56:070322

In Due Season we Shall Reap

    Sometimes we are inclined to be discouraged in our Christian life and work, we find ourselves asking these questions . . .

• Is it worth while to be Holy, to keep Gods commandments

• What profit is there in Godliness?

• Is it worth while to deny ourselves to do good to others, or to serve them?

• What comes of it all?

. . . many of us are apt to have mood in which these questions press upon us with painful stress. It is well we look into the matter that we may be assured that it is worth while to ‘do-well’, that there is profit in it.

   There is an inspired word that says “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal 6:9 – NIV) What is meant by by ‘doing good’? It is doing right, obeying God’s commands, fashioning our lives after the patten revealed by Him in His living Word.
   Let us be kidders here in that it’s not easy to right all the time. It throws up many a big struggle. A of ‘doing-well’, it implies a continual crucifying yourself. These inclinations surely must be restrained? .. Desires must be curbed .. Our will must be yielded to Gods will .. The whole life must be brought into subjection to a law which is spiritual and Heavenly.

“Does it Pay"? … is the deep question? There are many people who don’t put their lives under the Law of God. Who go on their own ways of self indulgences. They will put NO divine command interface with the exercise of their own desires. They will not put NO curb on their inclinations, as we look to these people, it seems to us perhaps that they are happier than us?? . . .
Galatians 6:7-9 “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up”
. . . They also seem to more out of life than we do. It’ll seem to us that we are denying ourselves, sacrificing our comfort, and cutting off our right hands for nothing. Sin always seem to have the advantage? Worldliness appears to pay the best? ‘Vertue’ seems dreary ~ costly & lonesome. It does not have the good time that self-indulgence has. It will happen that you will grow weary of ‘well~doing’ because there appears to be NO profit in it.

Well~Doing ..means also doing good to others. We are taught that if we are Christians, we must NOT be living for ourselves. Love is the essence of new life, and love is doing ~ giving ~ sacrificing, for the sake of others. Instead of trying to get out of the World al we can for ourselves, we are to give the World all we can possibly give of blessings & good. Until our glorious Lord comes back to look after it. We need to be doing our best to claim His people by showing His glory, and helping all the lost and disheartened back sliders, before time runs out. Then the Lord will say . . 2 Kings 10:30 “Because you have done well in doing what is right in My sight”

   It is easy to see each life is not natural, is not in harmony with Human feelings. Naturally we care for ourselves, and for our own benefit & comfort. We do not intend to put ourselves out, to sacrifice our own convenience in serving others. We might do it the ones we love deeply, but the gospel requires us to love & serve, with all our capacity serving, those that are not amongst our congenial friends. Here’s a contentious thought here .. An enemy who needs us we must serve, even the most ‘debased’ among them. . .
debased:~ reduced in quality or value ..
I.E Immoral ~ Debouched ~ Dissolute ~ Degenerate
and more of the like…
. . . Human life that we find, we must touch with our healing love and help with the hands that have been given by Christ. We are required to hold our life and all that we have at the call of love and of human need. We are to bear one anthers burdens. We’re called to have sympathy with all sorrow and need., to be touched ever with a sense of the worlds conditions. This love of Christian puts us down among men just as was Christ Jesus himself was among men. He never kept anything back, He poured out the blessing of His sweet life on everyone who came near Him, giving His life’s blood for the saving of man.
Ephesians 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace”

   That is what ‘well doing’ means. It is no wonder that some people stop and ask, ‘is worth while’? It is very natural for us to raise the question whether the giving of all the best way to gain all, living together for others is the way to make the most of our own life, as we are requested to do. Look at Christ, for example, and think of his rich and noble and blessed life. Never in any other mind were there such intellectual powers, and never in any other heart were there such depths and heights and breadths and lengths of love such as His.

• What did He do with His rich life .. ?
• He turned away from paths in which the Worlds great men had walked and devoted himself to the one work of ‘doing Good’ to others ..
• He gave all He had to His work ..
• He emptied Himself and made Himself poor that others might be made rich ..
• He exhausted His own strength that the weak may be made strong ..
• He poured out His own life – blood that dead might live ..

   Is that the best that Christ could be done with His wondrous life. His own friends thought not. They thought that he thrown His life away.

   Take those who are following in Christ’s footsteps. A young American, having finished her course in collage, came out with high honours. She had fine powers, good social position, influential friends, a beautiful and happy home. Just then there came a call from some missionary teachers to go to the South to work, among the freed slaves. The Girl heard the call and gave herself to this service. For two or three years she lived among the poor folk, teaching them, telling them of Christ. Then one summer night fever came up from the swamps, from which she succumbed, and soon she died among her despised people of colour, with no mothers hand to smooth her hair, or to have cooled her brow, or to have taken away the pain. They brought her body back, and buried her body among her friends, where they laid her body to rest, many had said of her life .. “She has wasted her beautiful life” .. “it was too rich a life to be poured out in such a costly ministry” ..All this was said whilst standing over the coffin, they ask the questions .. “Could she not have done anything better with her life”?
Ecclesiastes 3:1 “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven … 2 A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted .. 4 A time to mourn, And a time to dance”

   It is not in vain that we continue our ‘well-doing’ that we obey gods commandments, that we devote our lives in self-sacrificing to men for Christ sake. What ever seem to loss is gain. The good man may seem to have more trouble than his unchristian neighbour. His business does seem to proper so well. His virtues may miscarry, his faithfulness may bring him human enmity and even persecution, but life accounts are not always settled at once . . .

Harvest does not follow sowing Immediately

. . .in the end righteousness succeeds, just look here ..
NKJV Galatians 6:7-8 “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life”
NIV :~ “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life”
. . .this leaves us with no confusion as to what we need to do for the best of ourselves but for others to. Destruction or everlasting life .. Your Choice
1 Corinthians 9:11 “If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things”

   There are days & months when the seed seems to have perished. Afterward, however it yields fruit. It is the same in spiritual life. For a time there may seem to be NO blessing in ‘well-doing’. But, in the end righteousness succeeds. V8: “ he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life” .. Every kindness we do in the name of Christ Jesus, is sowing a good seed unto the Spirit. Every deed of Love ~ every act of unselfishness ~ every self denial ~ All the things we do to help ~ to comfort ~or to just simply bless others, are seeds which we sow into the spirit .. “at the proper time we will reap a harvest” .. [Galatians6:9] a time it may not appear any good, Or, blessing comes form the act of love or word of kindness spoken. But the seed will not perish, it has in it an immortal germ.
   We dare not shut our hearts, that would mean surely, a moral and spiritual death! So we must always be giving and doing. We can keep nothing long for ourselves. No soon as it in our hands, than we are asked to give out again, because the Lord has need of it in some other life, so as to meet another need, or to some work of love for Him. One thing to bear in mind is, never fear anything, the smallest thing we can do for another, with love for Christ in our hearts.

Example to bear in mind ..

“When you do anything for God, the very least,

thing, you’ll never know where it will lead,

or what amount of good it will do to them. Love’s

secret therefore, it is always doing things for God .

We know how a thing done by us, it may blessed a

life and stay in ti as a benediction forever.”

   It would be amiss of me if I did not recommend having a close and true walk with Christ. There is a story that a teacher wrote about once .. “As I came out of the schools front doors after the usual trying day in my first school, you were passing waiting for me. As you walked with me a short distance you spoke sympathetically about my work. Your manner and voice cheered and comforted me, I never forgotten it”. She then goes on to say that in the years since the memory of His kind words stayed in her heart. The incident is full of comfort for her. We must always to remember to keep sowing, so that you can reap many harvests, God wants not to just bless us once, but for ‘ALL’ of our days. For we know not how small a word may bless a life.

Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” . . . such a well known verse amongst Christians, but did you see that .. “pressed down, shaken together, and running over” .. God is good all the time. Sometimes you only have a little, but God’s waiting to see how we use this ‘little-bit’ before He increases it.

   We should always ready our hearts & minds for what ever ‘little’ ministry we may have an opportunity render. The smallest word of good cheer may start a song in a heart, which shall sing forever. The good may drop conscientiously from lip and hand, you may never think of it again, and yet it shall not be lost. The sentiment carries in it the life of God and is immortal.

   There is a difference in the different-ways in which we give, though the gift ~ or favour, or act be precisely the same. One gives only help, the other gives part of themselves in the help. There are some beautiful flowers that have NO fragrence, but how much more a flower means, that it has in perfume as well as loveliness. We should be giving part of us with the gifts that we give. We need to impart part of ourselves with the gifts we bestow, part of our own life flows out with every deed of kindness we do. Love is the fragrance of the flowers of the heart and what ever we do in love, love for Christ and love for man shall never be lost.

   Who knows what the person is going through? Just think how much the World will be richer and better for even the smallest deeds of Christ like charity. We may not reap the harvest in this World, but beyond the sky's, we shall reap the sheaves in our bosom. So then throughout our lives be in perfect in ‘well-doing’, as we shall know that our Master in Heaven will accept the humblest things we do for Him, even though it only be a fragment in the building up of His Kingdom.

So always remember this ...

Ecclesiastes3:1 “To everything there is a season, 

A time for every purpose under heaven .. 2 A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted”

Thirty days of Grace

53:181118

Thirty days of Grace

   Now there were certain men who were defiled by a human corpse, so that they could not keep the Passover on that day; and they came before Moses and Aaron that day. And those men said to him, “We became defiled by a human corpse. Why are we kept from presenting the offering of the Lord at its appointed time among the children of Israel?” And Moses said to them, “Stand still, that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.” Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the Lord’s Passover. On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break one of its bones. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it. But the man who is clean and is not on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of the Lord at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin. ‘And if a stranger dwells among you, and would keep the Lord’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land..”  Numb 9: 6~14

   In the scriptures there is Grace heaped upon Grace, wow just imagine that if you will for moment. What I’m talking about is of cause is the ‘Passover’. From this there is a question raised?...

Q  “ If a man was in a condition to observe that feast on the appointed day, was he to be debarred for a whole year? Some men found in this position were heard saying..’wherefore are we kept back” (V7)

   So, let’s look at FEAR, from 5 different points.

1) Unfitness. . . . . 2) Confession . . . . . 3) Provision . . . . .

4) Warning . . . . . 5)Invitation

   This was now a totally new difficulty, and Moses deal with it, just as in today, how we should deal with it all when it springs up before us. So without any hesitation Moses went out, and called upon our Lord God for direction.

   If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all, literally. The answer was plainly given, there has to be a special ‘Passover feast’, to be held on the fourteenth (14^th) day of the second day of the month. Though this has to be a special case, even all the provisions have been met. What would have to be made known, is that His Grace won’t always mean that these Riches’ are not of money, per-say.

1 Unfitness

“..Certain men were defiled that they could not keep

the ‘Passover’ on that day..”  (V6)

   The cause of their Unfitness to profit by the provision made by God on the fourteenth day of the first month was their uncleanness. There’ll be a number of you who will cry out, and profess they are without blemish. Here’s why we all have al sinned and so fallen short.  It’s what we do next on realization of committing sin. Due to this sin, we’re no longer in a place to receive God’s riches.

 “..If a person touches any unclean thing, whether 

it is the carcass of an unclean beast, or the carcass of unclean livestock … ‘Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters.." Leviticus 5: 2

   Being already sinners, not them, but only help to show their sinfulness. By the law knowledge of sin, unbelief unfits a man from receiving the benefits of Christ Jesus redeeming death. The defilement has been their own doing/making.  

2 Confession

“..And those men said to him, “We became defiled..” (V7)

   Passover was one of (if not the..) the most important dates on a Jewish Calendar, and today it is still as important. It was and is time they confessed Unfitness, and sought not to justify themselves. So, they presented themselves as ones disqualified because of their defilement, and begged for mercy & grace that these might reach and satisfy their souls.

   So many them can only try and imagine what it must be & feel like to be stoned by you community, even close friends as well as Family! Some would welcome being stoned because then they can try to heal at last the broken bones, with bruises fading over time.

#Confession will finally open the door#

   The grace of God, like a river that flows down into every crevice, or like the light of the Sun, will illuminate every corner, no matter how dark and dirty the corner may be, if only there was an opening toward it? 

#If only there was a man who open the door,

I will come into him#

(1 John 1:9)

“..if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us..” 
(1 John 1:9)

3 Provision

"..Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the Lord’s Passover. On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.." (v9~11)

      I know what you’re thinking, boxes of chocolate, sexy clothes for your loved one. Cards professing our everlasting love, and so much more. Gentiles have taken this date ’14 February’, then told on this date told to spend a month’s wages. Just to tell and be told how much it is to be loved on this date.

#When truthfully it is Passover time and 

NOT valentines!# 

   Between the first and the second Passover there are thirty days, these are days of Grace. If you somehow were to manage to miss both, there was no possibility of receiving a Passover blessing for the coming year. That has to be unbearable? This little blessing was instituted for the benefit of those who were disabled, is a beautiful little picture of the grace of God devising a plan of salvation for the helpless sinful man.

   Moses was only able to say in V8 “..Stand still and hear what the Lord will command concerning you..”

#Salvation is of the Lord#

   The law was given unto Moses, but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ. It’s suggestive that this special grace for the defiled, or the man that was ‘a far off’ on an journey, and so could not keep the feast of Passover.

“..that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from

the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the

covenants of promise, having no hope and without God

in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were

far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ..”

Eph 2 : 13/13

  4 Warning

“..the man who is clean and is not on a journey,

and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be

cut off from among his people..” V13

   The Passover speaks of redemption. To those who willingly neglect this there is nothing for them but a fearful attitude towards ‘the Judgement day’.  There is no escaping this time when, all will be stripped bear, and all their life’s actions will be read out. Back then there was another action that was thought to be such a slight, that it would hold back all men that ‘not’ circumcised.

“..And the uncircumcised male child, who is not

circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut

off from his people; he has broken My covenant..” Gen 17: 14

 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,”says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  Heb 10: 26/31

  Surely to despise or even to neglect Grace, is to choose death?  Hoe can it have been seen that they would have escaped if they neglected even salvation?

5 Invitation

“.. If a stranger will keep the Passover so..” (V14)

   By invitation a total stranger (Gentile), may come with them and may be a participant of the blessing of this memorable feast. This action denotes of redemption by the blood of the Lamb is offered to all who will come into the camp.

“..Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying,

“This cup is the new covenant in My blood,

which is shed for you..”  Luke 22: 20

   How wonderfully fitting this is a typical of the great salvation, through the blood of the lamb of God. Through the sacrifice of our Lord, being covered by the blood has such power it should be one or the greatest gifts given unto us. But yet even today it still remains one of the most undervalued.

       “..And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.."   Rev 22: 17

  ^“.. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and 
to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members 
of the household of God..”

Eph 2: 17/19

Prayer

  In your love let all who are laden with burdens and worries, come freely and find shelter and rest. Let us ofer up our praises to the one true God in Heaven. No matter you concerns for today God has the answer. In our Lord Jesus' Name, Amen.