THAT’S WHAT CHRISTIANS DO!

THAT’S WHAT CHRISTIANS DO!

There was once told the story of a pelican who paid a great price to sustain her little children as they hatched. Her eggs hatched during a very harsh whether condition which brought about a great famine and deaths in the land. The water brooks dried up, the farmlands wasted; there was an unimaginable loss!

Many years after one of her children, now grown up, called the mother-pelican and thanked her saying “we owe you a forever thank you, love and appreciation. You went out of your way and did the unbelievable to keep us alive! The wounds on your chest never healed up despite the many balms used and the blood stain on your beaks never cleaned up.” A younger child then said “I have also wondered what happened to Mother; she has wounds on her chest which have not healed up and a blood-stained beak. What really happened?”. “Well” said the elder child, “Mother had to pierce through her chest into her heart to suck out some blood to feed her tender, hungry little babies. Since then, she had nursed the wound and her beak remained stained”. Hearing this all her children gathered around the now old and sick mother, who had suffered greatly from complications of a pierced heart and a long-standing wound in the chest. In response, the mother-pelican simply said “that’s what mothers do; I couldn’t have watched you all die”.

“That’s what mothers do”! The Scriptures teach that we have not yet done our best until we render such a service that will not cost us something. In fact, we are encouraged to keep serving God through other men to the last drop of our blood. A good analysis of the Ten Commandments reveals that about 6 of them are directed to our relationship with other men. The entire calling of Christians can thus be summarized as: making a lasting positive impact on other people on God’s behalf. Every acceptable service rendered to God must eventually affect some group of men or the other positively. Whether it is evangelism, pasturing, prophesying, teaching or even the apostolic service; it is meant to bless other men in God and God in men. No one serves God without men likewise no one serves men putting God aside. The greatest services are those which will cost you something, no matter how little it may be.  They are not those from which you gained something while others suffer. Great people in God’s Kingdom are those who paid a price not those who gained a prize, especially at the expense of others!

When asked of his last word to the young church he labored to pioneer General and pastor, the Founder of The Salvation Army, William Booth, on his sick bed just before closing his eyes in death gathered all his strength and managed to utter as loud as he could: “Others”. They immediately remembered his usual message which he continued to remind them from time to time when he told them to: “Always remember others in service”. The Christian is not self-serviced or self-centered; whatever happened to our altars willingly filled with the strange teachings that boost our egos!

Our LORD Jesus Christ left His abundant, inexhaustible grace, power and kingly glory in order to bless and to die for the human generation; even when He knew that most would reject Him. We should not be deceived but let us endeavor to take after Him and bless others even in some extreme situations. And when we are thanked for the good doing, let us be careful not to take the glory but like the pelican we should simply and humbly say: “That’s what Christians do!”