It’s amazing how many people abuse you and the situation when they think you need them or they believe they have some advantages over you. From friends to enemies, family members and co-workers, people often try to use their perceived advantages against you especially if they don’t like you or jealous of you because of their insecurities. Are we not taught to love each other as we love ourselves or better yet how God loves us? If not, we should. Here is a story I recently read:
Growing Good Corn
Author Unknown
There once was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon.
One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.
"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked.
"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn."
He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves.
So it is with our lives. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.
The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn.
Proverbs 11:24-25
24 One man gives freely, yet gains even more;
another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
25 A generous man will prosper;
he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed
Many feel that what they have has came from what good they have done; their education even though they may have cheating to graduate, their job even though they got it because of who they know or who knows them, etc. I have however, been taught and shown God’s grace. Should one not be proud of their accomplishments or not work hard to accomplish other things? NO! I believe we should be proud of the good in which we do, through the help of others and most importantly God. Never-the-less, one should recognize that:
16 No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
20 We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
even as we put our hope in you.
Psalms 33
Therefore through my current and future struggles, my unfailing love rests upon the Lord Jesus my savior. I wait on the Lord knowing my Lord has never been late. All of my help comes from the Lord. Those who think they have me against the ropes. Those that think I’ve been knocked out. The battle has all ready been won, yet they still are fighting.
I remember when I was going through a rough time in my life and I had problem with a certain someone. My aunt told me be careful who I try to get back at or who I try to hurt for he/she may be a child of God and we know (at least I know) God protects his children. Look at Paul who became a great apostle of Jesus. Paul use to prosecute many but God had a plan and purpose for him. Paul was change. And although children of God may suffer, God’s works it out for the good. Therefore, we should love our brother and sister and know that like they may need us we may often need someone else. Proverbs 21:13 states that if a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.
Who knows the greatest commandment and the second? Well, if you don’t you will if you read the following. I pray we remember it!
Matthew 22:36-40 NIV
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4CL4jdEB8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJoRrs3MPw4&feature=related
