Friday, July 18, 2008

  • Danger of ignorance.

    One of the most common plants I service through work are ficus trees; I have at least one on each account.  They  seem to be the perfect house-plant once you know how to keep the leaves on branches.  They grow quickly and are only limited in size by the room they're in.  Ficus are relatively inexpensive and readily available at any grocery store, home improvement warehouse, nursery, and florist.  ficus

    Working with them every day, I don't think ficus ought to be so easily purchased.  They're dangerous for those who don't know much about them.   The sap, or "latex", they produce can send you to the hospital; and they produce a lot of it each time a branch or even leaf is damaged.  Consistent exposure to the sap, dried or liquid, will result in an itchy rash. Worse, if the sap lands in your eyes, it will glue them shut, necessitating a hospital visit; taken internally, the latex can even kill you. 

    One of my more recent posts received a lot feedback, with the comments taking one of two positions.  At first, I saw the logic in the first and was ready to take those as Gospel-truth.  Then other comments began to appear, and these made sense also; I was confused, because both sides had Scriptural support. 

    I simply wrote what was in my head: “not worth saving.”  Of all the things to dispute in my post, I didn’t think that would be one of them.  As I finished reading the comments, I saw how easily I might have been swayed through them to one argument or the other, and why?  Because, I didn’t know scripture well enough to have even recognized a potential issue in my own words. 

    That’s just as bad as not knowing what plant sits beside your desk or sofa.  Proves that ignorance can be blinding, if not outright fatal. 

    I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.  Matthew 6:47-48, NIV

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

  • Worth Saving, Part III

    I thought I was finished.  I had done what Jesus wanted and prayed that my words would resonate with my neighbor.  Though I had just given him a $150 gift-card, I wanted him to remember what I said: Jesus wants you to know that he loves you and that he sees you.  My neighbor always seems bitter and angry, often indicative of a lonely, depressed person.  I’ve been there, so I recognized it in him.  He needed to know that Jesus had put him on the heart of someone else. 

     

    I had been inside for about ten minutes when I heard a knock at my door.  It was him, trying to give the gift-card back to me.   “This is too much," he said, "I can’t take this.”

     

    “No,” I told him, “it isn’t too much.  Jesus wanted me to give that to you.  He gave me the money in the first place, and he wanted you to have it.”

     

    “I can’t take it,” he continued.  “I actually thought when you came up to me that this was just a little ‘Jesus loves you’ thing.  I didn’t think it was money, and then I saw how much…  No, you can’t afford this.”   

     

    What an opportunity.  Can you imagine if it was some stupid “Jesus loves you” card?  Yeah, it’s a good message, but it was money that brought my neighbor to the door.  It was at that point I had the opportunity to share with him the true love of Jesus…the kind that blesses, that sees a need and then meets it. 

     

    “T--, you can take this.  God wanted me to give it to you.  Each time I went to write a check for my tithe or each time I went to donate money…your name sounded in my spirit.  Jesus wants you to know that he does see you.”  I thought he was going to cry when I said this.  I did.   

     

    What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well,”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?  James 2:14-16

     

    We talked for an entire hour about the love of Jesus.  It changed my perspective on him, and hopefully his on God. 

True Wisdom

  • Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.  James 1:17, NASB
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