Contentment and Busy Lives

"He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life." Proverbs 21:21 NKJV

"In our world, contentment is a strange street vendor, roaming, looking for a home, but seldom finding an open door. He moves slowly from house to house, knocking on doors, offering his ware: an hour of peace, a smile of acceptance, a sigh of relief. But his goods are seldom taken. We are too busy to be content.

"Not now, thank you. I've too much to do," we say. "Too many marks to be made, too many achievements to be achieved...."

So the vendor moves on. When I asked him why so few welcomed him into their homes, his answer left me convicted. "I charge a high price, you know. My fee is steep. I ask people to trade in their schedules, frustrations, and anxieties. I demand that they put a torch to their fourteen-hour days and sleepless nights. You'd think I'd have more buyers." He scratched his beard, then added pensively, "But people seem strangely proud of their ulcers and headaches."

[From NO WONDER THEY CALL HIM SAVIOR, and reprinted in the devotional, GRACE FOR THE MOMENT, by Max Lucado. I highly recommend this book to you as a start or enhancement to your daily habits of reading the Word, prayer, and meditation to get on the path where you can hear the voice of God and have daily input from your relationship with Jesus. I saw a funny bumper sticker yesterday, "We're not human beings with a spiritual side - we're spiritual beings with a human side." :) May he bless you as you seek him. May he bless you with peace - shalom - שלום.] -=db=-

Jesus and the Lawyer . Jesus and You

Contrasting Ministries

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10:27

A lawyer came to Jesus with an important question: How does one get to heaven? It is the test of orthodoxy for all religions, and the lawyer wanted to test Jesus. He didn't want the correct answer; he wanted to see how Jesus would answer. Jesus referred him to the Law, and the Lawyer correctly responded with the summary of the Law. When Jesus agreed with him, he asked, "Who is my neighbor?" That question prompted the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Levite and Priest are vocational religious workers. They were professional ministers and they didn't love their neighbor. The Samaritan, a layman not in the ministry, loved his neighbor. He who was in the ministry wasn't ministering, and he who wasn't in the ministry was ministering. The vocational religious workers saw ministry in terms of programs, the layman in terms of people. The Levite and Priest said, "My meeting is more important than that man's needs, and if he wants my help, let him come to where I minister and I will meet him on my terms."

The Samaritan met the stranger on the stranger's terms. In all probability: 1 – The Samaritan had a schedule he was willing to interrupt for the sake of this need. 2 – He probably never saw the stranger before or since. 3 – Getting involved was messy resulting in blood all over his clothes. 4 – The stranger was never able to repay the favor.

How do you view ministry? Are you a Levite or a Samaritan?

From "Thoughts From the Diary of a Desperate Man" Walter A. Henrichsen -=db=-