A Minute Meditation

There was a plaque that stood on President Ronald Reagan’s desk which said, “It is amazing how much can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets the credit for it.” This saying has recently been acted out in a very real way when the editor of this magazine was invited to Jamaica to unveil the cornerstone for their soon-to­be-built ecclesial hall. Our editor immediately enlisted others to accompany him and he then pushed them forward. He was anxious to see the goal accomplished and he cared for that more than he did for the personal recognition that was truly and rightfully his. He was scheduled to give the exhortation but again he seized the opportunity of inviting a brother visiting Jamaica from England to fill in for him.

His attitude was like that of an athlete willing to pass the ball to the one under the net or throw the key block so that another can carry the ball into the end zone.

It isn’t who scores that is important. It is scoring that counts. In the truth, there are those who don’t care who gets the credit, but sometimes there are those who always want to make sure that they are noticed. Jesus warned us of those who do their alms to be seen of men and he said that, “verily they have their reward.”

It is interesting to watch children in a playground while their parents sit on the side line. One after another of the children will call out to their parents to “watch me,” or “did you see me go down the slide?” For the child it is important that the parent see their great or small accomplishments.

Paul spoke of the fact that when he was a child, he spake as a child, he understood as a child and he thought as a child. When Paul became a man, he put away childish things. It is the mature brother and sister who are more interested in seeing the project completed than trying to get the credit for it. God knows what we do and what we don’t do and we should not be doing our works to be seen of men.

Let us be involved in helping get the job done. It does not matter who does it, but rather that the work is completed.

Now this is different from the way the world usually thinks. In the world, people do want to be recognized for what they do. Men want to call their lands after their own names, says the Psalmist. Every university has buildings, halls, and stadiums named after those who have contributed great sums so that their deeds may be remembered and etched in stone.

One university wrote to their alumni asking for large donations and promised that for one million dollars they would name a building after the donor. For five hundred thousand they could have the wing of a building bear their name and for only one hundred thousand a room would be named in their honor. One poor graduate wrote back, sent ten dollars, and asked if they would simply write his name with chalk on the floor.

We should not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing, said Jesus. Let us find a work to do and do it with our might. When our Lord returns, then we will be remembered for good. This is what Nehemiah did as he constantly prayed to his God. He said, “Think upon me, my God, for good.” And, “Remember me, O my God, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy.”

When it came time to have a Bible school in Jerusalem, Nehemiah chose Ezra and set him up on the pulpit above the people to teach them. Nehemiah did not care about getting the credit from man. He just wanted to see that the people received the godly instruction that Ezra and the others supplied. Let us, like Nehemiah, say to our Heavenly Father, “Remember me, O my God, for good.”

Countless icebergs float in the frigid waters around Greenland. Some are tiny; others tower skyward. At times, the small ones move in one direction while their gigantic counterparts go in another. The small ones are subject to surface winds, but the huge ice masses are carried along by deep ocean currents.

Our lives are subject to two similar forces. The winds represent everything changeable, unpredictable and distressing. But simultaneous with these adverse gusts or gales is another force more powerful than anything on the surface. It is the sure movement of God’s purposes and the deep flow of His unchanging love. It is in that unseen current that we should live and move and have our being.

Paul tells us that we ought not to be children, “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”

The little icebergs go whichever way the wind blows, just like the children who are “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.”

We need to be “rooted and grounded in love so that we may be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

We can be compared to the gigantic icebergs which have far more below the surface than will ever rise above the waters of the Arctic Ocean. What is it that moves us? Is it a wind of doctrine, put out by those who want to deceive? Shouldn’t our ways be based upon love of Christ, so that we are rooted and grounded in love?

Now as we face the new year, we need to decide what it is that will move us. Paul was persuaded that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We should be like gigantic icebergs floating in the sea of humanity. We are stable and can be relied upon. We are not easily influenced by the fashions and opinions of the world.

We need to resolve that in 1992 we will not be carried about with every wind of doctrine, but we will be solid and stable. We will know where we are going and not let the winds of the world blow us off course.

The little icebergs cannot take heat and if they float south into warmer waters, they soon melt and become absorbed by the ocean that surrounds them. Not so with the giant ones which can withstand much heat and still remain intact.

The world around us would have us melt and become part of their sea of wickedness for “the wicked are like the troubled sea” says Isaiah. We, while in the sea, must never become part of it; Jesus said of us, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”

So, as we begin a new year of service to our Lord, let us remember to be like the giant icebergs. We are in the sea, but we will not become part of it, we will not be blown about by every wind of doctrine. We need to be “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labor is not in vain, in the Lord.”

“Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster and do it with no thought of reward. Your life will never be the same again.” This thought is a quote from Og Mandino.

I learned the truth of this saying in a painful way. The afternoon of the day my father was to die, I took him to the doctor. He was in good spirits. We had to do a lot of waiting. Waiting to see the doctor. Waiting in the lab for some tests to be made. Back to the doctor for more waiting. Minor surgery was scheduled for a few weeks later and I drove him home. He was tired but none the worse for wear, we thought. He ate his supper, watched a little TV and retired at a reasonable hour. He never woke up.

I had brought some work along to occupy the time while we waited for doctors, lab technicians and the like. I had no idea that he would be dead before morning. Had I known that, I would have spent those precious last hours in conversation with him.

The point of the quotation is that we should be treating everyone we meet as if they would be dead before midnight. If we did this, just think how much more thoughtful we would be. We would listen intently to what they had to say; we would be conscious of their feelings; we would muster all the kindness and understanding that we possessed.

How do we show our love for our Heavenly Father? By being kind to some of His children. The Psalmist tells us that the cattle on a thousand hills are His, so what can we give to the Creator of heaven and earth? We can give cups of cold water in His name to His children. This is the lesson our Lord Jesus Christ taught us.

We all know this academically, but that is not enough. There are so many things we seem to know that we do not do. It is important to know them, but it is essential that we do them.

The quote speaks a truth that we will all be wise to follow. None of us knows the day of our death but if we all treated one another as lovingly and kindly as we would if we were seeing each other for the last time, certainly our life would never be the same again.

What is lost because we treat someone with this amount of kindness and they do live through the night? Nothing is lost and a great deal is gained, because we have treated them the way we would like to be treated.

We have all heard the prayer of the little boy who said to God, “Please make all the bad people good and the good people nice.” Some may hold all the right doctrines and yet be unkind to the children of our Heavenly Father.

Paul tells us to “be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” He also told us that “love suffereth long, and is kind.” Our Lord told us that God “is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”

The only picture our Lord gives us of the judgment seat has to do with how we treated others, what we did and did not do.

We are all determining the amount of mercy we are going to receive at the judgment seat by the amount of mercy we now show to each other. “For the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”