Cadence

P3525 What we do affects others.

/ DVH

“You say, “Under grace there are no rules and we’re free to do anything we please.” Not exactly. Because not everything promotes growth in others. Your slogan, “We’re allowed to do anything we choose,” may be true—but not everything causes the spiritual advancement of others. So don’t always seek what is best for you at the expense of another.” 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 TPT. Here’s another version: “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.” NIV.

Our lives affect others. I’ve actually seen this happening in my own life when it comes to bad reactions. My grumpiness, or ‘out of sorts’ response, critical thoughts etc. can have an impact on other people. Then instead of building others up, we begin to recruit others to agree with us, so we can remain comfortable. Our world is so selfish so we have very little awareness about the consequences of our own actions, and we spread angst, and fear instead of Grace. We’ve been commissioned by Jesus, to be HIS people of influence. This is not a part-time job.

Meanwhile nobody lives in a bubble, there are people all around us, and the way we respond to them, plus the difficulties they themselves create, can influence everyone’s outlook. Particularly if they are not having a good day! It is like dominos, if you tap one in a line of them, all the others fall over. It is error to think that doing what we want because we feel like it, is OK. The thought that ‘what I do won’t matter’ is a lie we tell ourselves, when we don’t care to think about the consequences. There are always consequences. Then shame can cause us to hide because we don’t want to be found out. I think we’ve lowered the standard for good  … to … “I’m not hurting anyone!’

When something or other that is not profitable wants to hang around in my mind – first of all I need to tell the enemy to take a hike. Then I need to pray and see if what is going on is recent, or I have something faulty in my beliefs. Unforgiveness, wrong beliefs, or even traumas can damage our root systems. Bad roots produce bad fruit, with diseased leaves etc. When I have some wrong thinking, my mind needs to be changed in this area and we need the Lord’s help to uncover it, so we can repent and repair stuff. As I ask the Lord for His help, He will give me scriptures to help me through the temptation.

Deception is a sneaky thing, it does not jump up and down and suggest we should lie — instead it insinuates that other answers, different ideas, are more rational and palatable. Suddenly we remember that Brother-So-and-so says this and that, so what we are thinking must be OK. We need to realise that other people are like us, we all have a portion of the truth, but the whole truth is in the book! If we have any doubt about things that interfere with us loving others or walking with Jesus – it is essential to our spiritual health to deal with it, not excuse it away.

What 1 Corinthians is talking about is transparent love in action. Love is not just mowing someone else’s lawn, love is also being open and honest with each other … even about our faults and flaws. Meanwhile telling someone else about their flaws is going to make them mad at me – that’s a dumb move! Start looking in your own backyard first. Humility looks at me first.

The bible says in James 5:16: “Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results.”  I can see two things happen in this scripture. First of all we will return to a right attitude toward the Lord so when we pray for others they will be healed … And the second is: when we confess our faults to others, and as they pray for you and I, we will be healed too!  Win. Win.

God gave us Christ’s righteousness at great cost to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — and that must become our greatest treasure, it needs guarding. Righteousness with the Lord is not something we can manufacture. It is free. But it will cost us the right to do what we want, when we want to do it. Our reference point needs to be this: “How will what I am doing affect my relationship with the Lord and others?” None of us want to take what God has given us, for granted.

This means we cannot put aside what our own actions will do to someone else. If we don’t pay attention to that particular issue, we can stall our own spiritual progress — because whatever we do will become muddied and unproductive. Christians cannot live a totally separate, unexamined  life, and still claim that Jesus is with us. Let’s choose to become a part of what He has designated as His plan for mankind. If we have gifts, then they are for other people’s  benefit, we need to use them to do that. Meanwhile we were not given gifts to promote ourselves!

Jesus Christ set the cadence – He … ‘established the pace, rhythm, or schedule that an activity, project, or group is meant to operate in.’ Everything Jesus did, He did to benefit mankind and bring glory to His Father. We follow Him –  let’s remember that what we do affects others. Bye.👋.

P3501 Setting the cadence.

/ DVH

Exhibit 1:”Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6. Yeah I know, that’s every parent’s favourite scripture. First of all I am going to refer you to Jesus, because I am pretty sure this is how He was parented, and secondly, I want to remind you that this verse is in the bible. I think the lack of application of verses like this one, is where a great deal of our civil unrest and angst comes from. We only seem to do the bits in the bible we like, and throw out the bits we don’t … Maybe, sometimes we think we are now more enlightened than God! Moving on to a hypothetical child …

Let’s call our mythical-everybody-knows-one-of-these-kids … Johnny. Please remember, little Johnny will grow up one day — and BIG Johnny will become a force to be reckoned with!  But for now he runs about nursery school, or kindergarten, pushing other kids over, pinching their crayons or stomping on whatever they are doing, and he causes chaos. The person in charge of the group takes Johnny to one side and explains that behaving like that is being a bully, and she says: “We do not bully others here do we Johnny?” Johnny could care less, because he knows full well she is powerless to stop him. This is all so tragic! Johnny has the possibility of a better self, but he is being steadily corrupted by his unredeemed self. He needs to be taught.

Exhibit 2. “Do not withhold discipline from the child; If you swat him with a reed-like rod [applied with godly wisdom], he will not die.” Proverbs 23:13. We know that the kindergarten teacher said what she said because: this is all she is legally allowed to do. She can’t discipline that kid because she could be charged with child abuse! Plus it is not part of her job to teach Johnny relationship skills. So little Johnny goes back to persecuting other children and refusing to come and do quieter things. The only thing that is going to stop little Johnny at this stage, is a horse tranquilliser! Eventually, a worn-out mummy comes to pick up her darling boy. She already knows exactly what he is like, she has two other kids and he makes the whole family’s life miserable. She can’t stop him either. If she smacks him she can go to jail.

So she smiles at the nursery teacher after ‘teacher’ explains that Johnny has not been on his best behaviour today and sighs. ”Yes,” his mummy says. “I guess Johnny is going to be a leader one day.” (Move over Attila the Hun!) We need to know what we are aiming at when we raise children. A truly great leader is a self-disciplined person. He knows how to lead others, but his ego is NOT the size of a planet. A bad leader subscribes to the theory: it’s my way or the highway. Personally, I think this is why we have so many megalomaniacs running our world. They only know how to give orders, they can’t take them! Remember the centurion with the seriously ill servant in Matthew 8:5-13?

The problem with our little mythical Johnny, is that he thinks running roughshod over the top of everyone else is his right, because he has the stronger personality. When he grows up if people bug him, he eliminates them. You won’t find the fruit of the Spirit hanging off his tree – his tree is full of bottles to ward off evil spirits. There is one of those people in the bible – his name was Saul. And get this … SAUL was the people’s choice! The descendants of those people went on to kill the Lord of all glory, because He saw right through their religious ways to the heart of the matter – which was a lack of personal submission to God Himself. Our children need to recognise our God-given protection and authority; and parents are obliged to exercise it. It is necessary to teach kids obedience.

Now, here’s my story. My middle child had her 2nd birthday, and stupidly … as only a mother would … I decided to ask all the little ones from her Sunday School class to come to a party. Most of them were really sweet. They just played, made a mess and smeared cake on each other. But this one kid ran about shoving all the other kids over, taking away whatever they had decided to eat, and thumping people. Then he did the unthinkable. He bit my eldest child, who was 4, on the arm … and left teethmarks!

Ya, don’t do that at my house and live! I did not think, or pray, or anything! I picked the little darling up by his arms and marched him into a spare bedroom and plopped him firmly on the bed – I freely admit I was quite fiercely spoken with him. I said: “We don’t do that here!” And added: “Don’t you dare move!” I turned around shut the door and marched back to the party. Then I put magic cream and a bandaid on my own little one’s arm – she was still wailing – and the party continued.

A while later the mums started turning up to collect their little ones. Then I saw his mother coming up the driveway, and I remembered him. Glancing about the room and I could see he was not there, so I went back to the bedroom where I had left him in and I opened the door … And lo and behold … he had not moved. He had merely tipped over sideways and gone to sleep. 🤣

I told his mother, what had happened and she laughed and dismissed it.“He’s always doing things like that,” she said. I was aghast, because after all, she’s the one in charge! Plus she knew what was going on, and had not done anything about it. I want to finish my little story by saying that being a parent has been vastly underestimated. Parents set guidelines in place for their children’s future lives. I urge you, if you are a parent, don’t let your children set the cadence, you do it. Bye. 👋 “Our children are the arrows we aim into the future.”

Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Deuteronomy 11:19; Joel 1:3; Psalm 78:1-7; Psalm 103:13: Proverbs 3:12; Proverbs 1:8-9; Proverbs 20:7; Proverbs 29:17.