We reiterate our dependence upon God as a continuous experience, moment by moment for devout persons seeking to live the most successful lives – successful as God defines success. Under God, that person is most successful (as God counts success) who lives responsibly as a serving child of God with righteous motivations that are seasoned by meekness, humility, grace and love. Because we as human beings are incapable of following through adequately even to our own faithful evaluation, God provides the resources, both human and spiritual, to accomplish what he means for us to accomplish. Our motivation is entirely related to obedience to God, obedience found in the precepts of Scripture. That obedience is not in the light of a power figure imposing authority over a weaker figure, a pattern common in the management of government or business, even families, but in a context of witness that we serve God. Even that service is a witness to others that our purpose is to introduce God’s interest in mankind, and carries the invitation to join in the physical army of God to act beneficially for mankind – in the Name of the Lord. The power of God, according to the text, is not arbitrary but used in a prevailing sense of love and kindness. What seems like an attitude of serving God in meekness becomes service to the betterment of mankind. God, who needs nothing from us and provides for his own dependence in the unity of the Trinity, accepts our service to mankind as though it is direct service to him. In our service to others we reflect the method of God in the Kingdom of God. It is as close as we can get to creating heaven on earth in the natural environment.
God’s methodology includes the spiritual understanding of love, humility and meekness which emerges as a true feeling that the giver is not better than the receiver, the supplier is not arrogant or proud against the humility of nature in the person dependent upon the largesse of others. This too relates to analogy of the kingdom of God. I receive nothing of value, value rested in the mind of God, that is not a gift from God. The gift does not make God better or more comfortable, but it serves me, sometimes very extensively. In appreciation I must give in the same spirit of loving kindness. I am not the creator, but I pass along the gifts given to me. In the early days when finances were very tight indeed for my family, my sister-in-law (also a professional colleague) would make new the clothes of our oldest son to fit our younger son. The younger would receive the repaired clothes, and the elder would receive new clothes at Christmas. In some sorrow I apologized to our younger son for our substitution. David made my day, and gave me a lasting memory that offered to me loving kindness when entirely on his own prompting, he responded: That’s alright Dad, these are just fine for me. Mark can have the new stuff. Thanks, lots. (As I write this I wonder if I ever thanked his Aunt Ella for making used outfits like new. I was credited with the blessing he declared. I have a photograph of my holding him at a celebration on the night he received his new clothes.) The whole context of the days before, during and after to the day when the limited life of those clothes were passed on to the Salvation Army relates to the beauty of God’s plan that we serve one another in whatever we can give or do – as on an infinite scale God’s does for those who relate to him.
The plan seems so simple, is related to truth about source that we insist on knowing, is carried through in empathy and love so not to taint whatever is done with false motives, and carries with it a mystery that makes us better persons in ourselves. Our motive must be correct; our attitude must be humble; and, our giving must carry something of cost to ourselves, a cost returned to us in the blessing of God. Human beings will never out-give God. There may be times when it doesn’t seem so, but there is something else to be addressed during those periods. God will be no person’s debtor. The simplicity is made practical in the study of the life of Jesus and what he had to say. We summarize it as Christians – that we become Christ-like. We won’t achieve the objective fully, but in God’s loving kindness he accepts fully those who work in the right direction. We are not what we shall be, but we are not what we were. One of the comforting evidences of growing old is the inner feeling that one wants to give more and more of self and resources to others, and more and more to feel that the pleasure of God is enlarged with the lives of those who in Christ-like ways give in self, possessions and prayer – to and for others. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020