Demand your rights : or Not ?
May 30 in The Word
Yielded and listening to what is on His heart – so hard because so often WE get in the way!
I love this story because it reminds me of how God is so much greater than man. How often we get offended, allowing pride to have its say, ‘How dare … !’ yet if every now and then we just took the time to stop and listen (before reacting), we would probably find that God has a far greater plan. He wants to use His Church to show forth His character and nature to others (‘love thy neighbour’) we really need His Word to get to know Him and His ways.
This true story is an extract taken from Watchman Nee’s book ‘A table in the Wilderness’:
‘A brother in South China had a rice field in the middle of the hill. In time of drought, he used a water wheel, worked by a treadmill to lift water from the irrigation stream into his field. His neighbour had two fields below his and one night made a breach in the dividing bank and drained off all his water. When the brother repaired the breach and pumped in more water, his neighbour did the same again and this was repeated three or four times. So he consulted his brethren (‘I have tried to be patient and not retaliate, he said, but is it right?)… after they had prayed about it one of them replied ‘If we only try to do the right thing, surely we are very poor Christians. We have to do something more than what is right…’ next morning he pumped water for the two fields below and in the afternoon pumped water for his own field. After that the water stayed in his own field. His neighbour was so amazed at his action that he began to enquire the reason, and in course of time, he too became a Christian. So, my brethren, don’t stand on your right… we have nothing to stand for, nothing to ask or demand. We have only to give, when Jesus died on the cross ‘it was grace that took Him there’ the question is one of practical sonship.
The sermon on the Mount teaches us that children attain to the responsibility of sons in the measure in which they manifest kingship of spirit and of attitude with their father. We are called to be ‘perfect’ in love, showing forth His grace (Ephesians 5:1-2).’
Some food for thought.