This all started last week with a Sunday School lesson, and if you could have all been in that Sunday school room, you would have had a small window into this story. As the kids sat there and tried to be like the people in No-Elbow-Town they all figured out how if they wanted to get somewhere they needed to help eachother and when they did it made life so much easier. I encourage you to try it yourself, with some friends, it is a very eye opening experience!
"For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Galatians 5:13-14NKJV
As Christian people we are commanded to love one another. It isn't an option. It's the second greatest commandment Christ ever gave to His people. To be honest, we have likely failed the most at doing this one. Well, I guess we should start back at the beginning because when we fail the second, we have miserably failed the first! And the First is, to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. If you do exactly that, you will have no option but to love your brother or sister. It will just sort happen naturally.
We so often look at other people's abilities or disabilities as a handicap rather than looking at them as an opportunity to serve them. Knowing full well that we have disabilities of our own that we need help in. For those of you who know me you know I hate cooking, but computers I get. "How long does it take to cook a turkey?" you may ask. My response, ask mom or a sister I have no clue. Ask me what you need to do to fix your computer. Well there I can help you. You see even just at home, We all need eachother and that doesn't change at home, at church, in our work, in our play, in... the list could go on and on.
If we go back to the beginning of time. God made one man and one women. They were both human. One didn't have more power over the next, beyond God's designed of headship order. Why now 6,000 years down the road do we think that we can change that by lifting ourselves up above the next person? Because you can do something better than what I can or the other way around. What changed? When did helping and serving the next person because we love them become so wrong?
"...aren't we all made in the image of God, cause if one of us is hurting, none of us have peace, and if one of us is bound, than none of us are free... I am apart of you, you are apart of me, no longer strangers, we're sisters and brothers, we need each other..."
The next part gets more serious.
But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!" Galatians 5:15 NKJV
If I could give you a window into the mental picture that goes through my ever active brain when I read these scriptures I would because it would be worth all of your price for admission, at first I laugh for how stupid it sounds and then I cry in my heart, because in modern day Christendom this has so often become reality. If you are going to bite and chew on one another be careful that you don't completely devour each other or be-careful that you don't find that so fulfilling you forget to do anything else.
If we honestly served the next person, like we would want to be treated, or as Jesus would have done it would so shock society, I don't even want to say what could happen, because I do believe it would be breath taking.
Do I have it all figured out? No, I don't. I still fail miserably sometimes!!! But that is why God gifted us through His unending, undieing(if that's a word), never failing love, that gift of Grace!
I want to finish with the Conclusion from the Sunday School lesson because I can't say it any better...
"When we all help and serve one another, following Jesus becomes much easier."
And folks, that's ultimately where it is at. As we put our focus on serving others instead of ourselves we understand better and better how much Christ did for us, when He died on the Cross to save us from sin and from death.
God Bless,
The story is told of a town called “No-Elbow-Town”. One day a man took a journey and came to visit this town. What he saw totally disturbed him. He saw row after row of tables full of delicious looking food. Food that would have made anybody's mouth water! Yet there was people laying in the streets too weak to get up and bring themselves to the table.
Others who were still able to move and walk were sitting at the table but all were pale and suffered from extreme cases of malnutrition. They moaned and groaned with hunger pains unlike this man had ever heard. The man stood there in question.
Why would these people be moaning and groaning with hunger in the face of tables laden with food. As this man got closer he understood what their issue was. Each person held a spoon full of food, but couldn’t get it to their mouth, because they had no elbows, just two straight arms. Even tho they tried hard they could not bring the food to their mouths.
It broke the poor man's heart to see this torture, and the groans of these poor people, as they held their food so close but still couldn’t get it to their mouths. They tried so hard, yet feeding themselves was not an option. The man was so discouraged, he tried to help but every time he would walk up to someone and say, “Let me help you, so you can have some food, I want to help you."
The man was pushed away and yelled at. "I can do this myself," was their response. The man got so discouraged he left the town. He wanted so badly to help but without the cooperation of the people he would not be able to help them.
The man continued his journey, the next day he walked into a small village but even before he got there he could tell there was lots of people bustling about. Going here and going there always in pairs of two. But again he noticed there was rows and rows of tables laden with food.
But instead of people moaning and groaning about. They were busy talking with each other, obviously been satisfied from their delicious meal.
As he got closer, He noticed that the people were not any different than the people in No Elbow Town, they couldn’t not bend their arms; they had no elbows. How did these people manage to eat?
He was so curious that he stood there and watched them to total astonishment. As he watched, a man picked up his spoon and dug it into the dish in front of him. Then he stretched across the table and fed the person across from him! After he did this the man that he fed thanked him, and then he picked up his spoon and returned the favor by leaning back across the table to feed his new found friend.
The man suddenly understood these people had the same issue as what they did in No Elbow Town but they had learned to work together with their issues so that each man got fed and because of that they loved and treated each other with deep respect, because without their friend or someone else to be there, they couldn’t do anything for themselves.
"For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Galatians 5:13-14NKJV
As Christian people we are commanded to love one another. It isn't an option. It's the second greatest commandment Christ ever gave to His people. To be honest, we have likely failed the most at doing this one. Well, I guess we should start back at the beginning because when we fail the second, we have miserably failed the first! And the First is, to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. If you do exactly that, you will have no option but to love your brother or sister. It will just sort happen naturally.
We so often look at other people's abilities or disabilities as a handicap rather than looking at them as an opportunity to serve them. Knowing full well that we have disabilities of our own that we need help in. For those of you who know me you know I hate cooking, but computers I get. "How long does it take to cook a turkey?" you may ask. My response, ask mom or a sister I have no clue. Ask me what you need to do to fix your computer. Well there I can help you. You see even just at home, We all need eachother and that doesn't change at home, at church, in our work, in our play, in... the list could go on and on.
If we go back to the beginning of time. God made one man and one women. They were both human. One didn't have more power over the next, beyond God's designed of headship order. Why now 6,000 years down the road do we think that we can change that by lifting ourselves up above the next person? Because you can do something better than what I can or the other way around. What changed? When did helping and serving the next person because we love them become so wrong?
"...aren't we all made in the image of God, cause if one of us is hurting, none of us have peace, and if one of us is bound, than none of us are free... I am apart of you, you are apart of me, no longer strangers, we're sisters and brothers, we need each other..."
The next part gets more serious.
But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!" Galatians 5:15 NKJV
If I could give you a window into the mental picture that goes through my ever active brain when I read these scriptures I would because it would be worth all of your price for admission, at first I laugh for how stupid it sounds and then I cry in my heart, because in modern day Christendom this has so often become reality. If you are going to bite and chew on one another be careful that you don't completely devour each other or be-careful that you don't find that so fulfilling you forget to do anything else.
If we honestly served the next person, like we would want to be treated, or as Jesus would have done it would so shock society, I don't even want to say what could happen, because I do believe it would be breath taking.
Do I have it all figured out? No, I don't. I still fail miserably sometimes!!! But that is why God gifted us through His unending, undieing(if that's a word), never failing love, that gift of Grace!
I want to finish with the Conclusion from the Sunday School lesson because I can't say it any better...
"When we all help and serve one another, following Jesus becomes much easier."
And folks, that's ultimately where it is at. As we put our focus on serving others instead of ourselves we understand better and better how much Christ did for us, when He died on the Cross to save us from sin and from death.
God Bless,
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