by: Sandy Domelle
When God sent His only Son to this world so that we could be saved, He gave us His most precious gift. We are saved because of this sacrificial gift. When Jesus was on the Earth, every thing He did was about others. Every story you read and every thought you glean is all about the people. He was there to save and change lives. What a selfless act of love!
Probably the best verse that wraps up the life of Jesus is Acts 10:38 where it says, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” Jesus spent His whole life doing what He could to help people. Whether it was through healing people, teaching them or showing them how to be saved, Jesus spent His life helping people.
We as Christians should follow the example that God gave us through His Son and through His Word. Will we be perfect? Absolutely not! But He lived His life in such a manner that we should daily try to become more like Him in every way.
Do you know that every one of us has it in us to be a selfish uncaring soul? We get up in the morning and plan our day, but when things come up that change our plans, people call and need things of us and they don’t fit that schedule, or our world gets turned upside down, our selfishness becomes a side of us that others do not need to see.
We have to remember that we were created to help others. We help others through telling them how they can go to Heaven. We help others by teaching, training and pointing them to Him. How sad it is in life that we’ve become so extremely busy people that we are too busy to help others. We can get so consumed about the drama in our life that we forget about others around us.
Unfortunately, we are seeing a generation come up that their life is so busy that they want to make church time as short as possible and as convenient as possible. So if working on a bus route, teaching a Sunday school or junior church doesn’t fit into your “hurry to church to be there 5 minutes after it starts, and you are the first one out the door” then it’s not convenient. Some won’t come out for special meetings. Others won’t volunteer to help with anything that would require any other time slot other than Wednesday night church or the Sunday morning or night service. We don’t want to give more than the actual service times. We are just too busy!
What is sad about that philosophy is that we no longer leave time for God to work in our lives, to use us to help others, to allow us to be a blessing or encouragement to someone who is struggling.
When your time of need comes, you want everyone to drop everything and come to help and be a blessing to you, but how can you expect that of them when you have little time for them or the Lord?
We need to remember that the reason we do what we do is because of people. We serve at church to help people. The reason we go soul winning is because of people. There’s nothing more exciting than giving our time to win someone to the Lord, but also to continue to pour our time and efforts to get them to church and continue to grow in the Lord.
The bus ministry is a good example of helping others. Over the years I have seen young couples get involved and love the people so much that they get their children involved and it becomes a family ministry of service. Years later, after the kids have grown and left home you still see the parents working the bus route and loving the people. Why? Because they found an area of serving the Lord that involved people to whom they truly have given their hearts.
Sunday school and junior church can be areas of service to help others. I love seeing a teacher who gives their heart completely to their students. I can tell you of Sunday school teachers I had as a child or teenager that you could truly see the love of the Lord in them. You could tell they were there for their students. They are the teachers who visit their students, make class exciting and send notes in the mail when they have missed. What type of teacher are you? Do you put your whole self into them so that they truly know you care?
Missionaries go because of the people. If you live like the people and among the people, you will reach the people. That was my dad’s motto when my family went to the Philippines to be missionaries. We didn’t live above the people, but we lived in the same manner in which they lived. We didn’t live away from them, but we lived among them so that we could reach them. The whole reason we left America for the Philippines was because of the people. We wrapped our lives around the people, and that allowed us to reach them.
A successful marriage will only be one where each spouse lives their life for their spouse. We should keep ourselves for only them. Of course, God should be first in our lives, but your spouse should be the second one in your life whom you wrap your life around. The most successful marriages are the one’s that each spouse becomes selfless and lives for the other.
Parents should live to build their relationship to help their children. Don’t make your relationship with your children all about you. Get interested in what they do. Find their interests and do it with them. Have them help you with what you do in your chores and hobbies. If a parent will involve themselves in the life of their child, then they will most likely be able to have the heart of their child.
When we get our focus off the people, we focus in on the things of the world, what they say, what they do and allow the Devil to make us think we are missing out on things, and that we need more things. This type of self-centered life will only produce unhappiness. When your whole life is about you, it doesn’t matter what others do, you will find it will never be good enough.
When our heart is into something, we tend to give it our all. Some people start off great, but along the way they lose that love and passion. Why? Because they got they’re eyes off the focus that it is about people. Knowing that you are doing what you do to make a difference in lives is what will keep you going for many years. This is what will keep that passion alive. This is where true joy in life is found. Make your life one that it could be said about you that you went about doing good.