Unless We Are Willing Use The Means Provided To Us By God To Help Those In Need Our Faith In Him Is Not Alive Its Dead If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? (James 2:15, 16) Can You Reach My Friend - https://youtube/watch?v=3b7DW65nxEw “When we recognize a need but do nothing about it, we have missed an opportunity to exercise faith. ‘Good Works’ focus on others and stem from the outroworking of faith rather than on being just the outward sign of faith.”- (Clinton Wahlen). What a POWERFUL POWERFUL, POWERFUL message. This is the same message we got from the sermon yesterday and it our discussion on the lesson in the evening. God is truly amazing. Our faith in God is all about our relationship with Him and others. We cannot say that we have faith in God and continue to pass those who are in need. We cannot say that we have faith in God and we continue to hoard the resources He has given to us to help those who are in need. It is very clear based on our actions that our faith in God is self-centred if we continue to pass, those who are in need, on the other side. God has provided us with an educational opportunities to see how we will use our time. Will we spend all the time trying to gain a good education or will we see this as an opportunity to share with the members of our project group the plan of salvation. Think about it for a moment. Why did God place where you are today? Why has it not made it easy for you to find the resources to pay the school fees? Could you be that God is using your situation to be a lighthouse and a witness to your classmate and lecturers? You see my friend; when we consider what the Lord did for us on the cross of Calvary faith in this gift of salvation will not become a reality unless we ask Him to help us to kind and affectionate one to another. Our faith will remain dead if we continue to focus on ourselves and our problem. The same way that God allowed Job to be place under the attacks of Satan to show that men can live in harmony with Him; this is the same thing that God wants to demonstrate to the world through our experiences. We cannot say that we have faith in God and we continue to murmur and complain about our circumstances. We cannot said that have faith in God and we continue to fuss about the struggles that we encounter each day. God wants us to cast all our burdens upon Him and by faith believe that He will resolve them for us. Now that we have placed our heavy burdens at the feet of Jesus, this morning the Lord is asking us to show that our faith in Him is not dead by helping those who are in need around Him. I am not sure if you realize that by helping those who are in need, God uses these situations to help us to have faith in Him. It is through our helping of others that we will develop a greater faith in Him. I pray that our faith will remain ALIVE as we continue to work for the Master. Please read the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah. Have you loosed the bands of wickedness? Have you sought to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Have you dealt your bread to the hungry, and brought the poor that were cast out to your house? Have you covered the naked? If you have been rich in these good works, you may claim the promises given in this chapter: Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am. And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. But you are not now entitled to these promised blessings. You have not been engaged in this work. Look back over your past life and consider how destitute it is of good, noble, generous actions. You have talked the truth, but you have not lived it. Your life has not been elevated and sanctified, but it has been characterized by selfishness and stinginess. You have served self faithfully. It is now high time that you were changing your course and working diligently to secure the heavenly treasure. You have lost much that you can never regain. You have not improved your opportunities for doing good, and your unfaithfulness has been entered upon the books of heaven. The life of Christ was characterized by self-denial, self-sacrifice, and disinterested benevolence. You do not take a right view of the preparation necessary for the kingdom of God. Your ideas are altogether too meager. Talk is cheap stuff; it does not cost much. Works, fruits, will determine the character of the tree. What fruits have you borne? The apostle James exhorts his brethren: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; What doth it profit? Your good wishes, my brother, will not supply the need. Works must testify to the sincerity of your sympathy and love. How many times have you carried the above representation out to the letter? You have a very good estimate of yourself, but you have a work to do that no other man can do for you. Your nature must be changed, and there must be a transformation of the entire being. You love the truth in word, but not in deed. You love the Lord a little, but your riches more. Would the Master say to you, if He should find you as you are at the present time: Well done, good and faithful servant; . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord? What joy is here referred to? Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. The joy that was set before Jesus was that of seeing souls redeemed by the sacrifice of His glory, His honor, His riches, and His own life. The salvation of man was His joy. When all the redeemed shall be gathered into the kingdom of God, He will see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Those who are co-workers with Christ, partakers with Him of His self-denial and His sacrifice, may be instrumental in bringing souls to Christ, and may see them saved, eternally saved, to praise God, and the Lamb who hath redeemed them. (Testimonies, vol. 2, pg. 684-686; Ellen G. White) Any neglect of duty to the needy and to the afflicted is a neglect of duty to Christ in the person of His saints. When the cases of all come in review before God, the question What did they profess? is never asked, but, What have they done? Have they been doers of the Word? Have they lived for themselves? or have they been exercised in works of benevolence, in deeds of kindness, in love preferring others before themselves, and denying themselves that they might bless others? If the record shows that this has been their life, that their characters have been marked with tenderness, self-denial, and benevolence, they will receive the blessed assurance and benediction from Christ, Well done. ... { Our spiritual strength and blessing will be proportionate to the labor of love and good works which we perform. The injunction of the apostle is, Bear ye one anothers burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). Keeping the commandments of God requires of us good works, self-denial, self-sacrifice, and devotion for the good of others, not that our good works alone can save us, but that we surely cannot be saved without good works. After we have done all that we are capable of doing we are then to say, We have done no more than our duty, and at best are unprofitable servants, unworthy of the smallest favor from God. Christ must be our righteousness. . . . All around us there are those who have soul hunger and who long for love expressed in words and deeds. Friendly sympathy and real feelings of tender interest for others would bring to our souls blessings that we have never yet experienced, and would bring us into close relation to our Redeemer, whose advent to the world was for the purpose of doing good, and whose life we are to copy. What are we doing for Christ? (That I May Know Him, pg. 334 – Ellen G. White)
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 11:23:29 +0000
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