Hebrew 6:1-11

Abba's child said:
Hmm...when my husband and I give to an organization, we actually do check out how they spend their funds. I mean, if there are 2 organizations that feed children in third world countries, and one spends 15% on administrative costs with 85% going directly to feeding children, while another's ratio is 60% administration, 40% food for kids, guess which we choose? We also look to see if they're accountable to something like the ECFA. I don't know if this is bad...it seems wise to us not to give the Lord's resources to an organization that will buy a million dollar jet for their execs, though.
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You are very correct! Every single person who gives money to a church, has the expectation that the church will be wise and good stewarts of what they donate.

That is what we are talking about here. Some say that the church should just give the "homeless" (?) the money, and feed them daily. But all the people I know say to INVESTIGATE and make sure what I give goes to someone who is
" GENUALLY" in need.

Chuches, ALL churches has limited funds.
 
The goats may have investigated, the sheep just gave. Let's see what happens if you don't give and they need. For whatever reason, self inflicted, or beyond their control they can't get working. Say it's PTSD, a condition where they are fully capable to work, just need to MIND POWER past those horrible dreams they have while awake; or, perhaps it's a woman who was abused by her father, then her boyfriends, and then her husband, she's become codependent, nearly stockholme and has failed at every thing she has tried because she is a fat dumb cow, (she knows this because she's heard it from EVERY man in her life), OR perhaps it's a healthy man, but he's in his late 50s and people won't hire him because of his age; makes insurance go up with his health issues and all....; or..... blah blah blah, you don't help them they get worse and die prematurely. Tough, it's their own fault, we are loving Xians and this tough love should have been all they needed.

OR, any one of the above, you help them, they abuse the help, you help them some more, they abused it some more, you help them some more, they start to feel guilty, BUT some of the pressure that was such a mental burden to them is alleviated so there is that much more they can get control of, and they start to heal AS WELL AS get control, so you help them some more. You never know if they died or what, but they quit coming to you for help. God protects you from BRAGGING about the great "good" you did, and they got healthy and reunited with their family.

Had gideon made sense of what God expected of him, he never would have been successful in that battle. Why would anyone, decide they know better than the Christ's command when it comes to helping the poor or needy? Who cares why they need it. If a man is speeding on the highway and has a wreck, do you deny him medical care because it's his own fault? It sounds like some would do just that.

That isn't what scripture says to do, and no matter how tempting it is to adjudicate for God, it's not our job. Christ said it wasn't HIS job when HE walked the earth. If He's not capable, I sure the heck ain't. God asks us to do things that don't make sense to us. IT IS HIS CHURCH HE HAS THE RIGHT! We are tools, not synapses, and we are HIS, not He is ours. Ours is not to question why, ours is but to do and die...... and live.
 
Amen, Xian!!

So I pose this question.

Does God honor our humility and obedience OVER discernment and judgment when making a decision about whether or not to obey His direction?

I will offer that a humble and obedient spirit is the behavior you would prefer when giving your children a directive, over them using all their childlike abililities to discern the necessity of it all. How much more does GOD deserve?!
 
Discernment will result in humility and obedience--sometimes-- and in anger at others, Jesus called people names/cursed them, Paul cursed them as well. Both were righteous. People paint a picture that GOD is a warm fuzzy cuddly santa bear and never does anything to upset people. I mean other than eternal damnation, genocide, abuse and torture of His followers, etc... There is a contrast that defines God that the masses today ignore. They will write off the parts considered ugly and give lame apologies for them, or ignore them all together.

People don't believe in a GOD who is LORD and can do whatever he wishes to whomever He wishes. They see a god who is only here to make their lifes better. They focus on the eternal life, not the many deaths you suffer to get there. They pray for give me gifts, not for your will be done. THEY MAY MOUTH your will be done, but their heart is gimme gimme gimme. People paint God as an altruistic "nice and loving" by human standards entity. That is a man made God, not the God of the Bible. The contrast of God is He was angry, and acted on that anger as well.

So I think people put too much emphasis on the warm fuzzies and deny the "ugly" parts of being God. As a result there are tules made to "act like God" rather than efforts made to be like God. Nice concise, short answer, eh?

When giving your children a directive, the first priority is that they hear the message. Case in point. Your child is about to stick their licked finger in the electric socket. You say nicely and lovingly, warmly even, you should not do that. And the child goes forward to do it anyway. At what point do you get emphatic, heated, and forceful? OR do you let the child go forward with the rule of being nice overcome the rule of save their lives as the priority?

That's what Paul is talking about in Col 2. People who make rules to appear Godly and keep their eyes on the man made objectives, which are merely a shadow of the substance of what is in Christ.

Paul wished some of his theological objectors would maul and maim their junk. I mean their intimate junk, those parts that would belong to their wives alone, junk. Had Paul said that in MOST Xian forums I know, he would have been banned. I find that somewhat ironic. (deliberately avoiding comments on this forum in my statement there...) OR Jesus called the Pharisees the worst name he could call them. It was the biggest insult to them that their could be. To a people who strove daily to be perfectly ritually pure for 24 hours, with the belief their KING/MESSIAH would return if just ONE of them could pull it off; their whole purpose on earth for living being their single and solitary focus all day every day, be CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN, (which is why the pharisees walked on the other side of the road from the bleeding man that the samaritan saved.)... to that people he called them the most unclean, spiritually corrupt, antithesis of their faith he could call them. Viper. See Genesis 1.

They devoted their lives to being GOD, and it was a devotion that obsessed and occupied every waking movement and thought, and He called them the very opposite of their goals. It's like walking to a woman protecting her child from danger, clutching the child to her breast and calling the police accusing her of pedophilia. That's akin to the insult Christ gave them.

This sort of insult, that maligned their name/character, is what a CURSE was. When you read a scripture that says do not curse, that's what it is discussing. Those seven words you used to not be able to say on TV, wouldn't even fall into the discussion, unless the action/heart behind those words was the sin. But the words themselves, are inherently free of judgement.

Nice short answer. I'm doing better....


covered_by_grace said:
Amen, Xian!!

So I pose this question.

Does God honor our humility and obedience OVER discernment and judgment when making a decision about whether or not to obey His direction?

I will offer that a humble and obedient spirit is the behavior you would prefer when giving your children a directive, over them using all their childlike abililities to discern the necessity of it all. How much more does GOD deserve?!
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I wonder if my view is skewed by working in a pharmacy? I began as a 16 yo (before schooling), and mnay, many times someone would come in with a medicaid card and a script for an antibiotic for their child. If we saw medicaid wouldn't cover it, we'd call the doc for another option, as they frequently weren't familiar with "da rules". Often we'd hear from the doc that he wrote for that particular med because the child was quite ill, and a covered med just wouldn't cut it. Or that the bacterium causing the infection wouldn't respond to a covered med. We'd go back to the parent with this news, and tell them the script would be $5. *uproar ensues 98% of the time* They'd leave w/o the medicine, but stop to buy beer, ciggs, and hair dye before they left.
I think my view is further skewed by the fact my husband is a painting contractor, and one of his contracts is with the local Housing Authority (the projects, if you're not familiar with the official name). He has seen, over his 20 years there, such an abuse of the system's resources...you really don't want to know. And while there are people there who are grateful, and law abiding about it, it's a one digit percentage. (please understand my intention is to be critical of myself...am I viewing things wrongly)
I have a really softy heart for children, and found this upsetting. (also want to clarify that I know lots of people {and even have been a person} who receive help like this and have found most of them to be lovely people in a tight spot.)
I do expect my church to spend their resources wisely, as I expect myself to. And clearly, if we live in a city and give to absolutely everyone who asks and then find we cannot care for our own families...well, I don't know what to do with that. Faith that the Lord will cover your obedience sounds like the right thing. And so, if you are having serious trouble providing for your own family, how do you blend the command to give with the command to care for your family?
And if there a difference between giving to an individual and giving to something like, say, Feed the Children in terms of expecting them to be accountable?
If you have opportunity to give to 2 people who ask for help, and can only help one, and one of them you know abuses your charity (for example, my husband has many times given to a person who says they need food for a child and then he sees them immediately buy drugs with the money time and time again), and the other is faithful to do what they say they will...I'm honestly asking questions; I really don't know.
 
I just wanted to share this illustration. My family were staying at a hotel with my sister's family many years back when we were at a family reunion. We had all the kids at the pool one evening, and a man came in asking for help. My husband spoke to him, and the man explained that he had no money (his wallet had been stolen), was far from home, and had called home to check in. His wife told him their child was ill, and hospitalized, and he needed to get home right away. Could he have bus fare? Mark gave him the requested amount, and in addition some money for food for his journey.
Our niece watched this with eyes wide, and when the man had left, she asked Uncle Mark why he would do that? How did he know the man wasn't lying?
Mark replied that if that were true, it was between the man and God, but the giving was between him (Mark) and God, and he had merely been obedient to God, as he hoped the man was for his own sake, that the Lord would have no charge to bring against him, not that it concerned us in any way.
Our niece still remembers that, and now shares the story with her own children. The Lord almost never blesses just the giver or the recipient, but as another observed, also the ones (sometimes little ones) watching! He's just so big! ♥
 
I think I mentioned above how it was a fine line when we give. The parts I struggle with are what we are discussing. If you know they are abusing things do you still give? If I do as the bible says I do. There is no place that says don't give if they don't deserve it. And no place that says justify their lives before you give. It does say give more than they ask, and even give to enemies, which might be someone lying about their needs.

On the one hand, we don't have to know how it works, nor verify it will work before we do it. Its called faith. On the other hand, am o actually helping them by giving? I would like to think I could figure it out and do the right thing. But, when it comes to the giving, "its between me and God" and the using of the gift is between them and God, is a great way to describe it.

Maybe God needs them to get stoned for His purposes. After all, he used pharaoh and judas for purposes that no man would have justified as right. Say judas needed 5 talents before he could get to the Pharisees before he could get his silver, and you knew where he was going, you would not give it to Him. Now, that means he doesn't get to them and the messiah isn't sacrificed...

Abraham could have left his son who was to be father over many nations behind, and been trusting God to provide just as well as taking His son with Him. Part of faith is doing what is against your instincts, or what you see as right, and doing what God says on faith. If Gideon, Abraham, or other examples had done what man's reasoning would dictate, then I am afraid they would have done the wrong thing.

In other words, if someone saying we must determine first, were in gideon's shoes, they would tell God to shut up, he didn't know what he was doing, and that person would call the army back, re arm them, and charge to "win one for the gipper..."

Do we trust Him or not?
 
What Mark feels most comfortable with is to keep a stack of Bibles in his car, with a $20 in each one. If the person will, he will take time to share the gospel with them and gives them one of the Bibles with the $$ inside. If they will not, he gives them one of those Bibles, and feels he has (and, indeed has!) given much more than mere money. And at the H.A., someone is always going through the trash for one reason or another, so even if the recipient just throws the Bible in the trash...who knows whom it may bless? :) Most often, he is asked for time, in some fashion. I think that's much harder to part with then money. Or perhaps it's just that I have to repent over and over that he gets home late because his time is "spent" elsewhere. :oops: But, thank God! He is changing even that in me. ♥
 
I have a very good friend who was homeless for a while. So, he would go to a soup kitchen for a meal. The benevolent church that made the food possible, wouldn't let them eat if they didn't sit there and hear the gospel being preached. So, what happened, after standing captive in a line for over an hour in Tx 115 degree summer days,, if someone "found the lord" they were moved to the front of the line.... my friend says some of the homeless would be saved a few times a week. The church would go brag to their congregation about how many souls their donations to the cause was saving and their numbers were really 1/3 what they claimed because were repeated so much.

My friend would not call the fire department if their church was burning to the ground. He grew up a missionary brat in Asia, knew the gospel and was severely offended at fools thinking they would use food to hold someone hostage to their personal brainwashing. He felt like dogs at the humane society were treated with more respect.

I think this is one reason why we are to just give. Each person is a unique situation, and has a unique expectation from God, according to our gifts. So, this example is in no way judging your husband's works.
 
When we finally come face-to-face with our Lord and Savior, we will be given the same understanding that He has right now about us. He knows WHY someone does what they do and IN HIS LOVE grants His mercy and grace because of this knowledge.

In other words, at the present time, in this present being, we are not usually given the "why" behind someone's depravity, need, or want. Truthfully, to expect it is setting yourself up as a higher authority than God...there, I said it.

If we can step outside ourselves and see the actual pain, hurt and divine circumstance behind some of a person's decisions, and give them the same mercy and grace that we so greedily partake in, (I say greedily because we are somewhat stingy with this wonderful gift called Grace) it is much easier to give as He has requested, no commanded, in Perfect (agapao) Love.
 
Well, that all sounds right, but man is it hard..... so I have quit trying, and try to let Him or rather trust Him to move my hand in a more instinctual way, than from a rational way. Which, never noticed that, is a more eastern way than western way of thinking.
 
I do not deny its hard, but it's part of the refining process to reach full maturity.

He is faithful to bring about the issue, circumstance, temptation, or whatever it is, whether it we like it or not. He will do this until we at last let go of it and thus come to the realization that He alone is God and those who love Him, ultimately, choose to follow His commands by choosing to love, despite our so-called knowledge of a person's predicament or what they will do with our charity.
 
Oh, I agree. James taught that faith of Abraham was proven by His works/trust in God. He took His son to his sacrifice with know understanding of how he would be saved, just trusting God to do it...

That was a pivotal point in history. Either abraham was going to kill the hope of God's chosen people being born and even existing, or it was never going to have a chance to exist because of His lack of faith. In other words, the very thing that would prove His faith, made God's promise impossible to keep. The paradox of faith.

People try to deny the paradox, make it fit into a box, and be disappointed when God falls outside their box.
 
Xian Pugilist said:
People try to deny the paradox, make it fit into a box, and be disappointed when God falls outside their box.
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Yeah... And when one has believed all their lives, that
1. He was thought to be made to fit into a box, and
2. Some who thought themselves to be His but didn't yield their will to His are not going to be gathered into His barn. Matt. 13:24 What sadness is to come for those.

I pray His mercy upon each of us who would fall into that trap, however earnestly we try not to.
 
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