It is hard to give when you are the one that need help

“Be not weary in well doing.” Paul tells the Galatians and the Thessalonians. It is hard sometimes to keep on smiling and trudging through the temptations. Helping when you need help, giving to your family and those you love when there is little time or resources to give. This is how we feel sometimes. Mothers especially feel this, but fathers must also feel that sometimes his labors to provide for his family are unappreciated.

Forget not that you must be standing on a firm foundation before you can lift another. You cannot give if there is nothing to give. If you are to be not weary in well doing then you must feed and strengthen yourself continually. You know the drill, pray, study the scriptures, repent, and above all have faith.

Sometimes I can sit down at a feast with my scriptures and drink deeply. Other times a call to action requires that I am satisfied with leftovers, a snack, or even that I fast, drawing upon past experiences and knowledge. We are never called upon to deplete ourselves spiritually. We always have prayer and our testimonies. We always have the power to communicate with heaven through prayer when all else is gone. Testimonies also we can take with us even unto death because they are an accumulation of our experiences.

We can lose our testimonies, however through forgetfulness and disregard if we lose faith and stop praying?  It is through well doings, prayer, study, and faith that we keep our testimonies bright and shiny. So it is you see, one continues circle.       

That we may see your face.

As Paul brings to a close his first letter to the Thessalonians he says, “…that we may see your face and might perfect that which is lacking your faith.”  (Thessalonians 3:10)

He can send letters and preach to a crowd, but one on one the individual might inquire about a particular point, or they might witness an unplanned learning moment. Despite Paul’s title and authority he himself was still learning and being perfected. It is our daily experiences as we exercise our faith on what we have read or been taught that result in knowledge. This applies to each of us either as children or as adults, whatever our station in life if we are open to learn.

We can read the scriptures, recite them word by word, but until we externalize them, apply them to our lives and live them they are just words. It is not until we gain a personal relationship with our Father in Heaven, his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost can we have these experiences and know God.   

What is important about seeing ones face? There are many paintings of Jesus. Some I don’t like at all, but my favorite is the one by Dell Parsons. It is the one I have posted on my Favorite Scriptures page. It is his tender loving expression that touches my heart and makes it real to me. If you look closely you will notice his face is wet with tears. I don’t know if Jesus cries as much as I do, but the artist concept is so real to me.  When I am in the presence of the Holy Spirit tears flow and would not the Savior also have tears on his face? I have seen that very same picture by Dell Parson and Jesus is smiling and it looks wrong to me. Not that I don’t think he ever smiles because I am certain that he does, but when I see him face to face both our faces will be wet with tears of joy. In Dell’s painting Christ is not frowning or scowling. He is not menacing or angry but loving and compassionate with joyful tears.    

 

Take upon you the whole armor of God…

Take upon you the whole armor of God…Loins girt about with truth and having the breastplate of righteousness… feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace…the shield of faith… ye shall…quench the fiery darts of the wicked… the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God, praying always in the Spirit . (Ephesians 6:14-18)

Preparation of the gospel? Read, ponder and pray daily with real intent. If we study, ponder and pray all the days of our lives and if we live to be a hundred years old we will in this life gain only a thimble full of knowledge. How much greater for that thimble of knowledge will our experience on this earth be than if we live in ignorance never knowing the plan of salvation.  

We wrestle not aganist flesh and blood.

I moved my office into a different room in my house Saturday and for two days I was unable to find my Scriptures. I uncovered them this morning and it is such a good feeling to have them back. I can certainly pray without those books and think happy uplifting thoughts without them, but to study them I must have them in hand. My Bible was still opened to the scripture I was reading when the people who had agreed to help me with the heavier things arrived.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”  (Ephesians 6:12)

In other words we wrestle against unseen things, which know what the stakes are and want to detour us from reaching the gates of Heaven.  How well I remember when I was as a teen, Pistol Stearns teaching our Sunday School class and asking what Satan looks like. “Is he dressed in a red underwear and carrying a pitchfork? Does he have a pointed tail and horns on his head? If he did we would surly know him.”

 Some of us even then would still follow him because the way back to God seems so hard and Heaven seems so far away.  Evil is so cleaver. “You messed up too bad. You’ll never get to Heaven now. Come with me,” it says.

Most of us got to that point because of those unseen things that appear good but lead us away from the straight and narrow path. “I’m all right I can still see the path,” we say. Then one day we realize we are too far away to get back without hardship. Been there done that and I bet you have also. Paul certainly did and he thought he WAS doing the right thing. The Lord knew his heart and what he desired. Paul may have even been like my dad sitting out in the bushes with his shotgun praying, “Lord help me see who is cutting my fence so I can shoot at them.” Paul might have been praying, “Lord help me find those horrible Christians so I can kill them.”  

Evil is so cleaver that most of the time it appears good and holy and righteous.      

There is one body, and one Spirit,

“Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” (Ephesians 4:1)  Think about it. To what vocation were you called? Were you sent here to be a druggy, a thorn in someone’s side, a mischief maker? No. You were sent here perhaps with weakness toward those things, but your vocation is to overcome and  to find our way back home. That is the whole purpose to life, the reason we were born, the reason we are here is to this end and we were given gifts as well as weakness to accomplish this.

Paul says, ”There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling.”

Sometimes when Paul speaks of the body he is referring to the church, but I wonder if in this case if he isn’t also referring to the whole human race. When we speak of ‘the church’ we are usually referring to the group of people we associate with in the gospel. We seek to divide ourselves from the various groups of believers, from sinner or saint, from black, white or somewhere in between. The truth is we are all God’s children and we are all in this together.

“There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in to you all, but unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ… And he gave some, apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some, pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints of the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4 :4 - 12)