For thought and meditation

[rl69]

they went forth for His name’s sake… 3 JOHN 7
Our Lord told us how our love for Him is to exhibit itself when He asked, “Do you love Me?” (John 21:17). And then He said, “Feed My sheep.” In effect, He said, “Identify yourself with My interests in other people,” not, “Identify Me with your interests in other people.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us the characteristics of this love— it is actually the love of God expressing itself. The true test of my love for Jesus is a very practical one, and all the rest is sentimental talk.
Faithfulness to Jesus Christ is the supernatural work of redemption that has been performed in me by the Holy Spirit— “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5). And it is that love in me that effectively works through me and comes in contact with everyone I meet. I remain faithful to His name, even though the commonsense view of my life may seemingly deny that, and may appear to be declaring that He has no more power than the morning mist.
The key to the missionary’s devotion is that he is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the things we stay away from externally.
The duty of a faithful missionary is to concentrate on keeping his soul completely and continually open to the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ. The men and women our Lord sends out on His endeavors are ordinary human people, but people who are controlled by their devotion to Him, which has been brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit

[USMC87]

Amen and thank you for a great lesson.

[Wayne Smith]

"Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life" - that is one of the typical things that the hyperspiritual loose - the common touch. If we are in Christ we love others - not unconditionally as he did not love unconditionally - see the Rich Young Ruler - but with an awareness of sin.

[Boaz]

The last words ….Holy Spirit..... hold the answer . But you must seek and maintain the Spirit of GOD .

[Blackwater]

This passage always reminds me that what we hear, and how we answer, aren't always completely congruent with each other. It also illustrates how one word can mean several things, or degrees of things. The "feed my sheep" part, I think, clearly shows that we're not meant to just sit and hold "good feelings" toward Christ, but are to ACTIVELY go upon the Lord's errands, as they present themselves to us. The "do you love me" part shows how we often assume we know what Christ is trying to tell us, when we're actually pretty far off base in that. We depend on words to communicate, one with another. And words are NOT truly efficient at carrying exactly what we're trying to say. People have had fistfights, and some killed, because they couldn't or wouldn't carry out the simple process of refining the original meaning and intent of the postulate in question.

We can be SO foolish! And we can do it SO often, too! It's a very humbling thing, and more and more, I've come to think that simply being humble enough to question a conversationalist, to be SURE you understand exactly what he's saying, could very easily eliminate most of the contentious arguments within our Faith. And most other things.

But today, we live in a world where we're told to be prideful, even if we've done nothing to be proud OF! And pride is at the root of many, if not most of the contentious arguments that spring up among and between believers. And while we're taking down our own faith a notch, evil is being spread all around us! Truly, we are NOT very good messengers for Christ, nor spreaders of His words. And what a shame THAT is! The world declines, and we grow weary, and all because of a bit too much pridefulness! God save us! We don't appear to be capable of saving ourselves!!!