD TO GOD’S BLESSINGS
When Paul and Silas were arrested for casting demons out of a girl, they were beaten and thrown in jail. They were even fastened in stocks as if they we violent criminals. Paul and Silas were Romans citizens and never should have been forced to endure such treatment-but they did.
Rather than accusing, grumbling, threatening, blaming and excusing, Paul and Silas began to pray and sing to God not caring if the other prisoners could hear them. They set the example of praising God in all situations. Because of the choice these men made, they were able to not only lead the jailer to Christ but his entire family. If Paul and Silas had decided to cop an attitude of complaining, we’d have had a great tragedy to read about here instead of several miracles.
Come with me to a little Israeli village many years ago. It's getting dark and nervously a woman paces in her modest home. She is worried. She trembles as she sweeps the dirt floor from one side to the next. She stares into the darkness. It’s late and she begins to pray, "O God, where is Joseph? Where is he, Lord? It is getting late and I know he didn't find work today. I went to the market place and I saw him still standing there late in the afternoon. O Lord, where is he? Has something happened to him, or is he too ashamed to come home again empty handed?"
The mother feels a tug on her dress. It's her five year old daughter Elizabeth. She asks, "Mama, where is Daddy? Why hasn’t he come home yet? Is he bringing us something to eat? Mama, I'm hungry." And with that the door burst open and the husband says, "Hello, Elizabeth! Hello, Rebecca! Prepare the table, we have a feast! Look! I have bread, I have cheese, I have figs -and for the two women in my life, a little bit of honey!"
"Joseph, where did you get all of this? I know you didn't work, I went by the market place and I saw you standing there late in the day." He said, "The most amazing thing happened to me today. I was standing in the market place waiting for someone to come by and hire me. It was getting late and many had given up. Others had gone to work and just a few of us were standing there. I just couldn't come home empty handed again. I couldn't stand another night just lying in bed when sleep wouldn’t come. The growling of my empty stomach could not drown out her words, 'Daddy, I'm hungry.'
I was almost ready to give up when around the eleventh hour the most unusual thing happened. A fellow came up and he yelled to us and asked us why we weren't working. We said, "No one has hired us." He said, "I'll hire you! Come on and work!"
"It was late in the day but a few pennies were better than nothing at all, so I went and worked in the vineyard. There were people there who had been working a long time. You could tell they were tired and hot. We worked for only an hour. Then the land owner gathered us together to pay us, and would you believe he paid us first, the ones who had only worked an hour, not those who had worked three hours or six hours or nine hours or twelve hours. And would you believe he gave us wages for an entire day? We worked one single hour and we were paid for an entire day! I was so happy. I ran to the market place and bought all of this food. Doesn't it look good? We’ll have a feast tonight."
"As I was in the market place, I heard some of the workers who had worked longer than I had grumbling. They were just downright mad. I didn't say anything, I just came on home. I just couldn't wait to get home with this food. Let’s gather around table and thank God for the favor He has given us."
"Joseph,” the wife said, “may I ask you something? I'm curious, why are there just three loaves instead of the customary four? And are my eyes deceiving me, it looks like someone has cut off half of the cheese?" "Well, you're right. I hope its okay but on the way home I thought of the widow Sarah and I stopped by her house and gave her some of the bread and cheese.”
Wiping tears from her eyes, Rebecca says, "Oh Joseph, you know it's more than alright. Let's bow and thank God."
You may not have ever heard that parable in this way. It's a strange story when you think about it.
Right in the middle of this is the landowner. You and I know the land owner represents God and shows to us the nature of God. This land owner is unpredictable and generous to a fault. He will do what he will with his favor and with his money because he wishes to do so.
The land owner honored his agreement with those who worked twelve hours. They got exactly what they contracted for. He was also generous and kind to those who only worked an hour. He didn't want them to go home empty handed to a hungry family.
Where are you in this parable? I'm sure that probably every single one of us at some time has been the one-hour worker, and sometimes we have been the twelve-hour worker.
We've been in it all day long, we've been in the baking hot sun and the dry and dusty heat is choking our throats. We have worked in the nursery for thirty years. We have changed more diapers than Gerber. We have done it all! We've listened to more dry, dusty sermons than we can count. We've tithed and every time the church would have a special program then we would give above our tithe.
We've served on every committee. We have been there every time the door has opened and sometimes we have dragged our children screaming and kicking to the church. We've done it all! We've been there; we've been the pillar of the church! We sometimes feel that the church could not get along if we were not there.
But here they come, those “newbie” converts bopping in the church with their flowered short sleeve shirts and Bermuda shorts and tennis shoes and their crazy looking hair and say, "Man, let's get turned on to Jesus!" And they get turned on to Jesus. They have never listened to any of those long dry, boring sermons, never worked in Sunday School. They think John 3:16 is a rest room on the third floor. They don't know a Benediction from a Trout. They know nothing. They respond to Jesus in faith and they are going to get the same thing we are? Is this fair?
We have a choice. We can either be gracious and thankful for what God has given to us or we can gripe and complain and grumble that God has been gracious to others.
The wonderful thing is that God can change our attitude. God wants to make us gracious. God has been generous to us. He sent His Son Jesus to die on Calvary's Cross for you and for me, because of His love and His grace you can be forgiven and have a home in Heaven. Our part is to accept it and be gracious. We can't do anything else.
If you could give one gift to your children, what would you give them? Would that gift be gratitude? God's work of grace is to make us gracious and take the criticalness and complaints out of us.
He has made more progress with some of us than He has with others.
The very act of praising God in every situation can nourish our faith and strengthen and encourage us, as well as those around us who are affected by our grumbling or our gratitude.
….he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.-Proverbs 15:15
Blessings,
John
Monday, January 13, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
A Peculiar People
By John Stallings
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…..1 Peter 2:9
Among my earliest memories of childhood were the days when I was a kid playing sports after school. We played baseball, basketball, cops and robbers and had “gun battles.”
In those days, we didn’t take Polo or Golf lessons, & we had no video games. We knew how to have fun on a shoestring & sometimes with a shoestring. At one time I had seventeen horses, all made of broom handles. But when you’re a little kid, & they’re choosing up sides to play a game, the worst fear you can imagine is not to be chosen, to be chosen last or that no one will want you on their team. Even later in college I can remember games of pick-up basketball when we’d stand on the sidelines waiting to be chosen by the older guys. I never liked that feeling.
In reading the verses from 1 Peter 2 about being chosen, I can imagine a small group of early Christians somewhere in the Mediterranean world gathered in a small unassuming house. The group leader reads them the letter from Peter telling them; “once you were nobody, but now you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, & a peculiar people.”
Once these words applied to Israel, God’s chosen people but now they apply to all who are saved.
In our day we associate the word peculiar with weird. We have many ways of expressing this. We call peculiar people, among other things...
· A few fries short of a happy meal.
· Dumber than a box of rocks
· One Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl
· The cheese slide off his cracker
· He fell out of the stupid tree and hit every limb on the way down
· Not the sharpest knife in the drawer,
· His elevator doesn't go all the way to the top, &
· He’s not exactly a rocket scientist.
No one likes to be thought of as peculiar but the word Peter is using here means something very different than the descriptive words we use. Right in the middle of Peter’s beautiful statement describing the Christian we find the word-PECULIAR!
Some people have so misunderstood the word peculiar that they’ve prided themselves in being, odd, strange, different, and even weird. But those words don’t begin to describe what God means when He calls His people peculiar. I remember years ago hearing people say, “Halliluyer I’m peculiar,” like they thought being peculiar was to be uncouth or eccentric. But the word peculiar in Greek was –Periousios—meaning –Emphatically & distinctly God’s property.”
1. The Greek New Testament goes---A people for a possession.2. The Amplified Bible says in part, ---God’s own purchased special people.
3. Wuest’s Expanded Translation; -A people formed for God’s own possession.
4. The New English Bible has replaced the term “peculiar people” with –“people claimed by God for His own.”5. The New Living Translation; “His very own possession.”
6. Other translations render the phrase as follows,-“a special people” “a purchased people” and “a people for safe-keeping.”
Notice that none of these translations speaks of us as odd, strange or weird. Rather, one & all in an attempt to correctly bring an English meaning out of a Greek term, states that we are SPECIAL, PRIVATE POSSESSIONS OF GOD.WE ARE HIS OWN PEOPLE! Ptl!
We can even look in Funk and Wagnall’s and in Webster’s and find these definitions for peculiar; “Select of special, separate, belonging exclusively to one, and a private possession. Exclusively individual,-something that is set apart from other things.”
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…..1 Peter 2:9
Among my earliest memories of childhood were the days when I was a kid playing sports after school. We played baseball, basketball, cops and robbers and had “gun battles.”
In those days, we didn’t take Polo or Golf lessons, & we had no video games. We knew how to have fun on a shoestring & sometimes with a shoestring. At one time I had seventeen horses, all made of broom handles. But when you’re a little kid, & they’re choosing up sides to play a game, the worst fear you can imagine is not to be chosen, to be chosen last or that no one will want you on their team. Even later in college I can remember games of pick-up basketball when we’d stand on the sidelines waiting to be chosen by the older guys. I never liked that feeling.
In reading the verses from 1 Peter 2 about being chosen, I can imagine a small group of early Christians somewhere in the Mediterranean world gathered in a small unassuming house. The group leader reads them the letter from Peter telling them; “once you were nobody, but now you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, & a peculiar people.”
Once these words applied to Israel, God’s chosen people but now they apply to all who are saved.
In our day we associate the word peculiar with weird. We have many ways of expressing this. We call peculiar people, among other things...
· A few fries short of a happy meal.
· Dumber than a box of rocks
· One Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl
· The cheese slide off his cracker
· He fell out of the stupid tree and hit every limb on the way down
· Not the sharpest knife in the drawer,
· His elevator doesn't go all the way to the top, &
· He’s not exactly a rocket scientist.
No one likes to be thought of as peculiar but the word Peter is using here means something very different than the descriptive words we use. Right in the middle of Peter’s beautiful statement describing the Christian we find the word-PECULIAR!
Some people have so misunderstood the word peculiar that they’ve prided themselves in being, odd, strange, different, and even weird. But those words don’t begin to describe what God means when He calls His people peculiar. I remember years ago hearing people say, “Halliluyer I’m peculiar,” like they thought being peculiar was to be uncouth or eccentric. But the word peculiar in Greek was –Periousios—meaning –Emphatically & distinctly God’s property.”
1. The Greek New Testament goes---A people for a possession.2. The Amplified Bible says in part, ---God’s own purchased special people.
3. Wuest’s Expanded Translation; -A people formed for God’s own possession.
4. The New English Bible has replaced the term “peculiar people” with –“people claimed by God for His own.”5. The New Living Translation; “His very own possession.”
6. Other translations render the phrase as follows,-“a special people” “a purchased people” and “a people for safe-keeping.”
Notice that none of these translations speaks of us as odd, strange or weird. Rather, one & all in an attempt to correctly bring an English meaning out of a Greek term, states that we are SPECIAL, PRIVATE POSSESSIONS OF GOD.WE ARE HIS OWN PEOPLE! Ptl!
We can even look in Funk and Wagnall’s and in Webster’s and find these definitions for peculiar; “Select of special, separate, belonging exclusively to one, and a private possession. Exclusively individual,-something that is set apart from other things.”
Aren’t you liking this word peculiar better all the time?
In the Old Testament we find the word peculiar five times and it means “something special; a precious private possession.”
In Titus 2:13-14 we find---Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might Redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a PECULIAR PEOPLE zealous of good works.
We’re not....odd, weird and funny, but rather we’re....private, special, treasured possessions of God.
If you’re wearing a wedding ring, let me ask you a question; do you often loan it out or even rent it to someone? That’s so silly it hardly rates a serious answer. Your wedding ring is “special.” It belongs exclusively to one person and that’s you. Period!
Now don’t misunderstand me here; I believe when we’re God’s special people we are going to be DIFFERENT! As a matter of fact if we’re not different, something’s fundamentally wrong. That difference, in my opinion, won’t mean a woman has to have a “glory knot” on the back of her head or that her face will be so pale she’ll look like death on a Ritz cracker. If you want to look like that fine & dandy as long as you don’t try to force it on other people, especially my wife. The problem with external standards or non-essentials only comes when we feel God has asked us to dress or appear a certain way, then we put that spiritual “pet rock” on everyone else’s spiritual “red wagon.”
My mother always had long hair & it was so hard to deal with I can remember as a kid seeing her sit & try to comb it with tears running down her face. Finally when she was in mid-life she cut her hair making it more manageable but far from bobbed- off to look like a male.
One of the ladies in the church who had “thirteen of the nine gifts” came up to mom one Sunday & said, “Oh Sister Stallings, I’m so disappointed in you that you’ve cut your hair. Now you wouldn’t be able to dry Jesus’ feet with your hair.” I could have warned that dear lady but I didn’t get the chance. My Mother smiled & answered the lady who was acting as a self-appointed hair-sheriff,- “Well sister, I suppose I’ll just have to furnish the tears to wash His feet.”
Yes as God’s special property there will always be a difference but not a Pharisaical difference that only cleans the outside of the cup but leaves the inside dirty.
I don’t want to get on a rant about this but the other day someone sent us a ministry magazine & they were advertising a Christian ladies retreat. Obviously it was a retreat for women only. I noticed as I read the ad that they had an extreme dress code for the women.
I can’t remember all the ad said but it went something like, “no shorts, no short skirts, no cut-off jeans, no sun dresses or tight pants etc.etc..” I was picturing a bunch of older ladies wearing bathing suits with long sleeves. Now to be frank, I’m from the old school myself & believe in modesty in dress for both sexes, however I found the ad off-putting.
I don’t want to upset the ladies over this but don’t we all know that when a group of church ladies get together the biggest problem is more likely to be loose tongues than tight clothes? I wondered why the ad didn’t specify that the ladies should come prayed up & filled to overflowing with love & no gossiping was going to be tolerated. But that’s just me.
That’s why Jesus got so ticked off at the Pharisees; they were always emphasizing the externals instead of the internal things of the heart. They dressed great but they were mean as snakes.
Zechariah 14:20 says, ---In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord…Certainly that didn't imply the horses would in themselves be holy, but rather they were holy in that they were the Lord’s horses.
Friend, you and I are God’s love gift to His son Jesus Christ. We’ve been redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb.
Paul reminds us, --Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price.—1 Cor. 6:19-20
Peter reminds us—Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver and gold…but with precious blood… the blood of Christ. ---1 Pet.1:18-19
A good example of this was the Old Testament Job. God had set him apart and built a hedge around him as His own private property. Job was encircled & marked-off as being peculiar to God. God allowed Satan to test Job but when you read the last chapter of Job, the man was eventually doubly blessed in every area where Satan had attacked him.
Praise be to God, Job wasn’t the only one protected by a hedge. You and I are also His peculiar people.
For surely O Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.—Psalm 5:12
So let’s see how we are different and peculiar as God’s special people. What do we who are Christians do differently than non-Christians? How do we stand out in this world?
1. WE STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD WHEN TROUBLE STRIKES.
Christians have trouble just like non-Christians do but real Christians take it in stride. Again, Job is the oldest example of that. He was put through almost hell on earth but never charged God foolishly & as we’ve said, he was given back double for his trouble.
Daniel was put under pressure and finally thrown in a den of hungry lions but his faith in God brought him out in one piece. Joseph went through enough trouble to make some people give up and quit but he persevered and became second in command in Egypt & was able to save a great portion of the world from starvation.
It was this capacity to bear with equanimity torture & even martyrdom which made the early Christians stand out & caused a rapid rise in their ranks. Everybody saw they had inner resources & wanted to know the secret. Even Jesus was driven into the desert & presented with such demonic temptation & harassment that He didn’t eat a bite for forty days. Have you ever had so much trouble you lost your appetite? Most of us have never been that stressed out but if we live long enough trouble will come our way at some point.
It’s good to remember when trouble comes that it’s “Father filtered.” Nothing comes to God’s children that He doesn’t allow to come & give us grace & strength to endure. When anything hits the child of God, & we can be certain we will be hit at some point, when the blow comes it must pass through a “divine sifter” so that when it hits us, it can’t do anything but help us. This is what Romans 8:28 is all about.
I heard the story of a dear old lady who used to say, when anything harassed or harmed her, “This will do me a world of good.” When eventually her aging body was no longer able to support her spirit and she lay dying & was about to slip through the phantom walls that separate this life from eternity, her dying words were, “this will do me a world of good.” And she was right.
I heard about an elderly lady who was sitting in her rocking chair & working with a large piece of raggedy material with loose ends of string going every which way. It looked so horribly ugly that a man asked, “Granny, what in the world are you doing with that big ugly lump of threads of all colors knotted up,-it has no sort of design or beauty.” Granny was non-plussed for a moment then she smiled & flipped the large ugly piece of material over so the man could see she was making a throw rug. It had a beautiful design on the other side. The man had been looking at the shaggy side.
Many times when trouble comes we see only the shaggy side of it & don’t see the design God has in the things He allows. Maybe down the line we’ll see the trouble for what it really was or it could take another world to reveal it to us. But if we’re God’s child, nothing is wasted, not even our battles & trials are wasted.
James went so far as to say,--My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into diver’s temptations, knowing this that the trying of your faith worketh patience. –James 1:2-3
In the 23rd Psalm David said—Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…..
David didn’t say, “Lord I know you’ll be waiting for me when this trial is over.” No, he proclaimed that God was going to be with him as he passed through his trouble.
2. WE STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD IN... MUTUAL LOVE.
Jesus said men would know we were His disciples when we loved each other. The early Christians enjoyed the “Koinonia” or shared fellowship of souls with one another & God. Many Christians today are trying to get back that spirit of the early church with small groups of members personally known to one another meeting together in their homes and are again seeing what the miracle of love can do.
I’ve often said if I moved to a town with only two churches, one church was filled with gifted people moving in all the spiritual gifts & overflowing with talent, but wasn’t friendly, but there was another church which had none of the gifts operating & little talent was displayed, but were friendly people, I’d choose the friendly church every time.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13, -- If we have all the gifts in operation but have no love, we don’t have the welcome mat out, & don’t reach out to others in friendliness, we are nothing, or zero.
I am grateful for some of the practical things my parents taught me as I grew up. I’m not going to say I was the best student but I did manage to pick up some keystone truths that have served me well throughout my life & ministry. The one I now have in mind that my mother drilled through my head a hundred times as a boy was, “Son, a bad attitude cancels out all the other good things you might do.”
You & I can be doing all the right things but if we’re doing them with a wrong spirit & bad attitude, we lose our effectiveness & it just doesn’t count. I’ve been in hundreds of churches as an evangelist & have been shocked when song leaders would come on the platform & walk right by me with their nose in the air & never speak. Then they’d get up & lead in worship & run all over the platform as if they were more spiritual than the Apostle Paul, but when it came to the practical side of their walk, they missed the mark.
I’ve amazed at Christians who don’t seem to even be aware of the simple fact that when we’re engaged in doing God’s work, we should put a smile on our face no matter how we feel & show the love of Christ in all we do. We don’t have the luxury of showing our feelings if we expect to be usable in The Kingdom of God. Every thing that we do, if it’s not done with the right motivation, the motivation of love toward God & man, it’s wood hay & stubble & will burn at Christ’s Judgment Seat.---1 Cor.3:11-15
3. WE STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD BY OUR LACK OF WORLDINESS & CONCERN FOR THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT.
The early church wasn’t materialistic, but rather they stressed the things that were spiritual in nature. They had a lightness of touch when it came to the mundane things of earth. They were free from selfish ambition, the desire to amass property but were content with their lot, never complaining or expressing frustration or jealousy. They joyed in the presence of God & their brothers & sisters in the Lord. They were;
Praying people. Eph.6:18
Earnest people. Jude 3
Consecrated people. Rom.12:1
United people. Eph.4:1-3
Loving people. Eph.5:1, 2
Influential people. Matt.5:16
Active people. Phil.2:12
Righteous people. 2 Cor. 5:21
LASTLY, WE ARE A PECULIAR PEOPLE BECAUSE WE’RE A RADICALLY CHANGED PEOPLE.
I believe that we’re nearing the end of the Gospel age & the Lord is making us peculiar people ready for a very peculiar & glorious job. That job is nothing less than reigning with Christ for a thousand years.
We’re a holy nation within a nation but we should always remember that the weapons of our warfare aren't carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Our weapon is the Sword of the spirit which is the Word of God.
All we who are members of this “chosen generation” this “royal priesthood,” this “holy nation & peculiar people” are called & should strive to be different & separate from the spirit of this world so that we may fulfill our purpose;
To show forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His glorious light.
Blessings,
John
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Nothing
By John Stallings
Unless you've been away to another galaxy for the last fifteen years you are aware of comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
I always liked his stand-up comedy & even enjoyed watching his T.V shows which you probably remember he called “a show about nothing.”
I think I see more re-runs of the show than I ever saw the show on prime-time but some of them are so hilarious I can watch over & over. One of my favorites is “The big salad” which displays the emotional ineptness & immaturity of George Costanza.
I got the idea from The Seinfeld Show to try to write a blog about NOTHING so here goes.
This first point isn't very spiritual but indulge me for a moment while I tell you that some people see retired people as folk who do NOTHING. Now doing nothing is very tricky; to do absolutely NOTHING. I’ve tried it & I know. The reason you have to be so careful doing NOTHING is because ANYTHING can come along & if you do ANYTHING, you’re no longer doing NOTHING. If you do ANYTHING, now you’re doing SOMETHING & your NOTHING is ruined. So you basically have to stop EVERYTHING. If hope I made that clear, because I have NOTHING else on that subject. Moving right along.
The Bible makes it plain that in the beginning the earth was without form & void. Genesis 1:1. So God had NOTHING to work with. Out of chaos He created cosmos. This is awesome because man could never create something from NOTHING. Women make some things from scratch (I’m not sure what scratch is, unless it’s related to itch) but I’m sure scratch is SOMETHING.
God spoke everything into existence but man & to create man He stooped down & made him out of the dust of the earth.
Philippians 4:6 exhorts us to, - Be anxious for NOTHING. If depression was the big disease of the latter part of the 20th Century, then anxiety is the disease of the 21st century. Do you remember a few years back when we America was gripped by fear about what would happen when we entered the new Millennium? The concern was so great that it was even captioned, Y2K. I remember reading one article where an “expert” said, “Please know that I’m an optimist. But I am convinced that there is no reason to believe we wont see the collapse of civilization. Anyone who thinks differently hasn’t got a good sense of history or current events.” During this time I can’t remember hearing one clarion voice stating that everything was going to be just fine.
So I challenge you today especially if you’re worried & anxious about ANYTHING to put EVERYTHING in your life in God’s capable hands & know that NOTHING is going to harm you.
In John 15:5 Jesus told His disciples, -Without me you can do NOTHING.
NOTHING pleases & exalts the Lord more than to see our self-reliance collapse & hear us call out to Him. Apart from Him, all our scurrying about, frantic preparation & study amounts to nothing. It’s a revelation when finally realize how much NOTHING we spend time on.
Christ is the Vine & we are the branches. When we’re truly drawing our sustenance & strength from the Vine we’ll bring forth the fruit Paul talks about in Galatians 5. Trying to manifest that fruit without being connected to Christ would be like attempting to tie imitation fruit onto a vine.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 that all we try to accomplish in our own flesh without love amounts to NOTHING. One of the most difficult things for us to actualize is that there will be people at the Judgment seat of Christ who’ll stand representing a lifetime of work for God & when their works are tried by fire, they will burn. God will take His Holy Ghost blow-torch & hit our pile of works with it & if they weren’t done with the right motivation, if they were done to glorify self, they’ll be considered zero---NOTHING!
This is just imaginary but an angel might walk over to God & say, “Listen God, this man is a preacher. He built a number of churches & traveled worldwide preaching the gospel. Surely you aren’t going to give this man zero are you?” God will simply answer, “Yes he did all these things, but I see the heart & what he did was done for the applause of people. Now he got the applause & of men while on earth & he was handsomely paid for it but he gets a “thimble crown” because he didn’t do his work that my name might be glorified.” After the man’s works have been submitted to the fire & have been burned up, the man himself will be saved, “yet so as by fire.1 Cor.3:15. Sadly many will be “saved but singed.”
In Matthew 5:13 Jesus calls Christians “the salt of the earth…but if the salt has lost its savour, it’s good for NOTHING but to be cast out & trodden foot of men.
Exactly what was Jesus saying when he compared Christians to salt? A small boy was asked what is salt. He said, “Salt is what ruins potatoes if you don’t have it.” Salt is prevalent in most all our foods but it’s so subtle that we don’t really miss it until the doctor puts us on a salt-free diet. Let’s see some facts about salt;
1. Salt is useless until applied.
If the salt stays in the shaker it doesn’t change anything but when it’s added to a food it changes things dramatically. Christians can’t sit within the four walls of a church & expect to change our world, we must go where the people are & be applied to the needy areas.
2. Salt holds back decay.
Salt is a preservative. This world has no clue to the value of Christians in society but if the Christians were taken out they’d know. Though we don’t set or enforce laws, our preserving power is the only thing holding society together. If Christians were taken out of this world, then the very best of the world would be gone. This isn’t an overblown egotistical notion, it’s just a fact. The presence that’s difficult for the ungodly to perceive is just like the salt in food, it’s very subtle.
3. Salt adds flavor.
If you’ve ever tried to eat an egg or grits without salt, you know they’re not worth eating. Christians add flavor but Jesus said, if the salt has lost it savour, it’s “tastiness” it’s ability to make a difference in a bland tasteless world, it’s good for NOTHING but to be cast aside. If Christians no longer stand for anything, if they’re going to blend into a world system & have no distinction, their usefulness is nil.
4. Salt makes people thirsty.
What happens if you put something salty in your mouth? You reach for a drink, right? That’s another function of salty Christians. We should be living in such a way that when people are around us, they get thirsty for Christ. Sometimes all we need to do to be “salty” is to live consistent lives. To me it’s amazing that all you have to do in this world to stand out is just go out there & be consistent. Go out & live your day to day life & be steady, don’t waver, be the same all the time, & see how you stand out in an “up & down, wishy-washy” society. People will start asking what’s wrong with you & how you can be so stable. This kind of life will make others thirsty for something they don’t possess which of course is Jesus Christ.
In Colossians 4:6 Paul tell us our words should be -Seasoned with salt. This means our speech should be gentle & graceful & stand out from the kind of talk people are used to hearing.
If I were preaching this as a sermon on NOTHING, we’d need a song to go along with it. I can think of no more appropriate song for the occasion than the grand old hymn;
What can wash away my sin, NOTHING but the blood of Jesus?
What can make me whole again, NOTHING but the blood of Jesus?
O, precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow,
No other fount I know,
NOTHING but the blood of Jesus.
Blessings,
John
Unless you've been away to another galaxy for the last fifteen years you are aware of comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
I always liked his stand-up comedy & even enjoyed watching his T.V shows which you probably remember he called “a show about nothing.”
I think I see more re-runs of the show than I ever saw the show on prime-time but some of them are so hilarious I can watch over & over. One of my favorites is “The big salad” which displays the emotional ineptness & immaturity of George Costanza.
I got the idea from The Seinfeld Show to try to write a blog about NOTHING so here goes.
This first point isn't very spiritual but indulge me for a moment while I tell you that some people see retired people as folk who do NOTHING. Now doing nothing is very tricky; to do absolutely NOTHING. I’ve tried it & I know. The reason you have to be so careful doing NOTHING is because ANYTHING can come along & if you do ANYTHING, you’re no longer doing NOTHING. If you do ANYTHING, now you’re doing SOMETHING & your NOTHING is ruined. So you basically have to stop EVERYTHING. If hope I made that clear, because I have NOTHING else on that subject. Moving right along.
The Bible makes it plain that in the beginning the earth was without form & void. Genesis 1:1. So God had NOTHING to work with. Out of chaos He created cosmos. This is awesome because man could never create something from NOTHING. Women make some things from scratch (I’m not sure what scratch is, unless it’s related to itch) but I’m sure scratch is SOMETHING.
God spoke everything into existence but man & to create man He stooped down & made him out of the dust of the earth.
Philippians 4:6 exhorts us to, - Be anxious for NOTHING. If depression was the big disease of the latter part of the 20th Century, then anxiety is the disease of the 21st century. Do you remember a few years back when we America was gripped by fear about what would happen when we entered the new Millennium? The concern was so great that it was even captioned, Y2K. I remember reading one article where an “expert” said, “Please know that I’m an optimist. But I am convinced that there is no reason to believe we wont see the collapse of civilization. Anyone who thinks differently hasn’t got a good sense of history or current events.” During this time I can’t remember hearing one clarion voice stating that everything was going to be just fine.
So I challenge you today especially if you’re worried & anxious about ANYTHING to put EVERYTHING in your life in God’s capable hands & know that NOTHING is going to harm you.
In John 15:5 Jesus told His disciples, -Without me you can do NOTHING.
NOTHING pleases & exalts the Lord more than to see our self-reliance collapse & hear us call out to Him. Apart from Him, all our scurrying about, frantic preparation & study amounts to nothing. It’s a revelation when finally realize how much NOTHING we spend time on.
Christ is the Vine & we are the branches. When we’re truly drawing our sustenance & strength from the Vine we’ll bring forth the fruit Paul talks about in Galatians 5. Trying to manifest that fruit without being connected to Christ would be like attempting to tie imitation fruit onto a vine.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 that all we try to accomplish in our own flesh without love amounts to NOTHING. One of the most difficult things for us to actualize is that there will be people at the Judgment seat of Christ who’ll stand representing a lifetime of work for God & when their works are tried by fire, they will burn. God will take His Holy Ghost blow-torch & hit our pile of works with it & if they weren’t done with the right motivation, if they were done to glorify self, they’ll be considered zero---NOTHING!
This is just imaginary but an angel might walk over to God & say, “Listen God, this man is a preacher. He built a number of churches & traveled worldwide preaching the gospel. Surely you aren’t going to give this man zero are you?” God will simply answer, “Yes he did all these things, but I see the heart & what he did was done for the applause of people. Now he got the applause & of men while on earth & he was handsomely paid for it but he gets a “thimble crown” because he didn’t do his work that my name might be glorified.” After the man’s works have been submitted to the fire & have been burned up, the man himself will be saved, “yet so as by fire.1 Cor.3:15. Sadly many will be “saved but singed.”
In Matthew 5:13 Jesus calls Christians “the salt of the earth…but if the salt has lost its savour, it’s good for NOTHING but to be cast out & trodden foot of men.
Exactly what was Jesus saying when he compared Christians to salt? A small boy was asked what is salt. He said, “Salt is what ruins potatoes if you don’t have it.” Salt is prevalent in most all our foods but it’s so subtle that we don’t really miss it until the doctor puts us on a salt-free diet. Let’s see some facts about salt;
1. Salt is useless until applied.
If the salt stays in the shaker it doesn’t change anything but when it’s added to a food it changes things dramatically. Christians can’t sit within the four walls of a church & expect to change our world, we must go where the people are & be applied to the needy areas.
2. Salt holds back decay.
Salt is a preservative. This world has no clue to the value of Christians in society but if the Christians were taken out they’d know. Though we don’t set or enforce laws, our preserving power is the only thing holding society together. If Christians were taken out of this world, then the very best of the world would be gone. This isn’t an overblown egotistical notion, it’s just a fact. The presence that’s difficult for the ungodly to perceive is just like the salt in food, it’s very subtle.
3. Salt adds flavor.
If you’ve ever tried to eat an egg or grits without salt, you know they’re not worth eating. Christians add flavor but Jesus said, if the salt has lost it savour, it’s “tastiness” it’s ability to make a difference in a bland tasteless world, it’s good for NOTHING but to be cast aside. If Christians no longer stand for anything, if they’re going to blend into a world system & have no distinction, their usefulness is nil.
4. Salt makes people thirsty.
What happens if you put something salty in your mouth? You reach for a drink, right? That’s another function of salty Christians. We should be living in such a way that when people are around us, they get thirsty for Christ. Sometimes all we need to do to be “salty” is to live consistent lives. To me it’s amazing that all you have to do in this world to stand out is just go out there & be consistent. Go out & live your day to day life & be steady, don’t waver, be the same all the time, & see how you stand out in an “up & down, wishy-washy” society. People will start asking what’s wrong with you & how you can be so stable. This kind of life will make others thirsty for something they don’t possess which of course is Jesus Christ.
In Colossians 4:6 Paul tell us our words should be -Seasoned with salt. This means our speech should be gentle & graceful & stand out from the kind of talk people are used to hearing.
If I were preaching this as a sermon on NOTHING, we’d need a song to go along with it. I can think of no more appropriate song for the occasion than the grand old hymn;
What can wash away my sin, NOTHING but the blood of Jesus?
What can make me whole again, NOTHING but the blood of Jesus?
O, precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow,
No other fount I know,
NOTHING but the blood of Jesus.
Blessings,
John
Monday, November 25, 2013
Nine ways to say "No thanks"
By John Stallings
I once read the story of a young Canadian student in 1860 who was awakened one night by the sound of two ships colliding.
His name was Ed Spencer. He jumped out of bed, saw the situation and being a strong swimmer, jumped in and started swimming out to the rescue. Many passengers of those ships died that night but Ed’s willingness to risk his life saved seventeen of them.
Ed suffered from paralysis after that night and wasn’t able to complete his studies, basically becoming an invalid for the rest of his life. Years later, now an old man living in California, Ed was interviewed by a Los Angeles paper and asked what he recalled about the rescue. “Only this” replied Ed, “of the seventeen I saved, not one of them ever thanked me.”
Someone has said, “Of all the emotions we human beings experience, gratitude is the hardest for us to feel.”
A SIMPLE ENOUGH STORY, WITH A FAMILIAR RING
Luke 17:11-19 tells the story of ten men suffering from leprosy that Jesus healed and sent on their way. One turns back, happy and thankful to Jesus. But Jesus asks, “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” Can none be found to return and give Glory to God except this outsider?” Message Bible.—
This sounds so eerily familiar that it reminds us of one of our first childhood lessons; “What do say when you’re given something? Thank you. Okay, good for you.
I often wonder when reading this story, was Jesus upset, surprised, amazed or disappointed; or maybe a combination of them all.
THERE ARE AT LEAST FIVE BOXES IN THIS STORY.
1. THE BOX OF LEPROSY.
We know enough about leprosy to know it’s a dirty disease, a horrible flesh eating sickness and no one can recover from it. In Bible days a person infected with the disease had to give up home and family and live outside the social matrix because of its contagious nature. The physical suffering was compounded by the fact that lepers were social exiles, they were forever unclean.
Lepers were boxed in, not only by the disease, but because of its contagious nature, they were considered ritually unclean. A leper was allowed no contact with non-lepers, and that’s why, in this story, the lepers “stood at a distance” when they called out to Jesus. They stood far off like wounded animals with rags wrapped around their hands. Others had their feet wrapped up with pieces of cloth. They could stay just close enough to society to allow them to beg, as long as they cried loudly, unclean, unclean, unclean.
Think what it would be like to have leprosy. It’s hard to think about. Imagine the waiting, the hoping, wondering how long it will take and how much suffering will be experienced before death.
There was a very famous leper in the Old Testament named Naaman. His story is in 2 Kings 5.Naaman was boxed in by pride and anger and almost lost his miracle because of it. He finally dipped seven times in a muddy little river, quiet beneath his dignity, but his obedience enabled him to escape the terrible box of leprosy.
2. THE RACIAL BOX.
We are not told specifically if the non-returning lepers were Jews, but the fact that Jesus makes much of the tenth and thankful leper being a “foreigner” or Samaritan, seems to imply it. Also the fact that the Jews and Samaritans fraternize in this story is in itself an “out-of-the-box” experience. It’s also out-of-the-box for a Samaritan to be willing to come back and thank a Jewish healer.
We remember that in Jesus’ day the Jews looked down on the Samaritans. Racial prejudice is something that is still alive and well in our world. However the gospel of Christ is fundamentally incompatible with racial prejudice.
THE ISSUE IS SIN-NOT SKIN
When God sees this world he doesn’t look at skin color. All people regardless of their race, background or skin color are significant, loved, fallen and redeemable. No race has any advantage over any other race and no group is better than any other group. God doesn’t play favorites and skin color doesn’t matter to Him. Race isn’t an issue with God. “Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in His sight.”
3. THERE WAS THE GEOGRAPHICAL BOX.
We know that Jews tried to avoid traveling through Samaria, yet here is Jesus, Luke tells us, in “the region between Samaria and Galilee.” Jesus was skirting the borderlands, the in-between area that doesn’t fit neatly in any geographical box.
4. JESUS STEPPED OUTSIDE THE HEALING BOX HERE.
Jesus usually healed with a touch, but in this case He didn’t. As a matter of fact, He didn’t pray, He didn’t pronounce their healing; He did very little except to tell the lepers to go show themselves to the priest. The priests controlled most everything in those days.
They even functioned as health inspectors. As the lepers started to go at Jesus’ instruction, they noticed that their sores and wounds were drying up, and their blemishes began to disappear. With every step they took they felt stronger, younger, and more energetic. When they rounded the final turn on the way to the village, they were completely healed. It must have been an incredible walk for them.
Think of it—after all their suffering, all of the sudden at the word of a stranger, their loneliness, pain and banishment began to evaporate. In a matter of moments they all had the clean, healthy, supple skin of a baby.
Friend if you’re sick or have a friend or relative who is, here are 101 reasons God will heal those who’ll trust Him for healing;
God said…
1) I am the Lord that healeth thee (Ex. 15:26).
2) Your days shall be one hundred and twenty years (Gen. 6:3).
3) You shall be buried in a good old age (Gen. 15:15).
4) You shall come to your grave in a full age like as a shock of corn cometh in his season (Job 5:26).
5) When I see the blood, I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you (Ex. 12:13).
6) I will take sickness away from the midst of you and the number of your days I will fulfill (Ex. 23: 25, 26).
7) I will not put any of the diseases you are afraid of on you, but I will take all sickness away from you (Deut. 7:15).
8) It will be well with you and your days shall be multiplied and prolonged as the days of heaven upon the earth (Deut. 11:9,21).
9) I turned the curse into a blessing unto you, because I loved you (Deut. 23:5 and Neh. 13:2).
10) I have redeemed you from every sickness and every plague (Deut. 28:61 and Gal. 3:13).
11) As your days, so shall your strength be (Deut. 33:25).
12) I have found a ransom for you, your flesh shall be fresher than a child’s and you shall return to the days of your youth (Job 33:24, 25).
13) I have healed you and brought up your soul from the grave; I have kept you alive from going down into the pit (Ps. 30:1, 2).
14) I will give you strength and bless you with peace (Ps. 29:11).
15) I will preserve you and keep you alive (Ps. 41:2).
16) I will strengthen you upon the bed of languishing; I will turn all your bed in your sickness (Ps. 41:3).
17) I am the health of your countenance and your God (Ps.43: 5).
18) No plague shall come near your dwelling (Ps. 91:10).
19) I will satisfy you with long life (Ps. 91:16).
20) I heal all your diseases (Ps. 103:3).
21) I sent My word and healed you and delivered you from your destructions (Ps.107:20).
22) You shall not die, but live, and declare My works (Ps. 118:17).
23) I heal your broken heart and bind up your wounds (Ps. 147:3).
24) The years of your life shall be many (Pr. 4:10).
25) Trusting Me brings health to your navel and marrow to your bones (Pr. 3:8).
26) My words are life to you, and health/medicine to all your flesh (Pr. 4:22).
27) (My) good report makes your bones fat (Pr. 15:30).
28) (My) pleasant words are sweet to your soul and health to your bones (Pr. 16:24).
29) My joy is your strength. A merry heart does good like a medicine (Neh. 8:10; Pr.17:22).
30) The eyes of the blind shall be opened. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim (Isa. 32:3; 35:5).
31) The ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. The ears of them that hear shall hearken (Isa. 32:3; 35:5).
32) The tongue of the dumb shall sing. The tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly (Isa. 35:6; 32:4).
33) The lame man shall leap as a hart (Isa. 35:6).
34) I will recover you and make you to live. I am ready to save you (Isa. 38:16, 20).
35) I give power to the faint. I increase strength to them that have no might (Isa. 40:29).
36) I will renew your strength. I will strengthen and help you (Isa. 40:31; 41:10).
37) To your old age and gray hairs I will carry you and I will deliver you (Isa. 46:4).
38) I bore your sickness (Isa. 53:4).
39) I carried your pains (Isa. 53:4).
40) I was put to sickness for you (Isa. 53:10).
41) With My stripes you are healed (Isa. 53:5).
42) I will heal you (Isa. 57:19).
43) Your light shall break forth as the morning and your health shall spring forth speedily (Isa. 58:8).
44) I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds saith the Lord (Jer.30:17).
45) Behold I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure you, and will reveal unto you the abundance of peace and truth (Jer. 33:6).
46) I will bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick (Eze.34:16).
47) Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. And I shall put My Spirit in you and you shall live (Eze. 37:5,14).
48) Whithersoever the rivers shall come shall live. They shall be healed and everything shall live where the river comes (Eze. 47:9).
49) Seek Me and you shall live (Amos 5:4, 6).
50) I have arisen with healing in My wings (beams) (Mal. 4:2).
New Testament
51) I will, be thou clean (Mt. 8:3).
52) I took your infirmities (Mt. 8:17).
53) I bore your sicknesses (Mt. 8:17).
54) If you’re sick you need a physician. (I am the Lord your physician) (Mt. 9:12 &
55) I am moved with compassion toward the sick and I heal them (Mt. 14:14).
56) I heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease (Mt. 4:23).
57) According to your faith, be it unto you (Mt. 9:29).
58) I give you power and authority over all unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease (Mt. 10:1 & Lk. 9:1).
59) I heal them all (Mt. 12:15 & Heb. 13:8).
60) As many as touch Me are made perfectly whole (Mt. 14:36).
61) Healing is the children’s bread (Mt. 15:26).
62) I do all things well. I make the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak (Mk. 7:37).
63) If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth (Mk. 9:23; 11:23,24).
64) When hands are laid on you, you shall recover (Mk. 16:18).
65) My anointing heals the brokenhearted, and delivers the captives, recovers sight to the blind, and sets at liberty those that are bruised (Lk. 4:18; Isa. 10:27; 61:1).
66) I heal all those who have need of healing (Lk. 9:11).
67) I am not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them (Lk. 9:56).
68) Behold, I give you authority over all the enemy’s power and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Lk. 10:19).
69) Sickness is satanic bondage and you ought to be loosed today (Lk. 13:16 & II Cor.6:2).
70) In Me is life (Jn. 1:4).
71) I am the bread of life. I give you life (Jn. 6:33, 35).
72) The words I speak unto you are spirit and life (Jn. 6:63).
73) I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly (Jn. 10:10).
74) I am the resurrection and the life (Jn. 11:25).
75) If you ask anything in My name, I will do it (Jn. 14:14).
76) Faith in My name makes you strong and gives you perfect soundness (Acts 3:16).
77) I stretch forth My hand to heal (Acts 4:30).
78) I, Jesus Christ, make you whole (Acts 9:34).
79) I do good and heal all that are oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38).
80) My power causes diseases to depart from you (Acts 19:12).
81) The law of the Spirit of life in Me has made you free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2).
82) The same Spirit that raised Me from the dead now lives in you and that Spirit will quicken your mortal body (Rom. 8:11).
83) Your body is a member of Me (I Cor. 6:15).
84) Your body is the temple of My Spirit and you’re to glorify Me in your body (I Cor.6:19, 20).
85) If you’ll rightly discern My body which was broken for you, and judge yourself, you’ll not be judged and you’ll not be weak, sickly or die prematurely (I Cor. 11:29-31).
86) I have set gifts of healing in My body (I Cor. 12:9).
87) My life may be made manifest in your mortal flesh (II Cor. 4:10, 11).
88) I have delivered you from death, I do deliver you, and if you trust Me I will yet deliver you (II Cor. 1:10).
89) I have given you My name and have put all things under your feet (Eph. 1:21, 22).
90) I want it to be well with you and I want you to live long on the earth. (Eph. 6:3).
91) I have delivered you from the authority of darkness (Col. 1:13).
92) I will deliver you from every evil work (II Tim. 4:18).
93) I tasted death for you. I destroyed the devil who had the power of death. I’ve delivered you from the fear of death and bondage (Heb. 2:9, 14, 15).
94) I wash your body with pure water (Heb. 10:22; Eph. 5:26).
95) Lift up the weak hands and the feeble knees. Don’t let that which is lame be turned aside but rather let Me heal it (Heb. 12:12, 13).
96) Let the elders anoint you and pray for you in My name and I will raise you up (Jas.5:14, 15).
97) Pray for one another and I will heal you (Jas. 5:16).
98) By My stripes you were healed (I Pet. 2:24).
99) My Divine power has given unto you all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Me (II Pet. 1:3).
100) Whosoever will let him come and take of the water of life freely (Rev. 22:17).
101) Beloved, I wish above all things that you may…be in health (III Jn. 2
NINE WAYS TO SAY “NO THANKS
What if a newspaper of that day had gone to do a story on these nine lepers who didn’t return to thank Jesus? Imagine them gathered in one room and the reporter asking for their side of this story. Let’s first talk to leper, Jim.
1. JIM, what happened to you after Jesus healed you of leprosy? Jim might reply, “Well, I guess I wanted to wait for just a little while longer to see if the cure was real and was going to last. After all, there’s a little thing called “remission” you know. And by the time I realized the healing was the real thing, Jesus was dead.
2. JACK. And how about you jack? “Well I started to wonder if I had ever had leprosy. Whatever I had was much improved so I really didn’t give it much more thought.
3. JASON. “And you Jason, why didn’t you return? “Well, I was grateful for the cure but I had to take my son to his baseball game that day. I have been so busy lately, you wouldn’t believe it. You know now-a-days, I don’t know where the time goes.” And another thing, I was very anxious to just get back to my old life, my old routine.
4. LYLE was next to speak; “I didn’t know we were supposed to return to thank Jesus. I was just following instructions. You know, Jesus told us to go and show ourselves to the priest and that’s what I did. As lepers, we’ve become so used to following orders that we really just do as we’re told. And another thing, when Jesus told us to go, our feet started to move before our minds could think about it. We lepers move, eat, sleep, and speak according to instructions with little choice in the matter.
5. TIM “Tim, can you tell us why you never returned to thank Jesus for your cure? Well, I once took a psychological behavioral test to show me what personality type I was, and would you believe, I’m a procrastinator? Yeah, that’s right, and also the test said that we procrastinators are indecisive, tentative, and I found I have a touch of ADD. Hey, look at that bird up in the sky.
6—8. THE LAST FOUR lepers were Deaf leper, who loved music, Leper-Con, he was Irish, Spotted leper; strange name I know, but his healing caused him to have an identity crisis. He’d been a leper so long he wasn’t prepared to change. He was so at home with lepers that he couldn’t readjust.
9. THE NINTH LEPER sent word that he highly resented being labeled an ingrate , simply because he conformed to the traditional way of expressing his thanks; in the Temple, before the priest, just like Jesus instructed. He also wanted to go on record that he felt a sense of “entitlement” to the better things in life, and added that it was about time God answered his prayers.
The leper who returned teaches us, by his actions, to be more spontaneous with our gratitude. Luke said that he was “praising God with a loud voice.” In fact, the ex-leper fell on his face before Jesus. He was completely carried away and beside himself with joy and happiness. He felt like dancing a jig and shouting from the housetops. He was so excited that he didn’t even take time to have his healing verified by the priest, he was so anxious to thank this stranger.
He didn’t show up at the interview because he was so busy telling people what Jesus had done, he didn’t feel he could spare the time. He said he was so ecstatic he wasn’t in any shape to answer questions, even a year later.
Sometimes it’s good to throw away the restraints and let yourself be carried away with gratitude and joy.
A SENSE OF URGENCY CHANGES US IN REGARDS TO PRAISE.
Most of us find it easy to stay inside the box, playing it safe and following directions until something earthshaking happens. At those times, we find it comfortable to throw off restraints. We seem more inclined to give gratitude free rein when we feel a sense of urgency. People stand up at funerals and weddings and shock others with their free-flowing expressions of love and praise.
If a person is diagnosed with cancer, they are quick to begin telling the people they love how much they love them. Now time is of the essence, so they do it, now. Most of us would agree that we shouldn’t operate like this, but being human we do.
Our lives would become almost heaven on earth if we would integrate appreciation and praise, not only to God but to one another into our everyday lives. If you think I’m wrong, ask yourself, have you ever grown tired of being loved, thanked and appreciated?
HERE ARE SOME THINGS THIS STORY TEACHES US.
# God reminds us that if we don’t cultivate thankfulness, it will take more and more to make us thankful.
Jesus would also remind us of some of the things for which HE gave thanks.
• He gave thanks for 5 loaves and 2 fishes, before He multiplied them to feed a multitude.
• He gave thanks for the bread and wine He ate with His disciples before His death, even though He said they were symbolic of His broken body and shed blood.
• He gave thanks to His father at the tomb of Lazarus, just for hearing His prayer.
One last thing in this story is found in Luke 17:19. Jesus told the returning leper, “Arise and go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.”
The returning leper received a gift the other nine missed out on. He received “wholeness” for body, mind, soul and spirit.
Blessings, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING,
John
I once read the story of a young Canadian student in 1860 who was awakened one night by the sound of two ships colliding.
His name was Ed Spencer. He jumped out of bed, saw the situation and being a strong swimmer, jumped in and started swimming out to the rescue. Many passengers of those ships died that night but Ed’s willingness to risk his life saved seventeen of them.
Ed suffered from paralysis after that night and wasn’t able to complete his studies, basically becoming an invalid for the rest of his life. Years later, now an old man living in California, Ed was interviewed by a Los Angeles paper and asked what he recalled about the rescue. “Only this” replied Ed, “of the seventeen I saved, not one of them ever thanked me.”
Someone has said, “Of all the emotions we human beings experience, gratitude is the hardest for us to feel.”
A SIMPLE ENOUGH STORY, WITH A FAMILIAR RING
Luke 17:11-19 tells the story of ten men suffering from leprosy that Jesus healed and sent on their way. One turns back, happy and thankful to Jesus. But Jesus asks, “Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” Can none be found to return and give Glory to God except this outsider?” Message Bible.—
This sounds so eerily familiar that it reminds us of one of our first childhood lessons; “What do say when you’re given something? Thank you. Okay, good for you.
I often wonder when reading this story, was Jesus upset, surprised, amazed or disappointed; or maybe a combination of them all.
THERE ARE AT LEAST FIVE BOXES IN THIS STORY.
1. THE BOX OF LEPROSY.
We know enough about leprosy to know it’s a dirty disease, a horrible flesh eating sickness and no one can recover from it. In Bible days a person infected with the disease had to give up home and family and live outside the social matrix because of its contagious nature. The physical suffering was compounded by the fact that lepers were social exiles, they were forever unclean.
Lepers were boxed in, not only by the disease, but because of its contagious nature, they were considered ritually unclean. A leper was allowed no contact with non-lepers, and that’s why, in this story, the lepers “stood at a distance” when they called out to Jesus. They stood far off like wounded animals with rags wrapped around their hands. Others had their feet wrapped up with pieces of cloth. They could stay just close enough to society to allow them to beg, as long as they cried loudly, unclean, unclean, unclean.
Think what it would be like to have leprosy. It’s hard to think about. Imagine the waiting, the hoping, wondering how long it will take and how much suffering will be experienced before death.
There was a very famous leper in the Old Testament named Naaman. His story is in 2 Kings 5.Naaman was boxed in by pride and anger and almost lost his miracle because of it. He finally dipped seven times in a muddy little river, quiet beneath his dignity, but his obedience enabled him to escape the terrible box of leprosy.
2. THE RACIAL BOX.
We are not told specifically if the non-returning lepers were Jews, but the fact that Jesus makes much of the tenth and thankful leper being a “foreigner” or Samaritan, seems to imply it. Also the fact that the Jews and Samaritans fraternize in this story is in itself an “out-of-the-box” experience. It’s also out-of-the-box for a Samaritan to be willing to come back and thank a Jewish healer.
We remember that in Jesus’ day the Jews looked down on the Samaritans. Racial prejudice is something that is still alive and well in our world. However the gospel of Christ is fundamentally incompatible with racial prejudice.
THE ISSUE IS SIN-NOT SKIN
When God sees this world he doesn’t look at skin color. All people regardless of their race, background or skin color are significant, loved, fallen and redeemable. No race has any advantage over any other race and no group is better than any other group. God doesn’t play favorites and skin color doesn’t matter to Him. Race isn’t an issue with God. “Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in His sight.”
3. THERE WAS THE GEOGRAPHICAL BOX.
We know that Jews tried to avoid traveling through Samaria, yet here is Jesus, Luke tells us, in “the region between Samaria and Galilee.” Jesus was skirting the borderlands, the in-between area that doesn’t fit neatly in any geographical box.
4. JESUS STEPPED OUTSIDE THE HEALING BOX HERE.
Jesus usually healed with a touch, but in this case He didn’t. As a matter of fact, He didn’t pray, He didn’t pronounce their healing; He did very little except to tell the lepers to go show themselves to the priest. The priests controlled most everything in those days.
They even functioned as health inspectors. As the lepers started to go at Jesus’ instruction, they noticed that their sores and wounds were drying up, and their blemishes began to disappear. With every step they took they felt stronger, younger, and more energetic. When they rounded the final turn on the way to the village, they were completely healed. It must have been an incredible walk for them.
Think of it—after all their suffering, all of the sudden at the word of a stranger, their loneliness, pain and banishment began to evaporate. In a matter of moments they all had the clean, healthy, supple skin of a baby.
Friend if you’re sick or have a friend or relative who is, here are 101 reasons God will heal those who’ll trust Him for healing;
God said…
1) I am the Lord that healeth thee (Ex. 15:26).
2) Your days shall be one hundred and twenty years (Gen. 6:3).
3) You shall be buried in a good old age (Gen. 15:15).
4) You shall come to your grave in a full age like as a shock of corn cometh in his season (Job 5:26).
5) When I see the blood, I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you (Ex. 12:13).
6) I will take sickness away from the midst of you and the number of your days I will fulfill (Ex. 23: 25, 26).
7) I will not put any of the diseases you are afraid of on you, but I will take all sickness away from you (Deut. 7:15).
8) It will be well with you and your days shall be multiplied and prolonged as the days of heaven upon the earth (Deut. 11:9,21).
9) I turned the curse into a blessing unto you, because I loved you (Deut. 23:5 and Neh. 13:2).
10) I have redeemed you from every sickness and every plague (Deut. 28:61 and Gal. 3:13).
11) As your days, so shall your strength be (Deut. 33:25).
12) I have found a ransom for you, your flesh shall be fresher than a child’s and you shall return to the days of your youth (Job 33:24, 25).
13) I have healed you and brought up your soul from the grave; I have kept you alive from going down into the pit (Ps. 30:1, 2).
14) I will give you strength and bless you with peace (Ps. 29:11).
15) I will preserve you and keep you alive (Ps. 41:2).
16) I will strengthen you upon the bed of languishing; I will turn all your bed in your sickness (Ps. 41:3).
17) I am the health of your countenance and your God (Ps.43: 5).
18) No plague shall come near your dwelling (Ps. 91:10).
19) I will satisfy you with long life (Ps. 91:16).
20) I heal all your diseases (Ps. 103:3).
21) I sent My word and healed you and delivered you from your destructions (Ps.107:20).
22) You shall not die, but live, and declare My works (Ps. 118:17).
23) I heal your broken heart and bind up your wounds (Ps. 147:3).
24) The years of your life shall be many (Pr. 4:10).
25) Trusting Me brings health to your navel and marrow to your bones (Pr. 3:8).
26) My words are life to you, and health/medicine to all your flesh (Pr. 4:22).
27) (My) good report makes your bones fat (Pr. 15:30).
28) (My) pleasant words are sweet to your soul and health to your bones (Pr. 16:24).
29) My joy is your strength. A merry heart does good like a medicine (Neh. 8:10; Pr.17:22).
30) The eyes of the blind shall be opened. The eyes of them that see shall not be dim (Isa. 32:3; 35:5).
31) The ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. The ears of them that hear shall hearken (Isa. 32:3; 35:5).
32) The tongue of the dumb shall sing. The tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly (Isa. 35:6; 32:4).
33) The lame man shall leap as a hart (Isa. 35:6).
34) I will recover you and make you to live. I am ready to save you (Isa. 38:16, 20).
35) I give power to the faint. I increase strength to them that have no might (Isa. 40:29).
36) I will renew your strength. I will strengthen and help you (Isa. 40:31; 41:10).
37) To your old age and gray hairs I will carry you and I will deliver you (Isa. 46:4).
38) I bore your sickness (Isa. 53:4).
39) I carried your pains (Isa. 53:4).
40) I was put to sickness for you (Isa. 53:10).
41) With My stripes you are healed (Isa. 53:5).
42) I will heal you (Isa. 57:19).
43) Your light shall break forth as the morning and your health shall spring forth speedily (Isa. 58:8).
44) I will restore health unto you, and I will heal you of your wounds saith the Lord (Jer.30:17).
45) Behold I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure you, and will reveal unto you the abundance of peace and truth (Jer. 33:6).
46) I will bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick (Eze.34:16).
47) Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live. And I shall put My Spirit in you and you shall live (Eze. 37:5,14).
48) Whithersoever the rivers shall come shall live. They shall be healed and everything shall live where the river comes (Eze. 47:9).
49) Seek Me and you shall live (Amos 5:4, 6).
50) I have arisen with healing in My wings (beams) (Mal. 4:2).
New Testament
51) I will, be thou clean (Mt. 8:3).
52) I took your infirmities (Mt. 8:17).
53) I bore your sicknesses (Mt. 8:17).
54) If you’re sick you need a physician. (I am the Lord your physician) (Mt. 9:12 &
55) I am moved with compassion toward the sick and I heal them (Mt. 14:14).
56) I heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease (Mt. 4:23).
57) According to your faith, be it unto you (Mt. 9:29).
58) I give you power and authority over all unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease (Mt. 10:1 & Lk. 9:1).
59) I heal them all (Mt. 12:15 & Heb. 13:8).
60) As many as touch Me are made perfectly whole (Mt. 14:36).
61) Healing is the children’s bread (Mt. 15:26).
62) I do all things well. I make the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak (Mk. 7:37).
63) If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believeth (Mk. 9:23; 11:23,24).
64) When hands are laid on you, you shall recover (Mk. 16:18).
65) My anointing heals the brokenhearted, and delivers the captives, recovers sight to the blind, and sets at liberty those that are bruised (Lk. 4:18; Isa. 10:27; 61:1).
66) I heal all those who have need of healing (Lk. 9:11).
67) I am not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them (Lk. 9:56).
68) Behold, I give you authority over all the enemy’s power and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Lk. 10:19).
69) Sickness is satanic bondage and you ought to be loosed today (Lk. 13:16 & II Cor.6:2).
70) In Me is life (Jn. 1:4).
71) I am the bread of life. I give you life (Jn. 6:33, 35).
72) The words I speak unto you are spirit and life (Jn. 6:63).
73) I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly (Jn. 10:10).
74) I am the resurrection and the life (Jn. 11:25).
75) If you ask anything in My name, I will do it (Jn. 14:14).
76) Faith in My name makes you strong and gives you perfect soundness (Acts 3:16).
77) I stretch forth My hand to heal (Acts 4:30).
78) I, Jesus Christ, make you whole (Acts 9:34).
79) I do good and heal all that are oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38).
80) My power causes diseases to depart from you (Acts 19:12).
81) The law of the Spirit of life in Me has made you free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2).
82) The same Spirit that raised Me from the dead now lives in you and that Spirit will quicken your mortal body (Rom. 8:11).
83) Your body is a member of Me (I Cor. 6:15).
84) Your body is the temple of My Spirit and you’re to glorify Me in your body (I Cor.6:19, 20).
85) If you’ll rightly discern My body which was broken for you, and judge yourself, you’ll not be judged and you’ll not be weak, sickly or die prematurely (I Cor. 11:29-31).
86) I have set gifts of healing in My body (I Cor. 12:9).
87) My life may be made manifest in your mortal flesh (II Cor. 4:10, 11).
88) I have delivered you from death, I do deliver you, and if you trust Me I will yet deliver you (II Cor. 1:10).
89) I have given you My name and have put all things under your feet (Eph. 1:21, 22).
90) I want it to be well with you and I want you to live long on the earth. (Eph. 6:3).
91) I have delivered you from the authority of darkness (Col. 1:13).
92) I will deliver you from every evil work (II Tim. 4:18).
93) I tasted death for you. I destroyed the devil who had the power of death. I’ve delivered you from the fear of death and bondage (Heb. 2:9, 14, 15).
94) I wash your body with pure water (Heb. 10:22; Eph. 5:26).
95) Lift up the weak hands and the feeble knees. Don’t let that which is lame be turned aside but rather let Me heal it (Heb. 12:12, 13).
96) Let the elders anoint you and pray for you in My name and I will raise you up (Jas.5:14, 15).
97) Pray for one another and I will heal you (Jas. 5:16).
98) By My stripes you were healed (I Pet. 2:24).
99) My Divine power has given unto you all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Me (II Pet. 1:3).
100) Whosoever will let him come and take of the water of life freely (Rev. 22:17).
101) Beloved, I wish above all things that you may…be in health (III Jn. 2
NINE WAYS TO SAY “NO THANKS
What if a newspaper of that day had gone to do a story on these nine lepers who didn’t return to thank Jesus? Imagine them gathered in one room and the reporter asking for their side of this story. Let’s first talk to leper, Jim.
1. JIM, what happened to you after Jesus healed you of leprosy? Jim might reply, “Well, I guess I wanted to wait for just a little while longer to see if the cure was real and was going to last. After all, there’s a little thing called “remission” you know. And by the time I realized the healing was the real thing, Jesus was dead.
2. JACK. And how about you jack? “Well I started to wonder if I had ever had leprosy. Whatever I had was much improved so I really didn’t give it much more thought.
3. JASON. “And you Jason, why didn’t you return? “Well, I was grateful for the cure but I had to take my son to his baseball game that day. I have been so busy lately, you wouldn’t believe it. You know now-a-days, I don’t know where the time goes.” And another thing, I was very anxious to just get back to my old life, my old routine.
4. LYLE was next to speak; “I didn’t know we were supposed to return to thank Jesus. I was just following instructions. You know, Jesus told us to go and show ourselves to the priest and that’s what I did. As lepers, we’ve become so used to following orders that we really just do as we’re told. And another thing, when Jesus told us to go, our feet started to move before our minds could think about it. We lepers move, eat, sleep, and speak according to instructions with little choice in the matter.
5. TIM “Tim, can you tell us why you never returned to thank Jesus for your cure? Well, I once took a psychological behavioral test to show me what personality type I was, and would you believe, I’m a procrastinator? Yeah, that’s right, and also the test said that we procrastinators are indecisive, tentative, and I found I have a touch of ADD. Hey, look at that bird up in the sky.
6—8. THE LAST FOUR lepers were Deaf leper, who loved music, Leper-Con, he was Irish, Spotted leper; strange name I know, but his healing caused him to have an identity crisis. He’d been a leper so long he wasn’t prepared to change. He was so at home with lepers that he couldn’t readjust.
9. THE NINTH LEPER sent word that he highly resented being labeled an ingrate , simply because he conformed to the traditional way of expressing his thanks; in the Temple, before the priest, just like Jesus instructed. He also wanted to go on record that he felt a sense of “entitlement” to the better things in life, and added that it was about time God answered his prayers.
The leper who returned teaches us, by his actions, to be more spontaneous with our gratitude. Luke said that he was “praising God with a loud voice.” In fact, the ex-leper fell on his face before Jesus. He was completely carried away and beside himself with joy and happiness. He felt like dancing a jig and shouting from the housetops. He was so excited that he didn’t even take time to have his healing verified by the priest, he was so anxious to thank this stranger.
He didn’t show up at the interview because he was so busy telling people what Jesus had done, he didn’t feel he could spare the time. He said he was so ecstatic he wasn’t in any shape to answer questions, even a year later.
Sometimes it’s good to throw away the restraints and let yourself be carried away with gratitude and joy.
A SENSE OF URGENCY CHANGES US IN REGARDS TO PRAISE.
Most of us find it easy to stay inside the box, playing it safe and following directions until something earthshaking happens. At those times, we find it comfortable to throw off restraints. We seem more inclined to give gratitude free rein when we feel a sense of urgency. People stand up at funerals and weddings and shock others with their free-flowing expressions of love and praise.
If a person is diagnosed with cancer, they are quick to begin telling the people they love how much they love them. Now time is of the essence, so they do it, now. Most of us would agree that we shouldn’t operate like this, but being human we do.
Our lives would become almost heaven on earth if we would integrate appreciation and praise, not only to God but to one another into our everyday lives. If you think I’m wrong, ask yourself, have you ever grown tired of being loved, thanked and appreciated?
HERE ARE SOME THINGS THIS STORY TEACHES US.
# God reminds us that if we don’t cultivate thankfulness, it will take more and more to make us thankful.
Jesus would also remind us of some of the things for which HE gave thanks.
• He gave thanks for 5 loaves and 2 fishes, before He multiplied them to feed a multitude.
• He gave thanks for the bread and wine He ate with His disciples before His death, even though He said they were symbolic of His broken body and shed blood.
• He gave thanks to His father at the tomb of Lazarus, just for hearing His prayer.
One last thing in this story is found in Luke 17:19. Jesus told the returning leper, “Arise and go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.”
The returning leper received a gift the other nine missed out on. He received “wholeness” for body, mind, soul and spirit.
Blessings, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING,
John
Friday, November 1, 2013
Logs, Hogs, and Dogs
By John Stallings
Judge not that ye be not judged.—Matt. 7:1
Did you know that according to surveys, Matthew 7:1 is replacing John 3:16 as the most memorized, well-known & quoted verse in the Bible?
There are some other contenders you’ll often hear quoted, like-- Take a little wine for the stomach's sake-(people use this one who have no earthly clue what it means) The truth shall set you free, &-the hand-writing's on the wall. All of these are popular verses. Judge not that ye be not judged is often quoted ignorantly, taken out of context, added where it doesn’t belong & the passage is seldom quoted in its entirety. The result is that many Christians are troubled by this verse.
· Is judging permissible at all?
· How far should we go?
· How can we know?
Let’s clear up some of these questions because they can be understandably baffling.
In the Matthew 7:1-6, Jesus uses strong words for people who criticize others because they have “Logs” or beams in their own eyes when seeking to pull the small mote or spec out of their neighbor's eye. Then He tells us that we have the responsibility to appraise & evaluate people & teachings because some of them are “dogs & hogs.” So how do we explain the seeming contradiction when we are told on the one hand to “Judge not” & then we are told to “Judge?” One thing we can be sure of is that God’s word never contradicts itself so we can always take comfort in that.
Is it right or wrong to pass judgment on the actions of others? The answer is simple; it depends. Sometimes it’s right & sometimes it’s not. In Matthew 7:1-6 Jesus has some very important things to say about judging others. Whether we admit it or not, from time to time we all engage in judging. You name it, we judge it. Jesus speaks very clearly on this vital matter. The Greek word for judge is “Krino,” meaning;-----to separate, select, choose, to determine, to pronounce judgment; to express strong disapproval or harsh criticism- to act the part of a judge; or to pass judgment on the words or deeds of others. Jesus says—Judge not. But Jesus didn’t forbid any & all discerning, discriminating judgments on our part.
“TO JUDGE OR NOT JUDGE; --THAT IS THE QUESTION.”
Common sense tells us that if no one ever judged anyone, teachers could not give their students grades, & no citizen could ever sit on a jury. Furthermore, if we never judged, we’d never forgive, because we only forgive someone who we formally blamed for doing wrong, & the blaming followed a Judgment on our part. So judgment & forgiveness go hand in hand.
Here’s what we find when we look at the subject more closely. There are times when we’re called on to judge or evaluate others. In the truest sense, we don’t judge the person but rather their behavior. Only God can & will judge the person.
In 1 Cor. 5:3-5 Paul judges a man guilty of fornication with his father’s wife. He condemns his actions & calls on the church to do the same.
Matt. 7:6 we are called on to call some people dogs & swine & unworthy of the precious treasures of God & His word.
1 John 4:1 says,--Beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. We as believers are commanded to judge religions & statements of preachers & teachers to see if they measure up with the Word of God & the teachings of the Gospel.
· Matt. 7:15-20 tells us we are obligated to examine the fruit of those around us & base our fellowship with them according to what we see in their life.
In Matt.18:15-18 we are told to exercise discipline on a wayward member & this will require the judging of their fruits according to the Word of God. If the person doesn’t respond we then relate to them as heathens or publicans. Of course we keep on loving them because isn’t that what we do to the heathen? We send missionaries to them to try to reach them for God.
In Acts 13:42-46 Paul & Barnabas spoke to the Jews & told them-- You judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life.
SO WHAT IS JESUS TALKING ABOUT WHEN HE SAYS –JUDGE NOT?
Actually, Jesus never said, Judge not-period. He is actually forbidding a hypocrite engaging in fault-finding as a ploy to cover his own sin. Jesus is condemning an attitude that is critical of others & proposes to look at them & see what their motivations are. Jesus is telling us that we aren’t equipped to do this because only God can see the heart. The critic forgets that he himself must face judgment someday. Rom. 14: 12/ 2 Cor. 5:10. This is a scary thought is it not? In the same way we watch over someone & judge them there’s someone who’s watching our lives. Gal.6:7.
FAULT- FINDERS ARE NEVER GOOD FACT-FINDERS.
This is the reason doctors never treat their own selves or families. They have a problem being objective about themselves or those close to them. Human nature seems to feel “My dirt is clean, yours isn’t.” There are several reasons why we shouldn’t judge others.
1. DON’T JUDGE, BUT IF YOU DO JUDGE,-- KNOW ALL THE FACTS.
Jesus said in John 7:24,--Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
A man who owned a large business was walking through one of his factories one day & saw a young man leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. The owner got so mad he walked up to him & asked how much money he made. The young man answered that he made $300.00 a week. The owner took out that amount of money, handed it to the young man & told him he was fired. As the young man quickly left the building the boss walked up to one of the other workers & asked how long this young man had been working there. The worker told him that the young man didn’t work there he was just delivering a package.
How wrong can you be till you know?
I think the reality T.V shows are so popular because they give us the feeling we can know what it’s like to be other people. But can we truly know what it’s like to be someone else?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN HOOKED ON CRACK?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN A GOTTI?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN THE DAUGHTER OF ELVIS PRESLEY?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN THE SON OF A BILLIONAIRE?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE PARALYZED FROM THE NECK DOWN?
Some time back actor Tom Cruise while being interviewed on T.V, took a stab at people on antidepressants. Not long afterwards actress Brooke Shields gave Mr. Cruise what I considered to be the perfect squelch. She’d had her own bouts with depression & I guess wasn’t prepared to let his statement slide. She said, “I’m going to guess that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression.”
Judgments are an important piece of work that we must all engage in especially in a world run amuck in moral relativism & rationalizations. But we must keep in mind that we can never be totally right in our judging & many times we will be dead wrong.
2. DON’T JUDGE, BUT IF YOU DO JUDGE-- DON’T BE BLIND TO YOUR OWN FAULTS.
In verse 4 Jesus uses oriental wit by saying,--Or how wilt thou say to thy brother let me pull the mote out of thine eye; & behold there’s a beam in thine own eye?
Isn’t it true that we usually criticize our own weaknesses we see in other people? If we didn’t have the weakness we wouldn’t be so quick to spot it. I learned in the 4th grade, “it takes one to know one.” In other words, we many times are unconsciously judging ourselves when we judge others. We all have “beams” so to speak, in our eyes which means we’ll all experience distorted perspectives. This in a way makes us blind & you know what happens when the blind try to lead the blind; they both fall in the ditch. You have no doubt observed that very often the most outwardly critical people have the most flaws in their own life. They are so mesmerized by the little specks in others peoples lives their own problems go unrecognized.
I heard about a man who was looking in the window of a taxidermy shop at an Owl perched on a fake limb. The man went on & on about the Owl telling people that the man had stuffed him wrong, the beak wasn’t right & the colors of the feathers on his tail were done all wrong. He continued to criticize what the taxidermist had done & as he turned to walk away the Owl winked at him.
I heard another story about a man who was looking at some paintings in a museum & criticizing them. He told his wife that the so-called works of art were junk. As he continued to criticize, he walked up to one painting & really began to point out the flaws. The colors were wrong, the face of the man in the painting didn’t have the proper shape & on he went. Finally his wife said, “Honey, stop it, that’s not a painting, it’s a mirror.”
We tend to judge ourselves lightly because we judge ourselves on the basis of our hearts & our intentions. When it comes to others, we can’t know their hearts & innermost motivations so we judge merely by what we see them do. The end result is that we’re biased in our judgments.
. You lose your temper----I have righteous indignation
· You are a jerk-------------I’m having a bad day
· You have a critical spirit------I’m just blunt
· You gossip------- I make prayer requests
· You curse---------I let off steam
· You are pushy-----I’m goal oriented
· You are greedy-----I’m taking care of business
· You’re a hypochondriac—I’m really sick
· You stink-----I just smell earthy
3. DON’T JUDGE, BUT IF YOU DO JUDGE, --REMEMBER YOU’LL BE JUDGED BY THE SAME STANDARD THAT YOU JUDGE.
Jesus is giving us a stern warning here in Matthew 7:1— “JUDGE NOT.”
Verse 2 says,-- For with what judgment ye shall judge, ye shall be judged…..
In Romans 2:1-5 Paul gives us some very valuable information about judging.
Therefore thou art inexcusable O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherin thou judgest another, thou condemest thyself; for thou that judgest doeth the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinketh thou this O man thou that judgest them that doest such things and doest the same that thou should escape the judgment of God vr.5—But after thy hardness & impenitent heart treasureth up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath & revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
A. PAUL TELLS US THAT BY JUDGING WE CAUSE GOD TO BE HARDER ON US. V.1.
B. WE DO MANY OF THE THINGS WE CONDEMN IN OTHERS.v.1
C. GOD CAN ALWAYS BE COUNTED ON TO BE FAIR & RIGHTEOUS, WE CANNOT. V.5.
4. DON’T JUDGE, BUT WHEN YOU DO JUDGE, SHOW MERCY & LOVE.
When I look at your life & see your faults, I’m blind to the problems that dwell in my own heart. If my heart was as pure & holy as I would like to believe it is, I wouldn’t be focused on criticizing & condemning you for your failures. I would instead love you, pray for you & try to help you. I wouldn’t be in the business of tearing you down but I’d be seeking how I might build you up & restore you.
WHY DO PEOPLE TEND TO CRITICIZE & JUDGE OTHERS?
1. Criticism boosts our own self-image. Pointing out someone else’s failure & tearing him down makes us seem a little better, at least in our own eyes. It adds to our sense of pride, ego & self-image.
2. Criticism is often enjoyed. There’s a tendency in fallen human nature to take pleasure in hearing bad news & revel in the shortcomings of others.
3. Criticism makes us feel that our own lives are better than the person who failed. In other words, criticism builds our pride up.
4. Criticism helps us justify the decisions we’ve made & the things we have done in our lives. We rationalize our decisions & acts by pointing out the failure of others.
5. Criticism points out to our friends & relatives how strong we are. Criticism gives us good feelings because our rigid beliefs & strong lives are proven again by our brother’s failure.
6. Criticism is an outlet for hurt & revenge. We feel “they” deserve it. Subconsciously, if not consciously, we think, “they hurt me so they deserve to hurt too.” So we criticize the person who failed. Make no mistake; criticism is generally aimed at making us feel better about ourselves.
Jack Parr used to tell the story of a woman he knew as a child during the depression. To keep her family from starving she followed the oldest profession in the world. She was loved by all the neighborhood kids because she always gave them candy & took an interest in them. After the depression this lady got “religion” & by then Parr was a teenager. This woman’s change was both amazing & disturbing. She now became very judgmental, suspicious & haughty. Before conversion she’d been kind & loving now she became as mean as a snake. Parr said, “She always nosed around in our business & it was clear she suspected the worst of us, particularly what we did on our dates.” So Parr concluded, “Every time I meet someone who is judgmental & suspicious of other people, I wonder what they were doing during the depression.”
Sadly, if you were to ask people on the street what they think of when you say the word “Christian,” many would say, “Judgmental, suspicious, arrogant & haughty.”
I find it very disturbing that Paul had to deal with this very issue so early in the life of the church. Romans the 14th chapter starts off with those who were quarreling over opinions. They weren’t differing with weighty issues of the faith but over “opinions.” Things like what to eat, & how to celebrate holy days etc. Paul told them, in essence, “Who died & made you the judge of others?” I say potato, you say potato.’ I say tomato, you say tomato.’ It shouldn’t matter whether we open our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning. What’s the difference? My experience tells me that most of the problems Christians get bent out of shape over are petty things & “non-essentials.” Paul gives a clear Word—don’t do it!
If differences develop over ideas about true Christian issues then we should contend for the faith & stand against the things that could lead to our spiritual destruction. Certainly we should have convictions & be able & willing to defend them. We shouldn’t have an “anything goes” attitude but we should as someone has said, have this attitude; “In essentials unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity.” Some people condemn all those who don’t row their spiritual boat like they do. They talk out of both sides of their mouth by on the one hand declaring Jesus Christ Lord of all & with the other hand condemning half the Christian world to hell.
I heard the story of a Bishop who was sailing for Europe on one of the great ocean liners. He found he had another man sharing a room with him & judging from his appearance decided he’d better take his valuables & lock them up in the ships safe. When he took them to the purser’s desk he told him he was doing it because of the way the other man looked. The purser accepted the valuables & told the Bishop, “I’ll be glad to take care of them sir, & don’t be embarrassed, your roommate just left here & left his valuables for the same reason.”
Through the years many people have been critical of the late Tammy Baker for being so “on the edge” emotionally & for using so much make-up. I remember reading in her book years ago about something that happened in her childhood. Her father abandoned his family & later divorced her mother. Her mother played the organ in the little church they attended. When the divorce was final, the pastor of the church fired Tammy’s mother & asked her & Tammy to sit on the back seat for awhile to show penitence for the divorce. Tammy was so traumatized by it all that she grew up riddled by guilt & shame as if the whole thing was her fault & of course it wasn’t. It was a miracle that Tammy Faye kept her faith & still had a heart for God after all that had happened in her childhood. What those experiences had to do with too much make-up or a silly little laugh I don’t know but one thing I do know, I have no right to criticize her until I’ve walked in her shoes.
Here are a few helpful hints about making judgments.
1. Give people the benefit of the doubt. After all, isn’t that what we’d want for ourselves?
2. Give people little “escape loopholes” to explain occasional strange or even bad behavior. Don’t put the worst construction on things you see & hear.
3. Be gentle with people. It won’t hurt a thing.
4. Be fair & gracious with people. Allow them to save face. Doesn’t Christian love demand this?
5. Look at a person’s “track record.” Do you have any real reason to assume the worst? If a loving rebuke is needed there’ll be plenty of time for that.
6. If people mess-up, why not give them a second chance? Go the second mile.
7. Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions & impute evil to people’s motivations.
8. Remember that often the “gift of discernment” is only the “gift of suspicion.”
9. Remember harshness with people is a dead give-away to our own spiritual immaturity.
10. Don’t let your judgments be too “all-inclusive.” There’s hidden good in people & thankfully, God waits until the end of our lives to judge us. Heb.9:27
In closing, judgments are opinions that should be arrived at only after we have;
Gotten all the facts,
Consulted the moral teachings of the Word of God,
And sought spirit-led discernment.
IF WE HAVE BEEN GUILTY OF PASSING JUDGMENT ON OTHERS BECAUSE THEY DON’T LOOK OR ACT LIKE US, WE NEED TO PRAY & ASK GOD TO HELP US GET THE “LOG” OUT OF OUR EYE.
-IF WE'VE BEEN UNJUSTLY JUDGED BY OTHERS, WE NEED TO MAKE CERTAIN WE'VE FORGIVEN THEM, ALWAYS REMEMBERING;
FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED, THROUGH FAITH, AND THIS IS NOT YOUR OWN DOING; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD.-Eph.2:8---
JUDGE NOT THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED!—MATT.7:1
Blessings,
John
Judge not that ye be not judged.—Matt. 7:1
Did you know that according to surveys, Matthew 7:1 is replacing John 3:16 as the most memorized, well-known & quoted verse in the Bible?
There are some other contenders you’ll often hear quoted, like-- Take a little wine for the stomach's sake-(people use this one who have no earthly clue what it means) The truth shall set you free, &-the hand-writing's on the wall. All of these are popular verses. Judge not that ye be not judged is often quoted ignorantly, taken out of context, added where it doesn’t belong & the passage is seldom quoted in its entirety. The result is that many Christians are troubled by this verse.
· Is judging permissible at all?
· How far should we go?
· How can we know?
Let’s clear up some of these questions because they can be understandably baffling.
In the Matthew 7:1-6, Jesus uses strong words for people who criticize others because they have “Logs” or beams in their own eyes when seeking to pull the small mote or spec out of their neighbor's eye. Then He tells us that we have the responsibility to appraise & evaluate people & teachings because some of them are “dogs & hogs.” So how do we explain the seeming contradiction when we are told on the one hand to “Judge not” & then we are told to “Judge?” One thing we can be sure of is that God’s word never contradicts itself so we can always take comfort in that.
Is it right or wrong to pass judgment on the actions of others? The answer is simple; it depends. Sometimes it’s right & sometimes it’s not. In Matthew 7:1-6 Jesus has some very important things to say about judging others. Whether we admit it or not, from time to time we all engage in judging. You name it, we judge it. Jesus speaks very clearly on this vital matter. The Greek word for judge is “Krino,” meaning;-----to separate, select, choose, to determine, to pronounce judgment; to express strong disapproval or harsh criticism- to act the part of a judge; or to pass judgment on the words or deeds of others. Jesus says—Judge not. But Jesus didn’t forbid any & all discerning, discriminating judgments on our part.
“TO JUDGE OR NOT JUDGE; --THAT IS THE QUESTION.”
Common sense tells us that if no one ever judged anyone, teachers could not give their students grades, & no citizen could ever sit on a jury. Furthermore, if we never judged, we’d never forgive, because we only forgive someone who we formally blamed for doing wrong, & the blaming followed a Judgment on our part. So judgment & forgiveness go hand in hand.
Here’s what we find when we look at the subject more closely. There are times when we’re called on to judge or evaluate others. In the truest sense, we don’t judge the person but rather their behavior. Only God can & will judge the person.
In 1 Cor. 5:3-5 Paul judges a man guilty of fornication with his father’s wife. He condemns his actions & calls on the church to do the same.
Matt. 7:6 we are called on to call some people dogs & swine & unworthy of the precious treasures of God & His word.
1 John 4:1 says,--Beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. We as believers are commanded to judge religions & statements of preachers & teachers to see if they measure up with the Word of God & the teachings of the Gospel.
· Matt. 7:15-20 tells us we are obligated to examine the fruit of those around us & base our fellowship with them according to what we see in their life.
In Matt.18:15-18 we are told to exercise discipline on a wayward member & this will require the judging of their fruits according to the Word of God. If the person doesn’t respond we then relate to them as heathens or publicans. Of course we keep on loving them because isn’t that what we do to the heathen? We send missionaries to them to try to reach them for God.
In Acts 13:42-46 Paul & Barnabas spoke to the Jews & told them-- You judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life.
SO WHAT IS JESUS TALKING ABOUT WHEN HE SAYS –JUDGE NOT?
Actually, Jesus never said, Judge not-period. He is actually forbidding a hypocrite engaging in fault-finding as a ploy to cover his own sin. Jesus is condemning an attitude that is critical of others & proposes to look at them & see what their motivations are. Jesus is telling us that we aren’t equipped to do this because only God can see the heart. The critic forgets that he himself must face judgment someday. Rom. 14: 12/ 2 Cor. 5:10. This is a scary thought is it not? In the same way we watch over someone & judge them there’s someone who’s watching our lives. Gal.6:7.
FAULT- FINDERS ARE NEVER GOOD FACT-FINDERS.
This is the reason doctors never treat their own selves or families. They have a problem being objective about themselves or those close to them. Human nature seems to feel “My dirt is clean, yours isn’t.” There are several reasons why we shouldn’t judge others.
1. DON’T JUDGE, BUT IF YOU DO JUDGE,-- KNOW ALL THE FACTS.
Jesus said in John 7:24,--Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
A man who owned a large business was walking through one of his factories one day & saw a young man leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. The owner got so mad he walked up to him & asked how much money he made. The young man answered that he made $300.00 a week. The owner took out that amount of money, handed it to the young man & told him he was fired. As the young man quickly left the building the boss walked up to one of the other workers & asked how long this young man had been working there. The worker told him that the young man didn’t work there he was just delivering a package.
How wrong can you be till you know?
I think the reality T.V shows are so popular because they give us the feeling we can know what it’s like to be other people. But can we truly know what it’s like to be someone else?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN HOOKED ON CRACK?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN A GOTTI?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN THE DAUGHTER OF ELVIS PRESLEY?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE BORN THE SON OF A BILLIONAIRE?
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE PARALYZED FROM THE NECK DOWN?
Some time back actor Tom Cruise while being interviewed on T.V, took a stab at people on antidepressants. Not long afterwards actress Brooke Shields gave Mr. Cruise what I considered to be the perfect squelch. She’d had her own bouts with depression & I guess wasn’t prepared to let his statement slide. She said, “I’m going to guess that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression.”
Judgments are an important piece of work that we must all engage in especially in a world run amuck in moral relativism & rationalizations. But we must keep in mind that we can never be totally right in our judging & many times we will be dead wrong.
2. DON’T JUDGE, BUT IF YOU DO JUDGE-- DON’T BE BLIND TO YOUR OWN FAULTS.
In verse 4 Jesus uses oriental wit by saying,--Or how wilt thou say to thy brother let me pull the mote out of thine eye; & behold there’s a beam in thine own eye?
Isn’t it true that we usually criticize our own weaknesses we see in other people? If we didn’t have the weakness we wouldn’t be so quick to spot it. I learned in the 4th grade, “it takes one to know one.” In other words, we many times are unconsciously judging ourselves when we judge others. We all have “beams” so to speak, in our eyes which means we’ll all experience distorted perspectives. This in a way makes us blind & you know what happens when the blind try to lead the blind; they both fall in the ditch. You have no doubt observed that very often the most outwardly critical people have the most flaws in their own life. They are so mesmerized by the little specks in others peoples lives their own problems go unrecognized.
I heard about a man who was looking in the window of a taxidermy shop at an Owl perched on a fake limb. The man went on & on about the Owl telling people that the man had stuffed him wrong, the beak wasn’t right & the colors of the feathers on his tail were done all wrong. He continued to criticize what the taxidermist had done & as he turned to walk away the Owl winked at him.
I heard another story about a man who was looking at some paintings in a museum & criticizing them. He told his wife that the so-called works of art were junk. As he continued to criticize, he walked up to one painting & really began to point out the flaws. The colors were wrong, the face of the man in the painting didn’t have the proper shape & on he went. Finally his wife said, “Honey, stop it, that’s not a painting, it’s a mirror.”
We tend to judge ourselves lightly because we judge ourselves on the basis of our hearts & our intentions. When it comes to others, we can’t know their hearts & innermost motivations so we judge merely by what we see them do. The end result is that we’re biased in our judgments.
. You lose your temper----I have righteous indignation
· You are a jerk-------------I’m having a bad day
· You have a critical spirit------I’m just blunt
· You gossip------- I make prayer requests
· You curse---------I let off steam
· You are pushy-----I’m goal oriented
· You are greedy-----I’m taking care of business
· You’re a hypochondriac—I’m really sick
· You stink-----I just smell earthy
3. DON’T JUDGE, BUT IF YOU DO JUDGE, --REMEMBER YOU’LL BE JUDGED BY THE SAME STANDARD THAT YOU JUDGE.
Jesus is giving us a stern warning here in Matthew 7:1— “JUDGE NOT.”
Verse 2 says,-- For with what judgment ye shall judge, ye shall be judged…..
In Romans 2:1-5 Paul gives us some very valuable information about judging.
Therefore thou art inexcusable O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherin thou judgest another, thou condemest thyself; for thou that judgest doeth the same things. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinketh thou this O man thou that judgest them that doest such things and doest the same that thou should escape the judgment of God vr.5—But after thy hardness & impenitent heart treasureth up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath & revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
A. PAUL TELLS US THAT BY JUDGING WE CAUSE GOD TO BE HARDER ON US. V.1.
B. WE DO MANY OF THE THINGS WE CONDEMN IN OTHERS.v.1
C. GOD CAN ALWAYS BE COUNTED ON TO BE FAIR & RIGHTEOUS, WE CANNOT. V.5.
4. DON’T JUDGE, BUT WHEN YOU DO JUDGE, SHOW MERCY & LOVE.
When I look at your life & see your faults, I’m blind to the problems that dwell in my own heart. If my heart was as pure & holy as I would like to believe it is, I wouldn’t be focused on criticizing & condemning you for your failures. I would instead love you, pray for you & try to help you. I wouldn’t be in the business of tearing you down but I’d be seeking how I might build you up & restore you.
WHY DO PEOPLE TEND TO CRITICIZE & JUDGE OTHERS?
1. Criticism boosts our own self-image. Pointing out someone else’s failure & tearing him down makes us seem a little better, at least in our own eyes. It adds to our sense of pride, ego & self-image.
2. Criticism is often enjoyed. There’s a tendency in fallen human nature to take pleasure in hearing bad news & revel in the shortcomings of others.
3. Criticism makes us feel that our own lives are better than the person who failed. In other words, criticism builds our pride up.
4. Criticism helps us justify the decisions we’ve made & the things we have done in our lives. We rationalize our decisions & acts by pointing out the failure of others.
5. Criticism points out to our friends & relatives how strong we are. Criticism gives us good feelings because our rigid beliefs & strong lives are proven again by our brother’s failure.
6. Criticism is an outlet for hurt & revenge. We feel “they” deserve it. Subconsciously, if not consciously, we think, “they hurt me so they deserve to hurt too.” So we criticize the person who failed. Make no mistake; criticism is generally aimed at making us feel better about ourselves.
Jack Parr used to tell the story of a woman he knew as a child during the depression. To keep her family from starving she followed the oldest profession in the world. She was loved by all the neighborhood kids because she always gave them candy & took an interest in them. After the depression this lady got “religion” & by then Parr was a teenager. This woman’s change was both amazing & disturbing. She now became very judgmental, suspicious & haughty. Before conversion she’d been kind & loving now she became as mean as a snake. Parr said, “She always nosed around in our business & it was clear she suspected the worst of us, particularly what we did on our dates.” So Parr concluded, “Every time I meet someone who is judgmental & suspicious of other people, I wonder what they were doing during the depression.”
Sadly, if you were to ask people on the street what they think of when you say the word “Christian,” many would say, “Judgmental, suspicious, arrogant & haughty.”
I find it very disturbing that Paul had to deal with this very issue so early in the life of the church. Romans the 14th chapter starts off with those who were quarreling over opinions. They weren’t differing with weighty issues of the faith but over “opinions.” Things like what to eat, & how to celebrate holy days etc. Paul told them, in essence, “Who died & made you the judge of others?” I say potato, you say potato.’ I say tomato, you say tomato.’ It shouldn’t matter whether we open our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning. What’s the difference? My experience tells me that most of the problems Christians get bent out of shape over are petty things & “non-essentials.” Paul gives a clear Word—don’t do it!
If differences develop over ideas about true Christian issues then we should contend for the faith & stand against the things that could lead to our spiritual destruction. Certainly we should have convictions & be able & willing to defend them. We shouldn’t have an “anything goes” attitude but we should as someone has said, have this attitude; “In essentials unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity.” Some people condemn all those who don’t row their spiritual boat like they do. They talk out of both sides of their mouth by on the one hand declaring Jesus Christ Lord of all & with the other hand condemning half the Christian world to hell.
I heard the story of a Bishop who was sailing for Europe on one of the great ocean liners. He found he had another man sharing a room with him & judging from his appearance decided he’d better take his valuables & lock them up in the ships safe. When he took them to the purser’s desk he told him he was doing it because of the way the other man looked. The purser accepted the valuables & told the Bishop, “I’ll be glad to take care of them sir, & don’t be embarrassed, your roommate just left here & left his valuables for the same reason.”
Through the years many people have been critical of the late Tammy Baker for being so “on the edge” emotionally & for using so much make-up. I remember reading in her book years ago about something that happened in her childhood. Her father abandoned his family & later divorced her mother. Her mother played the organ in the little church they attended. When the divorce was final, the pastor of the church fired Tammy’s mother & asked her & Tammy to sit on the back seat for awhile to show penitence for the divorce. Tammy was so traumatized by it all that she grew up riddled by guilt & shame as if the whole thing was her fault & of course it wasn’t. It was a miracle that Tammy Faye kept her faith & still had a heart for God after all that had happened in her childhood. What those experiences had to do with too much make-up or a silly little laugh I don’t know but one thing I do know, I have no right to criticize her until I’ve walked in her shoes.
Here are a few helpful hints about making judgments.
1. Give people the benefit of the doubt. After all, isn’t that what we’d want for ourselves?
2. Give people little “escape loopholes” to explain occasional strange or even bad behavior. Don’t put the worst construction on things you see & hear.
3. Be gentle with people. It won’t hurt a thing.
4. Be fair & gracious with people. Allow them to save face. Doesn’t Christian love demand this?
5. Look at a person’s “track record.” Do you have any real reason to assume the worst? If a loving rebuke is needed there’ll be plenty of time for that.
6. If people mess-up, why not give them a second chance? Go the second mile.
7. Don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions & impute evil to people’s motivations.
8. Remember that often the “gift of discernment” is only the “gift of suspicion.”
9. Remember harshness with people is a dead give-away to our own spiritual immaturity.
10. Don’t let your judgments be too “all-inclusive.” There’s hidden good in people & thankfully, God waits until the end of our lives to judge us. Heb.9:27
In closing, judgments are opinions that should be arrived at only after we have;
Gotten all the facts,
Consulted the moral teachings of the Word of God,
And sought spirit-led discernment.
IF WE HAVE BEEN GUILTY OF PASSING JUDGMENT ON OTHERS BECAUSE THEY DON’T LOOK OR ACT LIKE US, WE NEED TO PRAY & ASK GOD TO HELP US GET THE “LOG” OUT OF OUR EYE.
-IF WE'VE BEEN UNJUSTLY JUDGED BY OTHERS, WE NEED TO MAKE CERTAIN WE'VE FORGIVEN THEM, ALWAYS REMEMBERING;
FOR BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED, THROUGH FAITH, AND THIS IS NOT YOUR OWN DOING; IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD.-Eph.2:8---
JUDGE NOT THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED!—MATT.7:1
Blessings,
John
Friday, October 18, 2013
A Message From Jesus To Oprah
By John Stallings
Dear Oprah,
It would be redundant to say I know everything about you- as I do everyone else alive on planet earth.
I know that you were born to Vernon Winfrey & Vernita Lee in 1954 in Kosciusko Mississippi & you didn’t have auspicious beginnings.
You were named after Oprah from the book of Ruth in the Old Testament but the midwife misspelled your name when she was filling out the birth certificate. [Obviously I was never surprised that your name was really Harpo spelled backwards.]
You’ve done well in the money department amassing a 1.5 billion net worth. I know money isn’t the only measure of success, it’s not even a very good measure, but it’s certainly one measure. Abraham, Jacob, David & Solomon were wealthy. As you know, I’ve always been more concerned with what people did with the money they had, than how much they had.
One day a rich & successful young man came running to me telling me of his desire for eternal life. When I told him to go sell all he had & give to the poor, he went away very sad because he had many possessions. I wasn’t trying to make a poor man out of a rich man that day. Proverbs 19:17 says, He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.
I realize that you’re the object of criticism because of the vast amounts of money you make, but I also see you’ve been very generous with your money. I have no problem with people making large sums of money. I’m looking at your heart & what interests me is whether you have the money or the money has you. Like any good parent, I take pleasure in seeing my kids be successful, & remember, we pave our streets with gold in heaven.
I don’t expect everyone to be Billy Graham or Mother Theresa; neither do I expect everyone to take a vow of poverty. Quite the contrary. I have great expectations for everyone & expect each individual to have great accomplishments even though they won’t all translate into great amounts of money. I’ve given everyone gifts but they are diverse gifts & certainly people should use their talents & abilities to the fullest extent.
I take joy in the fact that you’ve come so far from that pig farm in rural Mississippi, knowing you spent the first third of your childhood living in poverty, both rural in Mississippi & ghetto in Milwaukee. Don’t even imagine that I’ve forgotten you were raped at 9 & were by your own admission out of control in those years.
Your website says the Oprah Show is the highest rated talk show in T.V history, seen by 46 million viewers each day in the U.S in 205 markets & in 134 countries. In fact your show has been the number one talk show for 21 consecutive seasons. Since its beginning in 1986 it has received 32 Emmy awards.
I know that you’re one of the most influential women in the world. Vanity Fair Magazine made this statement “Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader except perhaps the Pope.”
When you put your seal on a book in your club it’s guaranteed to become a major best seller. When you smile & nod at a guest who is teaching on any spiritual subject, people take it as a personal endorsement from the lady whom they invite into their homes as a friend on a daily basis.
And because you offer such a mix of New Age, Eastern, contemplative & past life teachings, you have the potential to influence people’s spiritual life & consequentially their eternal life. Here’s where you walk on a slippery-slope!
Oprah, on the opening of your website is the statement: “Want to get in Touch with your Soul? Oprah sits down with leading spiritual thinkers & authors to talk about matters of the soul.”
But now comes a warning,
Oprah. Since you were raised in church, you may remember what I told the Church in Ephesus, in the book of Revelation the second chapter.
Just as I’ve congratulated you, I congratulated them on all their accomplishments. I told them I was proud of their good works, their labor, & their patience. I complimented them for not tolerating evil, even exposing & purging out hypocritical apostles because they were found to be liars.
I expressed to the church my deep appreciation for their unflagging patience for my names sake & their standing firm when things got hard. But if you recall, I then told them I had something against them,-they had forsaken their first love. In other words, in their haste to do so many good & noble things, they stopped loving me like they used to love me. Then I called on this church in Ephesus to repent & return & start loving me like they did in their early days.
Oprah, I have the identical message for you. I remember you way back at that Faith United Mississippi Baptist Church when you were just a girl where they used to call you “Miss Jesus” or “The preacher.” The kids did it mostly out of jealousy because they knew how much you loved me & longed to serve me.
I also remember later when you moved in with your father in Nashville & you would go faithfully to the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. You spoke in church now & then & once you even traveled to Los Angeles to speak to a church youth group. You were quite the young preacher.
I was thrilled about the incident one night in 1986 when you were in church after you’d begun to get well known because of your T.V show. A man asked for your autograph, & you said, “I don’t do autographs in church. Jesus is the star here.”
But these days Oprah, things aren’t right between us. You’ve gotten so far away from your first love for me that you’ve actually said some hurtful things. You made the statement, “Jesus didn’t come to tell us how divine He was, but to teach that divinity was within us.” You also said, “One of the biggest mistakes we make is to believe there is only one way. There are many diverse ways to God.” Oprah, have you forgotten what I said?
—I am the Way, the truth & the life. No one can come to the father except through me. [John 14:6]
Then you even went further with it saying, “There couldn’t possibly be only one way…does God care about your heart or whether you called His Son Jesus?” Actually Oprah, He does & so do I.
Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten when I was baptized by John, a Dove came & sat on my shoulder & my father spoke out of heaven & said,
this is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased?”
Have you forgotten these words? -
There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. [Acts 4:12.]
Don’t you remember my saying,
everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth I will also acknowledge before my heavenly Father, but everyone that denies me here on earth I will also deny before my father in heaven? [Matt.10:32-33.]
Oprah, I love you as I do everyone I’ve created but I must tell you you’ve put yourself in great danger by assuming the roll of teacher. My brother James made it clear that to take on the mantle of a teacher is a dangerous thing because teachers will be held accountable for what they tell people. [James 3:1]
Don’t forget, you have a congregation of many millions. Be careful what you teach & watch what you say! You’ll have to answer for every word of it at Judgment. You may say you’re not a teacher but the masses see you that way. You might not be preaching the gospel but you’re certainly preaching a gospel.
Remember, my words in Mark 9:42—
But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck? Remember Oprah that according to survey expert George Barna—you have an 83% favorability among born-again Christians.
The teachings on your show run the gamut from New Age, Eastern religions, self-help & reincarnation. Shirley McClain has spoken on your show describing how to meditate-- going inside yourself, asking your own “intuitive Self” to seek answers to life’s questions.
Oprah, you said, “When you are connected to your higher Self, knowing you can do anything you want to do-is what other people describe as “born again.” Oprah, Oprah, this isn’t what I described as being born again. This has nothing to do with my words in John 3:3-6 when I spoke one night to Nicodemus. He asked how a man could go back into his mother’s womb & be born again & I replied-I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water & of the Spirit. --Humans can only reproduce human life but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
I know you’ve done a lot of good & have achieved a lot personally & professionally. I also know that you believe the teachings you espouse on your programs & in the books you so wholeheartedly recommend. You feel they only complete & compliment the Gospel, but the Gospel doesn’t need completing, it’s already complete.
You can’t substitute “presence” for me & I’m not the “God presence” or “self’ as it’s called in Eastern religions. Neither can you make a mix of Buddhism & Islamic thought, & then sprinkle in a misapplied Bible verse or two.
Oprah, you’re doing what you’re doing in the name of tolerance, & Satan is having a field day. No one wants to be accused of intolerance. But you see, there’s no connection between light & darkness. Heaven asks you the same question Elijah asked the people on Mt. Carmel, how long will you waver between two opinions?
I give to you the same message I give to all nations & all people; turn from your sin & receive my forgiveness. My hands are extended toward you, just humble yourself & receive my mercy.
Satan is playing for keeps & desires to drag as many as possible into eternal hellfire with him.
The choice is yours. As I told the Church at Laodicea,
-- I stand at the door & knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. [Rev.3:20]
Love,
Jesus of Nazareth
Dear Oprah,
It would be redundant to say I know everything about you- as I do everyone else alive on planet earth.
I know that you were born to Vernon Winfrey & Vernita Lee in 1954 in Kosciusko Mississippi & you didn’t have auspicious beginnings.
You were named after Oprah from the book of Ruth in the Old Testament but the midwife misspelled your name when she was filling out the birth certificate. [Obviously I was never surprised that your name was really Harpo spelled backwards.]
You’ve done well in the money department amassing a 1.5 billion net worth. I know money isn’t the only measure of success, it’s not even a very good measure, but it’s certainly one measure. Abraham, Jacob, David & Solomon were wealthy. As you know, I’ve always been more concerned with what people did with the money they had, than how much they had.
One day a rich & successful young man came running to me telling me of his desire for eternal life. When I told him to go sell all he had & give to the poor, he went away very sad because he had many possessions. I wasn’t trying to make a poor man out of a rich man that day. Proverbs 19:17 says, He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.
I realize that you’re the object of criticism because of the vast amounts of money you make, but I also see you’ve been very generous with your money. I have no problem with people making large sums of money. I’m looking at your heart & what interests me is whether you have the money or the money has you. Like any good parent, I take pleasure in seeing my kids be successful, & remember, we pave our streets with gold in heaven.
I don’t expect everyone to be Billy Graham or Mother Theresa; neither do I expect everyone to take a vow of poverty. Quite the contrary. I have great expectations for everyone & expect each individual to have great accomplishments even though they won’t all translate into great amounts of money. I’ve given everyone gifts but they are diverse gifts & certainly people should use their talents & abilities to the fullest extent.
I take joy in the fact that you’ve come so far from that pig farm in rural Mississippi, knowing you spent the first third of your childhood living in poverty, both rural in Mississippi & ghetto in Milwaukee. Don’t even imagine that I’ve forgotten you were raped at 9 & were by your own admission out of control in those years.
Your website says the Oprah Show is the highest rated talk show in T.V history, seen by 46 million viewers each day in the U.S in 205 markets & in 134 countries. In fact your show has been the number one talk show for 21 consecutive seasons. Since its beginning in 1986 it has received 32 Emmy awards.
I know that you’re one of the most influential women in the world. Vanity Fair Magazine made this statement “Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader except perhaps the Pope.”
When you put your seal on a book in your club it’s guaranteed to become a major best seller. When you smile & nod at a guest who is teaching on any spiritual subject, people take it as a personal endorsement from the lady whom they invite into their homes as a friend on a daily basis.
And because you offer such a mix of New Age, Eastern, contemplative & past life teachings, you have the potential to influence people’s spiritual life & consequentially their eternal life. Here’s where you walk on a slippery-slope!
Oprah, on the opening of your website is the statement: “Want to get in Touch with your Soul? Oprah sits down with leading spiritual thinkers & authors to talk about matters of the soul.”
But now comes a warning,
Oprah. Since you were raised in church, you may remember what I told the Church in Ephesus, in the book of Revelation the second chapter.
Just as I’ve congratulated you, I congratulated them on all their accomplishments. I told them I was proud of their good works, their labor, & their patience. I complimented them for not tolerating evil, even exposing & purging out hypocritical apostles because they were found to be liars.
I expressed to the church my deep appreciation for their unflagging patience for my names sake & their standing firm when things got hard. But if you recall, I then told them I had something against them,-they had forsaken their first love. In other words, in their haste to do so many good & noble things, they stopped loving me like they used to love me. Then I called on this church in Ephesus to repent & return & start loving me like they did in their early days.
Oprah, I have the identical message for you. I remember you way back at that Faith United Mississippi Baptist Church when you were just a girl where they used to call you “Miss Jesus” or “The preacher.” The kids did it mostly out of jealousy because they knew how much you loved me & longed to serve me.
I also remember later when you moved in with your father in Nashville & you would go faithfully to the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. You spoke in church now & then & once you even traveled to Los Angeles to speak to a church youth group. You were quite the young preacher.
I was thrilled about the incident one night in 1986 when you were in church after you’d begun to get well known because of your T.V show. A man asked for your autograph, & you said, “I don’t do autographs in church. Jesus is the star here.”
But these days Oprah, things aren’t right between us. You’ve gotten so far away from your first love for me that you’ve actually said some hurtful things. You made the statement, “Jesus didn’t come to tell us how divine He was, but to teach that divinity was within us.” You also said, “One of the biggest mistakes we make is to believe there is only one way. There are many diverse ways to God.” Oprah, have you forgotten what I said?
—I am the Way, the truth & the life. No one can come to the father except through me. [John 14:6]
Then you even went further with it saying, “There couldn’t possibly be only one way…does God care about your heart or whether you called His Son Jesus?” Actually Oprah, He does & so do I.
Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten when I was baptized by John, a Dove came & sat on my shoulder & my father spoke out of heaven & said,
this is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased?”
Have you forgotten these words? -
There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. [Acts 4:12.]
Don’t you remember my saying,
everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth I will also acknowledge before my heavenly Father, but everyone that denies me here on earth I will also deny before my father in heaven? [Matt.10:32-33.]
Oprah, I love you as I do everyone I’ve created but I must tell you you’ve put yourself in great danger by assuming the roll of teacher. My brother James made it clear that to take on the mantle of a teacher is a dangerous thing because teachers will be held accountable for what they tell people. [James 3:1]
Don’t forget, you have a congregation of many millions. Be careful what you teach & watch what you say! You’ll have to answer for every word of it at Judgment. You may say you’re not a teacher but the masses see you that way. You might not be preaching the gospel but you’re certainly preaching a gospel.
Remember, my words in Mark 9:42—
But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck? Remember Oprah that according to survey expert George Barna—you have an 83% favorability among born-again Christians.
The teachings on your show run the gamut from New Age, Eastern religions, self-help & reincarnation. Shirley McClain has spoken on your show describing how to meditate-- going inside yourself, asking your own “intuitive Self” to seek answers to life’s questions.
Oprah, you said, “When you are connected to your higher Self, knowing you can do anything you want to do-is what other people describe as “born again.” Oprah, Oprah, this isn’t what I described as being born again. This has nothing to do with my words in John 3:3-6 when I spoke one night to Nicodemus. He asked how a man could go back into his mother’s womb & be born again & I replied-I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water & of the Spirit. --Humans can only reproduce human life but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
I know you’ve done a lot of good & have achieved a lot personally & professionally. I also know that you believe the teachings you espouse on your programs & in the books you so wholeheartedly recommend. You feel they only complete & compliment the Gospel, but the Gospel doesn’t need completing, it’s already complete.
You can’t substitute “presence” for me & I’m not the “God presence” or “self’ as it’s called in Eastern religions. Neither can you make a mix of Buddhism & Islamic thought, & then sprinkle in a misapplied Bible verse or two.
Oprah, you’re doing what you’re doing in the name of tolerance, & Satan is having a field day. No one wants to be accused of intolerance. But you see, there’s no connection between light & darkness. Heaven asks you the same question Elijah asked the people on Mt. Carmel, how long will you waver between two opinions?
I give to you the same message I give to all nations & all people; turn from your sin & receive my forgiveness. My hands are extended toward you, just humble yourself & receive my mercy.
Satan is playing for keeps & desires to drag as many as possible into eternal hellfire with him.
The choice is yours. As I told the Church at Laodicea,
-- I stand at the door & knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. [Rev.3:20]
Love,
Jesus of Nazareth
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