Taking Hold of What Is Truly Life.

In 1 Timothy 6:18, Paul answers for the Ephesian Brotherhood the question, following on the heels of renouncing their arrogance, their foolish faith in wealth, and putting their hope in Abba, ‘What’s left for us to do?’  Now that he’s told them, and us— ordered us, in fact— what not to do, he says, “Command them to do good.”  Use your “wealth” to “do good” for others.  This is the first and foremost thing.  You seeing this?  Use the resources of God, the riches of Jesus’ grace, to do good for other people, especially of the Family of Faith.

Next, “to be rich in good deeds.”  Let your life shine forth the very Light of the World, let the Master’s mercy reign in the “good deeds” you do.  Remember the Mission of the Messiah in Isaiah 61:1?  “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach Good News to the poor, the afflicted,” those unable to remove themselves from the place they’re currently in.  Jesus spent an enormous amount of time with social outcasts, with the purposely marginalized, with prostitutes and porn-stars, lepers and the AIDS-infected, with women no one would speak to and children no one cared to.  So, here’s the question.  How can we announce, in word and deed, the Glorious News of Grace to these this New Year?  Scripture tells us, “Whoever is kind to the needy honors God” {Prov. 14:31}.

Isaiah also wrote of the Messiah saying, “He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted,” to have a hand in their healing, “to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,” for those too blind to see just how bad off they really are.  It’s true some people in our technologically advanced society are still blind physically.  But many, many more are still blind emotionally and spiritually.  What are you going to do about it?  Help keep them in their “darkness” or lead them to the Light?

“And” the practical outworking of this ‘good deed doing’ is being “generous and willing to share.”  To “be generous” means to give freely of anything we may have.  “Willing to share” is beyond “generous,” it speaks to our willingness to sit down at a meal with, to suffer alongside of, the poor, and bring them into friendship with us, with our families, and with our Community.

V. 19, “In this way”— through ‘doing good, being generous, and sharing our hearts and lives’— “they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the Coming Age, so that [This is the purpose, the point he’s driving at:] they may take hold of the Life that is truly Life.”  He’s not talking about the Life of Eternity we receive when we trust Jesus with all we are, he’s talking about the Life of inner abundance Jesus spoke of in John 10:10, a Life of joy built on generosity.  Think about it.  Paul’s saying we experience the Life of God flowing through us not by what we keep but by what we give away, not by what we hoard up for some mystical rainy day but by using the riches God’s given us for His glory— that His name may go forth to the ends of the Earth, that His Word may be praised, His glory seen and His honor lifted high!

Every time we could give in the Cause of our King, and we don’t, it lessens the wealth laid up for us in the Age to Come; and every time we give, letting the Holy Spirit have His way with us, it increases exponentially the riches laid up for us when this ‘present world’ fades into dust.  At one point in their Journey together Peter say’s to Jesus, “We have left all we had to follow you!”  Jesus just sort of stops him in mid-sentence and says, “I tell you the truth….  No one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this Age and, in the Age to Come, Eternal Life” {Lk. 18:28-30}.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296 | hjcommunity.org
Heart’s Journey – where the Word and the Spirit are one.