Eat the Cookie... Buy the Shoes
Page 8
Not only should we do things for each other, we actually needto do things for one another.
We do a lot for our children, but they also do things for us. What they do may be something we could easily do ourselves, but they need to give to us as well as receive from us, and we need them to do so.
Giving does not always have to be a response to a desperate need. We may be led to do something for people who don’t seem to need what we can do for them at all. If there is no need, then why do it? Simply because giving of any kind encourages people and makes them feel loved, and we all need to feel loved, no matter how many “things” we have. Use the resources you have to be a blessing and you will never run out of resources.
Washing feet was a menial task reserved for servants, but it contained a great lesson: Humble yourself and be willing to do small things that may have a huge impact.
Little Things Mean a Lot
We took the band Delirious? to India with us on a mission trip, and Stu, their drummer at the time, was given a little strip of leather from a poor girl who wore it as a bracelet. The small gesture of love from one who had so little was life changing for Stu. He has said publicly that as long as he lives, he will never forget the lesson it taught him. If someone with so little was willing to give, what could he be doing? Yes, little things can have a huge impact.
What little thing could you do? Jesus washed feet and said we would be blessed and happy if we would follow His example. Below is a partial list of some things the Bible says we can and should do for one another:
Watch over one another
Pray for one another
Be mindful to be a blessing
Look for kindnesses we can express to others
Be friendly and hospitable
Be patient with one another
Bear with others’ faults and weaknesses
Give others the benefit of the doubt
Forgive one another
Comfort one another
Be faithful
Be loyal
Build up one another—encourage others, reminding them of their strengths when they feel weak
Be happy for people when they are blessed
Prefer one another (let someone go ahead of us or give them the best of something)
Consider one another
Keep people’s secrets and don’t tell their faults
Believe the best of one another
As I said, this is a partial list. Love has many faces or many ways it can be seen. We will discuss several of them as the book continues. The ideas I listed here are relatively simple things we all can do if we are willing. We don’t have to make special plans for most of them, but can do them throughout the day as we encounter opportunities.
So then, as occasion and opportunity open up to us, let us do good [morally] to all people…
Galatians 6:10
Love Must Express Itself
We often think of love as a thing, but the word love is also a verb. Love must do something in order to remain what it is. Part of the nature of love is that it requires expression. The Bible asks if we see a need and close our heart of compassion how can the love of God live and remain in us (see 1 John 3:17). Love becomes weaker and weaker if it cannot be demonstrated; in fact, it may become totally inactive. If we remain active on purpose as we do things for others, we can keep from being selfish, idle, and unfruitful. The quintessential act of love is that Jesus laid down His own life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another. That sounds extreme, doesn’t it? Fortunately, the great majority of us will never be called upon to give up our physical life for someone else. But we have opportunities every day to “lay down” our life for another. Every time you put aside your own desire or need and replace it with an act of love for someone else, you are laying down your life for a moment, or an hour, or a day.
If we are full of the love of God, and we are because the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with love at the new birth, then we must let love flow out of us. If it becomes stagnant through inactivity, it is good for nothing. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son (see John 3:16). Do you get it? God’s love provoked Him to give! It is useless to say we love people if we do nothing for them. Put a huge sign in your house, perhaps in several places, that asks, “What have I done to help someone today?” This will serve to remind you of your goal while you are developing new habits and becoming a love revolutionary.
Love is all about action. It is not a theory or merely words. Words are important and we can actually use our words as one method of loving people, but we should use all means possible to keep on showing love among ourselves.
What can you do to show love to someone today? Take the time to think about it and make a plan. Don’t go through the day without increasing someone else’s joy.
CHAPTER
6
Overcome Evil with Good
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
Doing nothing is easy, but it is also very dangerous. For where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies. We all fall often into the trap of complaining about the things that are wrong in our society and in life, but complaining does nothing except discourage us even more. It changes nothing, because there is no positive power in it.
Imagine what a mess the world would be if all God did was complain about everything that has gone wrong since He created it. But God doesn’t complain. He just continues to be good and work for justice. He knows He can overcome evil with good! Evil is powerful for sure, but good is more powerful.
We need to stop and realize that God works through His people. Yes, God is good all the time. But He has chosen to work on this earth through His children—you and me. It’s humbling to realize that He could do so much more if we would be committed to love and do good at all times. We need to remember Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your moral excellence and your praiseworthy, noble, and good deeds and recognize and honor and praise and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.”
Goodness Is Powerful
The more we respond to evil with evil, the more it increases. I am reminded of a movie entitled El Cid, the story of the man who united Spain and became a great hero using the principle I am talking about. For centuries, the Christians had fought with the Moors. They hated and killed each other. In battle, El Cid captured five Moors, but refused to kill them because he realized that the killing had never done any good. He believed that showing mercy to his enemies would change their hearts, and then both groups could live in peace. Although he was initially labeled a traitor for his actions, they eventually proved to work and he was honored as a hero.
One of the Moors he captured said, “Anyone can kill, but only a true king can show mercy to his enemies.” Because of his one act of kindness, El Cid’s enemies offered themselves to him as friends and allies from that point on. Jesus is a true king and He is good, kind, and merciful to all. Can we do any less than follow His example?
Right now, can you think of anyone to whom you could show mercy? Is there someone who has treated you wrongly that you can be good to? Being merciful and good, especially to your enemies, may be one of the most powerful things you have ever done.
Prayer Works
In the past several years, we have seen evil progress rapidly through the wicked things shown on television and portrayed in movies. I was appalled years ago when psychics began to have programs on television. They offered to tell people their futures for a fee. Anyone who was willing to pay several dollars per minute could call in and get a so-called “reading.” I frequently complained about this, making comments such as, “I just think it is terrible that they are allowing things like this on television. So many people are just wasting their money and they are being deceived.” I heard many others saying basically the same thing. One day God dropped this thought into my heart, If you and everyone else who com
plains had spent that time praying about the psychics, I could have already done something about it. I began to pray and ask several others to do the same. Before long most, if not all, of those types of programs were exposed as fraudulent and taken off the air.
We often tend to complain about what “they” are doing, as I did when “they” began to air psychic television broadcasts, yet we do nothing to make the situation better. Prayer is a good thing that does have the power to overcome evil, so we should pray about anything we are tempted to complain about. God considers complaining and murmuring evil, but faith-filled prayers are powerful and effective. Praying opens the door for God to work and do something good.
Respond Properly to Evil
While trying to make their journey through the wilderness to get to the Promised Land, the Israelites encountered trials and difficulties and responded by complaining, grumbling, and murmuring about all of them. They indulged in immorality of all kinds and one of their sins was complaining. It allowed the destroyer access to their lives and many of them died (see 1 Cor. 10:8–11). Had they responded to their trials by remaining thankful to God, worshipping and praising Him, and being good to one another, I believe they would have made it through the wilderness in much less time. Instead, most of them fell by the wayside in the desert and never reached their destination. I wonder how many times we never see the good results we desire simply because we respond to evil things that happen with complaints instead of prayer, praise, thanksgiving, and continuing to reach out to other people in need.
Faith and Love
For many, many years a large portion of the teaching I heard in church and conferences was about faith, and the books I read were about faith. It seemed the main topic of teaching throughout the Christian world was, “Trust God and everything will be all right.”
Without faith we cannot please God (see Heb. 11:6), so we definitely need to put our faith in Him and trust Him, but there’s something else in God’s Word that I believe completes the picture we need to see. I will share it with you, but first let me tell you about some of my experiences in the early years of my journey with God.
I received Jesus as my Savior at the age of nine, but didn’t understand what I had in Him or how a relationship with Him could change my life because I had no “continuing education” in spiritual matters. The home I grew up in was dysfunctional, to say the least. My father was an alcoholic, unfaithful to my mother with numerous women, and he was very violent and angry. As I mentioned earlier, he also abused me sexually on a regular basis. The list goes on and on, but I am sure you get the picture.
Now, fast forward to my life at the age of twenty-three. I married Dave and started going to church with him. I loved God and wanted to learn, so I took classes that eventually allowed me to be confirmed in the denomination and went to church regularly. I did learn about God’s love and grace, as well as learning many church doctrines that were important to the foundation of my faith.
At the age of thirty-two, I found myself very frustrated because my Christianity didn’t seem to be helping me in my practical, everyday life. I believed I would go to heaven when I died, but I was desperate for some help to get through each day on earth with peace and joy. My soul was filled with pain from the abuse of my childhood and I manifested that pain daily in my attitudes and inability to maintain good relationships.
God’s word tells us that if we seek Him diligently we will find Him (see Prov. 8:17). I began seeking God on my own for whatever I was missing, and I had an encounter with Him that brought me much closer to Him. He suddenly seemed very present in my daily life and I began to study diligently in order to know Him better. It seemed that everywhere I turned, I heard about faith. I learned that I could apply my faith in many circumstances, which would open a door for God to get involved and help me.
I believed with all my heart that the principles I was learning were correct, but I still experienced great frustration because I couldn’t seem to get them to work for me, at least not to the degree to which I desperately needed them to work. At that time, God was using me in ministry, and my ministry to others was actually quite large. I had definitely made tremendous progress, but still felt deep within my heart that something was missing, so once again I began to seek God in a serious way. Through my searching and deeper study I learned that I was missing the main lesson Jesus came to teach us: to love God, love ourselves, and love others (see Matt. 22:36–39). I had learned a lot about faith as I walked with God, but I had not learned about the power of love.
Trust God and Do Good
During the several years of my journey of learning about this marvelous subject, I realized that faith only works through love. According to Galatians 5:6, faith is actually “activated and energized and expressed” through love.
The Holy Spirit led me to study Psalm 37:3: “Trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) in the Lord and do good.” I was startled to realize that I had only half of what I needed to know to connect properly with God. I had the faith (trust) part, but not the “do good” part. I wanted good things to happen to me, but I was not overly concerned about being good to others, particularly when I was hurting or going through a time of personal trial.
Psalm 37:3 opened my eyes to see that I had been trusting God, but I wasn’t concentrating on doing good. Not only was I lacking in this area, but I realized that most of the other Christians I knew were probably in the same condition. We were all occupied “believing” God for the things we wanted. We prayed together and released our faith through the prayer of agreement, but we did not meet together and discuss what we could do for others while we were waiting for our needs to be met. We had faith, but it was not being energized by love!
I don’t want to sound as though I was totally self-absorbed, because that wasn’t the case. I was working in ministry and wanted to help people, but mixed in with my desire to help were a lot of impure motives. Being in ministry gave me a sense of self-worth and importance. It gave me position and a certain amount of influence, but God wanted me to do everything I did with a pure motive, and I still had a great deal to learn. There were times I did acts of kindness to help people, but helping others was not my number-one motivator. I needed to be much more aggressive and purposeful about loving others; it needed to be the main thing in my life, not a sideline.
Ask yourself what motivates you more than anything else, and answer honestly. Is it love? If it isn’t, are you willing to change your focus to what is important to God?
I pray with all my heart that God causes these words to leap from this page into your heart. Learning the truth about the power of love was so life changing for me that I want everyone else to know it too. I am not suggesting that you don’t know it, for the truth is you may know a great deal more about loving others than I do. But just in case you don’t, I pray that what I share with you will ignite a fire in you and that it encourages you to be part of a Love Revolution that I believe has the power to change the world!
Keep Yourself and Others Stirred Up
Just imagine how different the world would be if each one of us who claims to know Christ would do one kind thing for someone else every day. The results would be astonishing. Now imagine what would happen if we all set a goal to do two loving, kind, beneficial things for someone else every day. I am sure you get the picture. The results would be amazing. The world would change rapidly because we really could overcome evil with good if we all made a commitment to live the way Jesus tells us to live.
You might be tempted to ask, “That will never happen, so why even try?” Don’t let yourself be defeated through negative thinking before you even begin. I have already decided that I am going to do my part and pray for other people to do theirs. I will also talk to other people and encourage them to do as much as they possibly can for others. It would be awesome if a lot of our conversation were centered around ways we can help others and creative ideas about things to do for them.
I have three friends who flow
in this amazing lifestyle and when we go to lunch or have coffee together, we often use our time to talk about things God has put on our hearts to do for others or creative ideas for fresh ways to be a blessing. I believe conversations like this are very pleasing to God and certainly they are better than sitting around complaining about everything that’s wrong in the world. I would like to challenge you to take a lead role in the Love Revolution. Enlist the people you know and invite them to a planning session on practical ways to meet needs. Share the principles in this book with them and find a target. Find someone who needs help and make a group effort to help them.
The idea of encouraging others to be aggressive in doing good works is not a new one. The writer of Hebrews talked about it: “And let us consider and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one another, studying how we may stir up (stimulate and incite) to love and helpful deeds and noble activities” (Heb. 10:24).
Please notice that this verse says we should give continuous care to watching over one another and actually study and think about how we can stir others up to good works and do loving and helpful deeds. He encouraged those he wrote to do the same thing that I am encouraging you to do today. Can you imagine how the devil would despise our actually getting together to find creative ways to be good to one another? He would prefer that we judge, be critical, find fault, gossip, and complain. I believe that doing the right thing will require forming new habits and developing aggressive acts of love, but the results will be wonderful.