In Due Season we Shall Reap

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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 get 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”

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You have not passed this way

Joshua 3:4

   The Israelites were about to cross the Jordan into Canaan. The wilderness was about to be left behind forever. It was a new way on which they were setting out on. The experiences as such as they had never had before hence the command was . . . “put the Ark to the fore, keep your eye upon it, and let it lead you”

   The incident from very olden times, still has it’s lessons for us today. It is, that we dare not go into any new way of life unguided by God, but God leads, we need never to fear any new experiences, however new and strange of difficult and full of peril they might entail.

   All life is new. There is not a step of it, of which it may be said unto us . . . Joshua 3:4 “you have not passed this way before” Every days path is new to each one of us. We say our lives are just dull and boring. We rise each morning to go through the same routines we went through yesterday. We walk along the same roads every day for years. Life seems to have NO variety. Yet really each day is new and strange. We do not know what experiences it will bring to us, what joys or sorrows, what struggles, what responsibilities, what new revealings, and what new duties? Each morning hear the voice of God whispers to us . . V4 “you have not passed this way before, therefore keep your eye on your Guide”

   No one of the millions who have gone before us have never passed over the path on which our feet must walk. A thousand ships may cover the same sea, but each one the voyage is now unfamiliar. There are no paths to trace in the sea. No keels leaves tracks for others to follow. No one is going to have ‘precisely’ the same experiences that we’ll have, hence no other life can be a copy of us. That is why therefore we must have in all things divine guidance.

Just before the New Year a young Christian, who had just recently become a follower of Christ, wrote .. to the friend who had helped an guided her .. ‘Will you let me put my hand in your again for the New Year?’ ..The friends reply was this ..’Yes, but in Christ’s hand first’ .. Human guidance is not enough for anyone, only Christ can lead you safely & securely.

   The passing from childhood to young adulthood, is one of the points at which special direction is needed .. [NKJ] 1 Corin 13:11 “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things” … All things are. Life, now, begins to become real as an adult. Questions must be met, duties must be taken up, responsibilities must be assumed. There are now dangers & snares at every turn, what is needed is divine guidance, and not just in the morning, but at every turn during the day. When the young man/woman goes out from their home into the World, to attend school, or to begin at work, it is as if he entered a new strange new World ..

All is strange and bewilderings

… they’ll meet new temptations they had never known before. Whilst the novelty of this life holds it’s fascination for them, but the fascination is also full of danger. They’ll miss the wholesome restraints of home and the direct influence of the accustomed guides of their youth, and with the removal of the familiar restraints. The young person who is wise will move reverently and humbly into this new World that thus opens up before them. They will seek to enter it with Christ Jesus by their side.

   When becoming a Christian we think it is all sweetness and light. Sorry but have burst your bubble here, because we have just painted a massive target on our back, the thing remember is . . [1 John4:4] “He who is in you is greater than he who is the World” . . It’s a given fact that throughout our journey [race], many will loose their way in the darkness and wonder off, lost. When we see those whom we would say hi each Sunday service, stop coming, do we say oh well, or do we come along side them and with wisdom gently encourage them back into the fold. Just as David would look for his missing sheep, even enduring affliction whilst fighting off Bears & Lions . . . 1Samuel 17:34 .. “Your servant used to keep his fathers sheep, and when a Lion or a Bear came and took a lamb out of the flok, I when after it ..” … so no matter the demons that must be fought, every soul saved and restored to the fold, they are worth it.

   As we fight the voices of dark and sorrow, you’ll hear God saying .. “You have not passed this way before” .. The path is new and beset with, the floods are deep and wild. So always be sure to keep your eyes on the one true divine leader (Jesus Christ) before you, therefore be sure to follow His ways.

   If I may leave you with this las thouhgt, I guy was out hiking a trail, that he had done so many times brfore, suddenly found himself lost. As over night the snow fall had abliteratedthe path so much that he could not find the path. that was until he saw the foot prints of the deer. So realising the deer will know the way to go ... [Q: being honest how many have been lost not knowing which way to go? If in a car, prior to have SAT-NAV?] ... he followed the foot prints left behind, eventually leeding him safly back down to where there was a path to follow. 2 Corinthians 5:7 "For we walk by faith, not by sight" ... so again being honest with yourself , and not to me, can you truthfully, how many are giving over your finances - your morraige -house payments - your job promotion - School exams to God? I hope your now fully getting the message because the closer we become to God, this is what it means to be a Christian!

Prayer

Just because we drive/walk the same roads every day there is always going be something different, so we are asking you Lord to guide each step we take, that you'll be there to work everything for our good. We ask for you direction and love this day, in your sons name Jesus we pray, Amen.

God Wants To Forgive You

 

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God Wants To Forgive You

Micah 7:18/19 “Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy. 19 He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea”  Micah asks here in reverence, ‘how come is it that we do all these things wrong against you and others, yet you bestow on us mercy & grace’?

V19 [NIRV] “Once again you will show loving concern for us. You will completely wipe out the evil things we’ve done”

   What an awesome God we have, that He will do this for us, that we can have a personal connection Him. V18 “Who is a God like You” Seriously, I feel what a God we have, that He is willing too, just like you, Think of it like this your trying to write a letter and you make a mistake half way through and have screw up the letter this what God is doing for us here, He gives us a fresh page to start again. As is ..V19 “He will throw all [yes all] our sins into the bottom of the Sea” .. just let that sink in for minuet.

OK??

Let the following remarks ring in your ears in the coming days ..

~ What do you imagine about God after you’ve sinned?

~ Do you imagine an angry God, quick to you away?

~ Do you imagine Him indignant that you failed yet again?

   The Bible assures that His anger & disappointment in us passes quick.. Psalms V6:1 “O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger, Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.” .. Our plea to God to with hold only His anger towards… V30:1 “For His anger is but for a moment, His favour is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning” His displeasures does abait here, that does not mean we are to repeat our sins, hence why we turned away from our old sinful lives...V85:4 “Restore us, O God of our salvation, And cause Your anger toward us to cease” ..Isaiah 12:1  "And in that day you will say: “O Lord, I will praise You; Though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. He actually delights in giving His Mercy, to humble and repentant heart .. Psalms 31:7  “I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, For You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities”

   God really takes no joy in judgement, that is if we truly want to please him, we need to stop trying to hide our sins & failures from Him. Instead bring them out and lay them at His feet, in the light of day and forsake them, so God can help us deal with them. Then, after this, showing us His tender mercy and grace.

For he is Good

 

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For he is Good

Ezra 3:11

“For He is good, For His mercy endures forever”

   Friends I have this short message from God put upon my heart to share with you. This must come as no surprise to you, in that God only wants to do good by us. This means having a firm foundation to build our faith upon, and that is on our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, for without Him we might just as well build our faith on sand.

Matthew 7:26-27 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

   There will come a time, maybe for a nano-second, or altogether, that you let go of God because you have become despondent, so you have thrown your hands up, declaring ‘you don’t want anymore to do with Him.’ If so let me assure, just because you have. . .

. . . God is still holding onto you

. . . God still cares about you

. . . Gods arms are wide just waiting for you to come back home.

So my Brothers & Sisters always remember..

“His mercy endures forever”

Hello again

 

Hello again

I appologise in the length of time since 

my last post. As this year deaws to it's 

conclusion I vow to share more with 

you all, in the coming New Year. I'll 

go live with the new study in 10 days. 

So keep your eyes peeled. 

Many thanks

On Judging Others

 

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On Judging Others

[NIV] Matthew 7: 1&2 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”

   Our Lord said ..“Do not judge, or you too will be judged” .. Just what do these words mean? We cannot help judging others, sure, after all we are only human! We ought to be able to read others characters, and to know whether others are good or bad. As we watch others act we can’t help forming opinions about them. The holier we grow and more like Christ, then the nearer will be our moral judgments. We are not meant to close our eyes and be blind to peoples faults and sins.

Q: “So what does our Lords words really mean to us?”

   He is saying this .. ‘It is uncharitable judging against others for which He warns us, we are not actively looking for evil things – actions – behaviours in others. We are not to see others through the warped glasses of prejudice and unkindly feeling. We are not arrogate* to ourselves the function of judging, [*Arrogate:~take or claim something without justification], as if man was answerable to us. We are to avoid a critical or censorious spirit. Nothing is against speaking good of those we see and know, it is though uncharitable judging and speaking of those that are condemned.

Luke 6:37 “Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned”

   One reason this is wrong, is that it is putting one’s self in Gods place. Words you don’t want to said of you is .. “Who made you judge and executioner” .. on hearing these words should be a warning that you have gone too far. For He/God is the one true judge, with whom every human soul is judged. Judgment is not ours to make but is Gods.. God only is the Lawmaker and the Judge, He who is able to save and destroy, so who are you that judges your neighbour?” .. In condemning and censuring others we are thrusting ourselves into Gods seat, taking His sceptre into our hands, and presuming to exercise His perogatives.

2 Chronicles 19:6 “Take heed to what you are doing, for you do not judge for man but for the Lord”

   We don’t know what may be the cause of the faults we would condemn others. Some peoples flaws are an inheritance that they have received from our parents. They were born with the weakness that now mars their adulthood. Or, their faults come through errors in their training and education. Once, a Nurse fell with a Baby in her arms, years later, and all down the years the man goes about with a lameness or a deformity, which mars his beauty of form. But he's not responsible for the marring, and criticism of him is cruel and unjust. There are now hurts in his character, and wounds of the soul, which it is quite unjust to condemn with anything but pity, for they are the inheritance by someone else’s hands.

1 Corinthians 4:4&5 “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing”

   We don’t know the things in a persons circumstances or experiences which are the real cause of the faults, or even peculiarities we are disposed to censure. We don’t know what troubles they have endured, what secret sorrows they have had to carry, that are so impressed upon their hearts, as to affect their temper, or even the cause their conduct. . .It written ..

“If we could read the secret history of our

enemies, we should find in each persons

life, sorrows and sufferings, enough to

disarm all our hostility and angst”

...If we take time to wonder at a man’s unmercifulness, they will seem unsocial sour or even cold. But all the while they are carrying a burden which almost crushes the life out of them. If we knew all that God knows of their life, perhaps, just perhaps, we might not speak words of ill over them. Then may be our own censure would not be so harsh.

   A great deal of our judging of others over misjudging or unjust judging, because we don’t know all the facts, that are leading upto this point in their lives. It would oftimes grieve us, and make us ashamed of ourselves, if, when we have judged an other severely , that is if we should be shown a glimpse of their inner life, revealing hidden sorrows & struggles, which are the root cause of the things in them we have blamed.

   Betty and me would often be out in the car, when we’re cut up, by someone. I might go to react, Betty would say STOP, you don’t know the day they could be having or had, or the pressures that are on them to be somewhere. As frustrating as it can be, she always tries to get me to see the other side of the coin. When all I want to do is rage, it is very disarming.

   Very often all we will see is but fragments of their lives, and no judgement formed on a fragment can be fair, we can only see one side of the coin, when there may be another that altogether changes it’s quality. The two sides could be seen as thus …

‘One side is always but blurred, like

a mass of crushed leaves, that are just out

of focus. The other side is seen in sharp

focus, showing the exquisite beauty

of the flower.’

. . . Life is full of similar 2 sided views of people and their acts. We would see someone out in the World, and they appear harsh & stern. Then we see them at home, and maybe see them around their invalid child, then all comes together a full life picture. It would therefore have been unjust if we made our judgement of them, from our ‘one-sided’ view of them, without seeing them with their child, loving ~ caring ~ nurturing.

   There was a young man whom was severely criticised by his work colleagues for his closeness & meanness. He was paid a very good salery, but livid very miserly, without even basic comforts, which his friends thought he could easerly afforded, and without any of these generous expenditures in a social way which his work colleagues indulged in. Many thoughts were made of his stinginess. That was only one side of life, but there was in fact another. When the young man had an only sister, actually they were ‘Orphans’, she greatly suffered (in other words was very sick), she was stuck in her room, of which she was mostly bed ridden because of her illness. He was her only brother thus provided all her care needs.

   This was the reason he lived so frugally, saving every penny he could, often going without many things others his age took for granted and thought necessary, so that she never went without, so she had the best care he could give her, and many comforts. This was the other side of his (hidden) character, the one side of which his work friends were unknowledgable & uncompassionate about. Surely we can see how unjust their judgement was based upon the one side they saw of his conduct. To judge from only seeing a fragment, is to judge ignorantly not least to say unfare.

[NIV] Matthew 7:2/5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye”

   Our own imperfections also make us unfit for judging fairly. With ‘beams in our own eyes, make it that we can not see clearly to pick the planks out of our brother eye’s. One of the qualities which make us incapable of impartial judgement of others is … ENVY. There are very few of us who can see our neighbour's lifes work disposition without some warping & distortion of the picture. Envy .. has a strange effect on our moral vision ..

• It shows the beautiful things in others with the beauty dimmed ..

• It shows the blemishes and faults in an exaggerated way ..

• In other forms too, the miserable selfishness of our hearts obtrudes itself and makes our judgement of others oftimes really unkind and uncharitable

[NIV] Romans 8:26/7 “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people”

   Another reason we should not judge others is that we need then to rise up out of their distresses. We are set together in life to make each other a lot better than we are. Their way to do this is not prattling on about their faults or short comings. Constantly pointing out their faults never cured anyone. There is a time, in friendship & love, for telling others their faults, but as I have already said, it can only be said in these relationships, also be only said in a spirit of lovingkindness.

   We are often told one of the finest qualities in a friend is that they will faithfully, with love, tell us our faults. We would like to think it is so, but not many of us have grace enough to welcome and accept such correction. A parent may tell their own child their faults, so long as they tell us with love & affection, NEVER – EVER to ever approach with anger or impatience. There was a time when a teacher could tell a pupil of their mistakes and then show how to correct them, again if it was done with a loving desire for their improvement.

Nagging is not a means of grace

   There is a more excellent way, that is love. It’s better when we wish to correct faults in others, be careful to let them see in us, in relief the virtue, the excellence, which is opposite to the defect we see in them ..

[NLT]Proverbs 3:12 “For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights”

[NIV]Proverbs 2:10/11 “For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you”

.. It is the habit formed by a certain type of person, that if they were to hear from a close member of their family & friends mispronounce a word, they never correct them, or tare strips of off them, right there and then, that would just be belittling. Instead they find the best and earliest opportunity, to show them the best time/way to use and pronounce the word. To correct in this manner is for sure the most wise in helping them and others out of their faults of character and conduct, in a more friendlier & softer way.

#That is our Lords way, with His disciples

He never scolded them#

   He bore patiently with their dullness, and slowness as scholars. He [Jesus] never wearied of repeating the same lesson over and over again, but was never censorious. Even Jesus did not judge them, He didn’t keep telling them of al the blemishes He saw in them. It was just not His way of seeking their growth into better, sweeter life, for His heart is always full of love. He helped them ever toward a longer life. We always need to remember to relate to others to grow into spiritual beauty. Consciousness accomplishes nothing in making people better. You must always remember that scolding never really helped anyone…

Only LOVE creates LOVE

… We too often take too much delight in discovering something NOT beautiful about someone, and swooping down upon what ever they did wrong. Instead what is needed, is a complete change of mindset, in approaching them with love, when having to correct them...

[NIV] Psalms 35:24 “Vindicate me, O Lord my God, according to Your righteousness”

… If ever criticism is ever indulged in, it should be done with deep humility, and with sincere desire, that for their sake helping them making changes, only ever done just between you and them.

   We ALL therefore need to train ourselves, to see the good in each other and NOT evil. We need to speak more approving & edifying, shinning the light on each others beauty within. And not words that are bitter ~ twisted ~ or hurtful & condemning words that would impact others for years to come. We must always try and look at  others through eyes of love, and not those of ..Envy or Selfishness .. therefore we should seek to heal with words of true affection & gentleness.

   Jesus Christ came in peace, lived with lovingkindness and peace, even keeping silent all the way through His persecution & crucifixion. Can we honestly say the same? Next time we feel like ripping into someone .. S T O P .. Think ~ breath ~ count to 10 next time you find yourself becoming embroiled in a heated discussion, and end up saying some thing you will regret.

Prayer

Heavenly Father with each passing day, make us, mould us 

little more like Jesus, and alittle like our earthly selves. 

Amen