During the holidays, many have the spirit of giving. What if we did this all the time? We should have this spirit throughout the year. Today’s scripture is about love and giving. How do we know that we are God’s children? By loving others.
1 John 3:16-18
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and truth.
In other words, we show our love by making sacrifices for others. When God blesses us (and He always does), do we share our blessings with others? Do we help those in need? Do we do unto others as we would have them do unto us? Living in the U.S., we are rich. Many people need our help here and abroad. Help a brother in need today and continue throughout the year. I pray that I will always remember what Jesus did for me and knowing the blessings I have that I will always help those in need.
Jesus was an example to us all. Though He is the savior, though He is God, He was a servant. Not only did he heal the sick, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, remove demons, feed the hungry, He washed the disciples feet! In Biblical Israel, where people wore sandals, as one enters a house, the servant would wash the guest’s feet as they enter a home. Jesus demonstrated this act as an example to the servants and to all of us, to always put others first and help those in need.
John 13:1-17
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”
Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!”
Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!”
Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”
So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
Perhaps this is what James meant when he said to be doers of the word, not just hearers.
James 1:22-27
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
This will probably be my last post for a couple weeks, for I have the joy and opportunity to go to Haiti and do just that! I will be spending about a week with some orphans there and look forward to see what God will do! It is not me, for on my own, I would not even think of doing this, but God has blessed me in so many ways through this ministry. Thank you Lord for all that you do and for blessing me in this way and many others!
My Daily Scriptures 