Nobility Inspires Nobility.

2 Corinthians 9:2— “For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year you in Achaia [Roman name for the Southern province of Greece] were ready to give; and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action.”

Using what you know to be true— true whether by faith or by experience— in order to teach, to illustrate and illumine, to motivate and to move, is absolutely consistent with Scripture.  And with grace.  See, there’s a certain knowledge Paul possesses concerning those he’s apprenticed in the past.  And he uses this knowledge of the past as a challenge in the present.  Here’s the lesson.  When you have the facts about someone, or something, or someplace— especially when those facts are based on experiential reality {‘been there, done that!’}— it’s not difficult to draw an accurate conclusion.  And yet drawing accurate conclusions cuts against the grain of post-modernism.  It cuts right to the quick of a society in which ‘Truth’ is a relative concept and all things are considered equally valid... no matter how misinformed or malicious they turn out to be.  In a world in which lying is looked up to and evil is celebrated, in which falsehood and fools pose as surrogates for thinking, “telling the Truth” in the words of Orwell “is a revolutionary act!”  This is how the Children of God carry out their Revolution in a time of universal deceit!  In the heart, in the mind, in the soul and in the spirit: where Jesus dwells and the Kingdom is alive and well.

Here’s the heart of what I’m getting to.  Objective people draw the proper conclusions— meaning the right ones, the accurate ones, the ones grounded in fact and aligned with the ultimate Reality, which is God.  Subjective people draw the conclusions they want to draw, often predetermined in order to please themselves.  Subjectivity, at its root, is arrogance.  And arrogant people will destroy a Family of Faith, if given half a chance!  So, get this.  The self-centred and self-consumed are a detriment and danger to the Body of Christ at large and to Communities of Faith in particular.  On the other side of the equation: Nobility encourages nobility.  To live generously and love graciously inspires others to do the same.

When he says to the Achaians, “your enthusiasm has stirred most of” the Macedonians “to action,” he uses two terms which I want you to see.  The first is the noun zelos = ‘your zeal, your ardor, your intensity, Corinthians;’ the second, erethizo, means- ‘arouse, provoke, stimulate and stir up.’  Many people will never be prepared to give graciously or to live generously, because they’ll never have enough passion for Jesus to do so!  Get this and believe it.  The Word precedes the will.  When your hunger for the Living Word is high, no gift is too great and no service too low.  But when all you love is self, everything seems an unbearable burden.  Men and women of grace respond to divinely designated opportunities to give, to serve, to engage, precisely because their hearts and lives are balanced, beautifully, by mercy on one hand and Truth on the other.

Sin, arrogance, and selfishness in the Body of Christ will hinder the embrace of eternal opportunities.  And this, my friends, you can bank on.  The stance of your heart— your mindset in any given moment— is vital!  It might be the difference between Life and death.  Literally ...or spiritually.  Maybe even, in the case of a cynical, unbelieving, commitment-phobic cosmos, eternally.

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
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Heart’s Journey – Live Generously and Love Graciously