Common Sense Commentary:
Years ago I was driving through Georgia when the thought occurred to me that I should stop at the next old, black man I saw and ask him some revealing question and give him some money.
No sooner had I the thought than suddenly there was an old black man chopping wood in the front yard of his highway side shanty. I screeched to a halt, backed up, whipped into his drive and got out. The old man was surprised but very composed and simply stood there waiting for me to state my business. "Sir, I said, you appear to have had a long life and many experiences. I would like to ask you a question." "Ask on",said he. Said I,"What is the greatest lesson you ever learned"? The old man thought for a brief moment and answered, "Dat God loves an ole Negro like me".
I don't know whether God stopped me to get that old man's answer or for him to get my money
..... but we both came away well. I couldn't have gotten a better answer from Prince, Priest or Preacher. Like a master surgeon, that old gentleman put his finger expertly on the very heart of everything that matters.
There are a lot of things, in this life, worthy of learning, and many more useless things we don't need to know. In all my years of seeking knowledge, two things stand out above all else in the many object lessons of life and in the Word of God itself. Truth and Love. Jesus said " I am the way, the truth and the life .... " Jn.14:6. And the Apostle John declared, "God is love" in Jn.4:16. That old man learned that God loved him from the truth of God's Word and he believed it and received it. For your own benefit, later, read 1Cor.13, 1Jn.3 & 4, Titus 2:4, James 2:8, Gal.5:14, and Prov.10:12.
Both Love and Truth have legions of demonic counterfeits in opposition. The powers of darkness constantly undermine God's Love and Truth and seek to substitute them with counterfeits. Once a person hears the Truth of God and accepts the Love of God through Christ, Satan has lost them forever. "Without truth" is "without light". Darkness is nothing except the absence of Light. Even as Hate is the absence of Love and Error the absence of Truth. Truth is a single thing in all the universe and every truth is part and parcel of the whole of God's one universal TRUTH . To reject the truth of God is to open the heart and mind to ten thousand falsehoods. Even as deep in an underground coalmine, if there is no light, there is no vision and, "Where there is no vision the people perish ...." Prov.29:18. One small candle would drive out worlds of darkness. "Without truth" is the most fearful of all things and "without love" is the loneliest and maybe the most painful. Where there is no love there is bitterness and strife and hatred and fear. The absence of love opens the dungeon doors of deep destruction and rots the souls of those who have turned their minds and hearts away from God's love to live in chains of darkness. NO LOVE is the eternal state of lost souls. Unbelief continues and dominates only where God's love and His Christ are rejected by non-acceptance of His one and only plan for the redemption and cleansing of our sinful souls, through faith in Christ. Faith is God's link between Truth and Love. "Faith cometh by hearing ( truth ) .... the word of God." Rom.10:7 When the truth of God is heard and faith in Christ is born in that soul, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost .... Rom.5:5.
Years ago I was driving through Georgia when the thought occurred to me that I should stop at the next old, black man I saw and ask him some revealing question and give him some money.
No sooner had I the thought than suddenly there was an old black man chopping wood in the front yard of his highway side shanty. I screeched to a halt, backed up, whipped into his drive and got out. The old man was surprised but very composed and simply stood there waiting for me to state my business. "Sir, I said, you appear to have had a long life and many experiences. I would like to ask you a question." "Ask on",said he. Said I,"What is the greatest lesson you ever learned"? The old man thought for a brief moment and answered, "Dat God loves an ole Negro like me".
I don't know whether God stopped me to get that old man's answer or for him to get my money
..... but we both came away well. I couldn't have gotten a better answer from Prince, Priest or Preacher. Like a master surgeon, that old gentleman put his finger expertly on the very heart of everything that matters.
There are a lot of things, in this life, worthy of learning, and many more useless things we don't need to know. In all my years of seeking knowledge, two things stand out above all else in the many object lessons of life and in the Word of God itself. Truth and Love. Jesus said " I am the way, the truth and the life .... " Jn.14:6. And the Apostle John declared, "God is love" in Jn.4:16. That old man learned that God loved him from the truth of God's Word and he believed it and received it. For your own benefit, later, read 1Cor.13, 1Jn.3 & 4, Titus 2:4, James 2:8, Gal.5:14, and Prov.10:12.
Both Love and Truth have legions of demonic counterfeits in opposition. The powers of darkness constantly undermine God's Love and Truth and seek to substitute them with counterfeits. Once a person hears the Truth of God and accepts the Love of God through Christ, Satan has lost them forever. "Without truth" is "without light". Darkness is nothing except the absence of Light. Even as Hate is the absence of Love and Error the absence of Truth. Truth is a single thing in all the universe and every truth is part and parcel of the whole of God's one universal TRUTH . To reject the truth of God is to open the heart and mind to ten thousand falsehoods. Even as deep in an underground coalmine, if there is no light, there is no vision and, "Where there is no vision the people perish ...." Prov.29:18. One small candle would drive out worlds of darkness. "Without truth" is the most fearful of all things and "without love" is the loneliest and maybe the most painful. Where there is no love there is bitterness and strife and hatred and fear. The absence of love opens the dungeon doors of deep destruction and rots the souls of those who have turned their minds and hearts away from God's love to live in chains of darkness. NO LOVE is the eternal state of lost souls. Unbelief continues and dominates only where God's love and His Christ are rejected by non-acceptance of His one and only plan for the redemption and cleansing of our sinful souls, through faith in Christ. Faith is God's link between Truth and Love. "Faith cometh by hearing ( truth ) .... the word of God." Rom.10:7 When the truth of God is heard and faith in Christ is born in that soul, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost .... Rom.5:5.
The absence of Godly love (love includes discipline) in the home produces l0nely, angry, frustrated young rebels against everything else their parents stood for. They usually lash out at society to get even with whoever or whatever deprived them of a happy home. So many of them end up on drugs, or alcohol or in prostitution or crime or with aids or dead. The real tragedy is that so few of them ever hear God's truth or know His love and are lost forever.
Pass It On. RB
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