What is Helpful?

When you see someone in need do you ever ask yourself what you can do to truly help them? We are faced with lots of needs all around us. We have needs, our immediate family has needs, our extended family and our friends have needs, those we work with have needs, those in our community have needs, people all across the world have needs. No matter how far or how close you extend the "circle" of influence, you will see or encounter needs. While these needs can be easy to spot (although sometimes we confuse wants for needs) how to truly help eliminate the needs is not always so clear cut. Many times rather than really meeting the need, we simply put a band aid over it, we treat the symptoms. How do we get to the root, how do we truly help? Should we even help? Are we actually helping or are we just enabling? Obviously the answer is different depending on the need, the individual(s) and the resources that we have.

While many of the variables change from situation to situation, I believe that it is clear in the Bible that we are to help those in need. James 1:27 says that; "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...". Matthew 25:40 says; 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers or mine, you did for me.' Jesus gave specific examples just before this of what "doing for the least of these looked like". It looked like; giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, hospitality to the stranger, clothes to the clothes less, care for the sick and visitation to the prisoner.

I think everybody would want these things lived out if they were in the situation of being hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, etc. For some reason though, the opposite is not always (or even frequently) true. Many people feel that by giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, hospitality to the stranger, clothes to the naked, care for the sick and visitation to the prisoner, that we are simply enabling them to stay that way. Unfortunately, they are right. Sometimes! I don't pretend to know where that line is. All I know is that I don't want to be face to face with Jesus someday and hear what he said in Matthew 25:45, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

A good friend of mine once said to me that if he is going to make a mistake, he wants to make it on the side of God. I agree! In other words, I would rather live out Matthew 25:40 so much that I actually end up enabling people to stay needy than to do the opposite and not help them. This week I would like to challenge you to Live 25:40.

I'm Third

I was talking with a friend of mine recently and she mentioned that she has been reading part of Philippians 2 every day so I thought I would take a look at it to remind myself what it says. Go ahead, take a minute right now and read it.

Did anything stand out to you? Verses 3-6 stood out to me;

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus..."

Say what? When I look at the choices I make, it is amazing how many I make that are about what's best for me. Can you imagine doing NOTHING out of selfish ambition? What would that look like?

"Consider others better than yourselves." Who exactly is "others"? I don't consider myself to have a large ego most of the time but how often do I put "others" above ME? I struggle much of the time putting my own family above myself. I struggle putting my friends above myself. Am I supposed to put even people I don't know above myself? Look to the interests of others?

I am so good at thinking about myself, where will this end? It ends with verse 5 which tells us to have the same attitude as Jesus. While this is not possible for us here on earth, we can submit to the process of becoming more like Jesus by putting our desires, our needs after the desires/needs of others. I more than a little convicted thinking of Jesus leaving his place next to God to come here as a man, live as a man, experience all that we experience and then die in our place. If anyone had the right to think of himself above others, it was Jesus. Instead, Jesus gave up EVERYTHING, He did "nothing out of selfish ambition", He considered others better than himself, He looked to the interests of others.

I went to a youth rally several years ago and heard the phrase "I'm third". Jesus is first, others are second and I am third. That is the perspective that I want. I am not even close to 100% successful with that but I am trying creep that percentage closer and closer.

Who Can Show Us Any Good?

In Psalm 4:6 David says, "Many are asking, 'Who can show us any good?' ". I think there are many people wondering that today as well. If you look at our world this question can seem to not have an answer, at least not an easy one. Things are messed up in our world, just watch the evening news if you need confirmation of that. The problem is, when we look at the world, we are looking in the wrong place. In Mark 10 the rich young man calls Jesus "good teacher" and Jesus responds saying "Why do you call me good? No one is good - except God alone." Only God is good and "every good and perfect gift comes from above" as it says in James 1. God has blessed us in so many ways but we often times don't recognize or we even ignore His blessings. Choose to look for God's blessings in your life. No matter what is going on or what you are going through, you have been given many blessings, choose to see them.

While God alone is good, He has called His people to be salt and light in this world. Because we are to be like Christ as believers, we too can show this world good as we reflect His image. We are not good on our own but as we lean in to Him, trust Him and follow Him, we too can show good. The problem is I get in the way. That's why right here in my blog, for all of you to see and to hold me accountable I want to give up to God my; anger, frustration, selfishness, language, desire for more stuff, need/desire to be right, pessimism, and comfort seeking. In 2010 I want to focus on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable..." because "...if anything is excellent or praiseworthy..." I want to "...think about such things." If I am able to replace the list of struggles with this list from Philippians 4 then I too will be able to show the world good because Christ will shine through me.