“THIS is the kind of love I expect you to walk in…love that sees things from My point of view. So when I say study (love), I mean study Me. Learn what I feel in each situation-what I say and what I do-because I am love. I. AM. LOVE.”
–God (to me)
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
Matthew 6:1-4
NKJV
1Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
our charitable deeds
When we do charitable deeds or, as the King James puts it, give alms, we are showing compassion for and helping the poor on a practical level. This is clearly something God expects us to do; otherwise, He would not have expressed it as He did. Too, it’s not just “do charitable deeds,” but is “do your charitable deeds.” So each of us is to be doing charitable deeds, giving to the poor in some manner, and each of us is to do our own charitable deeds—the ones the Holy Spirit prompts us to do.
I’ve been on both ends of this. I’ve been the poor who gratefully received the charitable deeds and I’ve been the one cheerfully doing the charitable deed. Being on the receiving end requires great humility and the squashing of pride, but being on the giving end can require the same. My usual feeling, when I’m able to be a blessing to someone in need, is joy, but does pride never try to creep in the edges, whispering things I don’t need to hear? I wish.
to be seen by them
To me this seems to be the most significant part of the command. Why am I doing the charitable deed in the first place? Am I doing it so that man can see and be impressed? If so, and if I do my charitable deed in front of man, seeking his rewards, then I have the reward I sought—and only the reward I sought. My Father in Heaven cannot reward me, because it is not His reward I am seeking. That’s a heavy-duty revelation, and one that takes me right back to a study I’ve done on motivation. It is a fact; in anything I do, the most important factor is the reason I do it. Why do I do what I do?
You know, it doesn’t take much thought to realize that it’s foolish to “do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them.” After all, who in their right mind would take man’s reward over God’s reward? But we do. All too often, I do. Where I should be walking in humility of spirit, doing what God desires only because He desires it, I sometimes catch myself showing off…doing a thing more because it will make me look good in the eyes of man, because man’s reward gives instant and obvious gratification. The problem, of course, is that this is also fleeting gratification. When the man is gone, and the honor is gone, there is nothing. But with God…
2 Therefore, when you do a charitable deed…
When, not if. The Teacher rephrases and restates so that I will not miss the point. WHEN I do a charitable deed…
…do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.
And again He makes His point. If I choose to draw attention to myself and my charitable deed, I am no better than the hypocrites Jesus had to deal with continually. How many times have I read about them in the Scriptures and been completely disgusted? May I never be so disgusting!
3 But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
There’s that humility stuff again.
When I do a charitable deed, I try to not even let the recipient know what I’m doing. I have a trusted “right hand” who usually passes such blessings along for me; I have been other deed doers’ silent right hands as well. I know this isn’t the literal meaning of this verse, but it surely fits the spirit.
4 that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
Again, what wise person would pass on this promise? Jesus says here that if we do our charitable deeds as He tells us to then our Father will reward us and will reward us openly. Yes, true humility requires no reward, but I’m not talking about true humility right now; I’m talking about true human nature.
The instant-gratification world we live in has trained most of us too well; we take the instant gratification even when it’s bad for us or leaves us wanting more. On the human level, it may seem silly to wait for God’s reward when man’s is right there, yet man’s reward cannot compare to God’s promises.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
Today is the National Day of Prayer, and as I was praying this morning, while I was asking God to start a revolution, to send revival, He said, “It’s little things that start a revolution. It’s little things that start a revival.”
We keep asking God to send revival, too often failing to understand that revival starts HERE, with us, and it starts small. It begins with one man deciding to spend five more minutes a day in prayer. It starts with a young woman asking of God, every morning, “Help me be a blessing to someone today.” It starts with me using the amazingly simple new witnessing tool He’s given me.
Revival, a revolution of our walk with God, may well sweep in on us like a flood, but it’s the little things – each of us doing our share of little things – that will trigger it.
Consider a dam. It holds back massive amounts of water, but if you poke enough little holes in it the water will eventually burst forth and flooding is inevitable. Let us poke those holes. Let each of us seek God for those little things He would have us do. Who knows? It may be your little thing that is exactly what is needed to put the final hole in the dam.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
Jeremiah 29:11
NLT
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
I know I am not alone in counting this among my favorite scriptures. It seems I see it more and more in email signature lines, on plaques, and in a variety of other places. I love it in the King James. “I know the thoughts that I think toward you…”
Whether the word is translated as “thoughts” or “plans”, I inevitably go back to the beginning. I mean, I go back to the literal beginning- “In the beginning God created…”
Consider it. He said, “Light be,” and light was, yet even before He said the words, He thought the thought; He made the plan. God’s thoughts and plans have immeasurable power. God’s thoughts and plans result in an outpouring of His creativity. God’s thoughts will have results; His plans will come to pass. Bank on it.
And He thinks these thoughts towards me. He has these plans for me. Me! Can there possibly be anything more reassuring than to know that the One who created the universe is thinking about and making plans for me, and that His plans are to give me a future and a hope?
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
There’s an old expression that I can’t quite remember…something about painting everyone with a wide brush. (Feel free to correct me.) This picture reminds me of how much I dislike the practice.
When I saw this empty carton in the bushes at McDonalds, I could have thought, “Man, smokers are so rude!” but I didn’t, because not all smokers are rude. In similar vein, not all blacks are ___________, not all gays are _______, not all Christians are _________, not all athiests are ________, not all Republicans are ________, not all Democrats are _________…
I don’t care what group you’re talking about, there are VERY few things you can say that would unconditionally apply to every member of that group. So why do we insist on assuming…or pretending…that we can?
Is it because we’re lazy, because it’s easier to assume we know people than it is to actually get to know them? Is it because humans are instinctively judgmental? Is it because we have an undeniable need to apply labels (and make our own definitions)?
I don’t know, but it sure does disgust me.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
Isaiah 55:12a
NKJV
For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace…
Here, in five words, is a principal I was taught years ago – follow peace.
It is the rule I adhere to when making any important decision. Yes, I follow forms of reason and logic as well, but peace has the final say because I have learned that God speaks through peace – and the devil cannot.
Recognize this – for it is foundational. Over and over Jesus, the Prince of Peace, promises us His peace. We are assured that while our minds are stayed on Him we will be in perfect peace (I’ve experienced this while touring the inside of the fiery furnace!). On the other hand, confusion and doubt, worry and fear – these come only from Satan.
So, in the end, finding the path is a fairly simple thing. When faced with a decision, needing to choose between two things and failing to recognize the obviously right option, I choose both – one at a time.
To illustrate…
My doctor told me I was pregnant and immediately informed me that he didn’t deliver babies anymore. I was instantly thrown into turmoil, not knowing who to go to, who I should trust with the delivery of my child. I began researching my options, which I had recently learned included midwifery, and writing out the pros and cons of each. Even so, I was still unable to make a decision. Then I remembered what I had been taught – “Be led by peace” – and decided to decide, and in deciding to see where peace might be found.
I decided to go with a doctor. Almost before the decision was fully made, my insides were churning. To say there was no peace would be to make a gross understatement.
So I decided again – this time to make an appointment with the midwife I’d been hearing about. Peace flooded my soul in that very moment.
I will not say the decision is always as clear. Sometimes both options bring peace. Since God authors peace and the devil cannot, I take this as a sign that both options are equally acceptable to God and the choice really is my own. Sometimes neither option brings peace. When this occurs, I start looking around for a third option, one I’d either not considered or had cast aside earlier. If there truly is no third option I look to myself, seeking out anything in me that might be blocking the peace God sends my way.
What I find could be fear, unforgiveness…any number of things, but put simply it is sin. Once I’ve dealt with the sin and go back to the options, sincerely choosing each in turn, one will almost always inspire peace, making itself clear as God’s choice.
I’m an organizer – a list person. I love researching my options and listing the pros and cons of them all, organizing my thoughts to the tiniest detail, but when the rubber meets the road and the decision must be made I would much rather let He Who Knows All make it for me, and then lead me forth in peace.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
Proverbs 26:18-19
NLT
Just as damaging as a mad man shooting a lethal weapon is someone who lies to a friend and then says, “I was only joking.”
I have never appreciated pranks, as a rule, have never cared for the tradition of April Fool’s, and have always considered the phrase “practical joke” to be an oxymoron. That is all a result of my own conservative nature, of course, and I do not begrudge others their enjoyment of such things. What this passage speaks of, however, is something different, and when I stumbled across it in my daily reading I was glad to see that God feels as strongly about this as I do.
How many times have I heard, or heard of, something hurtful being said and then heard, “I was only joking!” follow as if those four words somehow made the lie or hurtful words okay? Too many times, of course, especially as the mother of boys.
It starts on the playground as little children tell other little children that they are going to do something to or for them or, worse yet, say hurtful things about them. Whether the lying child really is joking or merely expects, “I was only joking” to get him out of trouble, he is still lying, and in this translation God likens him to a madman shooting a lethal weapon.
The more I think about it, the more I see how accurate this comparison is. The Word says that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Prov 18:21 KJV) It is interesting that death is mentioned first in this verse. I have read that if a person is told one destructive thing about themselves, they must hear seven constructive things to counteract it – or that one destructive word will bear fruit in their lives. I believe this because I’ve seen it time and time again. I have seen dreams destroyed – both those of children and adults – and I have seen people crushed, all by mere words. Often the hurtful words were intended, but many times they were not and the speaker would return later, appalled by the results they saw, and cry, “But I was only joking!” They may have only been joking, but the damage was done. How much better it would have been if they had not spoken the lie in the first place.
Yes, the man who lies and says, “I was only joking” really is like a madman shooting off a lethal weapon. He fires off destructive words without caution and destroys without knowing what he’s doing.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Prov. 3:5-6
Trust seems so simple – until God asks us to take a step we don’t understand. We naturally want to see the path ahead, but God doesn’t want us to walk naturally; he wants us to walk supernaturally.
One day, when I was grumbling about not being able to see the path ahead, God taught me a shin-banging lesson. He told me to close my eyes and walk from where I was to a specific spot. I tried, and of course I swerved off course and bumped into something. Then He took me back to the beginning, had me close my eyes again, and told me exactly how to place my foot with each step. It was awkward. It felt all wrong. I was hoping no one would walk in because I knew I looked stupid. But…thanks to His detailed directions, I ended up exactly where He told me to go.
God did exactly the same thing for Gideon in Judges six and seven. From the point at which He had Gideon’s attention and willing obedience, God gave him specific instructions for each step he would take. In Judg 6:25-26, God didn’t merely say, “Sacrifice a bull.” Instead, He told Gideon exactly which bull, precisely how to pull down his father’s altar, and in detail how to sacrifice the bull.
This was only the beginning, of course. God continued to give Gideon detailed directions. Had Gideon chosen to bypass any of them, or fudge on even one, the outcome would not have been the same. Israel may not have received her deliverance.
Nothing great in our Christian walk, outside of a supernatural move of God, comes of itself. It comes as a result of the individual starting out on the right path and taking each and every step along the way exactly as God commands.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
Proverbs 3:5-6
NIV
Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
God taught me the truth of this verse in a way I never would have anticipated, and will never forget.
I was in prayer. I don’t remember what I was praying about, but considering the lesson He gave me, I was probably complaining about not being able to see what was coming down the road. I’m not proud of the fact, but it’s true – I am Tammy Plan-ahead Cardwell and not being able to see what’s over the next hill has been known to drive me nuts.
So there I was, pacing, which I often do when I pray, and God answered me. “Tammy, you don’t have to see the road ahead. You don’t even have to see the next step. I see it all clearly. Trust in Me instead of your own sight, lean on Me instead of your own understanding and I will make your path straight even when you walk in darkness.”
My response was, of course, both brilliant and inspired. “Sir?” Thank God for His patience!
Have you ever felt God smile? I did, then. I could easily sense His loving, understanding amusement. “Close your eyes and walk.”
Now, it’s a scientific fact that one side of a man’s body is dominant over the other. Close your eyes and start walking and, given enough space, you will walk in a circle. I was in our church and didn’t have that much space; I veered and walked into a pew.
“Okay,” He said, “you’ve seen what happens when you walk in your own understanding. Now close your eyes and walk again, but this time listen to Me as you take each step. If you let Me lead you, putting your feet down where I tell you to, I will make your path straight.”
I followed His instructions exactly, though it felt terribly strange. In putting my feet down exactly as He told me to I felt as if I were taking each step wrongly – very wrongly. I had to fight my instincts, literally, every step of the way. He eventually told me to stop and look behind me, to see the path I’d taken. I had gone further this time – taken more steps – and the path I’d walked was as straight as if I’d had my eyes open and a line to follow.
I wish I could say I learned the lesson right then and there. Well, I did, but it seems I have to keep learning it. Just as I had to fight my instincts with every step I took in that walk, I must fight my fleshly instincts with every step in the walk of life. Sometimes it’s hard to trust in the Lord will all my heart, not letting even a small part of it hold back. I must continually remind myself that my own understanding is faulty and can’t be leaned upon – that it will lead me to walk in circles (like the Israelites in the wilderness!). Finally, flesh fights for what it considers its fair share, insisting I acknowledge it in all my ways, rather than Him. Still, I’m making progress, and every once in a while I’ll sense God smile as He says, “Now stop and take a look behind you, and see that I have made your path straight.”
So…no…I do not have to see the road ahead. I can even, as I trust in Him with all my heart, lean not on my own understanding and acknowledge Him in all my ways, walk a straight path through total darkness.
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C
Psalm 106:24
NLT
The people refused to enter the pleasant land, for they wouldn’t believe his promise to care for them.
Okay, this is beyond my ability to understand. They were standing on sand – in the desert – looking at Canaan. It was bad enough that they didn’t just believe and obey God, following where He led. Even worse, they could not accept the beauty and bounty of the place He had called them to and chose to stay in the desert instead.
The desert! They chose to stay in the barren, dry places where there was only enough food and water for their massive numbers because God took care of them! They chose a life of wandering with no home, trekking through the desert (where God had to take care of them) instead of trusting Him and moving on over into the lush bounty of Canaan – which He had already told them would be theirs. Why?
I think the bottom line is that we humans tend to prefer the challenges we know. The challenges Israel faced in the desert were so familiar, and God’s care through those challenges so consistent, that they were (and I use the word in a skewed fashion) comfortable. In truth, I think they took God’s care in the desert so for granted that they hardly recognized it anymore. Stepping over into Canaan, though, would have meant trusting God to care for them in new areas and…oh…
Until then, God had done everything for them, or had Moses or specific others do it. They knew, though, that in Canaan they would be called upon to do something – to take up arms and fight for the ground God had promised them. They were like baby Christians who don’t want to grow up! Or, I suppose, it is rather the other way around – today’s perpetually babyish Christians are very much like these children of God.
When someone first turns his life over to God, He takes total care of them as if they were literal babies – answering every prayer instantly (like a parent responding to a baby’s cry) and often in astoundingly miraculous ways, but then God requires them to grow up – to start using and exercising their faith – to DO something…to take up arms and fight for the ground He has promised them. The funny thing is that God usually ends up fighting the battles for us after we take up arms to fight (just as He did for Israel once they actually crossed on over into Canaan); He just wants us to get up off our blessed assurance and move. But too many refuse. They aren’t willing to take up arms and step forward into His promises, trusting Him to take care of them through everything. No, they would rather stay in babyhood where they don’t have to do anything (but also can’t own or be anything); they would rather stay in the desert.
I’ve seen myself in Israel before, but until meditating on this passage I had never really seen their walk as a parallel to my spiritual walk; yet it is. What they did as a nation I may (or may not) do as a Christian – gaining or losing ground accordingly. Help me, Lord, to keep moving forward!
Reading on into verses 34-39 you see the consequences of Israel’s refusal to grow up. They thought they would be just fine if they stayed in babyhood, in the desert, but because they first disobeyed God’s call to move forward and then, when they did move, moved on their own terms…
When we disobey God in any way we are in sin, and unconfessed sin always has consequences. In their case, it became greater sin. (v. 34-39) “Israel failed to destroy the nations in the land, as the lord had told them to. Instead, they mingled among the pagans and adopted their evil customs. They worshipped their idols, and this led to their downfall. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters. By sacrificing them to the idols of Canaan, they polluted the land with murder. They defiled themselves by their evil deeds, and their love of idols was adultery in the lord’s sight.”
It’s true; there is no such thing as standing still with God. We must continually move forward. It is also true that genuine obedience is doing what God says, when God says, how God says and all God says. Israel did finally cross over into Canaan, but even then they failed to do all God said – destroy the nations of the land. They let some remain and, because they did, they “fell” into horrible sin and later paid an unimagined price for that sin. God has great mercy, but (v. 43) “Again and again he delivered them, but they continued to rebel against him, and they were finally destroyed by their sin.”
God was still merciful, and did deliver them in the end, but how different would it have been if they had obeyed Him, and fully, the first time? Where, for instance, would Israel be today? Where would I be today if I had always obeyed Him, and fully, the first time?
Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C