“He must increase, but I must decrease.” —John 3:30
“If you become a necessity to someone else’s life, you are
out of God’s will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a “friend
of the bridegroom” (John 3:29). When you see a person who is close to grasping
the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the
right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a
difficult and painful struggle, don’t try to prevent it, but pray that his
difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in
hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be
amateur providences in someone’s life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and
actually preventing God’s will and saying, “This person should not have to
experience this difficulty.” Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our
sympathy gets in the way. […] Listen intently with your entire being until you
hear the Bridegroom’s voice in the life of another person. And never give any
thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just
rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have
to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34).” CHAMBERS
There are a couple of points raised by Chambers. First,
we must be careful that people don’t trust in our provision more than God’s. We might have the capacity to help someone,
but in helping them, they focus on us and not God. I have said this before, so indulge me, “The
only thing we can take credit for is being obedient to God. God is the ultimate provider.” Woe to the
well-meaning Christian who provides when they should not because of misguided
sympathy. The help leads to dependence,
may co-dependence, which is unhealthy and unspiritual. The second
point is the sometimes in our effort to relieve the pain or subvert the
consequence, we intervene. Our intention
is to help, but unbeknownst (another great word) to us, we are getting in God’s
way. We would never intentionally do
that .. would we? If we see our children
struggling, would we stand by and let God use that circumstance to draw them
closer to himself? Even in the face of
being accused of not loving them?
In Matthew 25 is the parable of the sheep and the
goats. The common question “Lord when
did we see you?” The Lord’s response, “When
you did … or did not … do these things”
In the parable, the goats withheld the help needed and the sheep gave
it. We should help others, but that help requires spiritual motivation and
understanding. Which addresses the question
begged from the points Chambers made, “When
should I help?” The answer is simple but
the doing is difficult. Knowing when
requires spiritual discernment. To have
spiritual discernment requires that you spend time with the Lord .. prayer ..
the Word … Even when you believe you know what the Lord would have you do …. Sometimes
you will get it wrong. Sometimes people
will say you should not have .. and other times, others will say you should
have … Listen for the voice of the Spirit saying “This is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah
30:21), do what He says and give the Lord the glory. ELGIN
Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)
No comments:
Post a Comment