Editorial

There is the well known story, supposedly true, about the queen of France who during the French Revolution, when told about the poor people having no bread to eat, replied, “Let them eat cake.” It is hard to believe that she was so naive, but there are people living today who are completely oblivious to the needs of others.

Jesus, Paul, James and John all have taught us that we must be conscious of the needs of others and more than that, we must do our best to fill those needs when we know about them. John asks us a searching question when he says, “Whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” John’s point is that if we have material blessings and our brother is in need, we must help fill that need, otherwise how can we say that we love God ? He goes on to say, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” It’s no use talking  about our love if we don’t do something for others, says John.

James has a comment that ties in with what John has said. He tells us, “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” James like John is saying, talk is cheap . . . we must do. In fact James says these very words earlier in his epistle, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.”

After Jesus’ resurrection, he fed his disciples breakfast along the shore of the lake. In the early morning conversation that followed breakfast, Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Twice Jesus used the strongest word known for love and the last time he changed it to phileo, the word that Peter used each time in answering his Lord. Jesus’ response after Peter’s answer was always the same, “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my sheep.”

We think of ourselves as the sheep and rightly so, but Jesus is telling us that we each have a responsibility to also be feeders of the sheep. To feed Jesus flock costs us something. It takes our time, our effort and sometimes our money. If we really love Jesus, then we will do it. That was the point Jesus was making with Peter. Do you love me? The only way we can show that we love Jesus is by feeding his sheep. He said that inasmuch as we do these things unto one of the least of his brethren we do it unto him.

we should take this both literally and figuratively. We should always be looking for ways to serve our brethren and sisters with material things. Just a cup of cold water in Jesus name will be remembered. It may mean getting up in the night to help someone who is ill, it may mean foregoing something we wanted to do in I order to help another.

When Jesus sat on the well in Samaria his disciples went into town to get food and when they returned they pleaded with him to eat but he told them that he had meat to eat that they knew not of. They misunderstood him thinking he was talking about literal food but he explained that it was his meat to do the will of God. So it is with us. If we eat, breathe and sleep the truth then we will be filled with meat that the world knows not of and then we must feed his sheep with this same meat. We don’t need to be smart or clever or rich, we simply need to be filled with love

for others so that we are constantly thinking, “What can I do to help ?” It may be food and drink, but it may also be a kind word, a phone call, a letter. Some of Christ’s noblest shepherds never delivered an exhortation or even prayed in public, yet they constantly did for others and their names are written in the book of remembrance.

Our love for God and our love for Jesus will cause us to do kind things for one another. “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”

“It’s not what you do when you know what to do, but what you do when you don’t know what to do that makes a difference in this life.” There is a great deal of truth in this simple saying.

There are many times when we really don’t know just what we should do. When the course is clear and we know exactly what we should do it is much simpler even though we may not even then do what we know we ought. But when our path is shrouded with fog and we cannot see the way clearly, the way we walk then really does make a difference.

Solomon, even before God gave him the wisdom for which he is so well known, still had enough wisdom to realize that he did not know what to do. He expressed it beautifully when he told God, “I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.” What he did when he did not know what to do really made a difference in his life as it will in ours. He asked God to guide him. His request to God was, “Give thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?” We are told that this “speech pleased the Lord.”

God will be pleased with us also if we will simply ask Him to guide our steps when we do not know what to do. Solomon was probably thinking back on this occasion when he wrote in the Proverbs that we should “Trust in the LORD with all our heart; and lean not unto our own understanding. In all our ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct our paths.”

This is what we should do when we don’t know what to do. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Ask God to guide our steps, tell God we are but a little child and we don’t know how to go out or come in. God can use us when we acknowledge that we don’t know what to do and prayerfully and humbly ask Him to direct our paths.

James gives us good advice along these same lines when he says, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.”

So we see it takes humility and faith to do what is right when we don’t know what to do. Humility to pray to God that we don’t know what to do and faith in believing that He will answer that prayer and give us wisdom so that we will know what to do.

After taking these two important steps, there is one final thing that must be done and this is where many fail. We must then move into action. God will guide our feet but not while we are sitting down. After we have prayed and really believe that God hears, God cares, and God will guide us, then we need to get up and get going. God does not give us open revelation, He opens and closes doors as we move forward.

Some have asked God to guide their steps when they had already decided what they were going to do and they proceed pel mel in the direction they want with little or no regard to God. Rarely will God intervene if we only give Him lip service that we want Him to guide our steps. He did strike Paul down as Paul raced to Damascus and turned him around but more often God will simply allow us to go in the wrong direction if that seems to be our desire. It is important that we truly mean it when we ask God to give us wisdom and then we move forward in full assurance that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteousness man availeth much. The key to our success lies in really believing the wise counsel of Solomon to “Trust in the LORD with all our heart; and lean not unto our own understanding.” Then and only then will “He direct our paths.”

Our ninety-six year old father-in-law has been in the hospital and now is in a convalescent hospital. In fact, he is in the same convalescent hospital as our eighty-three year old mother, which has made visiting them that much easier. Our children have also frequently visited them, often bringing our grandchildren to see their great-grandparents. There is such a contrast between a one year old and those in the eighties and nineties. For one, life is just beginning, and for the other it is nearly over.

Most of us fall somewhere between these two extremes and we can certainly learn lessons from our observance of the very young and the very old. A youngster is born into this world, having nothing and knowing nothing. It is completely helpless and must depend upon others for its survival. The very old are in a somewhat similar situation. Many of them have nothing and some of them know very little, nor are they able to use effectively what they do know. In this same home, there is a retired medical doctor who now just sits in a chair all day long, as if in a stupor. All that medical knowledge stored up in that brain is now of no useful purpose.

We look at the young child and we are amazed at all this child must absorb in the next twenty or so years. From learning to walk and talk, to read and write, to learning math and physics, to acquire skill in playing a musical instrument, to developing championship form in sports, all this is accomplished in some 20 years. Then we visit a home where the great and near great are settled in rows of wheelchairs, dozing with their chins on their chests, just waiting to be wheeled back to their rooms for the night. All their knowledge, all their skills, and all their experiences are of no useful purpose in their present state.

Money, the love of which Paul says is the root of all evil, is of little use to those in these homes. Some in these homes have a great deal of money, but they get no better care than the one next to them who is on welfare. Of course, the very very rich can have private nursing care around the clock, but was this the reason for their driving ambition to accumulate a fortune, to have a nurse sit by their wheelchair while they doze?

Surely, our life must have more purpose than just to accumulate a lot of money to spend on nursing care. Mrs. Wrigley spent her last years on the top floor of her mansion, surrounded by doctors and nurses, and never even knew they were there as she was in a coma.

We cannot help growing old, for the only alternative is to die, but we need to reevaluate our priorities to make sure that the things that take up our time will have a value when Christ comes. All the rest, no matter how much fun it may be or how rich it may make us, will be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor in the day of Christ’s coming.

Let us make sure that our young ones are taught the true values of life and to seek first the kingdom of God. All the things the Gentiles seek for will be supplied by God if we will just put Him first in our lives; that’s a promise from Jesus Christ. As we observe the rich and famous of this world, surrounded by their trophies and memorabilia, dozing in their wheelchairs, we realize that the things of this life at their very best are still only vanity and vexation of spirit.

How thankful we are to be in possession of the true riches and to have hope beyond this time of trouble. ‘With Paul, we say, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

If we were sitting at the breakfast table sipping a cup of coffee and preparing to butter a piece of toast when we smelled smoke and looked up to see the kitchen curtains near the stove in flames, what would be the best use of our time? (1) Butter the toast and finish the cup of coffee, or (2) do something about the rapidly spreading fire? Whether we run towards the fire with a pot of water or grab the phone and call the Fire Department, no one would maintain that a better use of our time would be to butter the toast.

Every day we make decisions as to the best use of our time and few of them are so absurdly easy as this one yet many times these decisions have an even greater effect on our lives than the decision to put out the flame. In the one instance we may save our home from fire but in our everyday life we make decisions that will save not a home but our life from eternal destruction.

In the final analysis those who will be saved when Christ comes will be those who made the wise decisions as how they spent their time each day. There is only one way in which we are equal and that is in the regards to time. We each have 24 hours to spend every day and none of us have more, none have less and it is impossible to save up the time of one day to be used later. Each day all 24 hours are spent, wisely or foolishly, but spent nonetheless.

How we spend this time determines our success or failure, our happiness, our misery, and finally our acceptance or rejection by Christ at his judgment seat.

Since the way we spend our time is so important, let us use our best judgment in deciding how it will be spent. The first thing we should do is plan what we want to accomplish each day. With no plan how can we hope to spend our time wisely? We need to make lists of the things we determine are important and certainly our daily list should always include Bible readings and prayer. If we come to the end of the day and have had “no time” to read from God’s book, then we have made some foolish decisions as to the best use of our time that will be as destructive as buttering our toast while our house burns.

One way to check up on ourselves to see if we are making the best use of our time is to simply ask the question “What is the best use of my time right now ?” over and over during the day. Many times we will have to admit that at that moment we could make better use of our time than we are doing.

We should ask this question when we are torn between two projects, when we run out of steam, or when we seem to be bogged down and making little headway.

If we ask this question as we are driving to the morning meeting we can certainly answer “yes” but since it is also possible to think and drive at the same time we might use this driving time to think of the blessing that is ours to attend the memorial service. As we drive along we could sing a hymn or even say a prayer to help prepare our mind for the meeting. By asking the question we have actually improved on the immediate use of our time even while we are on our way to the meeting.

If we will form the habit of making lists of the important things we want to accomplish each day and then ask ourselves over and over throughout the day, “What is the best use of my time right now ?” we will find that we will accomplish much more with less effort.

Solomon wisely instructed us that “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Let us then “redeem the time” by taking to heart the words of our hymn, “Life is the time to serve the Lord, to do His will, to learn His word.”