God created everything we see and even don’t see. What can He not give us therefore? God helps us to prosper so that we can freely give to others in need. God enables us to serve Him without fear. (Luke 1:74) God is able to bless us abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that we need, we will abound in every good work of His. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
Just as there is God’s eternal laws of nature there are also eternal laws of love. God’s love put mankind on the earth to live in His love peacefully with each other, without any deficiencies, and eager to serve one another in love. But, as we’ve seen throughout the history of man – God’s laws of love have been cast off and the world lives with that intensifying result. But, for those who love God and strive to please Him – His hand is extended to them that they have all they need and all the more to be helpful to others.
God knows those who truly want His help and those who don’t. It takes good judgment to know the difference between those who just want hand-outs and those who really want help so they can help themselves and then to help others. Some people just don’t want to change the way they are for whatever reason. We need to understand the difference between human sympathy and godly compassion because there is a huge difference in the results.
Our efforts to help people should open the way for them to know the Savior and begin providing for their selves and eventually to be in the place where they can help others they are responsible for.
God can work miracles for us, but we must see that with every miracle we receive from God – He expects us to follow through with what that miracle was intended to do. Maybe that’s why the church doesn’t see many miracles today. We want God to do miracles for us, but are we willing to go through the miracle till we have come to the end of what God intended for that miracle to do for us and for our children, or others in our life.
The Lord has given us so much in order to help where He wants to help people; to work miracles in the way miracles are meant to work. Just like when we go in for surgery – there are doctor’s orders to follow after surgery so that the surgery accomplishes what it was intended to do for us. Recovery can be painful, but we must persevere and endure until we’ve come to the result intended. The same is true for any miracle that the Lord does for us when we ask.
In Jesus’ Day the Pharisees/Sadducees were skeptical of the miracles that Jesus did. No miracles took place until Jesus came with open arms. When Jesus extended His hand – lives were changed for testimonies to come forth about the presence of God among them for the first time in a very long time.
When you know the good you ought to do and you don’t do it, this is sin according to God’s law of love. To the Lord, the sin of ‘neglect’ is as wicked as any “thou shalt not.” Passing by an obvious opportunity from God to help someone, for any reason, grieves God. God knows what we are capable of and if He presents us with an opportunity, we better not pass it by. God will get someone else to help that person, but God really wanted to bless YOU with that act of His love. We just don’t understand how much God wants to reward us for being faithful.
What you do for someone else might look like love, but human love is not the same as God’s love. Human love will only go so far until it starts to upset one’s own personal lifestyle, hinder one’s personal goals and require what one really doesn’t want to give up. To be the Lord’s hands and arms, self must be out of the way. The Lord needs clean vessels to work through. I must think less of myself if the Lord is going to work through me the way He wants to. Letting Christ live through me is a process of putting off my own plans and desires in order to allow His Spirit to move through me for His plans and desires.
It’s His plans and desires that I do which are fulfilling, not my own plans and desires. Until we experience being faithful to the Lord, we will be self-deceived spending our life for ‘self’ and for those we believe will benefit ‘self’ in one way or another. That’s why most parents try to live out their failed lives through their children. That’s why most people marry who they marry. That’s why most people join churches. That’s why people want their government to take care of their needs and wants.
A day came, when I was in my early fifties and having been a Christian for over 25 years, when the Lord told me that He didn’t want me doing anything for anyone anymore – except for love; not human love, but God’s love. Like most people, I did things for people for my own reasons. The heart is deceitfully wicked, no one really knows their own heart, but God does.
“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9-10
How does one come to do anything out of pure love? I believe it starts with knowing the Father’s perfect everlasting love for me, which was first shown to me through His Son’s sacrifice on the cross, and then poured into me by His blessed Holy Spirit.
Jesus extended His Hand to help people because He knew His Father would back Him up and do all that He asked of His Father and we need to have the same wisdom and faith. And so Jesus tells us, “Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in My Name…Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” John 16:23-24